Page:Pratt - The history of music (1907).djvu/30

 psychical reactions of motions in rhythm and of tones are far more striking than among civilized peoples, and are sought both for their effect on the individual performer or percipient and for their mesmeric control of the crowd.

The practice of music is sometimes shared by men and women alike, but sometimes, for obscure reasons, is reserved to one or the other sex exclusively. Sometimes there is a musical class or guild that superintends musical exercises and maintains traditions. Often music is held to be more or less of a superhuman mystery—a notion duly utilized by the priest and the necromancer.

Among savage peoples music seldom appears as an independent art. Its association with dancing is so close that the two are really twin activities. Rhythmic motions with some recurrent noise, like hand-clapping or the striking of sticks, pass over readily into a rude chant or singsong, perhaps aided by some instrumental accessory. Conversely, the rhythm of singing tends to induce bodily motions. Rhythm thus inevitably brings dancing and song together.

Again, since speaking and singing are both vocal processes, they tend to react upon each other. All primitive speech that is highly emotional or meant to be specially impressive is cast in forms of poetry. To conceive such utterance with reference to singing, and actually to chant it, seems instinctive. Where there is a guild of tribal minstrels, they are expected to provide odes or ballads of various sorts—heroic, martial, mythical, fanciful or humorous. In form such odes are usually rhythmic, but true recitative or cantillation is not uncommon.

In some cases the text has an evident charm or pathos, but in others it seems devoid of sense or sentiment. Instances occur of the use of mere nonsense-jingles and of even a song-jargon, quite distinct from ordinary speech—thus testifying to an interest in the rhythmic or tonal effect apart from the thought.

Finally, since mimicry or pantomime is instinctively sought by all races, dancing and song readily assume a dramatic character, involving personification, plot and action. The story may be serious or comic, exciting or diverting, strenuous or enervating, but, whatever its character, the effect is likely to be heightened by musical or orchestral treatment. Religious exercises are frequently cast in the form of such song-pantomimes.