THE RISE OF MUSIC

IN THE ANCIENT WORLD

East and West
 CURT SACHS

Tk
RISE of MUSIC
in the
ANCIENT WORLD
East and West

W • W • NORTON & COMPANY • INC • New York

 Copyright, 1943, by
W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.

f' ^ ^

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

FOR THE PUBLISHERS BY THE VAIL-BALLOU PRESS
 TO

THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY

UmBSAE INSTITUTE
OE TECHNOLOGY LIBRARY
 CONTENTS

PREFACE 13

Section One THE ORIGINS OF MUSIC

1. MUSIC IN EARLY SOCIETY 19
Theories of the origin of music • The origin disclosed fay the study of
early music • Music faegins with singing • The ecstatic character of
early music • Shamans’ songs • The social character of early music •
Its peculiar singing techniques

2. COMPARATIVE MUSICOLOGY AND ITS METHODS 25

Earlier failure • The phonograph • Transcription • The Cents
3. MELODIC STYLES 30
Poetry chanted - One-tone melodies • Two-tone melodies - The Vedda
style • Repetition form • Symmetry • Melodies in thirds and fourths •
Earliest evolution • The contribution of woman ■ Further evolution •
The descending style - Distances and intervals • Tetrachords and penta¬
chords • The evolution of early melody mirrored by the babble melodics
of European children

4. RHYTHM AND INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC 45

Early rhythm • Clapping and striking - Drum rhythms • Instrumental
music

5. POLYPHONY 48
Parallels • Drones and heterophony • Antiphony and canon
6. CONCLUSION 52

Section Two THE WESTERN ORIENT

L HIGH CIVILIZATION AND MUSIC 57
Legend, law, and logic • Castes of musicians - Musical organization in
Egypt, Sumer, and Babylonia • Music in the Bible • The Temple in
Jerusalem • Foreigners and musical provinces

2. MUSICAL SYSTEMS IN GENERAL 64

Tetrachords and pentachords • Genus • Mode and how to recognize
it * Scales • ‘High’ and ‘low’

3. MUSIC IN THE ANCIENT WESTERN ORIENT 71

Egyptian scenes • The up-and-down principle • Systems read from
fingerholcs • Equipartition - The lutanist in Nakht’s tomb * The di-
8 Gintents
visive prindpic and the seasons • “Overtones’’ • The singers* wrinkles
and hands * Jewish music • Crying to God and silent prayer • Melodic
patterns, tropes, and cantiilation • Accents and neumes • Jewish pros¬
ody and rhythm - Women’s songs • Parallelismus membrorum • An¬
tiphony and responsorial singing • Syrian, Armenian, Coptic, and
Ethiopian church music • Polyphony * Drones • Harpers’ chords

4. CONCLUSION 101
“The cries of the Victims who burned in the glowing arms of Moloch”?

Section Three EAST ASIA

1. GENERAL FEATURES 105
China and Japan - Vulgar music - Well-bred music • Music of the
heart * Music of the single note * Music of the universe • Cosmological
connotations - Harmony of the spheres • Music and measure • Cor¬
rections in music

2. THE Lti’S 114

Ling-iun s errand - The standard tone - The lu*s • Kabbala • DijEcul-
ties ♦ The male and the female • Ascent and descent • Japanese parallel
3. THE SCALES 121
The Chinese scales - Modes * The Japanese scale * Major-third penta-
tonics • Malayan scales • Pelog • Munggang - Salendro - Siamese,
Cambodian, Burmese scales ' Piens, heptatonics, and major
4. MELODY AND RHYTHM 136
The No * Singing style * The Daemonic - Chinese opera • Speech
melody * Rhythm and form

5. NOTATION 140
The Bali script - Tonal notation • Neumes • “Guido’s hand” • Tabla-
tures

6. POLYPHONY 145
Heterophony • Chords * Right and left music • Orchestral polyphony
7* ORCHESTRAS 149
Bridges between macrocosm and microcosm • Gigantic court orchestras
- Foreign orchestras • Gamelan • Cambodia and Siam - The Pwc

Section Four INDIA

L THE VEDIC CHANT 158

2, PICTORIAL AND LITERARY EVIDENCES 163

The relieife * Bharata
3. SCALES 165
Notes • Notation • Srutis • Gramas , Murchanas
 Contents 9
4. RAGAS 172
Melodic patterns • Law and freedom • Legends . Water and fire mag¬
ics • Jatis • Classification • Hours of the Day • Gamakas • Quivering
• The art of singing • Drones

5. RHYTHM AND FORM 184

Poetical meter • T^as • The art of drumming • Alapa and raga
6. CONCLUSION 193
Credit and debit

Section Fit/e GREECE AND ROME

New orientation

1. THE SOURCES 198

Pieces preserved • Treatises preserved • Misrepresentation
2. NOTATION 203
Pitch • Instrumental notation • Vocal notation
3. THE GENERA 206
Diatonic, chromatic, enharmonic * The high age of the enharmonion •
Its original form • Japanese parallel • Three-stringed lyres
4. THE SHADES 211
The Aristoxenians • The Ptolemacans • Greek music sounded ‘Orien-
taF

5. EARLY MODES 216

Harmonia, the Dorian family • Phrygian and Lydian • Again, Japa¬
nese parallels • The pedigree

6. THE PERFECT SYSTEM 222

The system • Arrays ot keys * Decline of authentic structure - Aeolian
- Early Mixoiydian • Cryptic scales - Tunings of the lyre • The F
senes • The dovetailed systems * Solmization • Earlier mistakes
7. THE RELICS 239
Method of analyzing • Analyses of the pieces preserved

8. ETHOS 248
The problem • Mode? • Pitch? • Raga-Maqam? • Dynamo-thetic ten¬
sion • Harmonia • Riga?

9. HEALTH AND EDUCATION 253

Homeopathy • Allopathy • Pedagogics

10. COUNTERPOINT? 256

Accompaniment • Consonance • Dissonance
 10 Contents
11. ACCENTS AND RHYTHM 259
Melic accents • Metric accents ■ Poetic and motor rhythm • Rhytliin*
preserved • Rhythmic patterns • Tempo

12. FORM 266

Evolution and stagnation ■ Choral forms • Dithyramb • Dnuiia • S(»ltt-
istic music • Nomos • Contests

13. ROME 272

Section Six THE GREEK HERITAGE IN THE MUSIC Oi'

ISLAM
The “Arabianstyle

1. SCALES AND MODES 279

The seven steps • The seventeen steps * Inversioni and coiiibiiiaiion® *
Three-quarter tones
2. MAQAM 285
Patterns - Ethos, therapeutics, cosmological cormotationi

3. RHYTHM 287
Meters * Emancipation from poetry » Rhythmic patierni * Druimiiing
* Polyrhythm

4. POLYPHONY 2S9
Heterophony • Drones • Ostinato * Consonance

5. FORM 290
Taqsim - Pe§rcv - Nuba

Section Seven EUROPE AND THE ROAD TO MAJOR AND

MINOR
The harmony of brave hearts and bestial singing • The gulf l)etwffri
northern and ^southern music The puzzle of medieval tonality *
Chains of thirds • The Landini sixth * The Gregorian clumt im-
Oriental also • The meaning of our staff notation ' (Jountcrcluiins »
Major allegedly “Germanic” * Evolution to major • The leading note
(semitone) and musica ficta • Ugro-Finnish parallels • Tendency toward
major in Chinese, Indian, Greek, and Islamic music • The conflict
between vocal and instrumental styles • Frisia non mntm and the
neighing marc • Harmony in instrumental styles » Rhythm * Meter
and modi

EPILOGUE 312
INDEX 315
 LIST OF PLATES

PLATE I. Egyptian Players with Double Oboe, Lute, and Harp facing page 64

PLATE 2a, Egyptian Flutist, Clarinettist, Harpist, and Four Singers 65

PLATE 2b. Egyptian Flutist, Harpist, and Singer 65

PLATE 3. Members of the Court Orchestra of Elam 96

PLATE 4. Chinese Notation page 142

PLATE 5. Chinese Women’s Orchestra facing page 160

PLATE 6a. Korean Orchestra 161

PLATE 6b. Burmese Orchestra 161

PLATE 7^. Indian Dancers, Drummers, and Harpists 192

PLATE yb. Indian Dancer and Players with Drums, Transverse Flute, Lute,
and Harp

PLATE 8. The Skolion of Seikilos

 PREFACE

V ISIBLE RELICS of the ancient world in East and West are more
deeply imprinted on our imagination—the Bible excepted—than
the other remnants of antiquity. Our visions crystallize around
the pyramids emerging from the yellow sands, the phantastic outlines of
stupas and pagodas, the festive porticos of Greek and Roman temples
against the sunny sky.
But they are dumb visions.
We do not hear Pharaoh’s court musicians, so livingly depicted on the
inner walls of tombs and pyramids; we do not know how “they beat the
sounding stone and swept the Ch*in and She' in ancient China so the
ancestors “came down and visited”; nor can we listen to the singing
youths who solemnly ascended to the Parthenon for sacrifice and worship.
Music, immaterial and transitory, was scarcely ever recorded in antiquity;
and even the handful of notations preserved give hardly an adequate idea
of its living sound.
The music of the ancient world has faded away.
But one thing can and shall be kept alive: the narrative of man’s titanic
struggle to rid music of the limitation that it has in primitive society; to
establish its laws firmly on nature; to give it the power and subtlety to
express what human beings feel, despair and triumph, love and awe and
hope.
This struggle has been much more than just a matter of music. It is
the battle that mankind has fought for its rise from primitive conditions,
the battle against the inertia of deep-rooted habit and narrow-minded
contentment. Individualism has been the outcome, but individualism
kept from anarchy by the rigid norms that scholars built on laws of
nature.
It is an exciting story, how music has for thousands of years been
held in balance between the basic facts that, on the one hand, sound is
vibration of matter ruled by mathematical ratios and that, on the other
hand, musical art works are immaterial, indeed, irrational. And a still
greater fascination is it to see in how many different ways the two
counterpoises have been kept equal, and how, with all these differences,
races living far apart went similar ways and met in strange, unwitting
 14 Prei^ce
teams: Greeks and Japanese, Hindus and Arabs, Europeans and North
American Indians.
This story has never been told. It is true that an incalculable quantity
of incompetent, and a less imposing number of competent, describers
have dealt with primitive, Oriental, and Hellenic music. But they have
only covered certain musical aspects of single countries, of China or
Ma or Greece. With the exception of the excellent, though short, survey
in the one hundred small pages of Robert Lachmann’s Musi^ des Orients
(Breslau, 1929)5 not a single book has covered all the different and yet so
closely related styles of the Eastern world and the manifold problems
they involve. StiU less has the music of ancient Greece been organically
connected with the Orient—^not to speak of the integration of both of
them in the universal history of music.
In studying this first attempt at a synthesis, the reader should not
forget that this book treats the rise of music in the ancient world and
consequendy is little concerned with the practice, the conceptions, and the
misconceptions of medieval and modern Oriental music, except in so far
as they throw light on antiquity. Nor should he forget at what disad¬
vantage such an attempt is placed by the incompleteness of our sources,
both musical and extramusical
Despite its shortcomings, I trust that my endeavor is justified by its
results: the more distinct outlines given to primitive styles; the reinter¬
pretation of Oriental systems; answers to a great many open questions
in the theory and practice of the Greeks; and an exposure of the roots
from which the music of the "West has grown.
A vrai dire, toute perception est All perception, indeed, already is
dejd memoire. Nous ne percevons, memory. We perceive nothing, ac¬
pratiquement, que le passe, le pri-^ tually, but the past, since the true
sent pur etant Vinsaisissable pro- present is the unseizable progress
gres du passe rongeant Vavenir. of the past which gnaws at the
future.

HENRI BERGSON, Matihrc et MSmoire

Section One

THE ORIGINS OF MUSIC

 [1]

MUSIC IN EARLY SOCIETY

S CIENCE has not yet dissipated the fog in which earlier centuries saw
uncertain shadows of gods or heroes who in a supreme act of creation
had “invented” music. Scores of philosophers, economists, and scien¬
tists have in the last two hundred years attempted to get to the truth, and
yet have not been able to present as much as one acceptable theory, indeed,
one uncontested fact.
“Imitation of the animals” was one of them. True, some birds sing; but
zoologists, unfortunately, do not classify them as ancestors of man. The
mammals, his close relatives, may whine and whistle, bark and roar; the
ape, his nearest cousin, grunts and coughs. There is no singing among
the next of man’s kin.
With deeper insight into nature, Charles Darwin later tried to trace
music to mating and alluring the opposite sex; but he was easily con¬
tradicted by those who knew how insignificant a role mating played in
mankind’s early songs. And when Karl Bucher’s notorious book, Arbeit
und Rhythmus (first edition 1896), described njusic as a means of facilitat¬
ing teamwork, critics justly objected that rhythmical teamwork did not
exist among the most primitive tribes.
A third suggestion has been more widespread and tenacious: music, it
reads, descended from spoken language; it was intensified speech. Philoso¬
phers developed this theory—Jean Jacques Rousseau in France, Herbert
Spencer in England, and numberless others in various countries; and
musicians, from the Italian masters of the stile rappresentatwo e recitativo
in 1600 to Richard Wagner, clung to it with remarkable enthusiasm It
would be sterile to repeat and analyze these hundreds of opinions pro
and contra.^ But it matters that all of them, pros as well as contras, were
failures because they started from two erroneous presuppositions. In the
first place, they took for granted that so complicated a thing as music had
grown from one root, which of itself is more than improbable. Music, bound
to the motor impulse of our bodies, to the vague images of our minds, and
1 Cf. Carl Stumpf, “Musikpsychologie m England," in Vlertel^ahrsschnjt jrit Musi^wissfn
schajt I (1885), pp. 261-^49; Carlos Vega. “Teorias del origen <lr la miisica,' in Smtes/s I!
(1929), pp. I70-on
 20 The Origins of Music
to our emotion in all its depdi and width, eludes whatever attempt may
be made to find any simple formula.
The second mistake was to think of the music and the language familiar
to ourselves. Thus, the reader, anxious to learn about the origin of music,
was presented with references to Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony and
&hiibert’s Du hist die Ruh and with samples taken from modern English
and French speech melody; indeed, in one edifying case the writer un¬
consciously betrayed that his conclusions on primeval developments were
based on the accent of Leipzig. It is strange and almost unintelligible that
men used to scientific methods rested satisfied with guessing and speculat¬
ing where music was concerned.
Critics have found fault with this theory, less for this reason than because
it neglected what they considered the fundamental contrast: that music
required well-defined intervals, while the pitches and steps of speech were
irrational. But knowledge of the simplest facts in East Asiatic music would
have cut short this argument: the melodic style of the Japanese no dramas
depends on irrational distances.
This remark is not a confession of faith in Rousseau’s and Spencer’s
th^ries. It proves, on the contrary, that theories are futile unless solidly
based on facts and their historical connection.
Theory, therefore, will be postponed until we have drawn as near as
|x>ssihie to the origin of music. Instead of guessing how things could have
happened, we go back to their earliest preserved form. I feel embarrassed
to write down such a truism; but unfortunately it is necessary to lay stress
on the plain truth that the singsong of Pygmies and Pygmoids stands in-
fimtely closer to the beginnings of music than Beethoven’s symphonies
and Schubert’s Heder.

However far back we trace mankind, we fail to see the springing up of

music. Even the most primitive tribes are musically beyond tbe first at¬
tempts. To be sure, travelers relate that certain peoples of low civilization,
the Brazilian Guarani, for example, still lead too worried a life to think of
music, games, and dances. But such tales are little convincing. The lack
of music would more likely be due to cultural shrinkage than to music
having not yet been arrived at. In most cases, however, the relater was mis¬
led by the silence he found: primitive men are shy with white visitors
and often would rather pretend that they do not sing or dance at all than
 Music in Early Society 21

exhibit their rituals and entertainments to untried foreigners; or else music

and dances are confined to a few special ceremonies and forbidden for the
rest of the year lest they might interfere with the normal course of the
people’s lives.
Since witnessing the very origin of music is denied to us, we must turn to
its earliest observable stage. No prejudice or 'plausibility’ will do in seek¬
ing it out—^the only working hypothesis admissible is that the earliest
music must be found among the most primitive peoples, in contradistinction
to their languages, which have been lost and replaced by the more highly
developed languages of civilized neighbors.^
Indeed, all the world’s tribes, peoples, and races have lived in continuous
intercourse since the very beginning of history; they have met in marriage,
trade, and war. In this process of exchange and merger, they discard their
weapons, tools, and implements for better ones. But they preserve their
ancient songs; for singing, an expression of man’s soul and motor impulse,
has little to do with the mutable surface of life, and nothing with the
struggle for existence. This is why music is one of the steadiest elements
in the evolution of mankind. It is so steady that races of a relatively high
cultural level—Polynesians and Micronesians, for example—and many
groups of European peasants hold onto musical styles of an astonishingly
archaic character; indeed, of the most primitive character we know. The
general culture of a people, therefore, cannot be judged by its music. But
there is hope, inversely, that the music of the most primitive peoples has
preserved a very early stage of evolution without the interference of higher
civilizations.

‘^The most primitive peoples,” however, is not quite the correct term. We
are fully aware that among the races living today there is no group of men
for which a previous lower level of evolution could not be supposed. Never¬
theless, some of them represent a stage of social development that we are
allowed to call a minimum—especially those who live in the open air with¬
out any shelter save a cavern or a quickly made abri. As far as music is
concerned, such peoples sing but have no instrument of their own.
Music began with singing.
However rudimentary this singing may be, it flows all through primitive
man’s life. It conveys his poetry, and in rest and peaceful work diverts.
® Cf. Curt Sachs, The History of Musical Instruments, New York, 1940, pp. 60-2.
 22 The Origins of Music
elates, and lulls; it gives hypnotic trance to those who heal the sick and
strive for luck and life in magic incantation; it keeps awake the dancers*
yielding muscles, intoxicates the fighting men, and leads the squaw to
ecstasy.

The most primitive tribe I came across were the Kanikas. . . . They told
me, “we live among tigers and elephants. We are not afraid. We say *shoo* to a
tiger, and he goes away. . . . The headman of the village picked up his J^pWara
[scraf^d iron tube], bowed his head over it, and murmured a prayer. Another,
likewise, and another followed, scraping them up and down with growing ex¬
citement. The leader recited a list of twenty or thirty divinities, in no particular
order, repeating some more than others. After five minutes or so one of the men
began to tremble vioiendy, and holding his kokkara with both hands straight
out in front of him tapped it rhythmically on the ground. The leader was the
next to tremble, and his access was more violent. He flung himself about, his
pagn fell off and his hair fell down. A third leapt, when the fit was on him,
from his sitting posture about three feet into the air, and dropped again into his
original cross-legged position. The whole service was interspersed with shouts
and yells from individual performers. When it was over the mantizomenoi
bent forward sobbing vehemently, and took a minute to recover. One felt
ashamed to have been merely an interested spectator amongst so much sin¬
cerity.®

Of this kind are the typical songs that shamans perform when they try
to heal their tribesmen. A medicine man’s song from the Taulipang in
North BrazE may serve as an example. The tiny motif, a rapid triplet on
the lower note and a sustained note a semitone higher, is steadily repeated.

Ex. I. TAULIPANG after Hombostel

The triplets arc breathless; the tempo increases; the notes grow irregular
and inexact, and at last the melody, losing its curve and rhythmic organiza¬
tion, trickles away and sinks to a slightly lower level; here, it fades away
in a final note which in our example lasts eighteen seconds.”*

® A. H. Fox Strangways, The Music of Hindostan^ Oxford, 1914, pp. 44-5.

^ Transcribed by Ericb M. von Hombostel, **Musik dcr M^uschi, Taulipang und Yekuan£,**
in Theodor Koch-Grunberg, Vom Rorotma zum Orinoco, vol. Ill, Berlin, 1916, p. 436. Cf.
also Curt Sachs, The History of Musied Instruments, op. cit., pp. 27 £.
 Music in Early Society 23
A PRIMITIVE SINGER bchavcs ill different ways. He often refrains from
utmost pitch and power; but when frenzy pushes him to extremes, his
singing is strained: it is, and is meant to be, unlike the performer’s speech
voice; it is expected to be superhuman; indeed, supernatural. He ventrilo¬
quizes, sings through the nose, cries and yodels,® yells and squawks, but
is never what modern singers strive to be: at liberty and natural.
Primitive singers even have used special devices to veil their inborn voices
—voice masks might be an appropriate term. With the Chukchi in North¬
eastern Siberia, “the shaman uses his drum for modifying his voice, now
placing it directly before his mouth, now turning it at an oblique angle.” *
The earliest trumpets were megaphones cut from hollow branches or large
canes, into which the player sang; and in one of the most primitive tribes
o£ New Guinea the chieftain always held “a trumpet shell before his mouth
when speaking to his people, so his voice had a very hollow sound. ® The
so-called mirliton? a small and tightly stretched membrane, never had
any other purpose than to give the singer’s voice a buzzing nasal timbre.
'This is a strong argument against deriving music from speech.

The manner of singing, its timbre, force, and specific animation are often
more suggestive and essential than the melodies; cultural and anthropologi¬
cal traits depend on the way things are done rather than on the things
themselves. Musicology should be more interested in technique, if this
not entirely appropriate word is admitted. Only one style of singing and
its anthropological area have been outlined so far: American Indians are

easily to be recognized by a peculiar “emphatic” manner of singing which re-

suits from such factors as a certain voice-quality, strong accents on every time-
unit, pulsation, slow and constant time. . . . This style prevails among the
Indians of bodi Americas, including the Eskimo (also in Greenland), and
among Siberian tribes who are related to the Indians, both somatically and
culturally as, e.g., the ^'Palaeo-Asiatic Chukchei and the Keto (Ostyak) on the
Jenissei River, and among the semi-Tungus Orotchee on the lower Aunur River,
and in Korean folksongs

» Erich M. von Hornbostel, “Die Entstehung des Jodelns/’ in Bericht uher den Musikr
wissenschaftlichen Kongress in Basel 1924, Leipzig, 1925, pp. 203-10.
» Curt Sachs, The History of Musical Instruments, op. cit., p. 34.
^ Ibid., p. 47.
8 Ibtd., p. 48. -
» Curt Sachs, Geist und Werden der Musikmstrumente, Berlin, 1929, p. 106.
Erich M. von Hornbostel, “Fuegian Songs,” in American Anthropologist, n.s., vol. 38
(1936), p. 363. C£. also: George Herzog, “Musical Styles in North America,” in Proceedings

EIRNEGIE HMSTlTUra ^
^ XECHWOtOG''’' BRAW
24 The Origins of Music
The aiitliropolo^cal and historical importance of such statements is
ob¥ioiis; and it is a great pity that we have not yet a deeper insight into the
physiological aspects of singing styles.
But then the primitive branch of musicology is very recent.

o/ the Twenty-tUri IntemsiiQud Congress of Americamsts, 1928, pp. 455""8; A. O. Vaisanen,

Osijakisciie MdcKiicn^** in Suosnsdsds-Ug^husen Seurati Toimiiufzsia, I.XXIII,
Hdsmld,^ 1937-
 [2]

COMPARATIVE MUSICOLOGY AND

ITS METHODS

NO SERIOUS RESEARCH work in the field of primitive music vi^as done

before the end of the nineteenth century. Occasionally, to be sure, travelers
in remote countries had printed native melodies in their books; but the
usefulness of such examples was rather limited. The traveler’s ear and
even more his training in musical dictation were doubtful factors. When
I asked Georg Schweiixfurth, the first explorer to cross the African con¬
tinent, how he had found the only song printed in his famous work, he
naively told me that he had heard the melody somewhere in Africa and,
having neither a musical ear nor the training to write notes, he had
whistled the few bars to himself every day until, several months later,
he had met his brother and made him write down the song he whistled.
It is easy to imagine how authentic the script was. Besides, Schweinfurth
had bad luck: the song he whistled, far from being native, was a well-
known European ‘hit’ melody handed over to Negroes by some white
sailor or factory clerk.
Hence the first rule in studying primitive music: European and other
foreign influences must be eliminated beforehand. Music from cosmopoli¬
tan seaports, and melodies sung by natives who have lived among white
men or done military service, should be left untouched or at least ap¬
proached with special care. Every song collected should be accompanied
by a detailed text, indicating sex, age, and living conditions of the singer.
It is often rather difficult to distinguish between native style and recent
importation. In early civilizations certain songs look suspiciously European,
but this impression is most often misleading; against the rash assumption
of European influence, a careful examination will show that the traits in
question are primitive and as such have also survived in European music.
Hence a second rule: our critical sense should never be guided by a seem¬
ing similarity, nor by any other prejudice. Primitive music must not be
compared with the music of white men.
26 The Origins of Music
The white musiclin must set aside not only his music but his very self,
with all his tradition and prejudice. However mechanically and hence
cisi actively our ear records impressions, our brain reads and interprets them
quite subjectively. Western man is never free from adapting foreign melo¬
dies to his own musical language; he perforce hears the equal-sized six-
fifth tones of Javanese orchestras as alternating seconds and thirds, and
he unconsciously squeezes the intricate rhythms of India into the few
rhythmic patterns of his own music. In the same spirit, painters of the
eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries delineated Indians and Negroes
wfith the classical Greek bodies and gestures that academic training had
forced upon them.
To check this weakness, we need an objective, incorruptible control both
of other writers* musical transcriptions and of our own attempts to under¬
stand and render the music of foreign races. The first device of this kind
was the pkonognipk with wax cylinders that Thomas A. Edison invented
in 1857. A dozen years later, about 1890, another American, Dr. Walter
Fewkes, introduced the new invention into musicology by recording se-
lartcd songs of the Passamaquoddy and the Zufii Indians. Dr. Benjamin
Gilman of Harvard University marked the very beginning of scientific
study in primitive music when he published transcriptions of these records.^^
As a consequence, archives of phonograph records have been founded
in the United States and other countries. They provide suggestions, equip¬
ment, and instruction to missionaries and anthropological field workers;
they keep and dupEcate the recordings and hold them ready for students.
TTiese latter, again, are encouraged to transcribe and edit the melodies
raorded.
Tran^ription into Western notation depends not merely on gifted and
well-trained ears, but also on a special technique of symbolizing the peculi¬
arities of primitive and Oriental music. After all, our musical notation is
in the same position as our alphabet: it serves those familiar with the
language, but fails when it tries to convey the pronunciation and speech
melody of any other language. Our musical script, exclusively created for
modern Occidental musk, is unable to record distances different from
standardized tones and semitones, or the timbre or the peculiar technique

^2- Benjamm Ives Gilman, ”Zu5i Melodies,” in Jom-nal of American Ethnology and Archae^
dogy I (1891), pp.^ 63-92. Jesse W. Fewkes, “A Contribution to Passamaquoddy Folklore,”
in foumd of Ammcan Folklore IH {1890}, pp. 257-80. Carl Stumpf, “Phonographiertc In-
diaaemielodien,” in Viertdjakrssckrift fm- Mud\wissenschaft VIII (1892), pp. 127-44; the
same in S&mmelbsnie f^ Ysrgleickenie Musi^mssensekaft I (1922), pp, 113—26.
George Herzog, “Research in Primitive and Folk Music in the United States,” in Ameri-
cam Couacii of Learned Societies, bulletin no. 24, April, 1936, pp. 1—96.
 Comparative Musicology and Its Methods 27
of singing which in primitive and Oriental music are often more important
than the notes themselves. With this in mind, Dr. Otto Abraham and
Dr. Erich M. von Hornbostel attempted in 1909 to develop a method for a
more accurate transcription of exotic melodies, with the means of our
usual musical script, to be sure, but with certain modifications and addi¬
tional symbols for vague pitches, phrasing, timbre, grace notes, tempo,
etc.^^ Most of these suggestions have become obligatory, notwithstanding
some alterations made by later authors.
For instance, we feel today that a series of separate eighth or sixteenth
notes confuses the reader, and therefore join the crooks of two, three, or
four of them in accordance with the melodic accents, even if the individual
notes convey different syllables of the text.
Another system, on the contrary, favored in this country by B. I. Gilman
and Frances Densmore, consists in replacing notes and staff lines by
curves, round or angular, to represent the general trend of a melody. But
this system, useful in certain cases, is neither accurate nor graphic enough
to be accepted.^^
Transcription of exotic melodies by means of Occidental notes and staves
is, however^—at least psychologically—misleading. It takes our musical
system for granted and marks by special signs what then are made to
appear as deviations, so that the reader falls victim to the suggestion that
exotic scales swerve from the absolute norm. This is a real danger.

The equipment of students in primitive and Oriental music was completed

in 1890 by Alexander J. Ellis’s system of Cents.
This system has left intact the definition of any individual note as the
result of a certain number of vibrations per second; <2 = 220 v., a'= 440 v.
It cares only for describing distances between two such notes.
The earlier method ignored the conception of distance. While we clearly
feel that the distance from B to C is shorter than the distance from A to B,
science had no means of adequately defining them and circumvented the
difficulty by the complicated process of comparing ratios: if a' has 440 v.,
¥ 495 V., and ¥' 528 v., the distance from o! to ¥ is to the distance from
¥ to ¥' as — :—. Nobody can see from this ratio of ratios that the two

Otto Abraham und E. M. von Hornbostel, “Vorschlage fiir die Transkription exodscher
Melodicn,’' in Sammelbande der Internationalen Musikgesellschajt XI (1909), pp. 1-25.
C£. B. 1. Gilman, “Hopi Songs,” in Journal of American Ethnology and Archaeology V
(1908).
 28 The Origins of Music
distances are as 2:1. Still, this is a comparatively simple case. It is more
impressive to be presented with the ratio 524288:51441; but who under¬
stands that this means the distance called the Pythagorean comma, which
amounts to exactly 12 per cent of a tone? It is hardly necessary to give more
examples, as, say, that the series 352:404% : 464% 1534:613:6941809 stands
for a scale of seven equal steps, each of which measures seven-eighths of a
normal whole tone.
The ingenious system of Cents, on the contrary, describes any distance
by one simple number.^^ A Cent is the one-hundredth part of an equal-
tempered (piano) semitone: the distance between two notes a semitone
apart comes to one hundred, and the octave, consequently, to twelve hun¬
dred Cents. The essential standard distances are:

Semitone 100 C. Fifth 700 C.

