Page:Natalie Curtis - The Indians' Book.djvu/20



The songs in this book are written after a new manner in that corresponding musical phrases are placed one beneath another like lines of verse. This system makes the form of the song to flash before the eye like the form of a stanza in poetry. For this idea, the recorder is indebted to Mr. Kurt Schindler.

A general characteristic of Indian singing is a rhythmical pulsation of the voice on sustained notes. This pulsation is expressed in this book wherever tied notes have vocables or syllables written out beneath them.

A rhythmical peculiarity of Pueblo music is a sudden holding back of the time during one, two, or more bars. This effect is in no sense a rallentando. It is an abrupt change of tempo with no loss of rhythmical precision. At the end of the slower bars the first tempo is resumed with the original impetus. Such change is merely a leap from one tempo to another and back again. As it was impossible wholly to express this peculiarity in the usual musical symbols, brackets have been placed over the slower bars, that the eye may catch at a glance the change of time. The exact tempi are designated by metronome marks. For further details in regard to Indian music, see Introduction, page xxvi.