Page:Natalie Curtis - The Indians' Book.djvu/38

 The book thus offers a faithful record of the song of primitive man.

Different Indian tribes differ as widely in their music and in their manner of singing as in their life and customs. Yet there is one characteristic peculiarity of Indian song that is almost universal. This is a rhythmic pulsation of the voice on sustained notes somewhat analogous to the effect produced on the violin when the same note is slightly sounded several times during one stroke of the bow. This pulsating accentuation is expressed in this book wherever tied notes have vocables or syllables written out beneath them. The effect must be heard, however, in order adequately to be reproduced. Also it should always be borne in mind that Indian music is essentially for singing. It cannot properly be performed on an instrument of percussion, such as a piano, but must be sung, or at least played on a stringed instrument. Nor can it be too emphatically stated that all notation of Indian music, however accurate, must necessarily be but as a skeleton to the living form. The actual melody can be recorded, with its rhythmic accompaniment of drum or rattle. But the rendering of the song—the vocal embellishment, the strange gutturals, slurs, and accents that make Indian singing so distinctive—all this is altogether too subtle and too much a part of the voice itself to be possible of notation.

The Indians of the Lakes and Plains whose lives in the old days were exposed to all the severities of weather, and who still sing constantly in the open air and against the wind, have voices more striking for their stirring ring than for actual beauty, as we deem it. The voices of the men extend in range from a sort of falsetto tenor to a bass so deep as scarcely to sound the pitch of any given note. Accents are made by an almost harshly aspirated staccato attack, and sustained notes are often sung with a tightening of the throat that produces a peculiar quaver. The songs frequently begin with high quavering tones, then gradually descend and end with low phrases that break off or die away on open vowel syllables. This is consistent with the sounds of nature and with the cries of animals. Indeed, the Indian can so imitate the call of a bird or the howl of the wolf as to be entirely deceptive. }