Second 200 C. Minor sixth 800 C.
Minor third 300 C. Major sixth 900 c.
d

Major third Minor seventh

0
0

1000 C.
Fourth 500 c. Major seventh 1100 C.
Tritone 600 c. Octave 1200 C.

Single distances as well as complicated scales become simple and intui¬

tively evident: a second of, say, 180 C. means a distance by 10 per cent
smaller than an equal-tempered second; a distance of 220 C. is by 10
per cent larger than a second; and so on.
Cents, it is true, cannot be gathered directly from a voice or a measuring
device; they must be calculated from the vibration numbers. This can
be done by a simple logarithmic operation.^® Another method can be
substituted if no table of logarithms is available: multiply the difference
of the two vibration numbers by 3477 and divide the product by their
sum. In case the triple of the larger vibration number exceeds the quad¬
ruple of the smaller one, multiply the greater number by three and the
smaller number by four before starting the operation indicated above, and
you finally add 498 (the perfect, not the equal-tempered fourth) to the
result. If, on the contrary, the proportion of the two vibration numbers is
greater than two to three, multiply the greater number by two, and the

Alexander J. Ellis, ‘*On the Musical Scales of Various Nations,” in Journal of the Society
of Arts, 1885, March 27 and October 30. In music libraries it will be easier to find its German
tr^slation by Erich M. von Hornbostel, in Sammelbdnde jiir Vergleichende Musiktuissen-
schaft I (1922), pp. 1-75.
Indicated, e.g., in Grove, Dictionary of Music and Musicians, II, p. 718 s.v. “Interval.”
 Comparative Musicology and Its Methods 29
smaller number by three, before starting the operation iadicated above,
and you finally add 702 (the perfect fifth) to the result.

The phonograph and the Ellis system have added a new branch to the
complex of musical sciences- Its German name Vergleichende Musi\wis-
senschaft was translated into “Comparative Musicology” and has in this
form made its way through Anglo-Saxon countries. But this term is in¬
appropriate and misleading. Music history, too, compares national, epochal,
and personal styles; indeed, no science can dispense with comparative meth¬
ods. So-called comparative musicology, furthermore, has left the initial
stage of mere comparing, in which its students, thrown back on chance
information, tried to outline the stylistic similarities and differences of
whatever they were able to pick up—a few songs from one Indian tribe, a
melody from Bantu Negroes, a little Japanese collection- In the meantime,
systematic research into all continents and archipelagos has piled up so
much material that we have become conscious of a gigantic evolution from
the embryonic rudiments of early singing to the sophisticated intricacies of
Oriental art music. With such vision, comparative musicology has passed
into the primitive and Oriental branch of music history.
As late as 1900, the French writer, Judith Gautier, reporting on the
primitive and Oriental music at the World’s Fair in Paris, had called her
book Les musiques bizarres. The scientific and historical approach has
fostered a new conception of these styles, and the interest in “exotic” music
has more and more glided from futile curiosity and snobbish sensation of
things strange, remote, and picturesque into realizing how deeply they
concern ourselves and our past. The songs of Patagonians, Pygmies, and
Bushmen bring home the singing of our own prehistoric ancestors, and
primitive tribes all over the world still use types of instruments that the
digger’s spade has excavated from the tombs of our neolithic forefathers.
The Orient has kept alive melodic styles that medieval Europe choked to
death under the hold of harmony, and the Middle East still plays the
instruments that it gave to the West a thousand years ago.
The primitive and Oriental branch of musicology has become the open¬
ing section in the history of our own music.
 [3]

MELODIC STYLES

PRIMITIVE LIFE is almost uniform; despite all differences in tempera¬

ment, character, and intelligence, every act, be it practical or artistic, is
understcKxi by the fellow tribesmen, much as an animal s act is under¬
stood by its fellow creatures. Nor is primitive music the personal idiom,
the individual expression of lonely masters. It says what everyone could
say; it sings the life of a whole tribe; its soul is everyone s soul.
On the Andaman Island in the Gulf of Bengal—^to single out a good
example—all natives invent songs

and even the children are instnicted in this art. While carving a boat or a bow,
or while rowing, the Andamanese sings his song quietly to himself untd he is
satisfied with it and then introduces it at the next dance. His female relatives
must first practice it with the women's chorus; the inventor himself, as song
leader, sings it at the dance, and the women join in the refrain. If the piece is
successml, it is added to his rei^rtory; if not, it is discarded.^^

The texts themselves are unpretentious and within the reach of every¬
body in the tribe: “Poio, the son of Mam Golat, wants to know when my
boat wil be finished; so I must be as quick about it as possible.” No
obvious relation would be required between a text and the occasion on
w4ich it is sung. The Andamanese quite unconcernedly sing hunting or
boatbuilding texts at mourning dances, while they prefer turtle texts for
boys’ initiations. The Sakai of Malacca even recite series of river and moun¬
tain names instead of connected texts. Indeed, the singers would even use
ohxnit and disfigured words of some language long forgotten.

Singing in ancient civilizations cannot exist without words, meaningless

as they may be; nor can poetry exist without singing.
It has been a grave error to take this primeval unity of singing and
poetry for the more recent and quite different—^indeed opposite—^modeling

17 Cmt Sachs, Wodd History of ike Dance, New York, W. W. Norton, 1937, p. 182, after
A. R. Brown, Tke Andaman island'Crs, Cambridge, 1922.
 Melodic Styles 31
of melodics on the natural speech tones of the words.^® The reverse is
true; poetry, in its broadest sense, leads both melody and words away
from conversational speech.
Poets disfigure and level the logical accents obligatory to making our¬
selves tmderstood in talk between man and man; they replace the free,
expressive rhythm of spoken phrases by stereotype patterns of long and
short or strong and light; they supplant the natural flow of speech by
artificial arrangements of words that often wrong the rules of grammar
and syntax; they even replace common by uncommon words that none
would use in ordinary speech. Art denaturalizes nature in order to raise
it to a higher, or at least a different, plane.
And the singers follow: they forcibly avoid the vague, irrational tones
of the spoken word. As far as we can look back, the melody of speech, so
free and fluent when we talk, has in singing turned into a series of uni¬
form steps between two or three notes on a medium level, if not into a
monotonous scansion on one note.
“If not into a monotonous scansion on one note.” The conditional form
of this sentence is due to the problematic position of one-tone melodies
in the evolution of music. Everyone knows such psalmodies. They are
at home in the liturgies of most religions all over the world; plain people
use them for reciting poems; and they may be heard in schools of the
East and the West as vehicles to memorize texts and rules, though nowhere
do they reach the magic power they have in the hypnotic trances of
Polynesian sitting dancers.
For all that, pure one-tone melodies as independent structures are com¬
paratively rare. Most of them are short sections within more elaborate
melodies, either strictly on one note or with cadences falling off or rising
on the last syllable. The most fascinating examples of this style are to
be found in Celebes and the western Carolina Islands:

Ex. :2. CAROLINA ISLANDS aftcT Herzog

To the evolutionist, one-tone melodies as a first step before the rise of

two- and three-tone melodies would almost be too good to be true. But
^® Tbis latter subject has been discussed in G. Herzog, “Speech-Melody and Primitive
Music,” mThe Musical Quarterly XX (1934), no. 4.
George Herzog, “Die Musik der Karolinen-Inseln,” in Ergehnisse der Sudsee-Expedition
jgoS-igio, n B, Band g, 11. Halbband, Hamburg, 1936, nos. zi, 32, 34-6, 70, 73, 83, 85,
86, 89, 93, 94, 96, and p. 340.
32 The Origins of Music
the question whether a primeval one-tone melody existed in pure form
cannot yet be answered; too many primitive peoples are musically unex¬
plored, and even where they have been explored, the recording anthropolo¬
gist might be suspected of having failed to record one-tone recitations be¬
cause he did not consider them to be musical performances.
The earliest melodies traceable ham two tones.

m ^

The two-tone styi^e, in its narrowest form, comprises melodies pendulat¬

ing between two notes of a medium level, the distance of which is a second
or less. And the melodic span is narrow: the themes, or rather motifs, are
extremely short and often consist merely in a single step up or downward.
There is not always a center of gravity; often, the two notes have equal im¬
portance, and if one predominates, it is rather the upper one, while the
lower seems to peter out like an accessory note, so that the cadential trend
unexpectedly leads to the higher note.
In such a ca^, we may be allowed to speak of a ‘negative melody,’ as in
goametry we speak of a ‘negative curve,’ which in the main runs below
the zero or ‘reference Hne.’ In a melody in which the first and the last
notes are approximately at the same pitch, the imaginary connecting line
indicate the ‘reference’; a melody is positive if it runs essentially above this
line, and negative in the contrary case.

All recent publications on primitive music have started from the Vedda,
a Pygmoid people of primeval hunters in the interior of Ceylon. Still the
melodies of these men, though simple, are not rudimentary enough to mark
a real beginning. A much simpler style has been found among the Boto-

Ex. 3. BOTDCUDos after Strelni\ov

cudos in East Brazil,^® who again and again repeat the poor group,
and among the Pygmqids of the Dem tribe in Central New Guinea, who per-

J. D. Strdisikov, in Proceedings of the Congress of Americanists ig28. New York, 1930,

p, 801, Unfortunately, the Botoaido songs printed in this paper have not been phonographicaily
rimdid
 Melodic Styles 33
sistently repeat two notes a fourth apart,an example we mention here
despite its larger interval.
Though rudimentary, these melodicles are not orderless. As they are
indefinitely repeated, they follow the same principle of co-ordination that
children use when they annoy their parents with endless reiterations of a
tiny scrap of melody; performers of national epics, in Finland, in Yugo¬
slavia, in Egypt, and probably in Homeric Greece, follow the same prin¬
ciple, and so do modern composers of bassi ostlnati, ciaconnas and pas-
sacaglias?^ Most of these patterns are vehicles for words, not autonomous
pieces; they are expected to be heard, not to be listened to.
Primitive poetry, too, is based on repetition—modified repetition, to be
sure, since words appeal to the intellect, and no intellect can stand stagna¬
tion. A Vedda would solve the problem by verses like these:

Where the talagoya was roasted and eaten,

there blew a wind.
Where the meminna was roasted and eaten,
there blew a wind.
Where the deer was roasted and eaten,
there blew a wind.

The lines are strictly repeated except for the change in the animal’s name,
so that interest cannot weaken.
As late as the Assyrian civilization, variations were imbedded in other¬
wise identical lines. One Assyrian prayer begins:

Father Nannar, lord Anshar, chief of the Gods;

Father Nannar, lord great Anu, chief of the Gods;
Father Nannar, lord Sin, chief of the Gods;
Father Nannar, lord of Ur, chief of the Gods;
Father Nannar, lord of Egishirgal, chief of the Gods; etc.^®

Dr. George Herzog quotes a similar poem of the Navaho:

The first man—^you are his child, he is your child;

The first woman—^you are her child, she is your child;
The water-monster—you are his child, he is your child;
The black-water horse—you are his child, he is your child

Jaap Kunst, A Study on Papuan Music, Weltevreden, 1931, Plate 11.

22 C£. also Robert Lach, “Das Konstruktionsprinzip der Wicderholung in Musik, Sprachc
und Literatur,” in Akadernie der Wissenschaften in Wien, Phil. Hist. Klasse, Sitzungsberichte,
201-2, Wien, 1925.
23 Charles Gordon Gumming, The Assyrian and Hebrew Hymns of Praise, New York,
I934» P- 73.
34 The Origins of Music
and so on with the Big Black Snake, the Big Blue Snake, the White Corn,
the Yellow Corn, the Corn Pollen, the Corn Bug, the Sacred Word. And
still another one, in which the line Where is it going to be hidden? is sung
six times before the strophe ends:

Big turkey
His wattle goes up and down.^^

The Vedda sing such poems at an almost constant absolute pitch and
keep the notes clearly apart without any portamento. The notes a and b
are a whole tone or somewhat less distant from one another and follow
each other in nearly equal beats; the final notes, however, are sustained.
Thus the melody pendulates between the two notes in even beats. The
time, mostly 4/4, is less strict when the number of syllables changes. Such
irregularity seldom embarrasses the singer. If he faces too many addi¬
tional syllables, he splits ^me of his notes in order to maintain the rhythmic
flow. Failing ligatures of two eighth notes are frequent, but never appear
at the end, which is either rising or level. As a rule, the two notes alternate;
but once in a while a is repeated again and again as in chanting. The
poetical, and therefore also the musical, phrases have become longer than
those in the melodies of the Botocudos; the thread is spun over eight or
ten quarter notes before repetition sets in:

Ex. 4. VEDDA after Wertheimer

A EEVomnoNAitY INNOVATION interfered with mere reiteration on the very

level of Veddoid and Patagonian music. The original motif and its first
repetition were tied together to form a complex unit by varying the final
notes: the first time, the voice rested on a level that kept the listener in
suspense; the second time, it shifted to the other level to give a satisfactory
ending. To put it technically: the first phrase ended on a semicadence, and
the second, on a full cadence. Or, to use the more characteristic terms that
the French coined in the Middle Ages: the first ended in an overt, the second
in a close.

** George Herzog, ‘*Speaii-Melody and Primitive Musk,” loc, at., pp. 460, 464.
 Melodic Styles 35
Ex. 5. FUEGiANs after Hornbostel

All these words are more than mere figures of speech. A. H. Fox Strang-
ways relates that at Poona in India
the water was drawn from a well by a cattle which marched slowly down an
incline, pulling on the ropes, and, as soon as the contents of the skin had been
emptied into the trough which carried the water out over a neighboring field,
backed again up the incline a little slower still. When the well-man started them
down he sang (A) and when, after a minute’s interval, he backed them up
again, he sang (B). This process went on to my knowledge for three hours,
and probably many more.^®

Ex. 6 . POONA, INDIA after Fox Strangways

TvTI yp] -.' XL. • •.

- 4 - 1 .

The cadential contrast, reflecting the antithesis of the unfinished and the
finished act, finds no better illustration, except in the dance. In many
dances all over the world, the performers take a few steps forward, then
return to the starting point; they do “a ‘static’ swinging, which nullifies
every movement and every tension, as the contracted muscle is released,
or the lung which breathes in the air sends it out again, as in all human ac¬
tivities and processes the harmonious, satisfying, restful norm is sought”;
and the accompanying song as a rule ends on a scmicadence with the
forward movement, is repeated with the backward movement, and ends
on a full cadence when the dancers are in place again.
By uniting two phrases with cadential distinction to form what musical
theory calls a period, primitive peoples at a very low level of civilization
had created the most fertile of musical structure schemes, the lied form.
One of the immediate consequences was the discrimination between the
two tones: the full-cadential note, being the goal of the melodic trend,
took the ascendancy over the half-cadential note, and the later conception
of a final (to avoid the misleading word tonic) was prepared.

A. H. Fox Strangways, The Music of Hindostan, op. cit., pp. 20—1.

2® Curt Sachs, World History of the Dance, op. dt., pp. 168 f.
36 The Origins of Music
Two-tone jvcelodies often exceed the distance of a second to reach a third
or even a fourth. It is hardly necessary to emphasize that the word ‘‘third”
includes all sizes of this interval, from short minor thirds to full-grown
major thirds.

Ex. 7. THOMPSON INDIANS after Abraham and

Hornbostd

AiiUf ir ■’ic.r-
Until recently, students were inclined to presuppose an evolution from
smaller to larger distances; primitive man, so they said, is narrow-minded;
therefore his melodies are narrow as well and widen only on higher levels
of civilization. This is not quite true. Some of the most primitive peoples
prefer two-tone melodies with distances larger than a second, and small
children in modern Europe, as we shaU see, seem to improvise in thirds
even before they sing in seconds.
The problem is certainly not a question of development. Were there any
evolution, some trace of transition would be found—an occasional third
replacing a second, or, inversely, a second replacing a third. The two types
are definitely distinct.
Distances in early music depend on motor impulse rather than mental¬
ity. It is not without good reason that we speak of steps and strides and
leaps, both in melody and in dance; they are similar responses to the same
impulse in man and consequendy depend on it in a similar way.
In the history of the dance, two elementary motor types stand out with
impressive clarity, though they often ran into each other: closed move¬
ment and expanded movementP The expanded dance is characterized by
a stronger motor reaction, by wider strides, and even by leaps. The chief
characteristic of the closed dance is the fixed center of motion to which
the limbs come back again and again.
Roughly speaking, peoples whose dances are somewhat expanded use
larger melodic steps than those whose dances are more or less closed.
Singing is indeed an activity of our bodies, or rather, of the totality of
our being. It requires almost all the muscles from the stomach to the head
and, with the primitive, even the arms and the hands; a native is often
not capable of singing if forced to keep his hands still. So narrow is the
connection between singing and arm motion that the ancient Egyptians
expressed the meaning ‘to sing* by the paraphrase ‘to play with the hand.’
Curt SacliSj ibid., pp. 24-48.
 Melodic Styles 37
As an activity of our body, music is inseparable from motor impulse and
motor type. It expresses the performer’s temperament as gesture, dance,
and walking do.
If this holds true for individuals, it also holds true for tribes, peoples,
and races, especially under primitive conditions; for the lower the level
of animals and men, the less an individual emerges from the general
standard.
This is why peoples of the same cultural level have melodies that differ
only in their widths.

A FIRST EVOLUTION Carried the number of tones from two to three. Such
growth did not at once produce actual three-tone melodies. For a long
time, musical imagination clung to simple two-tone melodies even after
the recognition of a third tone and kept the original nucleus intact and
easily perceptible. Tradition has been amazingly persistent. The new tone
generally ventures to appear only toward the end of the phrase, when the
nucleus has been well established; it is rarely introduced at the start in
some initial stress of temperament, and in such cases disappears almost
immediately for the benefit of tradition. Conforming to the terminology
of grammar, we call the additional tone an affix if it joins the nucleus
outside and, if necessary, more specifically a suprafix if it is added above,
and an infrafix if it is added below. A filler within a third, a fourth, or a
fifth, is called an infix.
Simple additions may be classified in the following way:
i) Second plus second appears in the very earliest styles of the Vedda
and the Fuegian Yamana. Our example is a song of the Colombian Uitoto
Indians:
Ex. 8. UITOTO INDIANS, COLOMBIA after Bose

2) Second plus third. Again, an example of the Uitoto:

Ex. 9. UITOTO INDIANS after Bose

38 The Origins of Music
3) Second plus fourth. Song from Buka, Solomon Archipelago:
Ex. 10. SOLOMON ISLANDS after Frizzi

4) Third plus second. Song from East New Guinea:

Ex. II. EAST NEW GUINEA after Marius Schneider

5) Third plus third. Bakongo Negroes:

Ex. 12. BAKONGO NEGROES
after Marius Schneider

6) Third plus fourth. No example.

7) Third plus filling note (infix). Example from North New Guinea:
Ex, 13. NEW GUINEA after Marius Schneider

8) Fourth plus second. Song from Buka, Solomon Archipelago:

Ex. 14. SOLOMON ISLANDS

9) Fourth plus third. Playing song of the Bellacula Indians:

Ex, 15. BELLACULA INDIANS after Stumpf

10) Fourth plus fourth. Men’s duet from Tibet:

Ex. 16. TIBET
transcribed hy Curt Sachs
 Melodic Styles 39
ii) Fourth plus infix, Brazilian Yecuana Indians:

Ex. 17. YECUANA INDIANS after HornBostel

Four-tone melodies almost eschew classification. Infixes, suprafixes, infra¬

fixes in all possible arrangements and sizes result in a kaleidoscopic infinity
of variations and permutations.
Only what we might call chains captivate our interest: the conjunction
of either thirds or fourths. A chain of thirds is the following song of a
Papuan in Northwest New Guinea:

Ex. 18. PAPUA after Jaap Kunst

A truly extraordinary chain of no less than five consecutive thirds occurs

in the music of the Zuni Indians:

Ex. 19. ZUNI INDIANS after Stumpf

The Hopi sometimes sing in chains of fourths:

Ex. 20. HOPI INDIANS after Stumpf

Although such melodies attain an imposing range and emotional power,

they lack organization. The singer jumps from note to note without sub¬
ordinating his notes to higher units. He is not able to pass from addition
to integration.
It is seldom possible to decide whether the amplification of the original
two-tone nucleus has been brought about by the natural evolution of either
28 Jaap Kunst, A Study on Papuan Music, op. cit., p. 63
28 Carl Stumpf, “Phonographierte Indianermelodien,” loc. cit., p. 123.
Benjamin Ives Gilman, "Hopi Songs," loc. cit.
40 THe Origiiis of Music
the individual or the tribe, or else by special influences, sexual or foreign.
If singing is indeed an activity of all our being, sex, the strongest difference
between human beings, must have a decisive influence on musical styles.
Once more, a reference to dancing may be helpful. Dancers as well as
athletes know the fundamental fact that, as a rule, men strive for re¬
lease, for strong motion forward and upward; women, particularly in
lower civilizations, keep to the ground and move inward rather than away
from their torsos. Compared with masculine motion, a woman’s move¬
ments are diminutive; the bold leap shrinks to a standing on tiptoe, and
the large stride degenerates to timid tripping. Even where theme and
occasion call for departing from the usual restriction, a woman’s dance
wil almost certainly relapse to a closed form.
In the same way, the sexes also form opposite singing styles. Boat songs
of the Eskimo rest on the third; when women row, they sing the same
melodies with infixes to avoid the masculine stride.
Woman’s influence was particularly strong in shaping the structure of
melody. Robert Lachmann drew attention to the symmetry in those forms
of singing in which women, whatever their cultural level, accompany their
work or lul their babies, and he compared German children’s songs with
lullabies of Vedda mothers and with melodies trilled by Indian women
while rasping roots. His juxtaposition is so striking that we reiterate it
here;^^ only, we give the German song the slightly different form in
which we ourselves have known it:

Ex. 21. MACusi INDIANS ajter Hornbostel, first line

LATBRNE, LATERNE, second line

Out of innumerable examples, the Northwest Siberian Voguls may be

cited; the men do almost all the singing, and their melodies are free in
rhythm and structure; the women, confined to the so<alled Songs of Fate,
arrange their melodies in simple and regular verses:

Roi>crt Lackmarm, "Musik der aussereuropaiscben Natur- und Kulturvolker,” p. 8, in

Ernst Buckcn, 'Hsndhuck der Mtm\missensckaft (1929).
Cf. A. O. Vaisancn, “Wognlisdic nnd Osqalasdie Mdodien,” loc. cit., p. 3.
 Melodic Styles
Ex. 22. voGULS, SIBERIA after Vdisanen
iziOS
-% p-
1—! C i-K-! ^
P - -fV ■ r*!'1
' ^ ‘ I

Both examples confirm an innate tendency in women to neatly regulate

the songs of domestic life also, in doing which they—and their daughters
—have faithfully preserved archaic traits that the men have lost.

The music considered so far is hgogenic or word-born. Men who sing

on two notes actually use the melody as a mere vehicle for words and
keep It m a medium pitch and a medium power of voice without emo-
tional stress.
But this IS only one side of primitive music. For music is often due to
an irresistible stimulus that releases the singer’s utmost possibihties. Not
yet able to shape such pathogenic music in premeditated longer patterns
with the climax in the middle or at the end, he lends all his force and
passion to the beginning of his song and lets the melody drop as his vocal
cords slacken, often passing to a scarcely audible pianissimo. For ‘loud’ and
‘high-pitched’ ‘soft’ and ‘low-pitched’ are closely associated—so closely that
the Romance languages have only one word for either couple of qualities:
aha POX and bassa vox.
In their most emotional and least musical form, descending melodies
recall savage shouts of joy or rage, and may have come from such unbridled
outbursts. Spasmodically, the voice sets in as high as possible with its maxi¬
mum strength and tension, or leaps up, from a medium note as a spring¬
board, and then comes down by steps or jumps, until it fades away in its
lowest register. The details differ; the Kubu in Sumatra glide almost as
along a ramp, the Indians rumble down a flight of stairs, the Negroes
nimbly walk from step to step. The crudest form of this kind of melody,
midway between brutish shouts and human singing, seems to be preserved
on the islands of Torres Straits between Australia and New Guinea. On
phonograph records from Central and South Australia, the same style ap¬
pears less stirring, tamer, more musical, less like shouting; the range is
an octave, and the intervals of the fourth and fifth begin to stand out as
landings; the melody is often definitely pentatonic without semitones.®*
(193:^' Pp'^°454ST'*’ 'Central and Southern Australia,” in Oceania n
 42 The Origins of Music
Efecaibiiig these Australian songs (which I have not heard), E. H. Davies
uses the words “frenzy” and “spasm,” and speaks of “ecstatic leaps to the
upper cxrtave,” of “steadily growing excitement,” and of “a good deal of
passion.” This is fully confirmed by the few records from Australia that
I have been able to study. In Africa, again, the jerking, nervous character
is almost lost; the melody is generally reduced to the range of a sixth,
and its steps are wel graduated.
The most impressive stair melodies are sung by North American In¬
dians (c£ Ex. 19). Some of them are of an overwhelming power, full of
pathos and passion, and still reserved and solemn. Many of them rush
down in thirds; in others, the fourth is the structural interval.

Melmexic music represents the wide middle area between the extremes
ot logogenic and pathogenic music. Here, cantillation of words has suf¬
ficiently increased in range to refiect the pathos of the words themselves in
a flexible melodic line; and the unbridled outbursts of the pathogenic style
have so much settled down that the words become distinguishable and
important; mith the greater range, too, the level trend of the logogenic
st}*ie yields to the same drift downward that characterizes the pathogenic
style. This tendency appears as early as the stage of three-tone melodies:
the author tested several hundreds of them and found that only 8 per
cent ended on the upper note, 39 per cent on the middle note, and 53 per
cent on the lower note. Later on, with four-tone melodics, the level trend
has become a rare exception.
On this melogemc level, both the logogenic and the pathogenic styles are
subinittcci to strurtursi int€TVids as a second principle of organization.
The logogenic mdcxiies of two tones, and even of three tones, discussed
in the first part of this »:tion, were stil beyond the notion of rational in-
tervais. The singer, starting from an initial note, arbitrarily proceeded to
the follow ing on^ much as a walker takes his steps without conforming
to any rule except Ms ease. The space in between is a distance, which,
though measurable in terms of Cents, does not obey any law of nature.
Most melodics exceeding the range of a third, on the contrary, tend to
WtaBize in certain intemds; that is, spaces determined by simple propor¬
tions oi vibration numkrs: the ratio 2:1, which we call the octave; 3:2,
the fifth; 4:;^ the founh. The strongest magnetic power emanates from the
 Melodic Styles 43

fourth—^for physiological reasons it is here best to accept without attempt¬

ing discretionary explanations.
Such magnetic attraction appears in two forms. In the first, notes ap¬
proximately and unintentionally a fourth or a fifth apart spontaneously
adjust themselves (with more or less success): four notes in a series of
irrational seconds submit to the law of the fourth and become a tetrachord;
a melody of two consecutive thirds, the outer notes of which originally refer
only to their common middle note but not to one another, turns into a
pentachord, shaped to the size of a perfect fifth.
The other form of magnetic attraction is the continual return to either
boundary note, which leads as a natural consequence to the organization
of melody in main and accessory notes. And here the way opens into the
complex structures of more highly civilized peoples.
Yet despite crossing and interbreeding, the original dualism of the two
opposite principles still shows even in the complexity of higher musical
styles. Their innate traits appear as in Mendel’s hares and dandelions—
in the logogenic tidiness of Chinese music and the fiery pathos of Balinese
orchestras, in the strictness of Indian dance songs and the unbridled free¬
dom of Mongolian laments. They are even more apparent in the char¬
acteristically European alternation between static, ‘classical,’ styles, which
have the accent on form and balance, and dynamic styles with ‘endless
melody’ and unbound passion.

It is an exciting experience to learn that the earliest known stage of music

reappears in the babble songs of small children in European countries. For
once the ontogenetic law is fully confirmed: the individual summarizes the
evolution of mankind. We owe to Dr. Heinz Werner, the psychologist
formerly of Vienna, a methodical series of phonograph recordings that
clearly reflect the results of our own research.
The earliest attempts of children less than three years old resulted in
one-tone litanies and in melodies of two notes a narrow minor third apart,
the lower of which was stressed and frequently repeated. At the age of
three, children produced melodies of two notes a second apart, and even
three-tone melodies. Children three and a half years old sang in descend¬
ing tetrachords. Continual repetition was the only form.
Heinz Werner, “Die naclodischc Erfindung im friihcn Kindesalter,” in A\ademie der
Wissmschajten, Vienna, Philol-Historische Klasse, SitzungsBeric^te CLXXXII (1917), no. 4.
44 The Origins o£ Music
Ex. 23. EUROPEAN children's BABBLE after Heinz Werner

These children could not be suspected to have been influenced by a

single trait of our own music. Thus we cannot but accept their babbling
as an ontogenetic reiteration of man's earliest music and, inversely, con¬
clude that the music of today’s most primitive peoples is indeed the first
music that ever existed.
 [4]

RHYTHM AND INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC

RHYTHM, both as meter and as time, is still imdeveloped in two- and

three-tone candllation. The unit is a verse, or a small melodic phrase; and
what we should call a piece is merely an arbitrary, unorganized series of
such verses. Attention does not carry beyond the individual verse; it ends
with the verse and reawakens only after a few irrational moments of
respite. If the following verse has either more or fewer syllables than the
preceding one, the singer would conform his rhythm to the new situation,
again without much regard for the whole, which actually does not exist
as an organism.
When a Western musician transcribes such songs into his own nota¬
tion, he has the unpleasant choice between two ways. One is to be in¬
accurate and fake a tidy one-two one-two where irregularity is typical.
The other way is pedantically to count beats not destined to be counted,
to change dizzily from five-four to seven-eight and six-eight (beats), sug¬
gesting a Stravinskylike exuberance—or chaos. And all this is against the
naive spirit of primitive cantillation, which is neither regular nor sophisti¬
cated nor anarchic.
The best way is to avoid any indication of time and, in general, bar
lines also; to neglect infinitesimal vacillations; and to represent irrational
rests by fermatas rather than by precise symbols.

Co-ordination of singing and bodily rhythm is weak on the level of the

Vedda and certain Patagonian tribes. But in the next higher stratum, most
singing submits to the imperious rhythmic impulse of our body, which
in its simplest form is an endless unorganized sequence of equal beats.
Once man has become fully conscious of the comfort and stimulus that
regular pulsation gives he seldom sings without clapping his hands, stamp¬
ing the ground, or slapping his abdomen, chest, legs or buttocks.^®

C£. Curt Sachs, World History of the Dance, op. cit., p. 25, and The History of Musical
Instruments, op. cit., p. 26.
 46 The Origins of Music
la order to iiiteasify tlie effect, primitive singers reached for extrabodily
devices—^rattles, clappers, stamping tubes, and drums—and therewith created
instrumental music.

There can be no doubt that a species of rhythmic intoxication is the natural

mnsequence of this vigorous clashing; and many cases have been experienced
by the writer where an unwillingness to sing on the part of the native has been
overcome by beating together a couple of lx>omerangs. In every case it acts as a
stiinukiit to greater enthusiasm/®

Man dc^s not listen to the seconds of his watch or the jolts of his rail¬
way car without decomposing the endless sequence of uniform beats into
an aitemation of accented and unaccented beats. He organizes the mo¬
notonous into a sequence of tic^4oc^ periods and would even
unite ever}' tw’o of these periods to form a higher unit: toc\~a,
Tick-a icx:k-a is more than just strong-weak/strong-weak. It is also light-
weak/dark-weak, or bright-weak/dull-weak. Two new elements have
entered rhythmic organization: timbre and pitch.
Instriiments meet this end. Stamping tubes appear in pairs of different
length, width, and pitch; and drums are alternately struck with a stick or
with the bare hand, or on the skin and the solid rim, or on two differently
pitched heads. In Samoa, to give this one concrete example, “the beating
of the mats sounds like the trotting of a horse, the first tone struck with
l»tii sticks, the semnd with only one—a trochaic pattern.”
TTie resulting rhythmic pattern is in the first place due to the player’s
l^sonal motor impulse under the special conditions of mood and ability,
age and race and profession. But the shape and playing position of
the instnuiient are important factors, too; the player acts in a different way
according as Ms drum is big or smaU, vertical or horizontal, suspended or
in hobby-horse position; or as from a drum he passes to a xylophone or any
other mstrument. All of them deflect the personal motor impulse into a
sf»cial technique that determines the realization of musical ideas. Musicians
knov? iMs principle from modern Occidental practice: an organist im¬
provises in another style than a flutist or a violinist; every instrument creates
its own style,^®

« Southern Australia,” loc, cit., p. 459.

Curt Saciis, If mid Hut€gy of ike Dance, op. at., p. 38. -h
®s cf. Curt Saciis, “Proln^mena zu einer Geschichte der instrumentalmusik,” in Zeitschriit
i" Xp ^ PP. 55-8; Tic H^ory of Musical Instruments.
 Rhythm and Instrumental Music 47
VocAL AND INSTRUMENTAL Styles ncvcr mix and seldom converge in early mu¬
sic. Melody is not an abstract conception to be indiscriminately realized
either on instruments or with human voices. Indeed, no instrument was ex¬
pected to play cantabile, as in the modern West. Playing some instrument and
singing poetic texts were separate acts which did not melt into one; nor
had any primitive language a word for our collective term ‘music’ which
comprises both of them.^®
So it happened that the voice, detached from the rigid beats of the drum,
would soar above in unrestricted freedom; even that voice and drum would
without any inconvenience follow two entirely different rhythms—a re¬
markable lack of conformity which might or might not prove a particularly
strong feeling. Such feeling certainly is very strong with some of the
aboriginal tribes in India, where cross rhythm develops into actual poly-
rhythmy: Fox Strangways heard a couple of natives of the Panan tribe of
India alternately singing in a four-beat meter while a frame drum and a
triangle divided the beats respectively as 3-2-3 and 2-2-4 eighths:
Ex. 24. INDIA
after Fox Strangways
Brum t k w \
.7 y.^

Triangle

In another Panan tune, the four beats of the voices were met by the clap¬
ping hands on the second, third, and fourth beat, and by a drum on the
second, fourth, fifth, seventh, and eighth eighths, the second being synco¬
pated.^®
Apparent syncopation (though not the example just described) is often
explained by the fact that some peoples understand the lifting phase in
drum beating as accented tension, and the beating, that is, dropping, phase
as unaccented relaxation. This results in lifting the arm on the first and
third beats and striking on the second and fourth beats—an interesting
syncopation in Western terminology but a quite straight and natural
rhythm to North American Indians and other races. Such a conception,
however, is only possible in countries where drums as a rule are struck
with sticks so that the arms are lifted with a certain emphasis. With hand-
beaten drums, and even in a rapid succession of beats with a light stick, the
lifting phase is practically insignificant and the sound appears on what we
call the down beat.

Robert Lachmann, “Zur ausscreuropaischen Mehrstimmigkeit," in Kongressbericht der

Beethoven-Zentenarfeier, Wien, 1927, p. 324.
A. H. Fox Strangways, The Music of Hindostan, op. cit., p. 34.
Curt Sachs, The History of Musical Instruments, op. cit., p. 215.
 [5]

POLYPHONY

THE DEEP-ROOTED PREJUDICE that harmony and polyphony have

been a prerogative of the medieval and modern West does not hold water.
Not one of the continents, not one of the archipelagos between them lacks
rudimentary forms of polyphony.
When in musical ensembles several singers or players perform the same
melody, either successively or simultaneously, they actually claim the free¬
dom of varying in minor details. Repetition of a melody seldom agrees
with its first form, nor do the voices of a chorus or the parts of an accom¬
panied song agree with each other. Each participant realizxs the melodic
idea according to personal taste and ability and to the special conditions
of voices and instruments. Nobody minds the chance collisions that result
from such discrepancies, nor is anybody concerned about their consonant,
or at least pregnant, character. An agile singer would dissolve his partner's
slower third steps into faster seconds; a less-well-trained voice might re¬
place excessively high or low notes by some bend or break; a premature
need for breath would cause an unseasonable cadence among the parts.
Such heterophony is certainly a rather negative form of co-operation—
neither polyphonic nor harmonic, and seemingly anarchic. But the willful
maladjustment often has a particular charm, and nobody who has heard
the rich and colorful symphonies of Balinese and Javanese orchestras can
deny that, once more, freedom is a good root of organization in art.

Parallel octaves are the unavoidable result of any vocal co-operation of

the two sexes and therefore practiced by peoples on the lowest level of
civilization. Unnoticed at first, they later became intentional. On the same
level, for instance in the Tierra del Fuego and on the Andaman Islands,
the difference in pitch, either of the two sexes or else of higher and lower
voices of the same sex, causes parallel fourths and fifths, which occur even
in our own civilization against the singers' will.
Still, the difference in pitch of human voices does not—or at least not
 Polyphony 49
exclusively—-account for parallels: in parallel thirds and seconds the two
voices have practically the same range; neither do they occur spontaneously
nor unintentionally; nor is it permissible to speak of European influence.
Parallel thirds, particularly frequent in Bantu Africa, have often been
ascribed to the influence of white settlers. But this will not do: certain ancient
stringed instruments of Africa are tuned in consecutive thirds."^^ An even
more important argument is the fact that parallel thirds occur in the west¬
ern Carolina Islands as a frequent feature of one of man’s earliest musical
styles. The following example was sung on the island of Mogemoc by a
chorus of eleven boys and girls. It consists of only three notes a second

Ex. 25. CAROLINA ISLANDS after Herzog

apart, both in the upper and in the accompanying part, so that there is
practically no difference in natural ranges. Similar as the two parts are,
they differ in one point: while the upper part comprises two whole tones,
the lower consists of a tone and a semitone. The resulting parallel has
alternately major and minor thirds—just as in Africa and Europe.
Is there, on a very low level, a root of our harmonic feeling, however
embryonic and doomed to stunt.?
The most startling kind of parallel is the seconds of the western Carolina
and Admiralty archipelagos.^^ The melodies submitted to this continuous

Ex. 26. CAROLINA ISLANDS after Herzog

'rq'Kn |-q. g.-jlg.■:

“iT---
V.: •

A
D V
i_ ^ —1

. .

friction are themselves confined to two or three notes. This probably ex¬
plains why the accompanying voice follows at such close distance; here
as elsewhere, the greater or lesser closeness of the melody appears fre¬
quently to determine the space between the two voice parts.
A strange counterpart is the singing of parallel seconds in Istria at the

Curt Sachs, Les Instruments de Musique de Madagascar, Paris, 1938, p. 53.

George Herzog, “Die Musik dcr Karolmcn-Inseln,” loc, cit., p. 274.
50 The Origins of Music
northern end of the Adriatic Sea,^^ which once more shows how little
difference there is between primitive and European folk music.

Drones, that is, sustained notes above or below the melody, have compara¬
tively little importance in primitive music. A Kubu woman will keep
up a high note while a man sings a simple melody on two notes,but
such continuous drones are rare. In most cases drones are intermittent,
as a regular or as an irregular feature. On a phonograph record from the
island Lifou in the Loyalty Archipelago, made for the Archives de la
Parole in Paris, the author found a short motif of three eighth notes,
leading to a sustained f, repeated some twenty times by a chorus of women,
while either a single woman or a second chorus seconded by setting a g'

Ex. 27. LIFOU, LOYALTY ISLANDS

transcribed by Curt Sachs

-1 V-.|
rL-rfrf 1

against the f. Irregular drones are more frequent; a solo or a chorus ac¬
companying the melody will repeat some note while the other part ascends
or descends, or it may rest on a kind of pause. In such instances the drone
technique seems not fully out of the stage in which accident is becoming
intent. It is definitely a case of heterophony.
Antiphony resulted from both forms of repetition, from seriation and
from symmetry. It was almost unavoidable when in working crews or
dance groups two singing choruses, or two soloists, or a soloist and a chorus,
alternated, either to escape from exhaustion or to stress the dualism in
some pantomime—combat, wooing, the struggle of the light and the dark
moon.'*^
Whenever continual antiphony without the regulating force of dance
movements becomes too wearisome, impatient singers start repeating be-

Ludwig Kuba, “Einiges iiber das istro-dalmatinische Lied,” in lU. Kongress der Inter-
naiwnalen Musikgesellschajt igog, Bencht, pp. 271-6. Cf. also: Ernst Th. Ferand, “The ‘Howl¬
ing m Seconds’ of the Lombards,” m The Musical Quarterly XXV (1939), pp. 313-24.
^^Cf. Erich M. von Hornbostcl, “Ueber die Musik der Kubu," in B. Hagen, Die Orang-
Kuhu atif Sumatra, Frankfurt a.M. 1908, no. 25, and m Sammelbande fur Vergleichende
Musikmssenschaft \ (1922), p. 374.
^^Curt Sachs, World History of the Dance, op at., pp. 155 ff. Nguyen Van Huyen, Les
Chants alternis des garfons et des fiUes en Annum, Paris. 1934.
 Polyphony 51
fore the others have properly finished their section. The result is a canon
in unison.
It was one of the greatest among the numerous surprises of modern
musicology to find that the Samoans, indeed the primitive Semang in the
jungles of Malaka and certain Pygmies in the swampy forests between
the sources of the Nile and the Congo, had developed overlapping antiph¬
ony into regular canon singing:

Ex. 28. MONi, MALACCA ajter Kolins\i

-V 1 IV M l m 11¥ V1 . .01.
r
] ChuoriAfl
Solo

F' rm' 1" r]

..^ ...
The Malayan island of Flores has even developed an elaborate combina¬
tion of a canon, sung by women, on a double drone of tonic and fifth that
the men sustain. A more impressive warning against the prejudice of a
‘plausible’ evolution from simple to complicated forms could hardly be
given.

Ex. 29. FLORES ajter Jaap Kunst

tr-
 [6]

CONCLUSION

DESPITE SUCH ACHIEVEMENTS, primitive music depends on

routine and instinct rather than on knowledge. This is its weakness that
nothing can overcome—not even the erroneous claim that from lack of
intellectual rules primitive singers will express themselves with greater
emotional intensity than educated musicians who filter their inspiration
through the tightly knitted cloth of rules and technique. The claim is un¬
founded, because in primitive society the inertia of tradition, more inexora¬
ble than any well-devised system could be, dooms every spontaneous ges¬
ture.
Notwithstanding this narrowness, one fact has safeguarded develop¬
ment and perfection: the primordial dualism of two different, indeed op¬
posed, singing styles.
One of these, derived from cantillation, was logogenic or Vord-born.’
Its melodies started with only two notes—which imposed a level course
—^and were spun out in the continual repetition of a tiny motif. Evolution
was additive; more and more notes at certain distances crystallized around
the nucleus of two notes. But even before this evolution set in, primitives
on the lowest level of civilization developed endless repetition to the sym¬
metry of answering phrases, anticipated the tonic, invented the sequence,
and progressed to part singing and even to strictly canonic imitation.
The other style, derived from passion and motor impulse, was pathogenic.
Its melodies started from orderless cataracts, which imposed a downward
trend. Evolution was divisive: octaves were marked out, and after them,
fifths and fourths, which, instead of a nucleus, formed a solid skeleton.
All higher, melogenic, forms arose from mingling and mixing the two
basic styles, and this process, again, was inevitable, since intermarriage,
trade, and warfare counteracted tribal seclusion and omnipotent tradition.
It stimulated comparison and, with comparison, discrimination of features
common and avergent, acceptable and inacceptable. In this continual re¬
adjustment, insight, knowledge, and scientific method had to counter¬
balance the evil powers of inertia and imitation.
But the mental process necessary to pass from imitative reproduction
 Conclusion 53
to conscious creation was beyond the capacity o£ primitive men. It eventually
developed when the conflux of tribes, somewhere in Asia, had produced
the phenomenon that we call ‘high civilization.’ Due to science, which was
the essential achievement of high civilization, music progressed to an art.
It needed mathematicians to express in numbers and ratios what seemed
to exist in an imaginary, unmeasurable space of its own. And since analysis
and synthesis were functions of logic, it needed philosophy to disintegrate
melody into single notes and intervals and to rearrange the elements in ever
new configurations.
Section Two

THE WESTERN ORIENT

 [1]

HIGH CIVILIZATION AND MUSIC

N aive thinking, prone to personalize evolutions that never

depended on single persons, and more interested in scenic acts
of creation than in slow and simple developments, has ascribed
the art of music to gods and deified mortals. The Bible makes Adah’s son
Jubal “the father of all such as handle the lyre and pipe.” The Egyptian god
of wisdom, Thot, was credited with having written forty-two books, includ¬
ing treatises on astronomy, acoustics, and music, and was also said to have
invented the lyre; Apollo, the Greek god of wisdom, light, and order, played
the kithara; while the Indian inventor of the harp, Narada, borne by the
goddess of learning, speech, and eloquence, was a lawgiver and astronomer.
Only the Chinese make an exception; the origins of music, they say. He
far back, nor did one single generation create it.^
One fact stands out clearly, for all this mythical vagueness: the high
civilizations carried music from the stage of carefree instinct and narrow¬
minded tradition to the level of law and logic, of measure and reckoning.
Music was called to rank with the liberal arts long before Alexandrine
scholars linked it into the classical quadrivium with arithmetic, geometry,
and astronomy, and the trivium of grammar, rhetoric, and dialectic.
Science, indeed, based the theory and practice of music on numbers and
ratios, on analysis and synthesis, to help in building and tuning instruments,
in defining consonance and dissonance, in systematizing melody and
rhythm, in devising musical scripts.
Subject to numbers, ratios, and measure, music was given a place among
the phenomena of nature and shared the various forms of interest that they
aroused in man. It was submitted to the speculations of astrology and mysti¬
cism, but also to sober experimentation and reckoning; it was claimed by
magicians, by philosophers, by physicists. And in this manysidedness, music
permeated science, medicine, education, and even politics, for good and evil.
Law and logic, measure and reckoning are features of “high civiHzation,”
not of primitive life. They require thought beyond the nearest needs of
^ Lu Pu-wc, Shi Chfun T/iu (3rd century b.c.), ed. Richard Wilhelm, p. 66.
 58 The Western Orient
csistciice, and the aptitude for subsuixiing particular notions under general
conceptions.
A mental evolution of this kind coincided with, and probably was con¬
ditioned by, the organized society typical of high civilizations: by division
of labor and, hence, of classes and even castes, in which a trade passed from
father to son. Artisans, peasants, and workmen retained what later was to
be called folksong, that is, the heritage of the past with additions in a
traditional st}ie and in any case naive. The upper class, on the contrary,
which paid for its musical entertainments, fostered the gradual formation of
a class cf well-trained professional singers and players able to provide both
arausement and splendor and anxious to outdo their competitors. Still
higher was the standing of musicians attached to the temples where they
were in contact mith priests trained in mathematics, astronomy, and philoso¬
phy, who assisted them in establishing a sound theoretical basis of
music.
The wpical gradation according to knowledge and ignorance, to art and
folk music, is particularly well reflected by the old social order of Japanese
musicians.
In this order, the highly respected first class comprised educated
miisiaans who read notation and specialized in spiritual music. The second
class, termed by players of secular music who were uneducated and, the
koto players excepted, ignorant of notation, was on the social level of the
merchanrs. The third class embraced the blind singers for folk music.
Women wxre, as a rule, confined to the lowest style of music, and this was
true also for girls of axiety who performed music as a part of their educa¬
tion. The better classes of musicians insisted on their privilege of playing
music of a higher style; certain pieces were the property of a certain guild
and must mt be played by other people. The guild masters were entitled to
contcr honors on the members—on koto players, for instance, the curious
J
right cf mning their first string an octave lower.^

The oiMST secords of organized and systematized music are Sumerian and
Egyptian. Sumerian texts written in the third miUennium b.c. frequently
speak of ecclesiastic music; in the great temple of Ningirsu at Lagash, a
spcaal olcer was responsible for the choir, and another for the training of
 High Civilization and Music 59
several classes of singers and players, both male and female. The guilds of
temple singers at last became a

learned community, a kind of college, which studied and edited the ofScial
liturgical literature. They appear to have interested themselves in astronomy
also. We have ... a considerable liturgical literature of the learned college
attached to the temple of Bel in Babylon. ... We may also suppose that great
centers like the temple of Shamash in Sippar, of Enid in Nippur, of Innini at
Erech, each possessed its musical school.®
Folk music, on the contrary, had little to do with the scenes depicted by
official painters and sculptors; still, it appears now and then on Babylonian
plaques and seals of the second and third millenniums b.c., with shepherds
piping or strumming the long-necked lute to the great pleasure of their
dogs and sheep.
In its unique continuity, Jewish history gives the best picture of typical
evolution in the field of music. The times of the patriarchs and the judges
represent a primitive stage in which emotion and free effusion shaped
the patterns of melody and rhythm. Everyone in Israel sang, and playing
the lyre and the timbrel was a common achievement, at least among women.
When the children of Israel had walked upon dry land in the midst of the
sea and were saved out of the hand of the Egyptians, Moses himself struck
up the holy tune to glorify the Lord, and all men joined the leader’s voice,
while the women responded antiphonally; and Saul and David, on their
return from the victorious battle against the Philistines, were welcomed
by women singing, playing, and dancing. Music exulted and wailed; it was
both whipped up and soothing; it caused ecstasy to take possession of the
seers, and it drove the demons from Saul’s soul, when David the shepherd
played for him. No mention is ever made of professional musicians. ?
Musical life changed in the days of David and Solomon (c. looo b.c.).
Foreign instruments appeared all of a sudden, just as they had appeared
in Egypt after 1500 b.c.: harps, zithers, oboes, cymbals, sistra; and Pharaoh’s
daughter, whom King Solomon took to wife, is, in the Talmudic tractate
Shabbat ^6b, said to have had “a thousand kinds of musical instruments”
in her dowry (which in view of the 329 female musicians that Alexander
the Great’s general captured in the retinue of King Darius of Persia is not
necessarily exaggerated).
^ Israel began at that time to develop professional musicians and even a
musical organization. The kings and queens supported court musicians
of both sexes, and the 42,360 persons, who after the Babylonian Exile rc-
® Stephen Langdon, Babylonian Uturgies, Pans, 1913, pp. xii, xix.

/
 The Western Orient
turacd to the Holy Land, had with them some seven thousand servants and
mine two hundred “singing men and singing women,” doubtless attached
to the hou«hoIds of rich people.^
King David founded the earliest official body of musicians when he bade
Chenaniah, the chief of the Levites, “to appoint their brethren the singers,
with instniments of music, harps and lyres and cymbals of both forms. So
the Ixvites appointed Heman the son of Joel; and of his brethren, Asaph
the OTn of Berechiah” and others. Three singers struck the cymbals; eight
played harps; and six, lyres. “And Chenaniah, chief of the Levites, was over
the song; he was master in the song, because he was skilful.” ® When they
had brought in the ark of the covenant “and set it in the midst of the
tent that David had pitched for it, he appointed certain of the Levites to
minister t^ore the ark of the Lord, the God of Israel: Asaph the chief”
with cymbals, nine Levites with lyres and harps, and two priests with
tnim|Kts.®
Hiis number -was greatly increased when King David made prepara¬
tions for the Temple before his death, “David and the captains of the host
separated for the service certain of the sons of Asaph, and of Heman, and
of Jeduihun, who should prophesy with harps, with lyres, and with cymbals;
and the number of them that did the work according to their service was
. . . two hundred fourscore and eight,” divided into twenty-four classes
“under the hands of their fathers.”
When at last King Salomon was able to consecrate the Temple, “the
Levites who were the singers, all of them, even Asaph, Heman, Jeduthun,
and their sons and their brethren, arrayed in fine linen, with cymbals and
harps and lyres, sta3d at the east of the altar, and with them a hundred and
twenty priests sounding with trumpets—^it came even to pass, when the
trumpeters and singers vrere as one, to make one sound to be heard in
praising and thanking the Lord; and when they lifted up their voice with
the trumpets and cymbals and stringed instruments, and praised the Lord:
‘for He is gc»d, for His mercy endureth for ever’; that then the house was
filled with a cloud, even the house of the Lord, so that the priests could
not stand to minister by reason of the cloud; for the glory of the Lord filled
the hoE^ of God.” ®

* 2m: Ezra 2:65; 245: Keh. 67.

®I Giron. 15:16-22.
16:4-6.
^ 25.
Caron. 5:12-14.
 Higk Civilization and Music 6i
Daily temple music at the beginning o£ the Common Era is well described
in the Talmudian tractate Tamid 7:3-4. We learn how the priests spent
the night, got up early in the morning, washed, and followed their various
duties, such as baking cakes, cleaning the altar, bringing up faggots, setting
the altar fire in order, and slaughtering the victim. This done, they pro¬
nounced benedictions and recited the “Hearken Israel,” the Ten Com¬
mandments, and two passages from the Pentateuch—^Deut. 11:13-21 and
Numbers 15:37-41. Lasdy the high priest, solemnly received by the priests,
came in to give the blessing and to burn the offerings.

They gave him the wine for the drink-offering, and the Prefect stood by each
horn of the Altar with a towel in his hand, and two priests stood at the table
of the fat pieces with two silver trumpets in their hands. They blew a prolonged,
a quavering, and a prolonged blast. Then they came and stood by Ben Arza,
the one on his right and the other on his left. When he stooped and poured
out the drink-offering the Prefect waved the towel and Ben Arza clashed the
cymbal and the Levites broke forth into singing. When they reached a break
in the singing they blew upon the trumpets and the people prostrated them¬
selves; at every break there was a blowing of the trumpet and at every blowing
of the trumpet a prostration. This was the rite of the Daily Whole-offering in
the service of the House of our God. May it be his will that it shall be built up
again, speedily, in our days. Amen.
This was the singing which the Levites used to sing in the Temple. On the
first day they sang Psalm 24; on the second day they sang Psalm 48; on the
third day they sang Psalm 82; on the fourth day they sang Psalm 94; on the fifth
day they sang Psalm 81; on the sixth day they sang Psalm 93; on Sabbath they
sang Psalm 92, a Psalm, a song for the day that shall be aU Sabbath and rest in
the life everlasting.

The chorus had a minimum of twelve singers, all men between thirty
and fifty years of age, who, according to a none too clear passage in the
Talmudian Gmara Hullin, apparently had spent five years of training.
Boys of the Levites were allowed to join the choir in order “to add sweet¬
ness to the singing.” In the last time of the Temple, Hygros ben Levi was
“over the singing.” ® He had a great name as a brilliant virtuoso; but his
memory “was kept in dishonor” because he would not teach his special
art to any other.^®
The orchestra at that time consisted of harps from two to six in number;
lyres, nine or more; oboes, from two to twelve; and one pair of cymbals.^^

® Talmudian tractate Shekalim 5:1.

10 Tractate Yoma 3:11.
Tractate Arakhin 2:3.
 62 The Western Orient
The First Temple, which was destroyed in 586 b.c, had no oboes in its
service.

r
^ LiiiE Israel, Egypt had experienced a sudden importation of foreign in¬
struments and musicians. When she had conquered the southwest of Asia
in the eighteenth century b.c., the subjugated kings had sent tributes of
dancing and singing girls with their strange instruments. In-one of the
paintings in King Amenophis the Fourth's residence at Amarna they can
be seen busy practicing in a special harem that the painter has left un¬
roofed like a doll's house.
At that time, Egyptian music (to quote my History of Musical Instru¬
ments) "'underwent a decisive change. Nearly all the ancient instruments
were discarded. The standing harp became larger and abounded in strings;
several new types of harps were introduced; shrill oboes replaced the softer
flutes; lyres, lutes, and crackling drums were introduced from Asia. A new
kind of noisy, stimulating music seems to have taken possession of the
Egyptians."
Indeed, in no higher civilization is music self-supporting; its very life
depends on a sound balance of constancy and variation, of tradition and
receptivity. Constancy is safeguarded by the inertia of folksong and the
conscious conservatism of liturgical music. Variation is due to the claims
of less naive circles of society. Easily palled by artists who steadfastly “harp
on the same string,” they foster variation and innovation, for good and
for evil.
The manure of novelty, both decomposing and fertilizing, has been
conveyed in the cultivation of music chiefly by foreigners.
The importance of alien musicians will appear in every chapter of this
iirokrilistorians of medieval and modern music would have to stress the
creative role of monastic monks from Ireland in Carlovingian Germany;
of Burgundian masters in the Italian Renaissance; of Italian composers
all over Europe in the seventeenth century; of the Florentine Lully as
creator of the French national opera; of Handel’s music in England; and of
German music all over the world in the nineteenth century.
Not all over the world; to be more exact, only over the world of West¬
ern civilization. Wide as this internationalism may be, it is confined to a
certain type of mental atmosphere, an atmosphere that does not depend
 High Civilization and Music 63
on ‘race,’ with skull indexes and pigments, but on a cultural assimilation
through agelong intercourse in warfare, trade, and intermarriage.
This shows with particular impressiveness in the region discussed in
this section as the Western Orient. The Egyptians borrowed from Mesopo¬
tamia and Syria; the Jews from the Phoenicians; the Greeks from Crete
and Asia Minor and again Phoenicia; the harp, the lyre, the double oboe,
the hand-beaten frame drum were played in Egypt, Palestine, Phoenicia,
Syria, Babylonia, Asia Minor, Greece, and Italy. The Egyptians called lyres
and drums by their Semitic names, and the harp by a term related to the
Sumerian word for bow; the Greeks used the same Sumerian noun to
designate the long-necked lute and adopted a Phoenician word for the
harp; they gave the epithets Lydian, Phrygian, Phoenician to the various
types of pipes; indeed, they had not a single Hellenic term for their in¬
struments and repeatedly attributed them to either Crete or Asia. The
Phoenician and Egyptian instruments in Israel have already been men¬
tioned.
Instruments imply music: hand-beaten drums attest refined rhythm;
double oboes, drone technique; fretted lutes, autonomous instrumental
melody. Moreover, instruments have traveled with their music or, to put
it more concretely, a Javanese would play European pieces, not native
gamelan parts, on a Dutch trombone; nor would a Cameroon Negro pluck
the Marseillaise on his little zanza.
As to melodies, Herodotus relates that among other curious songs the
Egyptians have one that is also sung in Phoenicia, Cyprus, and elsewhere.
It is much similar to the one that the Greeks sing as the Linos song. I won¬
der whence they got the Linos song, just as I am surprised at a great
many things in Egypt.”
This cosmopolitan reciprocity, however, is confined to the eastern Mediter¬
ranean, Arabia, Mesopotamia, and Iran. For three or four thousand years
of ancient history these countries formed a musical province in which
agelong intercourse had created that mutual understanding that admitted
musical exchange. When antiquity had come to an end, this same area,
united under the sway of Islam, continued to form a well-defined province.
Even the loss of Greece failed to make any actual change in its frontiers,
since the Mohammedans built their music on the fundamentals of Greek
theory.
Herodotus Historiarum JJher H, ch. 79.
 [2]

MUSICAL SYSTEMS IN GENERAL

NO DIIECT SOURCE betrays the nature of Hebrew melodies; nor

do we know how the temple singers of Egypt and Babylonia regulated
their diants. But one thing is certain: wherever a higher class of musicians
was distmgoishcd from a lower class, wherever the official standard of an
aiiicational center was respected, there must have been law and logic,
measure and reckoning. Heman, Asaph, Jeduthun, and their brethren
in Moopotamia and Egypt had the concepts ‘correct’ and ‘faulty’ music;
they had a system,
A system, generally speaking, is the specific organization of the musical
space taken up by a certain national or epochal style.
Ai such systems are based on one presystematic trend: to make, as Har¬
lot A. Popley nicely puts it, “a bold plunge for the nearest consonant note.”
In other words, to crystallize in one or more of the three consonant inter¬
vals innate in man: the fourth, the fifth, and the octave. They give the
nadcxic range a solid skeleton, they stress certain notes for rest or suspen¬
sion and, in short, prevent the melody from getting lost in anarchy.
Where the fourth acts as the shaping force, the melody settles down in a
mrmkord (from Greek tetra “four”), that is, a melodic organism spanning
a fourth, usually with one or two filling notes of minor importance. Wider
melcxies with the fourth as regulating force crystallize in two such tetra-
diords linked together, or ‘conjunct,’ so that the note of contact belongs
to either tetracbord and acts as the center and main note of the heptad
(series of seven).
Where, on the other hand, the fifth acts as the shaping force, the melody
settles down in a pentachord (from pente “five”), that is, a melodic organ¬
ism spanning a fifth, usually with one, two, or three filling notes of minor
importance and tbe main stress on the lower terminal note.
A pentachordal melody, wide enough in range, settles down almost never
in two pentachords but, under the imperious sway of the octave, in the
conjunction of a pentachord and a tetrachord. This most perfect form of
organized scale unites the three innate intervals: octave, fifth, and fourth.
A pentachord and a tetrachord can be combined in two ways, which
Plate 2b. Egyptian flutist, harpist, and singer Relief from a tomb of the Twelfth Dvnastv, 2000-1800
B.c. Alter Blackman.
 Musical Systems in General 65
imply different, indeed opposite, kinds of equilibrium: modern musicians,
trained to the dualism of medieval church modes in their contrapuntal
studies, know them as authentic and plagaL In the so<alled authentic com¬
bination, the tetrachord is above; the lowest note of the octave becomes
finalis or tonic, and the fifth, in the middle of the octave, confinalis or
dominant. In the plagal combination, the pentachord is above; the final
or tonic shifts to the middle, a fourth from the lower end, which becomes a
kind of confinal or dominant. Medieval Dorian, for example, has the two
combinations:
Authentic: DEFG A BCD
Plagal: ABCDEFGA

But this terminology is misleading and should be avoided. It suggests

that the authentic condition is primary, and the plagal condition secondary.
Actually, it is the other way around. In India, the sa-grdma is the
standard form; the ‘authentic’ ma-grdma was less important and even dis¬
appeared in the sixteenth century. In Greece, the primary scales Dorian,
Phrygian, Lydian had the ‘plagal,’ and the hypo scales the ‘authentic’ form.
Instead, I propose two terms which, though not Greek and impressive,
denote the actual difference in the simplest way without conflicting with
any specific traits that the scales might have in various countries and
systems:
Fifth on top for ‘plagal’
Fourth on top for ‘authentic’

All notes ever used are supposed to find a definite place within these two
basic forms of skeletons. This, however, turns out to be both impossible
and undesirable. It is impossible because singers, following their chang¬
ing whim and motor impulse, fill the fourth and the fifth with practically
an infinite number of different steps that nobody could or would codify.
It is undesirable because the usefulness of most instruments depends on
the greatest possible versatihty of few notes; that is, on selection and
standardization.
To achieve these two goals, the organization devolving on any system
is threefold: as to pitch, to genus, and to mode.
The pitches may here be left out as self-evident and irrelevant.
A genus roughly denotes the (essentially) indivisible sizes of steps used.
The diatonic or heptatonic genus rests on whole tones and semitones; the
recent twelve-tone genus, on semitones; the pentatonic genus, on minor
thirds and whole tones, or major thirds and semitones or similar combina-
 66 The Western Orient
tioas. The exact sizes of these steps were fixed in what the Greeks called
“shades”; the Western diatonic genus, for example, has existed both in num¬
berless forms of unequal temperament and in the equal temperament of
modern keyboards.

A GENUS yields, not yet an actual scale, but at least a steady circle of steps
without a definite pitch, without a start, and without an end. The sccrn«
ingly great number of possibilities in arranging, say, the two minor thirds
and three whole tones in a pentatonic octave is practically limited to two:
no more than a single third finds room in a tetrachord—-either above the
whole tone or below it. Both possibilities are obviously latent in any set of
tones that—^like the black keys of our piano—separates two minor thirds
by alternately two and three whole tones:

F# GM#
\- ---- — ^

The upper brackets indicate the tetrachords with the third below the whole
tone, and the lower brackets those with the third above it.
Even if the tetrachords are conjunct instead of disjunct, the resulting
heptads appear in the given set of tones:

•• • WmFi \_i
G# 5 • •.

In a similar way, the simple case of the diatonic or heptatonic genus

on disjunct tetrachords implies one semitone in each tetrachord, either at
the upper end, or in the middle, or at the lower end. In each of these three
cases, the semitones are alternately a fourth and a fifth apart, so that the
two semitones (as they are on the white keys of our piano) are alternately
separated by two and three seconds. This is another set without a definite
pitch, without a start, and without an end, which again may appropriately
be represented by a circle.

Mode originates when, as mathematicians would say, the circle is made a

cycle and a ‘clock.’ The cycle—a circle with an arrow on it—denotes the
direction in which the circle devolves, clockwise or counterclockwise: a
mode is either ascending or descending, at least in its prevalent trend. The
 Musical Systems in General 67
dock is a circle on which one point is emphasized as the initial one: a
mode is brought about by selecting one note of the endless set as a starter
or tonic. All modes of a genus, though following the same sequence of
notes, differ in the tonal relations within the octave, since their tonics differ:
each mode implies a structure and tension of its own.
This is best illustrated by the church tones, familiar to all musicians from
their contrapuntal studies. The white keys of the piano provide the end¬
less set of the diatonic genus; the so-called Dorian tone starts on D and
has a tone (T) as the first step and a semitone (r) as the second step; the
so-called Phrygian tone starts on E and has a semitone as the first step and
a whole tone as the second step; the Lydian tone starts on F and begins
with three whole tones; the Mixolydian tone starts on G and begins with
two whole tones:
Dorian T s T T T s T
Phrygian s T T T s T T
Lydian T T T s T T s
Mixolydian T T s T T s T
In other words, the various modes of a genus appear as a series of octaves
(sometimes heptads) in which the lowest note of each in turn is removed, to
be readded at the head of the next, or vice versa. For the sake of concise
terminology, we shall call these transformations toptail inversions.
It is almost needless to emphasize that such shifting and inverting is a
theoredcal expedient rather than of the essence of mode. Mode did not
come from any dead abstraction but from hving melodies which under the
stress of varying emotion and varying tradition crystallized, now in major
now in minor intervals.
From this standpoint, it is much better to project all modes of a genus
into the same octave (or octave and a half, when authentic and plagal
modes have to be demonstrated), so that they are all on the same pitch and
have the same tonic. At any rate, modal juxtaposition has been accom¬
plished in most cases through such projection, particularly by players, who
because of the limited number of notes available on most instruments were
forced to co-ordinate all usual scales on the basis of as many common notes
as possible.

Modal interpretation is generally easy. A melody that reaches or even

exceeds the range of an octave will clearly show whether the pentachord
 68 The Western Orient
is above or below die tetrachord. When the structure has been determined
as either plagal or authentic, mode becomes evident in the tetrachord.
The three modal tetrachords are usually given the Greek names Dorian,
Phrygian, and Lydian. But this is not commendable: since they were mis¬
takenly confused in the Middle Ages, we are never certain whether “Do¬
rian” is meant to denote a tetrachord with the semitone at the bottom, as in
Greece, or svith the semitone in the middle, as in medieval music. In this
book, we consistendy eliminate the medieval misnomers, but for safety’s
sake add the epithet “Greek” whenever we use the terms Dorian, Phrygian,
or Lydian.
It is more desirable, however, to do without the Greek terms and, in¬
stead, to project the modal tetrachords and octaves on the white keys of
the piano, and define them by the English or else the Italian names of the
notes, which in non-Ladn countries have a connotation of relative rather
than of absolute position in the scale. Lydian, both Greek and medieval,
and major are Do modes, since the semitone is at the top, no matter whether
Do starts an ascending tetrachord Do Re Mi Fa or a descending tetrachord
Do Si La Sol; similarly, Greek Phrygian and medieval Dorian are Re
modes; Greek Dorian and medieval Phrygian are Mi modes.
The remaining four symbols. Fa, Sol, La, Si, do not link similar tetra¬
chords and therefore cannot denote tetrachords without danger of mis¬
take. Instead, they well denote the terminals of species of octaves: Greek
Hypolydian and medieval Lydian are Fa modes; Greek Hypophrygian and
medieval Mixolydian, Sol modes; Greek Hypodorian and medieval Aeolian,
La modes; Greek Mixolydian is a Si mode.
If the melody does not reach the range of an octave, analysis is often
mom difficult though for the most part feasible. The main point is to
distinguish well between tetrachordal and pentachordal melodies. In penta-
chordal structures, the third is more stressed than the fourth.

Scales, indispensable in demonstrating systems, align step by step the notes

used in a certain mode at a certain pitch. In a narrower sense, they extend
from the ground tone of a mode to its octave and include all fully qualified
notes, but leave out those due to casual alteration or modulation.
Modern musicians take the scale for granted. They have gone through
the^ analytical process of mincing live melodies into dead notes, out of
which any desired number of new melodies can be put together. And they
 Musical Systems in General 69
accept as self-evident that these notes are held ready to be seen and used
in a graduated arrangement from low to high. They do not realize how
abstract and sophisticated such arrangement is unless, doing research work
in exotic or folk music, they try to make the person they are testing sing
or play the scale on which, according to Occidental inference, his melodies
are based. A man untouched by Western civilization will take a good time
to understand what he is asked for, and even so he will be at a loss to
construct a scale. ‘‘It is curious,” writes Fox Strangways of a Kadar musician
that he met in India, “how hard it was to arrive at the scale of this in¬
strument. The player had no notion of playing a single note by itself, he
invariably played a grace with it, showing how inseparable grace is from
even the simplest phrase. It was achieved at last by my holding down his
fingers in succession.”
To the naive player, a note cut from its melodic context has no more
reality than a hair pulled out of an animal’s pelt.

High and low, on the contrary, have been common metaphors all over
the world. For they stem from motor impulse and reflex. To this day, the
Hindus who learn to chant the Vedas closely adapt the position of the
head to the three tones of cantillation; they give it a normal position for
the middle tone udatta, incline it for the lower note anudatta, and raise it
for the higher note svarita}^
The association of the spacial categories “high” and “low” with qualities
of sound has nevertheless not been consistent.
The West calls sounds with more vibrations per second higher: sopranos
are “high” voices and bases, “low” voices, and the vowel i is “higher” than u.
The ancient Greeks did just the opposite: the lowest note of the scale
was hypate, “high,” and the highest note, nete, “low.”
The Semitic Orient has exactly the same terminology as the Greeks. The
Jewish grammarians called o and u, the darkest vowels, hagbdhdh, from
gavoah “high”; in Hebrew script, a dot below a consonant means that it is
followed by the vowel i, a dot above, that it is followed by o. In a similar
way, the Arabs write a short, slanting dash below the consonant to in¬
dicate that it is followed by i, and above it, to indicate that it is followed by
a; they call the i group of vowels haj^ or “sinking,” and a man’s voice
A. H. Fox Strangways, op. cit., p. 32.
Marlin Haug, “Ueber das Wesen und den Werth des wedischen Accents,” in Ahhand-
lungen der Bayrischen Akfidemie der Wissenschaften (1873), p. 20.
70 The Western Orient
‘liigb,*’ while a woman’s voice is low.^® Accordingly, they ‘jump up’ to a
lower note and cal the lowest lute string hamm, the “highest.”
The original meaning of “higher” in the Semitic Orient was not, as with
us, “at a greater altitude,” but “taller,” just as the tallest organ pipes produce
the lowest notes.
Ebcriiard Hommel, Vntersuchmgen zwr hebraiscken Lautlehre, Leipzig, 19171 P* 47*
 [3]

MUSIC IN THE ANCIENT WESTERN ORIENT

ON EGYPTIAN RELIEFS and wall paintings, music is mostly connected

with those scenes from the lives of the great that the artists depicted in
order to facilitate, indeed to enforce, bliss and pleasure in a future existence
of the dead. Banquets with singers, players, and dancers are much more
frequent than temple ceremonies. (PL 2, p. 65)
Kneeling players are plucking harps or blowing pipes while singers face
them, the better to keep in time. Many of these ensembles are actual or¬
chestras; there are seven harps and seven flutes on one relief. This is an
important evidence, since it suggests that in many scenes the artists might
have reduced the number of participants merely for lack of space. In¬
strumental orchestras without singers were obviously not yet considered.^®
The chief instruments were the often beautifully adorned harps. We
would not know how they were tuned but for a single word hidden in an
unexpected source: the Jewish Antiquities of Flavius Josephus, the Jewish
historian and general, written in the first century aj)., defines the Egyptian
harp as an organon trigonon enarmoni'' n used by temple harpists [hiero-
psaltai). The Egyptian harp was enharmonic.
There cannot be any mistake about this evidence. The enharmonic tetra-
chord, as the Greeks understood it, was composed of a major third and a
semitone; the term also applied to a heptad of two such tetrachords con¬
junct, or to an octave of two such tetrachords disjunct. The later Greeks split
the semitone into two microtones; but this ‘modern’ variety is not to be
considered in Egyptian temples with their tradition of thousands of years.
The scale, consequently, was approximately A F E C B, with as much
repetition through higher and lower octaves as the number of strings per¬
mitted.
This means that the Egyptians had the same archaic scale that the Greeks
honored as their earliest genus and that the Japanese have preserved to
this day.
Lyres, which appeared in Egypt in the fifteenth century b.c., that is,

16 Cf. the illustrations in Curt Sachs. Die Musikinstrumente des alien Aegyptens, Berlin,
1921, Figs. 73. 76, 109, i09fl, 112.
72 The Western Orient
about twelve or thirteen hundred years later than harps first appeared on
reliefSj can hardly be supposed to have followed the same genus of major
third pentatonics. Josephus expressly called the harps enharmonic, but not
all Egyptian music. And then, all lyres of which we know the tuning,
in ancient Greece as well as in modern Nubia and Ethiopia, have been
submitted to the usual pentatonic genus with minor thirds, that is,
E G A B Dj continued upward and downward according to the number
of strings.
We can hardly be mistaken in assuming that the ancient harpists and
lyre players had to rely on their ears just as modern harp, piano, and
organ tuners do; and the ear applies three innate standards: the intervals
of the octave, the fifth, and the fourth. Starting from a medium note that
fitted the singer's voice, the ancient players must have tuned another string
to its fifth; a fourth backward from this provided the second above the
starting tone. Or else the other way around: a fourth up and a fifth back
would provide the second below the starting tone. This is not just a circle
or cycle of fifths, as it is generally called, but a continual, indeed cyclic,
rising and falling, as The cyclic principle might be an appropriate
short name for it, or, less formally, the up-and-down principle.

Pipes followed a different law. Their scales depended on the relative posi¬
tion of fingerholes; and this arrangement was determined by measures of
length, that is, by feet and inches, not by any musical conception. I have
discussed the general principle in my History of Musical Instruments
and need not repeat its details except for the main point: “Most pipes,
both primitive and highly developed, have equidistant fingerholes. But this
equidistance absolutely precludes the production of any musical scale un¬
less the notes are corrected by the size of the holes, the breath, the finger¬
ing, or some special device.”
Unfortunately, the many pipes depicted on Egyptian and Sumerian art
works are not distinct enough to yield exact measurements. But a suf¬
ficient number of real pipes have been excavated in both countries to give
us this information:
Of two Egyptian flutes from a tomb of the Middle Kingdom (c. 2000
B.c.) one, though cut without much care, 95 cm, long, has fingerholes
op. dt., pp. 181 f.
Garsiang, The Buriid Customs of Andent Egypt, London, 1907, pp. 1540.
 Music in the Ancient Western Orient 73
at ten, eleven, and thirteen fifteenths of its entire length; and the other,
only 90 cm. long, at eight, nine, and ten twelfths. The scale of the first
flute was theoretically 15:13, 13:1X5 ii:io, or 248-289-165 Cents; of the
second flute, 12:10, 10:9, 9:8, or 316-182-204 Cents. Each had the range of
a fifth (702 Cents), and the smaller one was correctly subdivided to form
a pentatonic pentachord. Actually, the insufiicient width of the holes and
the interference of the pipe below the hole flattened the notes beyond con¬
trol—the higher notes more than the lower ones, since a longer part of the
pipe interfered with the theoretical pitch. I repeat: the theoretical pitch.
From early Sumeria (c. 2700 b.c.) we possess two slender oboes in the
University Museum at Philadelphia. One, with four fingerholes, is broken
and must be disregarded; the other, with only three holes, is arranged in
the ratios 10:9:8:7, that is, approximately in whole tones (182-204-231
Cents).
Egyptian pipes of the last two thousand years b.c. were not essentially
different. Despite their variability and the shrinkage unavoidable with so
delicate a material, the principle of equipartition is unmistakable. The
steps from hole to hole approximate whole tones and semitones, and the
position of the highest hole, in the middle of the lower half of the pipe,
indicates that these oboes, too slender to yield the ground tones, normally
produced the higher octave and, by overblowing, the fifth above.^®

Equipartition, the obvious principle in arranging the fingerholes of pipes

despite much carelessness and also much intentional variation, needed
all kinds of compensation to be musically acceptable. With strings, on
the contrary, equipartition became a sound basis of tone generation that
rightly might be called both natural and scientific.
Division of strings, meaningless with harps, which for every note had an
individual, ‘open’ string, was imperative where all notes had to be produced
on one or two strings by instantaneous changes of the vibrating lengths.
This was done by stretching the string for a short distance along a stick or
board, against which it was pressed by one of the left-hand fingers, thus
bounding the vibrating length of the string. In stopping—as this is called—
the hand was guided by frets, which in Western antiquity were loops tied
about the fingerboard at the given points.
the museums at Leyden, the oboes nos. 475 and 477—12:9:8:7:6 twelfths; Torino
no. 8 and Berlin no. 20667—12:11:10:9:8 twelfths; Torino no. 12—14:12:11:10:9:8:7
fourteenths; Torino no. 11—11:10:9:8:7:6 elevenths.
74 The Western Orient
Stopped instruments first reached Egypt in the fifteenth century b.c.
on their way from Asia—together with oboes. They belonged in the family
oilong lutes, in which the stick was much longer than the tiny body.
The earliest serviceable evidence of a fingerboard is the mural painting,
in Nakht’s tomb at Thebes in Egypt (fifteenth century b.c.), of a lutanist
who plays a West Asiatic lute with nine frets on its long neck. The dis¬
tinctly drawn frets were tempting enough to stimulate imagination; so
my late friend Dr. Erich M. von Hornbostel endeavored to measure the
distances between the ligatures and to translate them into musical Cents.^®
The eminent scholar seems, however, to have gone too far in interpreting
and even emending the data of that painting; Egyptian art works, though
fairly accurate, cannot be expected to stand a complicated mathematical
test. Besides, HornbosteFs scale rested on an obvious mistake. The first
and highest ligature means a stopping place only on instruments with a
pegbox that meets the fingerboard at a certain angle, such as the modern
violin, on which the little ebony ridge at the upper end of the fingerboard
determines the beginning of the vibrating section of the string. The Egyptian
lute had neither pegs nor a separate headpiece. Consequently, the strings,
which were simply attached by cords tied around the upper end of the stick,
needed one first ligature to raise them from the fingerboard and secure
free vibration; the sounding length of the string began only with this first
ligature, and it was the second ligature that marked the first stopping place.
This gives a different picture. The string is divided into two halves; the
upper half is again divided into thirds and quarters; the first quarter is
split in two, and a fifth quarter is fretted beyond the middle of the string.
Thus the frets follow two superimposed arithmetic progressions, one in
sixths and the other in eighths of the whole, providing a scale in which at
least the lowest tetrachord is chromatic. Any more detailed discussion would
be guesswork, the more so as on fretted instruments pitch does not vary
in quite exact proportion to the sounding length. Essential here, however,
is the general principle that not the ear but equipartition of a string decides
the scale (PI. i, p. 64)
Equipartition on lutes was not unparalleled. A pre-Islamic long lute
from Bagdad had its strings divided into forty equal parts,of which only
the upper five were used and marked by frets. Since the sections were

M. von Hombostd, “Musikalisclic Tonsystemc,” in H. Geiger und Karl ScHecI,

der Physi\ VIH, Berlin, 1927, p. 435.
For the anmber 40, c£. Wilhelm Heinrich Roscher, ‘‘Die Zahl 40 im Glauhen, Branch
nnd S^rifttum der Semiten,’* in Abhandlungen der philolo^sch-historischen Klasse der KgL
SMcksiscken A^ademie der WissenscMaften XXVII (1909), pp. 91-138.
 Music in the Ancient Western Orient 75
but tiny in comparison with the full length, the tonal distances were
practically equal quarter tones.
Later examples of equipartition into twelve in the Near East were based
on the fact that twelve is the common denominator of the fractions that
designate the three intervals innate in man: the octave 1:2, the fifth 2:3,
the fourth 3:4. Pythagoras, according to Gaudentios’ Isagoge, divided
his \an6n or monochord into twelve parts. In the second century aj)., the
Greco-Egyptian Ptolemy followed him, when he recommended his tetra-
chord diatoni^dn homalon, produced by the frets zero, one, two, and three
of a lute string divided into twelve equal parts: eleven twelfths resulted
in a three-quarter tone, ten twelfths in a minor third, and nine twelfths
in a fourth. The Arabian theorist, Safi al-Din, described exactly the same
principle as being consonant and much used.^- It still is at the bottom of
most Islamic scales.

Dividing a string by equipartition was not the only, and not even the most
usual, system. True, twelve equal parts were in some measure satisfactory
since they allowed for just octaves (12:6), fifths (12:8), fourths (12:9),
and minor thirds (12:10). But the other stops, such as 12:11 or 12:7, were
musically unsatisfactory.
As a consequence, lutanists did what pipers did not dare to do: they
replaced the inappropriate arithmetic progression of frets, with its equal
distances between tones, by a geometric progression, with its proportionately
increasing distances. Struck by the fact that stopping at one half, one
third, and one quarter of the entire length resulted respectively in the
three principal intervals, they logically went a step further and accepted
the stopping at one fifth of the string as producing the major third and
that at one sixth as producing the minor third.
We call this victorious principle divisive.
Both the divisive principle and the up-and-down principle, already dis¬
cussed, being natural themselves, yielded ‘natural’ scales. But only their
octaves, fifths, fourths, and certain whole tones agreed; in divisive scales,
the major third was smaller and the semitone larger, while the whole tone
came in two different sizes.
A few fractions will easily show the reason. The first whole tone, say
from C to D, is found (just as in following the up-and-down principle)
22 Carra de Vaux, Le traitS des rapports musicaux par Saft ed-Din, Paris, 1891, pp. 308-17.
76 The Western Orient
by deducting a fourth from a fifth, that is, C-D is C-G minus D-G. This
is done by iimiing the ratio of the fifth, 3:2, by the ratio of the fourth, 4:3,
the result (according to the rule of crosswise multiplication of fractions)
being 9:8 for the whole tone.
The following whole tone D-E, however, is the difference between the
major third C-E (5:4) and the whole tone just found (9:8), or, dividing
the ratics as above, 40:36, or, reduced, 10:9. It is smaller than the whole
tone C-D.
This distinction between whole tones is impossible where the scale is
provided by a cycle of fifths and fourths, for there every whole tone re¬
sults from a rising fifth (C-G, D-A, etc.) and a falling fourth {G-D, A-E,
etc*) and is therefore invariably 9:8.
In the cycle of fifths and fourths, consequently, the major third follows
net the ratio 5:4, as in the divisive system, but (adding two equal whole
tones) that of 9:8 multiplied by 9:8, or 81:64, which exceeds the divisive
ratio 5:4 (or 80:64) by the so-called Didymian (or syntonic) comma.
Finally, the difference in size between the two major thirds involves
ala> a difference in size between the two semitones of the two systems, the
«iiitone being the difference betw^een the fourth (C-F) and the major
third (C-E). Since the divisive third is smaller, the semitone left over when
it is deducted from a fourth must be larger:

Up-and-down Major tone Major tone Semitone

Divisive Major tone Minor tone Semitone

TTic equivalents in Cents for the intervals derived from the two systems
arc:

One fodect fifth: 702

One f»:fect fourth: 498
Two major thirds: - f Cyclic 408
1
Divisive 386
f Cyclic 316
Two minor thirds: ^
t Divisive 294
Two whole tones: -f Cyclic and Divisive 204
t Divisive 182
Two semitones: \ Divisive 112
L Cyclic 90
 Music in the Ancient Western Orient 77
A REMARKABLE and somcwhat unexpected evidence of this contrast between
the divisive and the up-and-*down principles is the slight divergence in
an otherwise analogous musicocosmological conception in Babylonia-~o£
which Plutarch speaks about lOO —and in China. Both civilizations
connaturalized the intervals between the four seasons o£ the year and the
simplest musical intervals. The connotation (starting, say, from C) reads
(upward) in

CHINA BABYLONIA
C Summer
Winter G Winter
Autumn F Autumn
Summer D
Spring C Spring

There is agreement except for the position of the summer. Why? Here,
I think, is the reason: the Chinese arrangement follows a cycle of fifths or
fourths (F, C, G, D or D, G, C, F) and the Babylonian, the division of
a string into ground tone (i :i), octave (i 12), fifth (2:3), and fourth (3:4).
Thus the same philosophical idea materializes, with a difference that is
characteristic of each system, in the up-and-down principle in China, the
typical country of the cycle of fifths and fourths, and in the divisive prin¬
ciple in Babylonia, earliest home of the fretted long lute.

Partials or ‘overtones’ as the natural route markers, a pet idea of some

writers who try to offer a ‘plausible’ theory of scale formation, should be
entirely eliminated from our order of thought. To the extent that they
appear as the overblown notes of wind instruments, they would indeed
be poor standards; wild-grown animal horns and reed pipes yield sensibly
false octaves and fifths, and even instruments of higher workmanship
depend on their wider or narrower bores. Partials, in the proper sense of
the word, that is, covibrations of a note played or sung, are difficult to hear
and were hardly considered before the later Middle Ages. Even in India,
the theoretician Sarngadeva discovered the second partial, that is, the
harmonic octave, as late as the thirteenth century, and three hundred more
years elapsed before Ramamatya heard higher harmonics and used them

23 Plutarch, *‘De anim. procr.,” in Timaeus 31.

yS The Western Orient
in arranging the frets of his vina,^^ The idea that musicians of antiquity,
indeed of primitive epochs, would have taken their notions of octaves,
fifths, and fourths from the short vibrations of plucked harp or lyre strings
is truly inadmissible.
To be sure, these ‘harmonics’ were perfect and represented the ideal
intervals of all systems, at least down to the fourth. But they did so only
for the simple reason that they originated from exacdy the same vibra¬
tions of the half, the third, the fourth parts of the string as the notes
produced in following the divisive principle. They were a parallel, not
a creative, phenomenon.

The singers represented on Egyptian pictures bring their left hands to

their left ears in a gesture familiar to many Oriental singers of ancient and
modern times; the wrinkles, particularly between the eyebrows, indicate
nasal singing from a compressed throat and probably at a high pitch.
The right arms are even more fascinating: the singers communicate
with their accompanists by stretching out the right forearms and perform¬
ing a few stereotype gestures; they turn the palm upward or the thumb
upward/® bend the thumb against the forefinger or turn the palm down¬
ward/® (PI. 2b, p. 65)
Exacdy the same thing has been done in India: Hindu singers silently
beat time by lifting the forearm, turning the palm either up or down, and
stretching or doubling up the fingers.
Audible time beating was known in Egypt as well: the tomb of Ame-
nemhet at Thebes (soon after 1500 b.c.) depicts a conductor, standing be¬
fore and facing the performers, pounding time with his right heel and
snapping both his thumbs and forefingers.^®
And this, too, is paralleled in India: leaders bring the thumbs against
the forefingers and snap, either with the right or the left hand, or even
with both.
The singers’ melodies, however, cannot be read from murals. In Egypt
■*^N. S. Ramachandran, ‘The Evolution of the Theory of Music in the Vijayanagara Em¬
pire,’* in Dr. S. Krisknasmami Aiyangar Commemoration Volume (1936), pp. 396 f.
Cf. the illustrations in Curt Sachs, Die Musi^instrumente des alien Aegyptens, op. at.,
86 from the 5th Dynasty.
*®Hg. no from the 5th Dynasty, and Fig. 109 from the 12th Dynasty.
Fig. io9« from the 5 th Dynasty.
76.
^ Fig. 9 from the iSth Dynasty.
 Music in the Ancient Western Orient 79
and Sumeria vocal music was just as little concerned with rigid systems
as it was elsewhere; the freedom granted to unaccompanied singers elimi¬
nated the question of shade, if not of mode. No deduction from instru¬
ments gives the remotest idea of vocal styles in the ancient Western Orient.
But there are several indirect means of approach that do.

Jewish music is the best gateway to the vocal style of the ancient Western
Orient, since in spite of unavoidable variation it has lived for four thou¬
sand years without any interruption.
No Jewish music was recorded in ancient times, to be sure; the melodics
were orally transmitted from generation to generation. Still, the late
Abraham Z. Idelsohn, Professor at the Hebrew Union College in Cincin¬
nati, has opened an indirect way to the old music of Israel: he found the
exact counterparts of several Gregorian melodies in remote Jewish con¬
gregations, in Yemen, Babylonia, and Persia, which were separated from
Palestine and the further development of Jewish ritual music after the
destruction of the First Temple (597 b.c.) and the Babylonian Exile. Con¬
sequently, these melodies must have existed in the homeland before
600 B.c.
We are less fortunate with other melodies. The Jewish people has been
dispersed for twenty-five hundred years and has crystallized in three groups:
Orientals in the Middle East, Sephardim in the Mediterranean, Ashkenazim
in the rest of Europe. Their liturgical melodies are quite different; not
even the most essential parts of the musical service agree (just as in the
Ambrosian and Gregorian versions of the Catholic Church music). And
yet the basic style is the same and therefore must be an old heritage from
times before the dispersion.

The old heritage is best preserved in the liturgy of the Oriental Jews, who
have lived uninterruptedly in the Near and Middle East, and who have
never allowed worldly music to enter the synagogue, nor let their cantors
improvise. To be sure, such stagnation implies the risk of decadence. But
the Jews of Yemen, Mesopotamia, Persia, and Buchara seem to have
escaped degeneration. Otherwise their cantillation could not be so strik-
8o The Western Orient
ingly -jiTTinar to the melodies of the Sephardim many thousand miles away.
Thus we turn to the Oriental Jews in order to have our questions an-
swered.
In one important point, however, even the Oriental Jews behave dif¬
ferently, not only from their forefathers, but from most archaic singers;
their cantillation is unaccompanied. (However, Dr. Joshua Bloch has
kmdly drawn my attention to the fact that the synagogue in Bagdad had,
in the thirteenth century, instrumental music on the Middle Days of
Passover and Tabernacles.)
The Bible gives many evidences of the inseparableness of singing and
playing. By the rivers of Babylon upon the willows the exiles hung their
lyres—^how should they sing the Lord s song in a foreign land ? And
several times, in Chronicles and Kings, lyre and harp arc called shir^
the **tools of singing,” or Iskarim^ “for the singers.”
In ancient Egfpty all solo singers depicted in paintings or reliefs either
accompany themselves or are sitting opposite an accompanist whom they
direct "with expressive gestures. Sumerian singers are scarcely ever men¬
tioned without instruments; and, leaving our Western area for an instant,
we might think of the Chinese Tsai Yiis words; The ancients did not
sing without accompanying the words on the strings, nor played a stringed
instrument without singing.”
It is hard to say why such an obligatory connection existed and why it
was discontinued by the Oriental Jews. Was it the general evolution, all
over the world, from complex execution, including words, singing, play¬
ing, dancing, acting, to specialized expression?
How did the ancient Jews sing? Did they actually cry at the top of
their voices? Some students have tried to make us believe that such was
the case, and they particularly refer to several psalms that allegedly bear
witness to praying in fortissimo. But I suspect them of drawing from
translations rather than from the Hebrew original: even the soul that in
Psalm 42 according to Luther schreiet after God as the hart schreiet after
the water brooks does in the original actually pant. At best, the verb zaaq
in Psalm 22:5 might actually mean “crying.”
True, forceful singing is the normal expression of fervor and agrees
with the primitive idea that God’s attention follows impetuosity more
easily than reserve. When Samuel’s mother, Hannah, went to Shiloh to
3® Leopold Zimz, Die Ritas, Berlin, 1859, P* 57-
®^Ps. 137; I Chron. 16:42, 11 Chron. 9:11, and I Kings 10:12.
Stephen Langdon, Babylonian Liturgies, op. cit.. Introduction.
3® R. H. van Gulik, The iMre of the Chinese Jjute, Tokyo, 1940, p. 66.
 Music in the Ancient Western Orient 8i
pray for a child in the Lord’s temple, “only her lips moved, but her voice
could not be heard; therefore Eli thought she had been drunken.” Silent
prayer was not yet practiced. As late as the second century b.c. the Book
of the Maccabbees twice described Jews as crying aloud to God.
Christianism has its examples as well. Abbot Pambo, who lived in Egypt
in the fourth century a.d., stormed at the “monk who, whether situated in
the church or in his cell, lifted up his voice like a bull,” and even today
the Christian priests of Ethiopia sing in a loud voice until they reach
the highest point of ecstasy and are completely exhausted.^^
The drastic and anthropomorphic idea that Gods ear was widest open
to the loudest crier was counter to the uplifted Judaism of the Prophets.
When on Mount Carmel the heathen priests cried to Baal, the Prophet
Elijah scoffed and shouted to them: “Cry aloud: for he is a god; cither
he is talking, or he is pursuing, or he is in a journey, or peradventure he
sleepeth, and must be awaked.”^®
There is no more evidence in the archaic liturgies of today. Yemenite
congregations give a forte only to certain Amens, the Qdusha (Sanctus),
and the Great Blessing. But the chanter is supposed to have a sweet, ex¬
pressive voice, rather than a strong one, and to sing from the chest- Tenors
are preferred.^®
Nevertheless it is true that Yemenite as well as Persian Jews sharpen
the notes the more their frenzy increases.^'^
Choral discipline is excellent in Yemenite congregations; all men and
children (but no women) join in the congregational songs, all are well
versed in the melodies of the synagogue and actually sing in unison;
rhythm—not beat—is strict, and nobody happens to be fast or slow.
The melodic style is quite simple. The Yemenites sing the Book of Esther
prestissimo on two notes a small whole tone (191 Cents) apart, while
they give three notes to the lyrical poems in the Pentateuch, the Book of
Job, and the six Mishna tractates of the Talmud. Idelsohn’s tests have yielded
469, 533, and 566 vibrations for these three notes, of which the middle one,
c\ acts as the final, the other two lying respectively a too-large whole tone
below and a normal semitone above.
Even in more elaborate melodies the range never exceeds a sixth; penta¬
tonic tunes do not occur. Thus, Jewish music in its most archaic form is
definitely ‘additive’ in the sense outlined on pages 37-“43.
84 Gustave Reese, Music tn the Middle Ages, New York, 1940, pp. 66, 94-
I Kings 18:27-
8® A. Z. Idelsohn, Hebraisch-Onentalischer Melodienschatz I, Leipzig, 1914, p. 17-
87 Ibid, m, p. 37-
82 Tlic Western Orient
A melody, readiing or eKceeding the range of a fourth, settles down in
a tetrachord of one of the three diatonic kinds. (Greek) Lydian has been
used for plaintive themes, such as the Lamentations, the Book of Job, and
the Confession of Sins, while Phrygian is passionate. The Dorian tetrachord
is lyrical and soicirm; Clemens Alexandrinus, the Church Father, who
lived in Palestine from 202 on, quotes Aristoxenos as having said that
King David's psalms were similar to the Dorian harmonia^^

Ex. 30* BABYLONiAft JEWS ajtcr Idelsohn

a-do-D^

The Talmuo scosns those who read the Scripture without melody and
study the words without singing. Service, based on reading the Holy
R)oks, was musical throughout, alternating between the cantor's chant
and the tunes of the congregation. In both forms it was what we call
cantiilation, though not in the stagnant monotone of a Christian lesson,
but rather in the noble fluency of Gregorian melodies- Keeping a middle
Ene between boring rccitatioii and independent melogeoic tunes, it was
the ideal means of conveying the divine word in all its shades, from the
dry entimeration of f^digrees—*‘Now these are the generations of the sons
of Noah”—to the exalted pathos of the Psalms—‘‘Save me^ O God; for the
waters are come in even unto the soul.” The Jewish liturgy had the ‘end¬
less melody* of the Catholic rite and of the musical drama, not the con¬
trast of Gospel and choral in the Protestant service or the ‘numbers’ of
the usual opera, alternating between recitative and aria. True, the so-
called songs of the Pentateuch, such as Lamech’s Confession, the Prophets,
the Song of Songs, or the Psalms, had special melodic patterns; but to
our minds they are candllation just as much as the epic parts of the Scrip¬
tures.
Ex. 31. PERSIAN JEWS oftcT Idelsohn

How did al these melodies originate?

All Jewish melodies are in the proper sense of the word cotnposed out of
ready-made melodicles.
®®Qaiiciis AlcxandmEs, Stromata Szii,
 Music in the Ancient Western Orient 83
In two of the most archaic liturgies, the Yemenite and the Persian, the
various parts of the Scriptures—Pentateuch, Prophets, Psalms, Esther,
Lamentations, and so on—have their own melodic patterns composed of
two motifs—a starter and a final cadence—or of three and even four motifs
which, alternately given to the half lines of the text, are flexible enough
either to expand or to shrink according to the varying number of syllables.
As an example, we print the beginning of the “Song of the Red Sea” (Ex.
14:30) in the Yemenite version.

Ex. 32. YEMENITE JEWS after lielsohn

d!
m f ar c.ff p cj-Eg &
lAfeyyD-ifiha a-<k)“iiay liu ek yb-xarel

There are two patterns, one semicadential and another, cadential, in strict
alternation, though shorter or longer as required.
It is probable that the psalms originally used a greater stock of melodies
and even folk tunes of a similar kind before they were assigned definite
places in a rigidly organized liturgy. A great number of them are preceded
by a special heading that indicates how the psalm should be performed.
Earlier writers misunderstood these directions; they thought that the
enigmatic title words such as nginot, or gittit, or hanchilot referred to some
unknown instruments and advised the players how to accompany the
song. I was able to refute this interpretation and to show that the headings
very probably indicated the appropriate melody
However, no ready-made melody invited the poet to compose some
poem fitting it in meter and length—as indicated in modern hymnbooks^—
for the simple reason that the psalms were different in length and had no
equal meter. ‘‘Melody,” in the Orient, has always meant one of those
flexible patterns that the Arabs finally classified as maqamdt and the Hindu
as rdgas, which imposed upon the singer their specific genera, scales,
pitches, accents, tempos, and moods, but granted him full personal freedom
for their elaboration.

The later cantillation receded from line patterns to word motifs: ready-'
made motifs, of two or more notes each and altogether some twenty in
number, change from word to word, not from line to line. In the first line

Curt Sachs, The History of Musical Instruments, op. dt., pp. 124-7,
 84 The Western Orient
of the Bible, for example—in the beginning hari created Elohim
God it hashdmayim the heaven weit hadres and the earth—each o£ the
seven words has its own motif (although meet shares its motif with the
corresponding accusative prefix it, and hashdmayim repeats the motif of
breshk). These tropes or accents are to the initiated known under technical
terms such as ‘hand’s breadth/ resting/ ‘end of verse/ and many
others.
Such procedure seems mechanical at first sight and calls to mind certain
composing automatons devised in Europe around 1800, in which ready¬
made groups of notes joined kaleidoscopically to form ever new melodies.
However much these machines and kindred games caricatured the act
of composing, they expressed the truth that even in modern times melodic
invention was ‘composition’—^in the exact sense of the word—more than
we dare realize. In aU folksongs, in the art of the German Meistersinger,
in Luther’s chorales, in Calvin’s Psalter, and way back in the Gregorian
chant, the mosaic is quite obvious.
The essential difference between the ancient and the modern Western
principle consists in the conception of what constitutes the melodic unit.
The modern unit is the inert single note; the ancient unit was the step;
that is, the Jews understood melodic movement as composed of motor
elements or ‘motives/ in the true sense of the word, which is both philosophi¬
cally and musically more correct. The reader will excuse a historian of
the dance for comparing the contrast to the similar alternative in choreog-
raphy, where a dance can be characterized either by its transitory positions,
or by the sequence of its steps.
The following is the cantiUation of Exodus 12:21—“Then Moses called
for all the elders of Israel”—^sung by a Babylonian cantor:

Ex. 33, BABYLONIAN JEWS after Idelsohn

Each word in this line has its own ready-made motif: wayiqrd ‘called’ is
sung on qadma ‘preceding’; mose, ‘Moses,’ on tvir ‘broken’; Icholziqne,
for aU the elders, on pasta ‘stretcher’; Israel, on tarchd ‘burden’ or tipchd
Land’s breadth.’
 Music in the Ancient Western Orient 85
The result is an amazingly natural, fluent, and convincing melody: the
composer of cantillations, far from being a patcher, might better be com¬
pared to an ingenious gardener who arranges his two dozen of motley
flowers in ever new bunches. Or, to put it more specifically, he might be
compared to a dancing master of the Renaissance who, out of the more
than limited stock of pas simples, pas doubles, reprises, and branles, created
an infinite number of basses danses, saltarelli, and ballu

To SAVE TRADITION in the critical times of the first thousand years a.d., Jew¬
ish scholars in Babylonia and Palestine devised not only the well-known
dots and dashes that, added above or below the consonants, indicated the
previously unwritten vowels to follow, but also special symbols for correct
melodizing. Tradition itself was called Masora; the scholars, who played
the role that the Alexandrian grammarians had in the Greek world, were
known as Masoretes, and the signs, as Masoreiic.
The melodic symbols of the Babylonian Jews were the initials of those
names under which the tropes were known: the letter taw denoted the
trope tvir; the letter yod stood for the ‘staying* yeiiv; the letter zain for
the ‘raising’ zdqaf; and so on. They were written above the corresponding
vowel signs, which, in contradiction to the usual practice, were written
above their consonants.
This Babylonian notation by letters, however, was abandoned and gen¬
erally replaced by the later Palestinian or ‘Tiberian’ symbols, which were
hooks, dots, and dashes, some written above and some below the corre¬
sponding syllables.
The older, alphabetical Babylonian accents draw our attention to another
Babylonian script, though a thousand or more years earlier, the musical
character of which was doubtful. Some sixty cuneiform letters or, better,
syllables appeared as marginals on clay plaques on which the Babylonian
myth of the world’s creation was written in two languages, hieratic Su¬
merian and vernacular Semitic. They were arranged in lines of three,
four, or five to each line of the text:

me me \ur \ur
a a a a a
\u \u Ju lu
etc.
86 The Western Orient
Xhe texts ended with, the solemn formula; Secret. The initiated may show
it to the initiated.”
In 19231 made a tentative attempt to interpret the marginals as a musical
notation but failed, since I thought of single notes at definite pitches. Dr.
Francis W. Galpin failed in a similar way fourteen years later.^® I resumed
the question from a new angle in i939>^^ dropping the assumption of single
notes at definite pitches and correlating the Babylonian script with musical
group notations of Ethiopia and India.
Villoteau, the excelent musicologist in the French scientific expedition
that explored Egypt during the Napoleonic conquest (1798”! 801), had
learned from Ethiopian priests in Cairo that Abyssinian church singers
used a secret—^again secret!—notation of syllables written above the sacred
verses. The forty-seven syllables that he was taught were either single, like
Itf, ms, or else double, like Isma or rahs, or even contracted, like hal,
just as in the Babylonian script.
Some decades later, the French Orientalist, Hermann Zotenberg,^^
found no less than 168 symbols of the same kind in a liturgical book in
the Bibiiotheque Nationale, of which he published a complete list in his
catalogue of Ethiopian manuscripts. Unfortunately their meaning is un¬
known; our knowledge does not go beyond the forty-seven definitions that
ViHoteau was able to give. But these suffice to make clear that the Ethiopian
notation indicated groups of notes, including grace notes, not single notes.
The sylable st, to give a few examples, indicates a descending semitone;
an ascending whole tone; wa, a whole tone up with a trill on the
higher note; ma, a minor third with an infix; we, a fourth up, either in a
lap or with infixes; zeze, the same, a fifth up; re, a final cadence.
This is obviously the principle of the Judeo-BabyIonian accents: the
sylables (Abyssinian has no single letters) mean groups of notes, melod-
icles, and tropes. Ethiopian priests write zeze for a fifth ascending in one
leap, and such is the munah of the Sephardic Jews. They call si a fifth
descending stepwise with a slight rest on the last note: it is the zarqd of
Ashkenazic Lamentations. Se is a fourth stepwise descending in a rapid
Ml—exactly like rvld in the recitation of the Prophets by Babylonian
cantors-
Eastward from Babylonia, in South India, chanters of the Veda use a

‘^Francis W. Galpiaj Tke Music of she Sumerians, Cambridge, 1937, pp- 38-50, 99-104.
Curt Sacbs, **TIic Mystery erf the Babylonian Notation,” in The Musical Quarterly XXVII
pp. 62-9.
^2 Hesmana Zumbeg, Csidogue ies Manuscrits Ethiopiens de la Bibiiotheque Nationale,
Paris, 1877, p. 76.
 Music in the Ancient Western Orient 87
similar script: syllables, like ka, f(o and other consonant-vowel combina¬
tions, indicating groups of notes, not single notes, are inserted in the text
or, as in Babylonia, written by the side of the verses. Not only is the Veda
cantillation very old, but this form of syllabic script is expressly called the
oldest Veda notation.
The Ethiopian, Indian, and Jewish accents favor a musical interpreta¬
tion of the ancient Babylonian script, although the lack of dates is a serious
handicap. If it actually was a notation, it would push the ‘accents’ back
by more than a thousand years.

The titles of books and papers discussing Hebrew and non-Hebrew ac¬
cents would fill a portly volume of bibliography. Readers interested in the
various ramifications of this complicated matter may look to the special
literature.*^^
Our own interest is limited to those dealing with the relation of melody
and language. The fact that grammarians were interested in adding musical
neumes; that the earliest accents of which we know were the Greek acute,
grave, and circumflex, which belonged to both orthograph and pitch; that
in some systems of cantillation, like the Armenian, symbols similar to the
Jewish accents indicate commas, colons, periods—all these facts and many
others point to a common root of certain linguistic and musical phenomena.
An illuminating, though late, testimony comes from a Judeo-Syrian
authority. Bar Hebraeus, who lived in the thirteenth century aj). In his
Book of Splendors he writes:
Since in all languages a sentence changes its meaning by mere intonations,
without adding or removing nouns, verbs, or particles, the Syrian scholars who
laid the fundament ot correct language discovered a way out by devising accents
. . . and since these accents are a form of musical modulation, there is no possi¬
bility of learning them except by hearing and through tradition from the master’s
tongue to the pupil’s ear.^^

It follows from Bar Hebraeus’ statement that the main concern was to
secure an unadulterated and unadulterable version of the text. This required
(^i) correct vocalization and {b) correct intonation. The necessity for add¬
ing vowels needs no comment: an English sentence with the letters bt
written without vowel in the Hebrew manner would allow for several
48 Cf. Peter Wagner, Neumenkunde, 2nd cd., Leipzig, 1912; Carsten Hoeg, Lm. Notation
ecphonetique Copenhaguc, i935-
4-4 Carsten Hoeg, La Notation eephonetique, op. at., p. 142.
88 The Western Orient
interpretations according as bt is read bat, bet, bit, hot, or but. The full
meaning of intonation, however, can hardly be exemplified in modern
English and stiU less in American English. But even in so leveled a speech
melody, a person is exposed to being misunderstood if he fails to lift and
drop the voice in time. Thus it is probable and almost certain that in
areas of highly developed speech melody the accents were created by
grammarians in the interest of an unmistakable text.
Several ways opened from such original creation, and all of them were
followed. Where no holy text was read in solemn cantillation—in ancient
Greece, for example—the accents developed into punctuation marks and
phonetic symbols. In Jewish and Christian countries the opposite was true:
since the Bible was chanted and illicit changes of melody endangered the
meaning and power of its verses, the accents were multiplied and converted
into neumes in order to denote all possible steps and melismatic groups.
Unfortunately, the very thing happened that the accents were expected
to prevent: the notation, faithfully preserved in all branches of Jewry and
identically applied to the holy texts, stands for quite different melodies, A
munah, indicating a bold jump upward by a fifth in all Oriental liturgies,
means a narrow, creeping melisma in Ashkenazic countries, while a pashtd
is answered by a step downward in the Babylonian, and a step upward in
the Sephardic reading of the Prophets.

Ex. 34. JEWISH ACCENTS

Muc&h Pashfa

SejilijMcTOCcatt Babjdonian tSepnarda:

We are not yet in a position to explain these discrepancies.

In VmGm’s Aeneid, the hero says:

In-fan / dum Re- / gi-m ju- / bes re-no- / pa-re do- / lo-rem

A translation, in poor English but faithful to the original syllables and

their metrical characters, would be:

Un-speak- / able, my / La-dy, you / bid to re- / mem-ber af- / flic-tion

 Music in the Ancient Western Orient 89
where the natural meter of unspeakable is being violated, as the meter of
infandum is in the Latin verse.
Hebrew poetry never puts the words in a ready-made frame. Every word,
indeed every sentence, keeps its meter. In consequence, there is no regular
sequence of dactyls or iambs, nor is there a constant number of feet in a
verse. Hebrew poetry is a poetical prose. “Hebrew prosody diiffers funda¬
mentally from classical prosody. No poem is written according to a repeat¬
ing meter scheme. The rhythm of Hebrew poetry depends, not on the
relative position of the prominent syllable with respect to the surrounding
syllables, but on a certain relative position of the important syllable in
the verse. Classical verse, comparatively, is mechanical; Hebrew verse is dy¬
namic.”
The number of unstressed syllables that preceded the accents was one,
or two, or three, or even four, and the poet was free to shape his verses in
accordance with the greater or lesser dynamic tension of his phrase. But the
verses were always ‘rising’; they began either in iambic form with one un¬
accented syllable or, oftener, in anapaestic form with two unaccented syl¬
lables before the first accent. This, for example, is the rhythm of the Song
of Songs 1:2-3:

yish-sha-qe-ni min-ne-shi-qot fidiu

do-de-ha miy-ya-yin
C ' A
'w.' %.«-• ' -w*

The numberless authors who have dealt with the problems of Hebrew
rhythm maintain that the Jews, having no stereotype alternation of long
and short syllables, practically ignored the length of syllables and instead
stressed a few syllables by a strong accent due to their significance in the
text rather than to formal qualities. While the classical meter was qualita¬
tive (long-short), Hebrew meter, they say, was accented (heavy-light).
The only exception, as far as I see, has been Elcanon Isaacs’ statement
that “Hebrew meter employs the combination of the mora [time unit]
basis of poetry and the accent. It is based on the number of morae as deter¬
mined by the accented syllable.”
Elcanon Isaacs, “The Metrical Basis of Hebrew Poetry,” in The American Journal of
Semitic Languages XXXV (1918), pp. 29 f.
Ibid., p. 30.
gQ The Western Orient
Had any philologist looked at Hebrew music, he would have found this
statement confirmed. A ‘qualitative’ meter leads to musical accents with
increased intensity and time beating. But such is not the case here. The
unaccented syllable is evenly rendered by a brevis that we might transcribe
as an eighth note; rarely is this replaced by a ligature of two sixteenths or
reduced to one sixteenth. The accented syllable is rendered by a longa or
quarter note. In brief, Hebrew melody follows the quantitative long-short
principle. On holidays, some longae are spun out to form melismatic
groups, just as in the Gregorian chant.
As a whole, Hebrew rhythm is free; it does not obey any ready-made
metric pattern or the measures of beaten time.

Archaic Hebrew rhythm was less free. Elcanon Isaacs found, in Hebrew
poetry, a development “which may be characterized as a movement away
from a strict regard to form to the freer movement of prose.” Sporadic
examples found in the earliest books of the Bible he calls “vigorous folk
poeu^f—often lyrical, with metrical feet of three morae predominating,
and great regularity of beat. The verses are short, very distinct, and of
uniform length. The accent is for the greater part on the ultima, and the
word-foot units are similar in their form.”
We select, as an example, the first two verses of the song on the early
defeat of Moab (Num. 21:27):
Bo-nu chesh-Bon / tiB -an - eh wti-Bo-nen 'tr si-chon
^i-esk jiz - ah / me<kesh-Bon le-hd-vdh mi-qir-jat
ft ft!

In Greek terminology, each verse consists of an iambic dipody and an

anapaestic tripody; the only difference is that the Greeks would not allow
a long syllable like ‘Jr to pass unaccented.
In view of an evolution from stricter to freer rhythm in poetry, we come
to the unavoidable conclusion that Jewish music in nomadic times before
icx» B-c. was less unrestrained than in the later liturgy. Two reasons seem
to confirm this conclusion. Firsdy, almost all musical episodes up to the
time of the Temple describe choral singing with group dancing and drum
beating; the wedding songs of modern Yemenite Jews show how the ac¬
companiment of dancing men and drumming women forces free rhythm
into regular two-quarter beats.^^ And secondly, this kind of singing was
A. Z. HdsdbLQ, op. dt.^ p. 42.
 Music in the Ancient Western Orient 91
to a great extent women’s music; and in all times and countries women
have preferred neat and lucid form (see pp. 40-41).

Jewish woivcen’s songs in archaic communities have recently been described

by Robert Lachmann.^® The essential fact is that such a species of music
exists and is striedy separated from men’s music both in style and per¬
formance.
Since Dr. Lachmann has not published the music of any of these songs,
it might be proper to follow his own words.
The production of the women’s songs is dependent on a small store of typical
melodic turns; the various songs reproduce these turns—or some of them—^time
and again. . . . Their tone relations reveal one of the many kinds of conduct
of vocal music before its subjection to the rational scale-system of theory.
The poems all are arranged through alternating rhymes in pairing verses or
stanzas. In addition, certain poems have a refrain. . . . Most of the songs con¬
sist of a 2-4 part melody and its repetitions. Two singers—or groups of singers
—alternate in these repetitions- - . . The lines or pairing lines of the poem are
alternately sung by both singers.
The women’s songs belong to a species the forms of which are essentially
dependent not on the connection with the text but on processes of movement.
Thus we find here, in place of the free rhythm of cantillation and its very in¬
tricate line of melody, a periodical up and down movement. This type of song
—^like the recitation of magic or liturgical texts—^goes back to prehistoric
times. - . -
In the Jewish communities not only Oriental-Sephardic districts but also, for
example, in Yemen, the women accompany their songs on frame-drums or
cymbals which they beat with their hands. . . . The beats follow at regular
intervals; they fall on each period of the melody. They fulfill herewith but one
of the various functions of which the drum in the Near East is capable; they
only give the length of the unit of line [as obviously the cymbals in the Temple
did], but they do not divide the melody into bars, nor do they bring it within
the limits of a systematic rhythmic figure. . . . The songs group themselves
partly in 4/4 time and partly in 3/4 time—i.e., in the two simplest forms.
This description might come nearest to the picture we should draw of
Jephthah’s daughter welcoming her father and of the women hailing David
after the battle against the Philistines.

Robert Lachmann, Jewish Cantillation and Song in the Isle of Djerha, Jerusalem, 1940,
pp. 67-82 and passim.
^2 The Western Orient
Paeau-elismus membrorum is the philological term to express the leading
principle in the structure of Hebrew poems: the half-verse is answered by
annfhpr half-verse that expresses either an intensification or an antinomy,
not in the same meters, but in similar words. Read the initial words of
the Book of Joel:
Hear this, ye old men,
And give ear, ail ye inhabitants of the land.

Hath this been in yonr days,

Or in the days of your fathers?

Tell your children of it.

And let your cHidren tell their children.

Or the earhest poem in the Bible (Gen. 4:23):

Adah and Zillah, hear my voice;

Ye wives of Lamech, hearken unto my speech;

For I have slain a man for wounding me,

A young man, for bruising me;

If Cain shall be avenged sevenfold,

Truly Lamech seventy and sevenfold.

The Assyrians, too, clung to ‘tautological’ and other parallelisms. One of

the hymns to Sin begins:

O Lord, who is like thee,

Who can be compared to thee?
Mighty one, who is like thee.
Who can be compared to thee?

Antiphony is the musical associate of poetical parallelism. This term means,

in a narrower sense, the alternate singing of the two parallel lines by two
half-choruses and, in a wider sense, the alternate singing of a soloist and
an answering chorus, which in the Roman Church has been called re-
spon^rial singing.
Antiphony on a gigantic scale is roughly outlined in the Talmudian
tractate Sotsh, which refers to an episode of the Book of Joshua:

Charles Gordon Ciimming, The Assyrian and Hebrew Hymns of Praise, New York,
1934* P- 97*
 Music in the Ancient Western Orient 93
When Israel crossed the Jordan and came unto Mount Gerizim and unto
Mount Ebal in Samaria ... six tribes went up to the top of Mount Gerizim
and six tribes went up to the top of Mount Ebal. And the priests and the Le-
vites stood below in the midst; and the priests surrounded the Ark and the
Levites surrounded the priests, and all Israel were on this side and on that
. . . and began with the blessing ... and both these and these answered,
‘^Amenl”

When Moses, having led his people through the Red Sea, struck up the
hymn of praise with his men:

"I will sing unto the Lord, for He is highly exalted: the horse and his rider
hath He thrown into the sea Miriam the prophetess, the sister of Aaron,
took a timbrel in her hand; and all the women went out after her with timbrels
and with dances. And Miriam sang unto them: “Sing ye to the Lord, for He is
highly exalted: the horse and his rider hath He thrown into the sea.”

The Jewish philosopher Philo (b. 30-20 b.c.), who in spite of his Greek
erudition lived in the atmosphere of Hebrew tradition, interpreted this
singing as antiphony: “On the shore,” he says in his Hfe of Moses, “the
Hebrews formed two choruses out of the men and the women and praised
God; Moses struck up the singing of the men, and his sister the singing
of the women. They were the leaders of the choruses.” But if, notwith¬
standing the identical texts the men and the women sang, it was not an
antiphony in the narrower sense, women against men, it was at least an-
tiphony in the wider sense, the choruses answering their leaders.
Actual antiphony is obvious when on David’s return from his victory
over the Philistines “the women sang one to another in their play, and
said: ‘Saul hath slain his thousands, and David his ten thousands.’”
The verb 'dnah means “to answer, respond.”
A large-size antiphony, possibly of singers and of players, seems to be
described in the Book of Nehemia. When after the return from the Babylo¬
nian Exile (538 B.c.) the leaders rebuilt and dedicated the walls of Jerusalem

they sought the Levites out of all their places to keep the dedication with glad¬
ness, both with thanksgiving, and with singing, with cymbals, harps, and with
lyres. And the sons of the singers gathered themselves together. Then [Nche-
mia] brought up the princes of Judah upon the wall, and appointed two great
companies that gave thanks and went in procession: on the right hand half of
the princes of Judah and certain of the priests’ sons with trumpets, and Judah,
Hanani, with the musical instruments of David. And the other company of
them that gave thanks went to meet them, and they stood still in the gate of
Sotah 7:5.
Philo, De Vita Moysis I f i8o.
1 Sam. 18:7.
 94 The Western Orient
the guard. So stood the two companies of them that gave thanks in the house of
God. And the singers sang loud, with Jezrahiha their overseer.^®

The older rabbis of the Talmud, who still had seen the Temple, describe
basic forms of responsorial antiphony:
1) The soloist sang the entire melody, and after each half-verse the con¬
gregation answered with the same first half-verse as a refrain. This form
was used for the Hallel (Ps. 113-118) and the Song of the Sea (Ex. 15).
2) The soloist and the congregation alternated half-verse by half-verse.
This was the traditional form of the Shma Israel.
3) In school, the children repeated the teacher’s cantillation half-verse
by half-verse.
4) Confirming refrains were prescribed as early as the time of Moses:
‘"And all the people shall say Amen” (Deut. 27:21-26).
The finest evidence of choral antiphony is Philo’s description of a con¬
gregational supper of the Therapeutic sect:

They all stand up together and . . . two choruses are formed ... the one
of men and the other of women, and for each chorus there is a leader ... se¬
lected, who is the most honourable and most excellent of the band. Then they
sing hymns which have been composed in honour of God in many meters and
tunes, at one time al singing together, and at another answering one another in
a skilful manner. . . . The chorus of male and female worshippers, through¬
out the singing and the alternation of the melodies, makes ... a truly musical
symphony, the shril voices of the women mingling with the deep-toned voices
of the men,®®

Responsorial antiphony is still used in all Jewish liturgies. The Yemenites,

particularly, sing the Hdlel in the form (i) the Jerusalemites used in the
time of the Temple, and the Babylonians sing it on Passover in form (2).
Choral antiphony exists also, though only outside the synagogue. The
Yemenites, for instance, sing all but one form of extrasynagogical poetry
in the following arrangement. The chorus (of men) is divided into two
half-choruses of at least two singers each. The leader, a member of the first
half-chorus, sings the first verse (eight measures) alone in order to call
the melody to mind, and the following verses are alternately sung, the
first half-verse by the first half-chorus and the second half-verse by the
second half-chorus. If there is a coda, it is done by all together. Drums are
supposed to beat the rhythm; in case they are not available or, on Sabbaths,
not admissible, the onlookers clap their hands. Never are these antiphonies

Ndj. 12:27-42 (abbreviated).

Philo, De Vita contamplativa n f 83.
Quoted from Gustave Reese, Music in the Middle Ages^ op. cit., p. 60.
 Music in the Ancient Western Orient 95
sung without one or two couples o£ men dancing—slowly at first and
thereafter in an ever increasing tempo up to a frantic prestissimo.

Antiphony in Assyria should be taken for granted with the close relation¬
ship between Assyrian and Hebrew religious poetries. Though there is
no direct, irrefutable evidence of this, C. G. Gumming, the monographer
of The Assyrian and Hebrew Hymns of Praise, had material enough
to write a whole chapter on the subject and to state; “The use of the refrain
in the Assyrian hymns, as in the case of the Hebrew hymns, indicates
antiphonal responses between priest and choir and choir and choir.”
Nearer at hand as evidences of non-Jewish antiphony are playful per¬
formances of the Nubians in Upper Egypt, who in their archaic civiliza¬
tion have faithfully preserved a number of ancient Egyptian traits. A hun¬
dred and fifty years ago, the French musicologist, Villoteau, saw them
sing and dance in two fronts of four, six, eight, or even more men each,
which faced one another at a distance of two or three feet, exactly as on
certain ancient Egyptian reliefs. Villoteau’s musical examples show con¬
tinual alternation of the two choruses, each one singing two measures,
or else the second chorus joining in with an overlapping refrain.®'^ I myself
participated in 1930 in Nubian rowboat parties on the Nile near the First
Cataract, where the leader improvised and the crew responded very much
in the same way as the cantor and the congregation in a synagogue.

Ex. 35. NUBIANS heard by Curt Sachs

All these evidences are outshone by a letter of one of the Church Fathers,
St. Basil (c. 330-379), which defends the singing of the psalms both antiph-
onally and responsorially, as do “the Egyptians, Libyans, Thebans, Pales¬
tinians, Arabians, Phoenicians, Syrians, the dwellers by the Euphrates.”
This proves that antiphonal and responsorial singing between Libya and
Mesopotamia was no less than universal.

'“Charles Gordon Gumming, The Assyrian and Hebrew Hymns of Praise, op. cit., pp.
72-82, QQ,
Villoteau, “De I’etat actucl de Tart musical cn Egypte,” in Desaiption de UEgypte, Etat
modernc, Paris, 1826, XIV, 254—9.
Cf. Gustave Reese, op. cit., p. 63.
96 The Western Orient
The CHRismN utorgy of Syria, nearest to the Jewish liturgy of Palestint,
proves that antiphony is by no means the only trait that Israel had in
r»mmnn with the rest of the Eastern world between Libya and Mesopo-

tamia.
Aldioiigti none of its melodies can actually be traced back to antiquity,
sctolars are unanimous in assuming that they contain original elements.

Kt, 36. SYRIAN CHRISTIANS Iddsohu

p -p

There is, indeed, the same preference given to tetrachordal structure, the
same st}de of cantilation, and even certain standard melodies closely re-
latai to the most archaic Jewish tunes; adaptability of melodic patterns
to texts of different length and rhythm; the interpretation of irregular
qualitative meters by irregularly alternating short and long notes; accents
and neumes; paraUelismus mcmbrorumi and elaborate antiphony in its
two forms as half chorus against half chorus and chorus against soloist.®^
Northward, Syrian influence shaped the earliest church music of Ar¬
menia. We do not know this music, however; the old notation has not
yet been deciphered, and the present melodies seem to be of a much more
recent date. But even the modern cantillation of Armenia is based on
melodic formulas, not on scales, and her most ancient hymns are said to
have been in prose, that is, in free rhythm. Both qualities constitute a rela¬
tion with Jewish music.®®
In a similar way, the features of Jewish cantillation recur in the chant of
Israel’s Christian neighbors in the West: the Copts of Egypt.

% ^

The Com, native Christians of Egypt, have preserved the racial features
of the ancient pre-Islamic Egyptians and in church still use their language;
all the conquering Greeks, Romans, Arabs, and Turks have left them
almost untouched. In view of such perseverance, there is hope that late
Egyptian music might to a certain extent be preserved in the chant of
Coptic churches.

A. Z. Idclsolm, *T>er Kirdiengcsang der Jakobiten,” in Archiv fur Musikwissenschaft IV

(1922), pp. 364-89. Egon Wcllesz, and other sources: cf. Gustave Reese, Music in the Middle
Ages^ op, ck., p- 432,
Cf. the bibiographr in Gustave R<^sc, op, ciU, p. 434.
 Music in the Ancient Western Orient 97
Chanting is done by a few blind singers who sit on the ground, perform
in a thin, high, and nasalizing voice and accompany themselves with the
tinkle of small cymbals, much as the ancient Egyptians shook their metallic
sistra. Their melodies are definitely heptatonic and, in the main, syllabic,
with comparatively rare ligatures and graces. The listener is often under
the impression of tetrachordal modes.

Ex. 37. COPTS after Newlandsmith

^t> j. I p-
3Pu . nl . h
f " J r'..
But whoever attends Coptic services—as the author many times did in
Cairo and in Luqsor—must be struck by the discouraging vagueness of all
notes inside a fourth or a fifth and, as a consequence, will prefer to refrain
from modal analysis. The question how to interpret this vagueness is
difficult: is it an inherent quality of the Coptic—and hence Egyptian—
style or is it a consequence of degeneration ? In face of the nature of singing
in general and of Oriental singing particularly, inheritance is likelier than
decadence.
Ethiopian church music should in a similar way be taken into considera¬
tion, Abyssinia boasts of Jewish descent, believes that her first emperor
was the son of King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba and claims that
her church has preserved the melodies of Solomon’s temple. History in
its turn states that the first bishop of Ethiopia was a Phoenician, that is,
a neighbor of the Palestinian Jews, and that about 500 aj). Syrian monks
came to that land as missionaries.

Ex. 38. ABYSsiNiANs oftct Herscher-ClSment

The cantillation of Abyssinian churches has scarcely been investigated so

far; but at least in its performance there is a trait reminding us of the
Jewish temple: the ends of the lines are marked by shaking the sistrum,
be it the ancient Jewish sistrum or, more probably, the ancient Egyptian
sistrum, which in its native country has been forgotten.
98 The Western Orient
Ethiopians, indeed, do not deny that there are close ties between their
church music and the melodies of the Copts.®^

Polyphony, too, is a fascinating trait of Abyssinia, and the more fascinat¬

ing as—except for the Arabian influence in the masanqo or improvised
fiddle songs of wandering minstrels—her musical life appears to have been
untouched since olden times.
Mondon-Vidailhet, a French resident of Abyssinia, an excellent observer,
and the best among the very few writers on Ethiopian music, relates that
“liturgical music is not exclusively homophonous. ... In several cere¬
monies, I noticed that before one of the groups had ended another group
had started so that their ensemble was a very harmonious music in a
complicated kind of counterpoint.”
He tells of begging lepers who perform lalibaloc before sunrise at the
doors of their luckier countrymen, a woman first, then a man, then both
or even three; and in doing so, they sing, to translate Mondon-Vidailhet’s
words, in “a simple harmony, generally based on the third.”
A third form of musical teamwork in Ethiopia belongs to the folksongs
caled zafan: a soloist sings the verses, the chorus joins in with a refrain,
and while all together sing the coda, the voices drop out one by one until
only a single voice is left,^^ almost as in Haydn’s Farewell Symphony where
one musician after another stopped playing and left.
But a more important parallel is mentioned in the Talmudian tractate
Arachin 2:3, which, speaking of the double pipe, adds that the final
cadence came from one cane only, “to make it more agreeable.” I have
already discussed the question for which of several reasons the two canes
blown together were less agreeable.®^ Maybe they were played in unison
and caused unpleasant pulsations when not tuned with the greatest care;
or else they might have played separate parts, possibly and even probably
in the manner of a drone.
Droning is indeed the basic form of counterpoint wherever double pipes

®^QE. tlic bibliography in Gustave Reese, ihii., p. 434, Recent contribution: J. Herscher-
Clcmcni, "‘Chants d’Abyssinie,” in Zeitschrijt jiir Vergleichende Musi^u/issenschaft II (1934),
pp.51-7. _ _ . , . . ' .
^ Mondon-Vidailbct^ **La Musiquc cthiopienne,” in Lavignac, Encyclopedic de la Musique
I 5 V, p. 3192.
^iMd., p. 3181.
p. 3180.
Curt Sacii, The History of Musical Instruments, op, cit., p. 120.
 Music in the Ancient Western Orient 99
are played. The Arabian argiil and the double oboes of India, the Sardinian
triple clarinet launeddas, and practically all bagpipes in the world provide
one pipe for the melody and the other for a sustained pedal tone below
the melody.
Drones, archaic in themselves, were doubtless known at least five thou¬
sand years ago. On one relief of the Egyptian Old Kingdom a double
clarinet is depicted, and Sumer has left double oboes of the same time;
on some pictures of the Egyptian New Kingdom (after 1500 b.c.) the piper
fingers the right cane with both hands while the left cane is merely sup¬
ported by the thumb, which clearly indicates that the left cane sounds a
drone. On other pictures, the left hand holds the cane above the highest
fingerhole; again, this cane cannot have contributed more than one single
note. The holes that the player did not wish to work were stopped with
wax; one pipe, excavated in Thebes and dating from the end of the Middle
or the early New Kingdom, still has the stopping wax in three of its four
fingerholes.

The harpers’ polyphony, lastly, has been discussed in my History of Musical

Instruments: a well-known relief in the British Museum represents the
Elamic court orchestra welcoming the Assyrian conqueror in 650 b.c. and,
among its players, seven harpists similar in all details except that they are
plucking different strings. Such difference must not be considered acci¬
dental in an art work of realistic, indeed almost photographic, accuracy;
nor can that single variation among otherwise uniform players be explained
by an artist’s formal consideration. (PL 3, p. 80)
Each harper plucks two strings. As the numbers of the strings plucked
follow in intervals of five—the fifth, tenth, fifteenth and the eighth, thir¬
teenth, eighteenth—the genus must be pentatonic, either with major thirds
and semitones or with minor thirds and whole tones. The next question,
whether the tetrachords are arranged in heptads or in octaves, is immaterial,
since in the range of a score of strings, conjunct and disjunct tetrachords
alternate anyway. Supposing that the fifth string sounds A, the tenth and
the fifteenth sound a and a'; and the eighth, thirteenth, and eighteenth,
e, and e". The result is an empty fifth orchestrated in the modern way,
the two notes being distributed among the seven players in different com¬
binations, as double octave, octave, unison and fifth:
Ibid., p. 82.
loo The Western Orient
First harpist:
Second harpist:
Third harpist:
Fourth harpist: e'V
Fifth harpist: a'-e"'
Sixth harpist:
Seventh harpist: {£i)-e‘

The unexpected results of studying this relief encouraged me to extend

examination to other ancient pictures of harpists, both in Assyria and
Egypt, in which the strings and plucking fingers were represented with
similar distinctness. I found portrayed: in Assyria, in the seventh century
B.C., the fifth; in Egypt, from the early third millennium b.c. on, fifths and
fourths, octaves and unisons.®'^
It is probable that this means an incidental stress of essential notes rather
than a continuous accompaniment in parallels- Anyway, it proves the
use of pentatonically tuned instruments,, although this, in turn, does not
necessarily imply pentatonic melodies.

Curt Sadis, ‘*Zwciklan^e im Altcrtum,” m TcsUcMft jur Johannes Wolf, Berlin, 1929,
pp- 168-70-
 [4]

CONCLUSION

TO SUM UP: Despite an almost complete lack of direct information,

conclusions by analogy and other indirect inference allow us to draw the
vague outlines of how music was in the ancient Western Orient.
Large ensembles, like the court orchestras of Egypt, Babylon, and Elam
and the choruses and orchestras connected with the Temple in Jerusalem
suggest a high standard of musical education, skill, and knowledge.
The system they followed can to a certain degree be inferred from the
instruments used: the open strings of harps and lyres imply the up-and-
down principle and almost certainly a pentatonic tuning that other evi¬
dences confirm; the later long-necked lutes, spreading from a center in
Mesopotamia or Iran, hint at the divisive principle.
Singing, at least in the last one thousand years b.c., was heptatonic with¬
out any trace of pentatonism. Its style as a whole was logogenic, basically
syllabic, and only moderately spiced with ligatures and melismas. Melody
followed ready-made patterns or was composed of carefully classified motifs,
not of single notes. As a consequence, notation developed in the direction
of group scripts, accents, and neumes, not of pitch scripts.
‘Meter’ in the Greek sense was unknown, and ‘time’ with regular beats
existed only in dances and dance-inspired music. Religious melody was
rhythmically free; it followed the irregular meters of the words by lengthen¬
ing the accented syllables, even when they were phonetically short.
Besides simple solo and choir singing, music was by preference organized
in the various forms of antiphony. Exactly what role polyphony played
is hard to say; drones and consonant chords occurred at least on instruments.
It is important to realize that the ancient Western Orient had a music
quite different from what historians of the nineteenth century conceded it.
Open the first volume of A. W. Ambros’ Geschichte der Musil{ in its edi¬
tion of 1887 and you will find that “Assyrian music seems never to have
risen above the level of a mere sensual stimulus”; that the music of Babylon
“was in any case voluptuous and noisy and far from simple beauty and
noble form”; and that the main task of Phoenician music was “to drown the
102 The Western Orient
cries of the rictims who burned in the glowing arms of Moloch ” What a
difference from the calm simplicity and noble grandeur of Greek music!
Let us pigeonhole these rash and foolish misconceptions. Though we
do not know how that ancient music sounded, we have sufficient evidence
of its power, dignity, and mastership. Not the least is that the Greeks them¬
selves claimed to he its pupils.
Section Three

EAST ASIA
 GENERAL FEATURES

T his section deals with the music o£ China, Korea, and Japan;
o£ Indo-China, £rom Annam to Siam; and o£ the Malay islands,
particularly Bali and Java.
Chinese music can be traced back to the Shang Dynasty between the
fourteenth and twelfth centuries b.c. Japanese music began only in the fifth
century au)., when Korean court music was adopted. In the sixth century,
Japan became familiar with both Buddhism and the ceremonial music of
China, though once more through Korea, while direct influence, without
foreign intermediation, set in a hundred years later. China also passed
on to Japan the ceremonial dances of India with their music, which were
Japanized as the solemn and colorful Bugaku. A strong wave from Man¬
churia, in the eighth century, ended foreign influences on the classical
music of Japan.
Japanese music is more archaic than Chinese music, although its history
has been so much shorter. At first sight this seems paradoxical. But it is
consistent with the general rule that things continue developing in their
native country, while natural evolution comes to a standstill in foreign
environments. In many respects, therefore, the music of the ancient East
may be better studied in Japan than in China.

The ancient music of which we know in the Far East is only a part, indeed
a small part, of the music actually performed and enjoyed in those early
times. We are almost in the position of those of our fellow musicologists
who deal with the Middle Ages; just as these men are thrown on books
exclusively written by monks for monks on monks’ music, while no heed
was given to secular songs or dances, China’s “popular music was con¬
trary to established literary principles, and there was no recognized prec¬
edent for it; so it was simply ignored.” ^
The few passages in which ‘vulgar’ music is mentioned are contemptuous.

1 Gulik. The Lore of the Chinese Lute, op. cit., p. 39.

 io6 East Asia
In Confucius* words, a vulgar-minded man’s performance “is loud and
fast, and again fading and dim, a picture o£ violent death-agony. His
heart is not harmonically balanced; mildness and graceful movements are
foreign to him.” And vulgar was the “noisy” music of the tyrants of Hia
and Yin that Lii Pu-we, the poet of ‘Spring and Fall* describes: “They
deemed the loud sounds of big drums, bells, stones, pipes, and flutes beauti¬
ful and thought that mass effects were worth while. They aimed at new
and strange timbres, at never heard of tones, at plays never seen before.
They tried to outdo one another and overstepped the limits.” ^
True music or, in Confucius’ words, “the noble-minded man’s music
is mild and delicate, keeps a uniform mood, enlivens and moves. Such a
man does not harbor pain or mourn in his heart; violent and daring move¬
ments are foreign to him.” ^ Music should be serene: yuo ‘music* and lo
‘serenity’ had the same graphic symbol.
The contrast of good and bad music did not so much separate religious
from secular music, but rather the esoteric music of a few sages, to whom
music meant the last step in wandering the universe, from the cheap
entertainment of the noninitiated. Thus Lii Pu-we “was able to speak of
music only with a man who has grasped the meaning of the world.” ^
No staccato, no accelerando, no strong crescendo or decrescendo had a
place in such music-nothing that aroused unrest, passion, lust. Music was
the wisdom of the heart. No doubt ‘good music’ could be exasperating, and
we do not blame Prince Wen of Wei (426-387 b.c.) for exclaiming: “When
in full ceremonial dress I must listen to the Ancient Music, I think I shall
fall asleep, but when I listen to the songs of Cheng and Wei, I never get
tired.” ^
But whether good melodies were pleasant or boring, never has attitude
toward music been more idealistic; and having so lofty a conception, the
Far East has given the art a unique place in its spiritual life.

Music, to the Chinese, is born in man’s heart. Whatever moves the soul
pours forth in tones; and again, whatever sounds affect man’s soul.® Con¬
fucius himself, the nation’s spiritual paragon, was so deeply impressed by

2 Lu Pu“Wc, op, dt., V 3.

* Wilhelm, op. dt.
^ Lii Pu-we, op. dt., V 2.
® R. H. van Guiik, op. dt., p. 37.
®Lu Pu-we, op. dt., p, 73.
 General Features 107
some old hymn that '‘for three months he did not know the taste of meat,”
and when he played the ch'ing, a man who passed his house exclaimed,
“This heart is full that so beats the sounding stone.” ^
An old legend relates that the music master Wen of Cheng followed
great Master Hsiang on his travels. Three years he touched the strings,
but no melody came. Then Master Hsiang said: “By all means, go home.”
Master Wen laid the zither down, sighed, and said: “It is not that I can¬
not bring a melody about. What I have in my mind does not concern
strings; what I aim at is not tones. Not until I have reached it in my heart
can I express it on the instrument; therefore I do not dare move my hand
and touch the strings. But give me a short while and then examine me.”
After a while he again appeared before Master Hsiang, who asked: “How
about your playing?” Master Wen answered: “I have attained it; please
test my playing.” It was spring; and when he plucked the Shang string
and had the eighth semitone accompany, a cool wind sprang up, and the
shrubs and trees bore fruit. When it was autumn and he plucked the Chiao
string and had the second semitone respond, a gentle, tepid breeze sprang
up and the shrubs and trees deployed their splendor. When it was summer
and he plucked the Yii string and accompanied it with the eleventh semi¬
tone, hoar frost and snow came down and the rivers and lakes suddenly
froze. When the winter had come and he plucked the Chih string and
had the fifth semitone respond, the sun began to scorch and the ice
thawed at once. Finally, he sounded the Kung string and united it with
the other four strings; then lovely winds murmured, clouds of good luck
came up, sweet dew fell, the springs welled up powerfully.
Music’s magical might to overcome the laws of nature has been praised
in the legends of all nations. The Chinese myth is deeper: not sound as
such has power—^it is the heart that works the miracle, the great heart
that in music finds its voice and form.

The great heart in another people’s music rarely beats in unison with
our own. Everyone has experienced how difficult it is to grasp the emo¬
tional qualities in the musical style of our own forefathers three hundred
years back, and how much a conscientious performer is in doubt whether
his interpretation rights or wrongs what the old composer had in mind.

^ The Original Chinese Texts of the Confucian Analecta, transL by J. Steele, London, i86i,
p. 185.
 io8 East Asia
But the gap between ourselves and ‘exotic’ music is hardly bridgeable; who¬
ever has attended performances in the Orient knows that the natives seem
unmoved when the visitor’s imagination or sympathy is struck, and that,
vice versa, he is cool or even annoyed when they burst into enraptured Ya
SaUm’s. Though we are denied participation in all its delights, we at least
realize that music is greater and richer than our own limited musical
capacity would admit. And this is a good thing to know.
As far as ancient China is concerned, emotion seems to have emanated
much more from single sounds than from melodic turns. Confucius’ stone
slab provided one note; ‘heartfelt’ beating must have enlivened this one
note by its power to benefit from the almost impalpable intricacies of strik¬
ing and deadening, and even of interference.
In a similar spirit, Japanese flute players are still expected to enliven the
individual tone, not only by a constant vibrato but also by skillfully sharpen¬
ing it beyond its natural pitch.
The long zither in its two forms She and Ch'in? often erroneously called
“lute,” is the outstanding representative of this esoteric music of ancient
China. No singing girl, no actor were permitted to play this instrument.
But a scholar was expected to keep it somewhere in his studio, even if he
did not know how to play it; indeed, even if it had no strings. In lonely
meditation or before a few selected friends, the player, having burnt in¬
cense and ceremoniously washed his hands, would lay the long, narrow
instrument before him and begin his dreamy, delicate playing.
Few notes he would leave clear and hard; mostly, the string, after pluck¬
ing, is given additional tension, so that the tone goes up for a moment
or for good; or else, the stopping finger leaves the tone just plucked and
rubs along the string with a wiping noise rather than a melodious glissando.
Such continual wading and sobbing, though certainly against our taste,
is indispensable when East Asiatic music appeals to the heart.
And here, too, beauty

lies not so much in the succession of notes as in each separate note in itself.
Each note is an entity m itself, calculated to evoke in the mind of the hearer a
special reaction. The timbre being thus of the utmost importance, there are
very great possibilities of modifying the coloring of one and the same tone. In
order to understand and appreciate this music, the ear must learn to distinguish
subde nuances: the same note, produced on a different string, has a different
color; the same string, when pulled by the fore finger or the middle finger of
me right hand, has a different timbre. The technique by which these variations
in timbre are effected is extremely compUcated: of the vibrato alone there exist
®Curt Sachs, The History of Musical Instruments, op. cit., pp. 185-8.
 General Features 109
no less than twenty-six varieties. The impression made by one note is followed
by another, still another. There is thus a compelling, inevitable suggestion of a
mood, an atmosphere, which impresses upon the hearer the sentiment that in¬
spired the composer.®

The single note actually counted for more than melody: chimes, numer¬
ous in all kinds of orchestras, were mere sets of single stones, metal slabs,
or bells, united in one frame, it is true, but not in any actual scale arrange¬
ment. Panpipes followed the same principle. Each verse of the Hymn to
Confucius ended in a single blow on a sonorous stone which was to re¬
ceive the tone” and transmit it to the following word. Cosmological con¬
notations were given to individual notes, not, as in the West, to melodic
patterns. And notation consisted in separate pitch symbols.
At first sight, one would think that a musical world in which the exact
cut of a tone is avoided rather than sought, and in which the single tone
seems to matter more than its melodic relation to other tones, was little
interested in accurate pitch and scale. The opposite is true. Both the mo¬
ment of the single tone and its freedom could be established only on law
and strictness, not on anarchy.

Law and strictness, indeed, were imposed on music in China more than
anywhere else, for “it was rooted in the Great One, the universal idea that
nobody can visualize or even conceive.” The world itself, manifesta¬
tion of the Great One, integrated time, space, energy, and sound. The world
embodied eternal time in its unalterable cycle of seasons, months, and
hours. It embodied eternal space, toward East and West, and North and
South. It combined into a whole all substances, wood and metal, skin and
stone. It was power, visible in wind and thunder, fire and water. And the
world was tone in its two conceptions, as pitch and as timbre.
Time and space, matter and music were congruent and, in their con¬
gruency, merely different aspects of the same One. Their differentials,
consequendy, were congruent as well: a certain season corresponded to a
certain cardinal point, or substance, or musical instrument, or note.^ And
the four seasons were separated from one another, not only by definite
amounts of time but also by musical intervals: following the up-and-down
principle, there was a fifth from autumn to spring, a fourth back to winter,

® R. H- van Gulik, op. cit., pp. i f.

Lii Pu-we, op. cit., V 2.
First described in the Chou li.
 no East Asia
and a fiftli to summer, producing the strange equation (already mentioned
in the second section) as similar to the late Babylonian conception.

(F) Autumn
(C) Spring
(G) Winter
(China: D) Summer (Babylonia: C)

Chinese wisdom has indulged in endless co-ordinations of this kind;

each instrument belonged to one of the cardinal points, substances, and
powers: the bell stood for west and autumn, dampness and metal; the
drum, for north and winter, water and skin. And the notes were associated
with the twel¥e months of the year and their allegoric animals—tiger, hare,
dragon, snake, horse, sheep, ape, cock, dog, pig, rat, and ox.

Cosmological connotations of musical conceptions are, as the seasonal

equation of Babylonia shows, by no means confined to China. There are
quite similar equations in India, in the Islamic countries, in ancient Greece,
and e¥en in the Christian Middle Ages: seasons, months, days, hours,
planets, parts of the human body, moods, illnesses, elements, and what not
arc compared and associated, and finally the cosmos itself sounds in an
eternal harmony of spheres.
Certain passages from the Bible ha¥e been quoted as inspired by the
idea of cosmic harmony. But at best they show a certain preparedness for
accepting such an idea through the general conception that ‘‘all the earth”
ought to sing unto the Lord and “declare his glory among the nations, his
mar¥eIlous works among the peoples.” It would be a logical step from
Psalm 96:12, in which “all the trees of the wood rejoice before the Lord,”
to Philo, who in his Life of Moses exclaims: “O Lord, have the stars,
united to form one chorus, the power of singing a song worthy of thee?”
The link between them is that question in Job 3b: “Where wast thou when
the morning stars sang together?”
The Book of Job is said to be late; Job himself lived in the time of the
Babylonian Exile (sixth century b.c.). On the other hand, Philo ascribes
the idea of cosmic harmony to the Chaldeans. Thus it is highly probable
that the harmony of the spheres, developed from earlier cosmological co-
De Vita Moysts 11 f 239.
 General Features in
ordinations, was given its final shape in Babylonia and from there handed
over to the Jews, the Greeks, and probably also the Egyptians.
One thing should not be overlooked: the harmony of the spheres diUcrs
basically from the original theory of co-ordination. This latter had es¬
tablished that a certain planet was to another planet as a certain pitch was
to another pitch; the harmony of the spheres meant something quite dif¬
ferent: the planets, or rather their spheres, resounded in actual, though
imperceptible, tones.
In neither form is the idea of a functional interdependence of things musi¬
cal and nonmusical self-evident; it cannot have originated spontaneously
in every country between the Pacific and the Mediterranean.
Where, then, did it come to life, and when?
That we do not know. The best of all methods, to go back to the earliest
evidences, fails with Asiatic sources which we sometimes are not able to
date within a thousand years. Moreover, the texts of Egypt, Sumer, Baby¬
lonia, Assyria, and Persia are silent on the subject (which docs not prove
that cosmological connotations were unknown).
The only statement we are allowed to make is this: the earliest evidences
of these cosmological co-ordinations are Chinese and Greek, and as far
as Greece is concerned, the idea is doubtless due to importation from the
East. But there is as yet no answer to the question whether it was in¬
digenous to China or brought in from some other part of Asia.

Co-ordination requires a tertium comparationis. Such a cosmological series

as fire-red-Mars-south-summer is logical and self-explanatory in that all
its members are hot. Sound, on the contrary, has no direct relation to
other categories of perception, except by the most abstract of all likenesses:
number and measure.
Sound in itself, however, is impalpable and unmeasurable, except by
vibration numbers, which were unknown in ancient China. The only way
open was to shift from sound to sound-producing devices, from tones to
instruments. Pitch varied with the size of the vibrating medium, and the
relation between two tones could be expressed by the proportion of two
lengths of flutes or strings.
But the relativity of proportions would not do for the use of music in the
co-ordinations of cosmology. The Chinese—more than any other people—
 II2 East Asia
needed absolute pitch or, in other words, a standard length. Indeed, Lii
Pu-we plainly states: “Music stems from measure.*' And so intimate
became the connection of music and length that the Imperial Office of
Music was annexed to the Office of Weights and Measures.
This idea, again, was not confined to China. As un-Chinese and late a
thinker as the Jewish poet, Jehuda Halevy (c, 1080-1140), said: “Measures,
weights, the proportions of various movements, the harmony of music,
everything is in number ”
The unit of length imposed on the standard pitch was the metrical foot
that in China ruled whatever extended in length, width, and height. Music
truly became a function of space; and once more the universe appeared to
be one. So close became the relation of pitch tone and foot that in the tenth
century aj>. some learned Chinese, called upon to renormalize the spread¬
ing confusion, earnestly questioned whether pitch depended on feet and
inches or the metric foot on the pitch tone.

Correctness in music was not mainly, if at all, a musical concern. It was

essential to the cosmos. Time and space, substance and power were beyond
man’s control But sound he created himself; in music, he took the heavy
responsibility for either strengthening or imperiling the equilibrium of
the world. And his responsibility included the world's truest images, the
dynasty and the country; the welfare of the empire depended on the cor¬
rectness of pitches and scales.
As a consequence, the readjustment of music was one of a new emperor’s
first acte; for, would the preceding dynasty have been eliminated unless
its music was out of harmony with the universe?
The Chinese have credited the very oldest dynasties with this order of
thought. The mythical Emperor Shun, said to have come to the throne
in 228^ B.C., impressed on his chief musician, so S/tu King, the earliest
Chinese chronicle, relates: “ ‘Kwei, I command you to regulate music.
The notes should accord with the measure. The reed regulates the vdce
and the eight instruments, and you must harmonize them all, but with¬
out disturbing the due order. Gods and men will then approve. . . .’Yearly,
in the second month, he journeyed eastward, going about the territories
Lii Pu-we, op. cii., Y 2.

Sonne, ‘"Ute M ^^7a Werner and Isaiah

^ “ Maco-Arabic Litcracure” in H.W Union
 Gtnttal Features 113
* . . and adjusted the four seasons, the months and the first days and tested
the notes of music.”
When the emperor wished to ascertain whether his government was
right or not, he listened to the six pitches, the five tones of the scale, and
the eight kinds of musical instruments, and he took the odes of the court
and ballads of the village to see if they corresponded with the five tones.^®
These ideas resulted under Emperor Wou (141-87 b.c.) in the foundation
of Yue fu, the Imperial Office of Music, with special sections to supervise
ceremonial, foreign, aristocratic, and folk music and a complete archive
of national melodies. Its chief concern, however, was the establishment
and preservation of correct pitch.

The Shoo King, transl. by W. H. Medhurst, Shanghai, 1846, pp. 10, 33 f. The Shu
King, transl. by Walter C}orn Old, London, 1904, p. 20.
Medhurst edition, pp, 69 f.
 THE Lti’S

^‘EMPEROR HUANG TI, so legend says, one day ordered Ling Lun to
make pitch pipes. Ling Lim went from the west of the Ta Hia and came to
the north of the Yiian Yii mountain. Here he took bamboos from the
valley Hia Hij selected those the internodes of which were thick and even,
and cut them between two nodes. Their length was three inches, nine lines.
He blew them and made their tone the starting note huang chung of the
scale. He blew them and said: ‘That’s right.’ Then he made twelve pipes.
Since he heard the male and the female bird Phoenix sing at the foot of
the Yiian Yii mountain, he accordingly distinguished the twelve notes.
He made six out of the singing of the male Phoenix, and also six out of
the singing of the female Phoenix, which all could be derived from the main
note huang chungr
Ta Hia, which the English sinologist, Giles, had believed to be a district
of Bactria, was recently identified by Otto Franke as the country of the
Tochars. The Tochars, who had lived on the southeastern border of the
Gobi desert at least since the thirteenth century b.c., were peace-loving
people and acted as agents between the Eastern and Western civiliza¬
tions.^® Pitch pipes, however, were unknown in the West, as far as we can
see. It is more probable that the Occident presented China with the method
of deriving notes from one another.
Later versions of the same legend offer a few more details. Pere Amiot,
the earliest serious writer on Chinese music, had mentioned one of them
in his manuscript, but his posthumous editor, Abbe Roussel, omitted it as
“irrelevant” and only called it to notice in a short footnote.^^ And just
this detail is particularly illuminating. Ling Lun, it reads, found a bamboo
pipe that reproduced exactly the pitch of his own voice when he spoke
without passion, and this he made the huang chung. Here at last, Chinese
tradition admits a musical fact among so many extramusical data: the

LQ Pu-wc, op. at,, p. 478.

Otto Franke, “Das alte Ta-hia dcr CMnesen,” in Ostasiatische Zatschrift VIII (1920),
pp. 117-36.
Ahual Memoire swt Is Mtmque des Ckinois, Paris, 1779, p. 86 «.
 The Lii’s 115
hmng chung, primarily, was roughly taken from the medium pitch of a
man’s voice and only subsequently normalized in feet, inches, and lines.

The standard tone huang chung, ‘‘the yellow bell,” “begot” all other tones.
Most authors, however, have misrepresented this process. Overblowing,
they have said, did not result in the octave, but in the twelfth (as the pipe
supposedly was stopped and did not produce even-numbered partials). The
new note, mentally transposed into the lower octave, became the fifth of
the standard tone. A second pipe was tuned to this fifth. When over¬
blown, it again yielded a twelfth which, transposed down by two octaves,
formed a whole tone above the standard tone. And so on, twelfth by
twelfth.
This entangled cycle of fifths with its overblown notes and its subsequent
transpositions by one or several octaves up to six is neither convincing nor
evidenced: none of the sources mentions blowing or hearing. They relate,
on the contrary, that the pipes were cut with the aid of a ruler by alternately
subtracting and adding one third of their length—3:2 and 3:4. Space under
the Chou the Chinese foot was divided into nine inches, and the inch
into nine lines, the standard tone had a pipe length of eighty-one lines.
The following pipe was smaller by one third or twenty-seven lines. The
third pipe was longer than the second by one third or eighteen lines.

Graphically: / \ / and so on.

81 72 64
The way up (musically speaking) was called an inferior generation (that
is, coming from below), and the way down, a superior generation.
Theoretically, this procedure resulted in a chain of ascending fifths and
C D E F% G% A%
descending fourths: \
F G A B Q
Operations were stopped after six inferior and six superior generations,
so that, again theoretically, a complete chromatic series was brought about.
The six odd-numbered pitch notes (our lower line) were called lu's or
“norms” and considered masculine, while the six even-numbered notes, later
likewise called had names which meant “companions, intermediate,
lateral” and were feminine. This shows that at the beginning the notes
produced by inferior generation had no musical significance proper, or at
 ii6 East Asia
best a subordinate significance: die series consisted of six lu*s at equal whole-
tone distances.

Conceiving a set of qualities as alternately masculine and feminine and

their coexistence as a sequence of generations is certainly no everyday idea.
And yet it strongly calls to mind the kabbalistic cosmogeny of the ancient
Jews which combined the eternal masculine with the eternal feminine
and cemented them into the eternally human. God created the world by
ten utterances or sphirot. The first sphira—principle of all principles, the
crown of all that which there was of the most high—was neither positive
nor negative, but though sexless it was androgenous. This first sphira begot
aU nine following sphirot in successive generations. The second sphira,
called understanding {hma)y was negative and feminine; the third sphira,
called wisdom was her child, positive and masculine. And so on.
Once more we face the striking cosmopolitism of mystic ideas. J. F. C.
Fuller says of the Kabbala: “Aryan and Chaldean esoteric doctrines perco¬
lated into it. In Egypt, the mysteries of the Sun god, the Moon goddess,
of Osiris and Isis, impinged upon it. Assyria and Babylon gave it much,
and not a little may be traced to the Vedas, the Upanishads, the Bhagavad-
Gita and the Vedantas, and much of the practical Qabalah to the Tantras
more especially. In it will be bund Hinduism, Taoism, Buddhism, Zo¬
roastrianism. . .
And in view of such spiritual cosmopolitism one might ask whether
the ancient Middle East, particularly Sumer, Babylonia, and Egypt, had
not some kind of iu system in their music. After all, with the open strings
of their harps and lyres, these nations must have based their musical systems
on the same up-and-down principle that the Chinese had. And then, the
legends of China relate that the emperor s minister brought the lus from
the West

Twice in explaining the lus we used the word theoretically; twice, by this
word, we warned the reader against supposing that the Chinese ever had
a perfect method of tuning. The foot measure itself was anything but
constant; it varied between a minimum of twenty centimeters in the Chou
J. F. C. Fuller. The Secret Wisdom of the Qabalah, London (1937).
 The Lii’s 117
period and a maximum of thirty-four centimeters under the Ming. The
ratio of these extremes, 3:5, forcibly resulted in a musical variation 'within
a minor sixth: if the pitch tone was C under the Chou, it was the E below
under the Ming! One can easily imagine what the musical consequences
were when temples and palaces preserved venerable stone and bell chimes
from epochs in which the foot and pitch had been different.
So much for absolute pitch.
The relation between the lus was no less faulty. The proportions 4:3
for the fourth and 3:2 for the fifth, correct in theory, failed in practice, since
pitch depended, not on one but on three factors: the length of the tube,
to be sure, but also its diameter and the position of the player’s lips. The
twelfth of the ground tone, produced by overblowing a pitch pipe and
generally believed to have controlled the issue, worsened rather than cor¬
rected the result. For, according to Dr. Manfred Bukofzer’s experiments,^^
the overblown twelfth of stopped pipes is too high if the pipe is longer
than eight inches, and too low if the pipe is shorter than eight inches. The
incorrectness may amount to as much as a quarter tone.
The influence of the blowing lips was not realized in China, and the
importance of the diameter was considered only in a few periods of Chinese
history; in the second century a.d., for instance, the offlcial gaugers gave
all pipes the same diameter, but in the third century they gradually lessened
it line by line, starting from nine lines for the huang chung: The very
number nine, derived from the nine times nine lines of the huang chunks
length, indicates that the diameter was determined by numeral symbolism
rather than by any mathematical ratio. But even with correct measurements,
the pitches would not have been entirely reliable, since the force of the
breath and the exact angle at which it crossed the upper orifice of the pipe
were likely to interfere with theoretical calculation.
Finally, the cycle of fifths was doomed from the very beginning, because
it would graze but never hit the octave, indispensable in building scales.
The reason is mathematically obvious: going on in fifths means raising the
ratio % to a higher power; the octave has the ratio %; but no power of
three can ever coincide with a power of two.
In 40 B.C., the musician, King Fang, tried to correct the fault by extending
the cycle of lus from twelve to sixty; and about 430 a.d. somebody outdid
him by continuing the cycle up to 360 fifths. The reader shall be spared the
grotesque ratio that results from the 360th power of % such hairsplitting
21 Cf. Curt Sachs, The History of Musical Instruments, op. cit., p. 418. ^
22 Manfred Bukofzcr, “Prazisionsmessungen an primitiven Musikmstrumcnten, in Zm-
schrijt jtlr Physik. IC (1936), PP- 643-65. “P- P- 660.
 ii8 East Asia
was disproportionate to so inexact a procedure and it was also ineffective.
We are not going to describe all the futile attempts made since. Suffice it
to say that the hmang chmng was uncertain from the very beginning and
the struggle never came to rest. The history of Chinese pitch is a history of
some twenty centuries of confusion, deception, and failure; the recipes
changed, and so did the results.

The set of lu"s has been called a “scale.” Especially in its mature form, with
the auxiliary lus dovetailed in, it seemed to be, and consequently was de-
anibed as, a chromatic scale.
This was a mistake. The twelve notes never formed a scale in the nar¬
rower sense of the word, and least of all anything resembling our modern
chromatic scale with its equal semitones of one hundred Cents. In a cycle
of fifths, each semitone is separated from its neighbor by seven times the
interval of a fifth, or 7 x 702 = 4,914 Cents, which of course must be lowered
by four octaves or 4 x I3200 = 4,800 Cents. The result is 114 Cents for the
semitone. But since the whole tone amounts to 204 Cents, the comple¬
menting semitone cannot have more than ninety Cents. Far from being
wei tempered, the set of lus—al least as it should be were it correct—is an
alternation of major and minor semitones which the Western ear can
hardly tolerate.
Moreover, the old discrimination between superior and inferior genera¬
tion persisted both in arrangement and name: the Chinese, who under¬
stand the universe as the harmonious balance of yang and yin, the mascu¬
line and the feminine principle, called the six odd-numbered lus “male,”
and the six even-numbered “female.” The legend related above tells this in
its own way: it ascribes six of the lus to a male bird, and six to a female
bird. So definite was the contrast that musical instruments, tuned to the lus,
never mingled the two sets: in stone and bell chimes the male lus were
provided by an upper row, and the female by a lower row of slabs or bells;
and panpipes, which at first were nothing but complete sets of pitch pipes,
consisted either of male or of female pipes only, or, if combined, had the
two sets kept apart in two wings.^^ In the Occidental conception, such
instruments would play continuous melodic lines through all kinds of
intervals. The Chinese, on the contrary, aimed at single notes only, the
Curt Sadis, Tke History of Musical Instruments, op, cit., pp. 168, 169, 176, 177.
 The Lii’s 119
selection o£ which depended on the season and the particular rite of the
day rather than on musical considerations.

The confusion of the series of Ws with a scale—a *‘dim” scale indeed, as

the Koreans qualifyingly call it—had been made long before, and in a way
interesting enough to be related. That legend of the minister’s errand to the
West is completed by a tradition that the male bird sang his notes in an
ascending, and the female bird hers in a descending, succession.
The symbolism of male and female scales is obvious: the male sex was
in many civilizations represented by an upward pointing symbol, and the
female sex by a descending one, just as in our books on biology or botany.
But there was a far more important discrimination of ascending and de¬
scending scales: ascending scales, as a rule, were instrumental, whereas
descending scales were vocal. It is not difficult to find the reason. A primi¬
tive singer does not begin in the low register of his voice to climb up higher
and higher; he normally starts from the high register and descends to the
lower limit of his range. Players behave differently. A piper’s scale is
brought forth by opening the finger holes hole by hole; it is ascending. In
the same way, lutanists, fiddlers, and players of fretted zithers depart from
the open string and pass to the higher notes of the stopped string. Indeed,
the second part of the seventh of the books called Yo tse relates that in the
ancient worship of heaven and earth the instruments played in an ascend¬
ing series of lu*s, and the voices sang in a descending series of lu's?^
This contrariness, still in use under the T‘ang (618-^07 a.d.), had been
simplified by the end of the sixteenth century: Prince Tsai Yii assumed
that all vocal keys were a fourth higher than the corresponding instru¬
mental keys; voices and instruments used two different keys a fourth apart,
and when playing together they performed throughout in parallel fourths;
the voices would sing in F, while the instruments played in C below. This
was exactly the contrapuntal form of the organum of the early Middle
Ages, in which the cantus was sung above, while the organum (originally
meaning ^‘instrument”) accompanied in parallels a fourth lower. In a
similar way, the Siamese play parallel fourths on their gong chimes.^®

Mrs. Timothy Richard, Paper on Chinese Music, Shanghai (1899)) P* 5* r -t j

25 C£. Carl Stumpf, “Tonsystem und Musik der Siamesen,” in Beitrage zur Akusti\^ und
Musikwissenschaft, Heft 3, 1901; the same in SammeMnde fur Vergleichende Uusikwissen-
schaft I {1922), pp. %72L
 120 East Asia

^ ^ ^

In Japan, the twelve lus are known as ritsu—a term that must not be con¬
fused with the name of one of the foremost melodic modes of the country.
Pitch pipes, as in China, exist but are not important in musical practice.
Generaly, the riSsu are fixed on the ground of the up-and-down principle;
players of the iinfretted long zither \oto stretch the first string to an appro¬
priate pitch; then they tune the sixth string to the upper fourth and the
eighth string to the upper fifth, go back by a fourth to the third string and
up by a fifth to the tenth string, and so on.
The pitch itself “is within limits arbitrary: for a loud singer it is tuned
up, for a singer with a small voice it is tuned down. But the normal pitch
of the note is approximately middle Cf* The latest Japanese source indi¬
cates, as pitch tone, the lowest d' of the vertical flute shaf^uhachi at 292
vibrations.^" It is to be noted that the Middle East too uses d' as pitch tone
and also derives it from the lowest note of its vertical flute.

“® Frauds Piggott, Tke Music end Musical Instruments of Japan, 2nd edition, Yokohama-
Lcffidoa. 1909, p. 85.
Hmo Tank^ Japanese Mtmc, Tokyo, 1936.
 [3]

THE SCALES

THE NORMAL SCALE of the Far East is pentatonic without semitones.

It consists of three whole tones and two minor thirds, the thirds being
alternately separated by one or by two whole tones, just as in the series of
black keys on our pianos.
The scale is usually presented in the form l{ung (do), skang (re), chiao
{mi)^ chih (sol), yu (la), {\ung) (do).
These five notes were tied into the network of cosmological connotations
much in the same way as the twelve lii's. There was close interrelation be¬
tween the

Notes \ung shang chiao chih yu

Cardinal points North East Center West South
Planets Mercury Jupiter Saturn Venus Mars
Elements wood water earth metal fire
Colors black violet yellow white red

This scale is generally said to have originated from picking out five of
the lus. Such misrepresentation should not be repeated indefinitely. In the
first place, lus formed intervals out of tune and therefore unusable for
scales. Secondly, the scale itself must have existed before the artificial sys¬
tem of lus was constructed. Thirdly, the lus in their earliest arrangement
consisted of two entirely independent sets of six whole tones each, without
the characteristic minor thirds, fourths, or fifths in either set of the scale.
Picking out the five notes necessary to the scale would have meant jumping
to and fro and picking at least two, if not three, of the five notes from the
merely auxiliary female set which at the beginning hardly counted at all.
This does not make sense.
In any case, deriving scales from systems is putting the cart before the
horse: all over the world, scales have been abstracted from living melodies
and integrated in systems.
The ‘picking’ out holds true only for the tonic \ung, which indeed, as
far as ritual music was concerned, had to be one of the lus. The huang
chung was selected as the tonic when sacrifices were presented to heaven;
 122 East Asia
but the melodies were transposed to the fifth for sacrifices to t]
the secondj for the sun; to the sixth, for the moon. Moreover, j
were shifted monthly by one Hi, so that the same melody, playec
in, say, E, would be transposed to F in February.
No sources ever speak of conforming the other four notes t
Quite independently, they follow one of the two methods of
scales from a starting tone, either the cyclic principle or the di
ciple. Indeed, the long zither chfin follows both principles at (
open strings tuned by ear in a cycle of just fifths and fourths, t
the accompaniment. The melody string, on the other hand, i
an unusual way; instead of actual raised frets which start fron
end, thirteen little mother-of-pearl studs, inlaid in the soundbos
the stopping places, are symmetrically arranged from the cer
the two ends, and that at one half of the total length, in one and
in one and three quarters, in one and four fifths, in one and five
in one and seven eighths. The seven strings consisted of a varyi
of silk threads—48, 54, 64, 72, 81, 96, 108—reproducing, in the .
their threads, the musical ratios of eight to nine or 204 Cents
tone) and twenty-seven to thirty-two or 294 Cents (the minor tl
the open strings obeyed the up-and-down system, while the me
followed the divisive system. Consequently, the melody and its
ment had different major thirds, different minor thirds, an
seconds.
This discrepancy was certainly not due to insensitive ears.
instrument like the chuen, made in the last century b.c. for i
chimes (and probably also its huge prototype, the 'kyun of
I>ynasty), united the same two principles: a wooden soundboar
long, supported thirteen strings, twelve of which were open ar
teenth, in the middle, was stretched along a calibrated scale,
however, differed from the symmetrical arrangement of the st
cKin; a picture that Prince Tsai Yii published seventeen hur
later—after either an old picture or an actual specimen—she
marks in a single series at proportionately decreasing distances

Modal arrangexients of the Chinese pentatonic scale are best ch

in Japanese theory. There, the pentatonic octave of three seconc
minor thirds appears under two clearly defined forms: ryo and
122 Asia
but the melodies were transposed to the fifth for sacrifices to the earth; to
the second, for the sun; to the sixth, for the moon. Moreover, all melodies
were shifted monthly by one lu, so that the same melody, played in January
in, say, E, would be transposed to F in February.
No sources ever speak of conforming the other four notes to four lu's.
Quite independently, they follow one of the two methods of developing
scales from a starting tone, either the cyclic principle or the divisive prin¬
ciple. Indeed, the long zither ch'in follows both principles at once: it has
open strings tuned by ear in a cycle of just fifths and fourths, but only for
the accompaniment. The melody string, on the other hand, is fretted in
an unusual way: instead of actual raised frets which start from the upper
end, thirteen litde mother-of-pearl studs, inlaid in the soundboard to mark
the stopping places, are symmetrically arranged from the center toward
the two ends, and that at one half of the total length, in one and two thirds,
in one and three quarters, in one and four fifths, in one and five sixths, and
in one and seven eighths. The seven strings consisted of a varying number
of silk threads—48, 54, 64, 72, 81, 96, 108—reproducing, in the numbers of
their threads, the musical ratios of eight to nine or 204 Cents (the whole
tone) and twenty-seven to thirty-two or 294 Cents (the minor third). Thus
the open strings obeyed the up-and-down system, while the melody string
followed the divisive system. Consequently, the melody and its accompani¬
ment had different major thirds, different minor thirds, and different
seconds.
This discrepancy was certainly not due to insensitive ears. Even a norm
instrument like the chuen, made in the last century b.c. for tuning bell
chimes (and probably also its huge prototype, the l^yun of the Chou
Dynasty), united the same two principles: a wooden soundboard, nine feet
long, supported thirteen strings, twelve of which were open and the thir¬
teenth, in the middle, was stretched along a calibrated scale. This scale,
however, differed from the symmetrical arrangement of the studs on the
cfiin; a picture that Prince Tsai Yii published seventeen hundred years
later—after either an old picture or an actual specimen—shows twelve
marks in a single series at proportionately decreasing distances.

Modal arrange^ients of the Chinese pentatonic scale are best characterized

in Japanese theory. There, the pentatonic octave of three seconds and two
minor thirds appears under two clearly defined forms: ryo and ritsu.
 The Scales 123
Ryo, called the Chinese and male mode, starts with two consecutive
seconds, say CDE GA C, and might be symbolized numerically (by its
characteristic opening notes) as 123; it has C as the finalis, and G as the
confinalis. A good and easily accessible example is the Chinese song “The
Haunts of Pleasure’’ or “The Fifteen Bunches of Flowers” on page 42 of
J. A, van Aalst’s Chinese Music,

Ex. 39. CHINESE SONG aftcT vau Aalst

Ritsu, called “female” and preferred in Japan, is very different. It forms

an octave of two disjunct fourths, each of which is divided by a filling note
closer, sometimes to the upper, sometimes to the lower end. Accordingly,
the ritsu scale appears in two forms, DE GAB D and D EGA CD, The
numeric symbols for these would be 124 and 134, and for ritsu in general,
1*4 (with either 2 or 3 as a filler). Our examples are a Japanese song and
the beginning of the Chinese Hymn to Confucius, probably the oldest
preserved piece of Far Eastern music:
Ex. 40. JAPANESE SONG c^fter Noel Peri

Ex. 41. HYMN TO CONFUCIUS

This makes a total of three modes, which may be represented in this way:

124: G A CDE G
134: A CDE G A
123: CDE G A C

To judge from sources of the Chou Dynasty, there were seven loci for
modal inversions of the pentatonic scale probably before the scale itself was
given seven notes. But this modal wealth was scarcely more than a theoreti¬
cal construction; musical theory, all over the ancient civilizations, exhausts
the number of possible variations and combinations without ever caring
for the realities of musical life.

BatNEBIE WSTITUre
OE TECHNOLOGY LIBRARY
124 East Asia
The AIRANGEMENT CDE GA (123) has generally been considered the
original, standard form from which the other modal arrangements were
derived by the usual toptaii inversion.
This is a mistake; the 123 scale differs basically from any 1*4 scale. The
latter, forming in tetrachords, conjunct or disjunct, and resulting in heptads
or cctaves, goes back to primitive patterns in which under the normative
power of the fourth an original third nucleus grows a second afiix or, in¬
versely, a second nucleus grows a third afiix in order to attain to a fourth.
A 123 scale, on the contrary, is practically always hexachordal; there are
no sevenths or octaves. Nor does it form in tetrachords; indeed, the very
fourth is wanting. Instead, the fifth acts as the normative power: two thirds,
superimposed, settle down in a pentachord; the lower third is filled in, and
the sixth is scarcely more than a neighboring note returning to the fifth.
This entirely different nature of the 123 scale is evident from melodies of
primitive peoples in which the elements show better than in the elaborate
songs of China. One of the best examples is the following melody from
Greenland:

Ex. 42. EAST <nUEENLAND

J_7^

Farther back, two four-tone patterns precede the 123 scale: one, with
the lower third filled in, but without a sixth (123-5), appears in this Song
of Fate performed by the Voguls in West Siberia:

Ex. 43. VOGULS, SIBERIA after VdisSnen

 The Scales 125
Consequently, this structure must have been very old; but it hardly begot
the entirely different 1*4 structure.

Japan opposes a national scale of its own to the so-called Chinese scale. It
is pentatonic as well, but not ‘anhemitonic’: each of its tetrachords has an
undivided major third above and a semitone below.
This impressive scale appears in three ‘tunings,’ which actually corre¬
spond to the three aspects of Greek modes, Hypodorian, Dorian, and
Hyper dorian:

Hirajoshi: A BCE F A
(conjunct tetrachords with the supplemental octave below; hypo)

KumoiQoshi) : E F A B C E
(disjunct tetrachords)

Iwato: BCE FAB

(conjunct tetrachords with the supplemental octave above; hyper)

The first in importance is Hirajoshi; the second, Kumoi. Hirajoshi is

the mode of the following nursery song:

Ex. 45. JAPANESE NURSERY SONG after Nod Peri

A solo on the long zither \oto, played in a death scene in the tragedy Kesa,^^
illustrates Kumoi:

Ex. 46. KOTO SOLO FROM THE JAPANESE TRAGEDY ‘kESa’

after Abraham and Hombostel

28 After Otto Abraham and E. M. von Hombostel, “Tonsystem und Musik der Japancr,*’ in
Sammelbdnde der Internationalen Musik.g^sellschaft IV (1903), p. 351 and Sammelbdnde fur
Vergleichende Musiib,wissenschaft I (1922), p. 223.
126 East Asia
Modulation is frequent. The first of the two following examples shows
the passage from Kumoi (disjunct tetrachords) to Hirajoshi (conjunct
tetrachords); the second modulates inversely from Hirajoshi to Kumoi:

Ex. 47. JAPANESE SONG

after Noel Perl

Ex. 48. JAPANESE SONG Noel Pert

All books agree in the ill-considered assertion that the Japanese flattened
two notes of the Chinese scale in order to spice an all too lifeless pattern—
man has always been inclined to interpret as offshoots things that he hap¬
pened to learn at a later date.
The idea of spicing is suspiciously Western; it smells of modern virtuoso-
ship and snobbery. From a psychological standpoint one has, on the con¬
trary, to concede that a greater contrast of intervals, bearing witness to
stronger emotional tension, is scarcely ever a later development. This is
confirmed by a highly significant fact: Japanese folk music never accepted
the Chinese scale, but, in spite of court and temple rituals, has again and
again come back to the major thirds and semitones.
The situation is somewhat similar in Korea; they have a pentatonic scale
of the 123 type and ‘flatten’ the third: DBF AB, and this scale, too, occurs
exclusively in folk music?^
The major-third scale, therefore, is doubtless a substrate—an old, in¬
herited design that in all times has glittered through foreign varnishes.

Kindred scales have existed outside Japan and Korea.

India has them by the score in all possible combinations and arrange¬
ments—with two major thirds, or one major and one minor, or even one
major and two minor thirds. It is hard to tell how many of them are due to

Ex. 49. INDIAN RAGA MALAHARi after C, R. Day

C. S. Kdi, Die Koremtsche Muuk., Strassburg, 1935, p. 15.

 The Scales 127
a later desire for completeness, rather than to musical necessity; in any
event, four of the scales enumerated in Bharata’s Ndtyasdstra, India’s ear¬
liest source of music, already have either two or at least one major third:
Arsabht, Sadjodisyavati, Dhawati, Nisadi, Possibly the second and third
of these scales are meant to have the F sharpened (which according to
Bharata’s own statement was in several cases necessary).
Mongolia, too, uses major-third scales,^° though apparendy no longer
always in pure form: our example, printed from Carl Stumpfs short mono¬
graph on Mongolian music,® ^ contains a D that obviously belongs in a later
stratum:

Ex. 50. BURIAT MONGOLS after Stumpf

p 1r ..g ■■
""Hr_t r 1^ i_ _MM J. ~ .1._@P_

Even Greece knew the strong flavor of major-third pentatonics; a later

chapter will discuss the vital role of its Hellenic form, the so-called en-
harmonion.
And the ancient Egyptians also tuned their temple harps to the major-
third scale.
The presence of these scales in Mongolia, with evidences in East Asia,
India, Egypt and Greece, hints at a possible origin in Central Asia. This
assumpdon is corroborated by major-third scales among Moroccan Berbers,
who seem to stem from Central Asia and to have preserved many traits of
Central Asiatic civilization—the house with several stories, for instance.®^

The Malay Archipelago clings to the major third more than any other
country outside Japan. In West Java, the most archaic part of the island,
singers perform in scales with two major thirds, such as (descending) :

398 + 94 + 210 +402 + 96 Cents ®®

'-f \_/

492 498

®‘^Ilmari Elrohii, “Mongolische Melodien,” in Zeitsekrift fiir MusiJiwissenschaft III (1920),

P- 7L
Carl Stumpf, “Mongolische Gesange,*' in Vierteljahrsschrijt fur Musi\wissenschaft III
(1887), p. 303, and in Sammelbande fur Vergleichende Mim^udsst^nschaft I (1922), p, no.
E. M. von Hornbostel und R. Lachmann, “Asiadsche Parallelen zur Berbermusik,” in
Zeitsekrift fur Vergleichende MusiJiwissenschaft I (1933), pp. 4--11.
Jaap Kunst, De 'Ioon\unst van Java, ’s Gravenbage, 1934, voL I, p. 318,
128 East Asia
That is to say, two disjunct tetrachords, each o£ which consists of a perfect
major third above and a semitone below—the exact likeness of a Japanese
Kumoi scale.
In cimHar arrangements, a great many single instruments and entire
orchestras of West Java have scales with one or even two major thirds.
Specialists may evaluate the exact measurements in the West Java chap¬
ter of Jaap Kunst’s book.®^
The classical major-third genus of the archipelago, used all over Java and
the neighboring island of Bali, is pelog. This scale can hardly be rendered

Ex. 51. JAVANESE PELOG transcribed by Curt Sachs

from Decca 20124 A

g'j J »
grigrnal ^ Iona

by a standard pattern of Cent numbers. Two conjunct tetrachords form a

heptad; each tetrachord consists of a major third above and a semitone or so
below. Variation, however, is very great. The thirds and the seconds, even
on the same instrument, are rarely of the same sizes; one second would
measure 91 Cents, and the following second 176 Cents; and an approxi¬
mately major third of 376 Cents would coexist with a fourthHke third of
488 Cents. The tetrachords arc larger, and often much larger, than a just
fourth.
To understand this lack of regularity, I should like to refer the reader to
the end of the division on Shades in the Greek section of this book, page
215,
Malayan scales are indeed very free, to put it mildly. Both pitches and
distances have an amazing latitude even within the same instrument, and
it is a mere chance to find a just fourth. Such failure in a music-loving
country would be inexplicable unless we knew that the cycle of fifths was
just as little known as the harmonic division of strings. The orchestras of
the archipelago consist in fact of idiophonic instruments which did not
admit any palpable relation of length and pitch; the other classes are only
represented by one or two drums and a casual flute or (Arabo-Persian)
fiddle. Whenever one asks for Balinese or Javanese tuning methods, the
answer is that some old gong founder owns a few highly respected metal
bars inherited from a remote ancestor and uses them with more or less
accuracy as pitch standards. In other words, scales have not been con-

pp. i97> I99» 288, 290, 309, 311, 312, 318.

 The Scales 129
stxucted, but copied and recopied throughout the centuries with ever grow¬
ing incorrectness; the archipelago has a musical tradition, but no musical
science.

Two ARCHAIC TYPES of Javanese orchestras, called munggang and \odo\

ngore\, have a restricted range of only one tetrachord of the felog kind:
(descending) E C B, They are particularly shrouded in mystery and ven¬
erated, and therefore have been considered to be very old—older than
pelog itself.
I must confess that I am not convinced. The first orchestra in munggang
tuning is said to date from the fourth century a.d. Is this really ‘old’? Can
we earnestly believe that at so late a time, more than a thousand years after
the era of pelogAikc scales in Greece, the Javanese, although they were ad¬
vanced enough to form orchestras, still had not progressed beyond three-
tone melodies—^notwithstanding whether they lived under East Asiatic or
Indian influence or were left to themselves? I believe the reasoning that a
heptad of two tetrachords must have been preceded by a single tetrachord
is a bit too cheap. Nor do I see any confirmation in other instances.
Pelog is often misrepresented as a heptatonic scale; the thirds, unin¬
formed authors say, are brought about by skipping two of the seven notes.
It is the other way around: in order to allow for modal rearrangements
within the same range, instruments are given seven notes, two of which
can alternate with their neighbors. Thus there are seven loci for five degrees
of the scale, and there is no more ‘skipping’ than when we leave out the
black keys in playing C major.
The question of mode is not quite easy. Once there were three modes:
nem or bem, lima or pelog, and barang. Written in A, for the sake of sim¬
plicity, they would read:

Nem: (A) B C E F A
Lima: A B D E F A
Barang: B C E F G

But Dr. Jaap Kunst and, with him, Dr. Manfred Bukofzer, who was
kind enough to send me his unpublished notes, insist on the rather insignifi¬
cant role of mode and particularly on the neglect of lima. Still, lima seems
to have at least an historical importance. One cannot overlook the fact that
nem, with its conjunct tetrachords plus an additional tone below, cor-
 130 East Asia
responds to Japanese Hirajoshi. And lima would be a perfect Kumoiioshi,
with its disjunct tetrachords, if it had its B flattened. From Dr. Bukofzer’s
material, I gather indeed that this B is nearly always flatter by about a
quarter tone than it should be. This looks suspiciously like a compromise
between the two modes. Such compromise would probably have a parallel
in the Western Orient where the neutral third of Zalzal of Bagdad (d. 791)
and of Persian lutanists has been attributed to facilitating the transition
from conjunct to disjunct tetrachords.^^ The final loss of lima might be
due to a certain feeling against disjunct tetrachords.

Salendro or slendro, the other great genus of the Malays, considered

masculine in opposition to the ‘female’ pelog, is generally described as an
octave divided into five steps of equal size, each step coming to six fifths of
a tone, or 240 Cents. This is on the whole true, though exact equality is
never attained: steps vary between 185 and 275 Cents. These extremes,
however, are exceptions; the first optimum is around 231 Cents, and a
second optimum is around 251 Cents.

Ex. 52. JAVANESE slendro transcribed by Curt Sachs

from Decca 20124 B

The picture changes when from recent instruments we turn to very old
pieces, excavated from the soil of Java and still reliable because their metal
bars have kept a constant pitch. While no modern metallophone includes
any step wider than 275 Cents, old specimens generally have one of a larger
size, between 300 and 310 Cents and a smaller large step besides of
around 280 Cents.
Here are unmistakable traces of an ancient octave divided into three
seconds and two minor thirds—a division that at least every Westerner
believes he hears anyway.
But the traces of ancient thirds also testify to a temperament tending to
efface the diflFerence between thirds and seconds. Of the two thirds in each
Antoine Dechevrens, Etudes de Science mustade, 2® Etude, Appendice IV, Paris, i8g8,
p. 8.
J. Kunst en C. J. A. Kunst-v. Wely, De Toonkunst van Bali, Weltevreden, 1925, II, pp.
476. 477-
 The Scales 131
octave only one reaches or exceeds the standard distance of three hundred
Cents; the other is smaller in the first two examples, while in the third
example it has actually been assimilated into the augmented seconds.
The exact bearings of the sleniro scale might also be taken in virtue of
the fact that all features common to the Javanese and the Balinese civiliza¬
tions appear in a more archaic stage of development in Bali. Consequently,
a comparison between Javanese and Balinese slendro tunings must be ex¬
pected to throw light on the evolution of that system. At first sight, they
do not differ very much; the distances from tone to tone seem to be just as
arbitrary in Bali as they are in Java. Nevertheless, the trouble of evaluating
the four average distances on a greater number of carefully measured in¬
struments, both in Bali and in Java, yields a definite result. The Bah aver-
age, from tone to tone. is:

219 250 228 260 Cents

(Sums: 469 697 957 Cents)
The Java average is:

236 240 248 227 Cents

(Sums: 476 724 961 Cents)

Therc is less temperament in Bali; the distance of 697 Cents practically

coincides with the perfect fifth.
Slendro has been believed, even in Java, to be older than pslog. This is
highly improbable; indeed, there is a definite indication of the contrary:
one among the Javanese notes is called lima, “the fifth,” and one nem, “the
sixth.” But they are so only in pelog; in slendro they are the fourth and the
fifth note. The terminology must have been created for pelog and later
transferred to slendro.

The question of mode is not easily answered. Java had three slendro modes,
but they have no importance today, and even their distinguishing features
are nearly forgotten. They are played on the same instruments and in the
same range and scale and only differ in their main notes, which in the
orchestra are emphasized by single strokes of the large gong. But not even
these chief notes are beyond doubt. Dr. Jaap Kunst found the second note
of the (ascending) octave used as the key note of the mode nem in 64.2
per cent of all nem melodies; the fourth note for sanga in 84.7 per cent; the
 132 East Asia

fifth note for manjura in 59 per cent—against 41 per cent of other chief
notes.
This means disintegration. But it also shows an original start from dif¬
ferent notes of the scale—as in the Indian gramas and the European
hexachords—which must have resulted in difficulties when the necessity
of playing all modes on the same one-octave instruments forced the Java¬
nese musicians to project the three scales into the same range: thirds would
be necessary where the instrument provided seconds, and vice versa.
And this might be the key to solving the awkward slendro problem. Just
as our equal temperament was due to the need of transposition, the slendro
temperament could easily be understood as a compromise of seconds and
thirds. This, in turn, could account for the decline of the modes which after
all depended on the difference, not on the assimilation, of the two kinds of
intervals.
It seems that the modes or, better, the melodies ascribed to the modes,
matter today only from the standpoint of choosing the adequate time for
performance: pieces in nem are to be played between seven and midnight;
sanga is the right mode for the early morning between midnight and three
and for the afternoon between noon and seven; manjura belongs to the
hours between 3:00 aj^i. and noon.
This time table is unmistakably Indian.
The name salendro points also to India. It probably stemmed from the
Sumatran Salendra Dynasty, which ruled Java almost to the end of the
first thousand years an. and had come from the Coromandel Coast in
South India. Thus it might be wiser to connect slendro with ragas like
madhyamavati, mohana, or harnsadhvam than with the Chinese scale.

Siam, Cambodia, Burma close the ring of East Asiatic scales. They have the
strong tendency toward equal temperament that the slendro arrangement
shows, without in the least effacing the contrast between tones and thirds.
This is achieved by dividing the octave into seven (theoretically) equal
parts, each of which would, if perfect, measure 1714 Cents.
The actual justness of these distances is of course questionable, since the
ear without physical and mathematical help is not capable of correctly di¬
viding an mterval. However much Carl Stumpf 3^_who himself had an

pFj S^pf, “Tonsystem und Musik der Siamesea,’

loc, cit.f and in Samfyielbcinde fur
Vergktchmde Mtmkwissensckaftl (1922), pp. 129-77.
 The Scales 133
excellent ear—^wondered at the relative accuracy with which Siamese musi¬
cians tuned their instruments, the distances that Alexander J. Ellis meas¬
ured varied from 90 to 219 Cents.
The Siamese use these seven equidistant notes as loci for pentatonic
scales by skipping two of them at a time, thus creating the clear contrast
between short tones of 171.4 Cents and neutral thirds of 343 Cents. The
skipping places determine the modal structures:

I II III — V VI — I
I II IV V VI - I
I — III IV V — VII I

(The eighth note is not an end, as our octave, but the starter of another
heptad.)
Singers do not pay much heed to this temperament. The following oper¬
atic aria in almost Western intervals alternates with orchestral ritornelli in
Siamese tuning:

Ex. 53. SIAMESE OPERATIC SOLO transcribed by Curt Sachs from

Decca 2012.J B

Palace and temple music, in China as well as in Korea and Japan, have
rejected the infixed semitone since, far from soothing the passions, it filled
the soul with sensual lust.^® Still, the allegedly skipped loci have been given
a certain place in secular music, though at first only in the way of alter¬
nation. The mode that the Japanese call ritsu occurred, as we have seen, in
two distinct forms, i2'456*8 and 1*34578, say DE GAB D and D FGA CD.
Thus the two purely pentatonic forms of ritsu required a full seven-tone set.
Still, melodies followed one of the two pentatonic patterns without ever
combining them.
This restriction was subsequently suspended: composers were allowed
to mingle the two forms in the same melody, provided that the critical notes
were kept alternative without ever touching and forming semitones:

A. J. Ellis, in the latter publication, pp. 36-42.

Keh, op. at., p. 39.
 134 East Asia
Ex. 54. JAPANESE SONG after Noel Peri

Finally, even this last ban was lifted, at least in folk music.
The ryo scale 123, on the other hand, was heptatonized in a more di¬
rect way by the insertion of a sharpened fourth and a major seventh:
FGA^CD^F,
Similarly, the Japanese cleave their major thirds into two seconds:
A^FE^CBA,
Neither scale became strictly heptatonic. The additional notes kept a
transitional, auxiliary character and had not even the privilege of individual
names: the Chinese called them by the name of the note directly above with
the epithet pien^ which means ‘on the way to/ ‘becoming/

A STORY, recorded in contemporary sources, shows how far the Chinese

were from an actual heptatonic scale: Between 560 and 578 a.d., a man from
Kutcha in East Turkistan astonished his Chinese listeners by playing
‘justly’ a complete major scale on his lute p'i p'a. Its notes were called
sochiba, sadali\, badali\^, \ichi, shachi, shahu\alam, shalap, panjam, dzilid’^
zap, kulidzap. Some of these terms are obscure, some arc obvious. Pro¬
fessor Nicholas N. Martinovitch, whose opinion I sought, was kind enough
to suggest the following equivalents: scattering, sonorous, exchanging,
small, sprinkling, royal word, hanging, the fifth, strong tremolo, very
strong, “Of course,” he writes, “I cannot be sure in my suggestions, for the
corruptions of these words are too great.”
At about the same time, another source claims that the twenty-eight
‘foreign modes’—whatever they might have been—could not be fixed by
means of the Chinese pitch pipes, but only by the strings of the pH p'a^^
In other words, the newly imported Western music followed the divisive
not the up-and-down principle. Still, the cross flute ti also adopted a West¬
ern major scale. Altogether, heptatonic melodies have been more frequent
in the north than in the south of China.

Gulik, op. dt., p, 39.

 The Scales 135
Indeed, even Japan has known a major scale, Champa, In 763, music
from Champa, that is Cambodia, is first mentioned as played at a banquet
of the Imperial Court. But the Cambodian style in Japan was assimilated
four hundred years later into the Chinese style, and it is not possible to tell
whether the original Champa music had or had not the major scale that
the modern Japanese designate by this name.^^
The evolution of East Asiatic scales now begins to stand out. It starts
from stricdy pentatonic scales with thirds of any size. In a second stage,
heptatonics appear in the form of seven loci for stricdy pentatonic scales.
In a third, the two ‘skipped’ loci are admitted to the scale, though only as
passing notes. Finally, they are fully incorporated.
Temperament had a parallel evolution. Pelog represents a pretempera-
mental stage. In China and Japan, on the contrary, scales have been rather
well tempered to whole and semitones and to minor and major thirds. In
slendro, the original minor thirds and whole tones have more and more
been assimilated, resulting in five nearly equal six-fifths of tones in the
octave. In Siam, Cambodia, and Burma, on the other hand, seven loci
have been assimilated to form almost equal seven-eighths of tones, five of
which are actually used in melodies.
^ Ct Noel Peri, op. cit., and Paul Demieville, “La Musique ^amc au Japon,” in Publica-
tions de VEcoU Frangaise d*Extreme-Orient, Etudes Asiatiques, I (1925), pp. 200, 225.
 [4]

MELODY AND RHYTHM

SCALE AND MODE, though not exclusively instrumental, have been

established on instruments; in vocal music they best show in those styles
that depend on the collaboration of instruments. It must be emphasized
that the Far East, however, knows singing styles entirely independent
from instruments and consequendy from the rigidity of scales and modes.
We need not discuss Buddhist cantillation. But a section on East Asiatic
music would be incomplete without mentioning that peculiar recitative
that found its perfection in the Japanese nd.
The no in its present form only reached its peak about 1500 a.d. It is an
archaic lyrical drama, derived from ecstatic rituals of the past, but laid in a
worldly atmosphere and performed by a few masked actors in a strict
unity of word, melody, and dance. Its singing, far from the freedom so dear
to modern Occidentals, runs to no more than nine stereotype, perpetually
recurring, patterns: the first appearance of the main dramatis persona, the
account of the second person s journey with which he introduces himself,
and so on. This is done in a uniform cantillation on one note, which, how¬
ever, is interrupted by melodic formulas intoned in the uncertain, gliding
manner, with subsequent sharpening that we know from Japanese zithers
and flutes. These formulas are indivisible units, each of which has its in¬
dividual name such as ‘revolving,’ ‘color,’ ‘tension’ (like the tropes in Jew¬
ish cantillation). When chanting is resumed, it will jump to a level a fourth
lower, and even to another fourth—a-e-B, or drop to the next whole tone
and then jump down by one or by two iomths—a-g-d-A,
Rhythm is just as irrational as intonation, and even when a melodic
formula suggests a stricter meter, the singer tries to destroy this impression
by a kind of rubato. Only on the lower level are both rhythm and intona¬
tion more apt to be steady.
The orchestra, sitting on the stage, is formed by one stick-beaten and
two hand-beaten drums and a transverse flute. As a rule, the drummers
strike an even rhythm though the voice is free. Now and then, the flute
joins in and soars above the voice; but its melody is neither co-ordinated
 Melody and Rhythm 137
nor even correlated to the song: the two parts are not supposed to be heard
together, but to coexist, in a magical, not in an aesthetic, sense.
With our present terminology it is not possible to give an adequate idea
of the strange vocalization of the East. Koreans expect at least their geishas
to sing in a low registerIn general, “only children and coachmen sing
from the stomach”; Far Eastern singing is nasal, compressed, explosive,
by preference high in pitch, often ventriloquially veering to the lowest
register, and continually interspersed with glissandi. Unusual as it appears
to our ears at the beginning, it rapidly affects even the unprepared West¬
erner as the perfect counterpart of the mask that the singer wears: it con¬
ceals his identity, indeed his human nature, and from the world of everyday
lifts him to the sphere of heroes, gods, and demons. Once we have experi¬
enced this mythic atmosphere, we begin to realize the limitations of the
Western ‘natural’ style which is unable to contrast Wotan, the father of the
gods, and Hans Sachs, the shoemaker of Niimberg.
The Chinese opera in its classical form was ruled by its texts. It could
not be otherwise. Monosyllabic languages have a few hundred syllables to
express ten thousand things and notions; so each syllable has many dif¬
ferent meanings. Understanding depends on special intonation, on the
rising, level, or falling inflection of the voice.
Melody is under the necessity of following these inflections; words set
to music against their natural speech melody would be less intelligible than
an interrogative sentence that drops at the end would be in some European
opera.^^
Thus the vocal music of classical China was strictly logogenic. A musical
vocabulary provided a stock of appropriate single notes for the level tone
and of groups of notes for each of the three ‘tones,’ which again were sub¬
divided into ‘male’ and ‘female’ forms, the latter being slightly different
and a tone lower.

Monosyllabic languages are not favorable to quantitative meter; long

and short are much less vital than in composite words. True, poetry (and
doubtless music) followed definite meters during the T‘ang Dynasty, in
which the Chinese were particularly fond of elegant form. To give an

Keh, op, cit,, p. 20.

O. Abraham and E. von Hornbostel, “Tonsystem und Musik der Japaner,” loc. cit,, p. 212.
Cf. John Hazedel Levis, Foundations of Chinese Musical Art, Peiping, 1936.
 138 East Asia
example: a poem o£ the eighth century a.d., “The Drinker in the Spring/’
is given the following affected meter:

But then, the period of the Tang was widely open to influences from India
and the Middle East, and this poetic style may be due to foreign paragons.
As a rule, Chinese has imposed the qualitative, strong-weak principle
on poetry and music, with the syllable as the time unit or beat. Since Chi¬
nese verses are extremely short—four, five, or six monosyllables as a rule—
each verse is musically rendered by one measure of as many beats, not, as
elsewhere, by a whole phrase.
Such musicopoetical forms are either asymmetrical and rhapsodic (ch'i)
or else symmetrical (sM). The purest realization of the symmetrical form is
the Hymn to Confucius, main piece of the Confucian liturgy, which proba¬
bly represents the earliest preserved stage of Chinese music. Temple singers
perform it in incredibly long-drawn notes of equal value, each of which
carries one monosyllable of the text. Four such notes form a verse and eight
verses a strophe. Once more, the single note proves to be the generative
cell of Chinese music (Ex. 41).

Qualitative rhythm (‘time’), though often running against the accents of

spoken words, is, outside the Far East, common in Tibet and among the
Turkish peoples including Tatars, Kirghizes, and Bashkirs. Four-beat
measures prevail in the same vast area.
There are exceptions, though. Both Korea and China have preserved
folksongs in three beats, and the Chinese themselves had odd and even
mixed measures in the first millennium. But these again have been attrib¬
uted to foreign influences.*^^
Rhythm is certainly less important than in other countries. The great
number of percussion instruments in all parts of the Far East should not
mislead our judgment. Most of them do not serve rhythm at all; rattles,
scrapers, bells, and stones had other tasks. The drums themselves were
struck with sticks and therefore served time beating better than elaborate
rhythmic patterns.
Heinz Trcfzger, “Das Musiklcben der Tang-Zeit,” in Sinica XIII (10:18), o. sS.
Hdnz Trefzger, iMd., p. 59.
 Melody and Rhythm 139
It would be a mistake, however, to compare such time beating with the
crude four beats of our big band drums. In the oldest preserved style, the
classical Sino-Japanese buga\u dances, the strong accent is on the last beat,
which is emphasized by a stamp of the dancers and by a powerful stroke
on the drum prepared by a soft stroke on the half-beat before: one, two,
three, and FOUR,
Bugaf(u is supposed to be of Indian origin, and Chinese and Japanese
music on the whole were under Indian influence in the second half of the
first millennium a.d. And yet the most typical trait of Indian music, its
sophisticated rhythmical patterns or talas, had no chance in the East. In
860 A.D., someone wrote a treatise on drumming in China, with over one
hundred ‘symphonies,’ which doubtless were Indian talas; but nothing
came of this, and not one of the Far Eastern styles has preserved the slight¬
est trace of such patterns. The three rhythms used in Tibetan orchestras,
and kept up in percussion even when the other parts are silent,are ob¬
viously not Far Eastern, but deteriorated Indian patterns.

.j j j j j j j
iPji m /J /J

.jTP.iTTini imnj
The elaborate polyrhythm of Balinese cymbal players that Mr. Colin
MePhee has recently described is not Far Eastern either. “The cymbal
group may include as many as seven players each with a different-sized
pair of cymbals, performing a different rhythmic pattern. The same
rhythmic motives can be heard at times during the rice-stamping, when
the steady pounding of the poles in the wooden trough is accompanied
by various syncopated rhythms beaten against the sides or ends of the
trough.”
T. Howard Somervel, “The Music of Tibet,” in The Musical Times LXIV (1923), p. 108.
Colin MePhee, “The Technique of Balinese Music,” in Bulletin of the American Musico^
logical Society no. 6 (1942), p. 4.
 [5]

NOTATION

NO LOWER CIVILIZATION finds the way to musical or other scripts;

the mental horizon is narrow, and knowledge is limited in range; oral
tradition has become almighty, and memory, unburdened and unchal¬
lenged by other means of preservation, is trained to a hardly believable
degree.
Many particular circumstances had to contribute before the earliest forms
of writing relieved tradition and memory. Only one of them was valid for
music: the fear that in times of distress tradition might weaken and, by
an inexact rendition of the sacred songs, endanger the efficacy of worship.
A remarkable example is the musical notation invented in the island of
Bali by learned Hindu-Javanese who in the sixteenth century ajd. had es¬
caped from the Mohammedan conquest of their native Java and wished to
preserve their traditional music from oblivion in a new country without
tradition.
It consisted in a kind of shorthand: the five notes dun^j diti^r dun^j dcti^j
dong were simply rendered by the little symbols for the vowels a, i, u. e, o,
without indicating rhythm.^®
While alphabets seem to have had a relatively uniform evolution, from
realistic pictures to abstract symbols and from concepts to sounds, musical
notation followed different principles from the very beginning, and most
peoples used several systems at once. There were toned notations, indicating
the individual notes by symbols taken from the ordinary alphabet; tabla-
tures or fingering notations to lead the player’s hand whatever the notes
produced might be; neumes. which graphically depicted the melodic steps
as directions rather than as groups of two or three distinct pitches; group
notations, in which conventional groups of notes were designated by rail
syllables or nicknames.
The Far East has had musical scripts at least since the beginning of our
era; particularly interested in individual pitches, it has above all favored
tonal notation. This is in the strictest sense true with the players of stone
and bell chimes who, unconcerned with melody proper, strike one slab or
bell at a time, each of which produces one of the lii’s. Logically, the pitches
J. Kunst ax C. J. A. Kunst-v.Wcly, De Toonkunst pan Bali, op. cit„ pp. 47-68.
 Notation 141
arc known by the first syllables of the lu names: huang (chung), ying
(chung), u/u (2), and so on. Like all Chinese notations and the ordinary
script itself, the symbols are arranged in descending columns which pro¬
gress from the right to the left.
Singers, on the contrary, more concerned with melody than with absolute
pitch, use the five syllabic symbols which denote the pentatonic scale: k}mg,
shang, chiao, chih, yik, written below or on the right of the corresponding
syllable of the text. Absolute pitch is not neglected, though; a head note in¬
dicates to which lu the fundamental note k}mg shall be tuned (exacdy as
we do in the case of our clarinets “in A” or horns “inFO- (PL 4, p. 142)
The same kind of notation is customary with the players of the lute pH p"a
and of all pipes. Most of these instruments had a comparatively recent
Western origin, and at the beginning their players probably were Mongols.
As a consequence, they replaced the complicated Chinese by the simpler
Mongolian characters. When voices and lutes perform the same melody,
both the Mongolian and the Chinese symbols are written under each syllable
of the text.

East Asia also had rudimentary neumes for those melodies in which the
curve mattered more than the individual pitches. A dash, ascending from
left to right, indicated ‘upward’; a horizontal dash, ‘level movement’;
a dash, descending from left to right, ‘downward.’ A x between two of
tliese dashes allowed for either of them. Or a little white circle meant level
movement, and a black one, an oblique movement, which in turn had to
be specified by additional syllables as either falling or rising. Sometimes the
composer halved this circle; white above and black below meant a more or
less level movement but freedom to make it oblique; black above and white
below denoted the contrary.
The unavoidable manual counterpart of neumes is not missing. The
Chinese use the hand to memorize the four types of tonal movement in
phonetics; they touch the third phalange of the forefinger to indicate pHng,
the level tone; the tip of the same finger, for shang, the rising tone; the tip
of the ring finger, for ch'ii, the falling tone; and the third phalange of the
same finger, for ju, the (musically meaningless) dialectal shortening of any
of the foregoing three movements.^® The similitude of Guido of Arezzo’s
famous hand is obvious.
John Hazedel Levis, Foundations of Chinese Musical Art, op. ciL, p. 17.
142 East Asia
 Notation 143
Signs for rhythm were shared with the other forms of notation. But in
general it suflBced to mark the end of a phrase, the phrase itself being deter¬
mined by the number of syllables in the verse, each of which coincided—at
least in principle—with a musical beat. Occasionally one syllable might
take more or less than a beat; such abnormal cases were either ruled by
tradition or left to the singer’s personal taste.

Tablatures were used by players of long zithers and flutes to indicate what
their fingers should do in order to produce the required notes, rather than
the notes themselves which were unchangeably fixed in making or tuning
the instruments. Figures beside the syllables of the text denoted the strings
to be plucked. A figure right in the middle of the column prescribed the
thumb; shifted to the left, it indicated the forefinger; to the right, the mid¬
dle finger. Not even what we might call graces depended on the player’s
taste, as in older European music. So vital in East Asiatic music is the deli¬
cate vacillation that dissolves the rigidity of pentatonic scales that all pos¬
sible artifices have carefully been classified, named, and, by the syllabic sym¬
bols of their names, embodied in notation: f{a (to quote the terms of Japa¬
nese koto players); that is, sharpening a note by pressing down the string
beyond the bridge; niju oshi, sharpening by a whole tone; 4 the subse¬
quent sharpening of a note already plucked and heard; sharpening it
for just a moment and releasing the string into its initial vibration; yu, the
same, but making the relapse very short before the following note is played;
\a\i, plucking two adjoining strings in rapid succession with the same
finger; uchi, striking the strings beyond the bridges during long pauses;
nagashi, a slide with the forefinger over the strings; and many others.
This tablature includes two symbols that do not belong in the domain of

Plate 4. Chinese Notation. After John Hazedel Levis.—^The script runs down¬
ward; the vertical columns read from right to left. The four columns with large
symbols are the text, each symbol representing one (monosyllabic) word. The
small signs on either side of a column indicate the melody. The right-side sym¬
bols denote the exact pitches of every beat and word: the first one, at the upper
right corner, d; the second and third ones, The following group of three,
flanking the fourth word of the text, designates a ligature d-c"—d on one beat.
The fifth group means the ligature g'-d on one beat plus a rest—^the horizontal
dash—^that marks the end of the phrase. The left-side symbols are neumes, the
first three indicating level movement, the fourth rising and falling, the fifth
rising movement.
144
graces: \a\S is a frequent phrase of five notes, two of which are plucked
with the forefinger, two on a lower string with the middle finger, and the
fifth with the thumb on a higher string; hazumu is a short falling phrase,
consisting of a dotted note on the tenth string, followed by two notes on
the ninth and eighth strings. These signs belong in the category of group
notation.
Recent investigation has made clear that this tablature is a Chinese tran¬
scription of Sanskrit symbols used in India.®^ Indeed, the graces of long
zithers, unparalleled in East Asiatic music, are nothing else than the ga-
ma{as of India, imported with the sway of Buddhism during the Han
Dynasty and given to the technique of Chinese zithers, which became the
favorite instruments of meditative Buddhist priests and monks.

None of these scripts indicates time values. Rhythm was often left to
instinct and tradition; or else the composer added a special notation for
the beats. But this notation is rather inconsistent and still relies on the ear
more than on the eye.
The Chinese write small circles beside the corresponding notes to indi¬
cate the fourth beats of the bars, and often mark the first, second, and third
beats by simple dots. Quarter notes, consequently, always had a dot, while
many eighth notes were not marked at all. Thus a rudimentary mensural
notation branched off from the beat notation: the dot, properly meaning a
beat, came to designate a quarter note, while half notes were given two and
whole notes three dots.
Japanese notation is more consistent: all downbeats are given circles,
alternately with single and with double periphery (to facilitate reading),
while the even upbeats are indicated by smaller circles. When eighths or six¬
teenths occur in koto scores, the figures denoting the string to be played
are placed between the circles, either halfway or, for those following a
dotted note, nearer to the subsequent circle.
Some koto players have used mensural symbols: a full circle for the
whole note, an upright semicircle for the half note (like a D), a quarter
circle (like the upper part of a D) for the quarter note.^^
Tempo is left unwritten. It varies, however; though not within the same
piece; different tempi are supposed to contrast, not to blend.
C£. Heinz Trefzger, “Das Musikleben dcr Tang-Zeit,” loc. at., p. 52.
52Wang Guang Ki (Kuang-chi Wang), “Ueber die chincsischen Notensebriften,” in Sinica
in (1928), pp. 110-23.
^^Mueiler, “Einige Notizen iiber die japanische Musik,” loc. cit., p. 19.
 [6]

POLYPHONY

EAST ASIATIC CHORUSES always sing in unison—just as ancient

Greek choirs did. The curious fact that in Buddhist worship every singer
chants the same words in the same rhythm in whatever tonality he pre¬
fers is no exception; while the strange, never ceasing drones used in the
choral singing of Tibet belong in the Indian, not in the Chinese sphere of
Tibetan civilization.
A singer’s accompanist, on the contrary, is expected to follow behind
by an irrationally small particle of time, as an aide avoids riding abreast of
his general. This is particularly the practice of Japanese flutists; but even
so, nearly all East Asiatic accompaniment depends on shifted phrases, on
canonlike anticipation and retardation. The singer displays a rich, orna¬
mental realization of some melodic pattern, and the player, having this
same pattern in mind, gives the singer all the freedom required and care¬
fully tries to follow. His notes come in the correct—though not pedantically
precise—order, but are delayed when the voice unexpectedly restrains its
ornaments and are ahead when the singer dwells upon a phrase. In a more
recent stage, this unavoidable discordance has become a highly appreciated
means of expression, in which the continuous friction of seconds and sev¬
enths is probably not perceived as a dissonance in any Occidental sense.
In the sacred music of China, such accompaniments have to a great extent
been simplified. One rule of classical music reads: while the singer holds
a whole note, the long zither plays thirty-two thirty-second notes and the
mouth organ adds one inhaling and one exhaling half note. The stringed
instruments always accompany in broken chords formed by the unison,
fourth and octave or unison, fifth and octave, in strict parallels with the
singer.
Japanese koto players have more freedom; they now support the voice,
now fill the gaps in rhythm left by the singer’s sustained notes, thus pro¬
ducing chords of octaves, perfect or diminished fifths, fourths, thirds, and
even seconds.
The Occidental word harmony, however, scarcely applies here. These
®^C. A- Wegelin, “Chinccsche Muziek,” in China IV (1929), p. 143.
146 East Asia
concords of two or three notes are not ‘functional’; they do not add a third
dimension to musical space, nor do they create an emotional atmosphere.
In practically all cases, they add to the singer’s notes other notes that the
singer has just abandoned or that he is going to strike up; they arc melodic
present, past, and future superimposed, and nothing, after all, but piled up
heterophony-
The same is true with the chords of the mouth organ—thc instrument
called sMng in Chinese and shS in Japanese. I have described it as a piece
of wood cut in the shape of a gourd.

The neck serves as a mouthpiece and air conduct, while the body forms a
windchest to feed the pipes. Thirteen or more slender canes of different length
(the highest measuring sixteen to twenty inches) project upwards out of the
windchest in a circular arrangement; inside the windchest each pipe has a side
hole which is covered by a thin metal tongue.

The player blows both a melody and, on other pipes, an accompaniment in

chords.

In the court music of Japan old harmonies arc preserved which were brought
to the country a thousand years ago from China; some comprise three notes,
some five, some six. Only two of the eleven usual chords correspond to occidental
minor triads; the others consist of the notes of pentatonic scales sounding simul¬
taneously (for instance: DE EGA) or in other combinations, as B C D E F A,
These complicated harmonics arc in modern China replaced by simple parallels
of fourths and fifths. In both cases, the melody is below its accompaniment, as
in ancient Greece and the earlier part of the European Middle Ages/®

The problem of East Asiatic polyphony is not solved but clarified by the
contrast of right and left music.
The motley influences that had acted on Japanese music up to 800 Am.—
Manchurian, Korean, Chinese, Indian—could obviously not be blended
into one organic style. So the Japanese disintegrated them in the ninth
century into two separate styles. Manchurian and Korean influences were
united in the so-called right music, with the cross flute f{oma fuye and the
big hourglass drum san no tsuzumi as the distinguishing instruments. Chi¬
nese and Indian influences, on the contrary, formed the so-called left music,
with the cross flute 6 te\i, the mouth organ sh6, and the small cylinder
drum k.a\\o as the distinguishing instruments. Beside these instruments,
both styles shared the oboe hichiri\i, the lute biwa, the zither s6no \pto, as
well as the larger drum tai\o and the small gong sh6\p.
The essential distinction, however, was in the relations of the two leading

Curt Sachs, The History of Musical Instruments, op. cit., p. 183.

 Polyphony i47
instriirnents, the flute and the oboe: while in the left, Chinese music they
played in unison with the chords of the mouth organ; in the right, Man¬
churian music they played in counterpoint,^^
The court orchestra of the Mikado, which boasts that it has preserved
the unaltered tradition of the first millennium a.d., performs in a very
elaborate form of polyphony. Its timbre is light and clear, since none of its
five melodic instruments reaches below the middle of the one-lined octave.
One mouth organ and one vertical flute play the melody high up in the two-
Hned octave, and a cross flute doubles them an octave above. All three of
these wind instruments play heterophonically, now joining, now sepa¬
rating, forming thirds or even grinding seconds, and their vacillating curve
becomes even more unsteady as the flutes are constantly driven up by irra¬
tional microtones. Below this strident clamor, the lute follows the same

Ex. 55. JAPANESE COURT MUSIC after Mueller

Hisao Tanabc, Japanese Music, op. cit,, p. I5«

148 East Asia
trend, in fourths or other chords, and the zither koto joins in with a short,
dry ostinato motif. Of the two drums, the contributes rolls and both
single and repeated blows, while the tail^o adds some single strokes; the
gong marks the beginning of each bar with a single blow. The author failed
in the attempt to write down the score from a phonograph recording. Our
example follows the score published by Dr. Mueller, who had the oppor¬
tunity to test each individual player.®’^

Mudler, “Einige Notizcn fiber die japaniscbc Musik,” loc. cit., 31-3.
 [7]

ORCHESTRAS

ORCHESTRAS WERE SOUNDING BRIDGES between the macro-

and the microcosmos, between the world of gods and ancestors and the
world of the living, since they embodied all classes of instruments, each
of which stood for an element, a cardinal point, a season, a planet, a sub¬
stance: the stone chime for northwest and stone; the bell chime for west
and fall and metal; the long zither for south and summer and silk; the
flute for east and spring and bamboo; the trough and the tiger for southeast
and wood; the drum for north and winter and skin; the mouth organ for
northeast and gourd; the globular clay flute for southeast and earth.
Kwei, Emperor Shun’s chief musician, “said, when they tapped and beat
the sounding stone, and struck and swept the ch!in and she, in order to
accord with the chant, then [the spirits of] the ancestors and progenitors
came down and visited. The guests of them filled the principal seat. And
the host of nobles virtuously yielded [place to one another]. At the bottom
of the hall were the pipes and the tambours, which were brought into uni¬
son or suddenly checked by the beaten trough and the scraped tiger, while
the mouth organ and the bell indicated the interludes.”
The size of an orchestra mirrored the rank and power of its owner. In
the shadow of gigantic imperial orchestras, the Chou Dynasty (1122-255
B.C.) allowed the high dignitaries only twenty-seven (mostly blind) men,

sitting on three sides of a square, while the ordinary noblemen had no more
than fifteen players in one straight line.
The Han Dynasty had, in the years 58 to 75 a.d., three orchestras: one for
religious ceremonies, the second for the archery of the palace, and the third
for banquets and the harem. The total number of their members was 829.
The court also retained a large military band.
Orchestras included singers and dancers. The dancers’ group, with weap¬
ons for war themes, and with feathers and flutes for peaceful subjects,
closely followed poetry and music by forming the writing symbols of the
text.

The Shoo King, transi by W. H. Medhurst, op. cit., p. 45.

150 East Asia
The T'ang Dynasty (618-907 a.d.), deeply interested in fostering the
arts, seems to have brought the court orchestras to their highest evolution.
Six of them were ‘standing,’ and eight, ‘sitting.’ All together, they num¬
bered from five to seven hundred members.
Several graphic ground plans illustrate the arrangement of some of these
orchestras. In one of them the conductor has 20 oboes before him; then 200
mouth organs in a second tier; 40 flutes and 128 lutes in a third tier; 120
harps in a fourth tier; 2 stone chimes arc to his left, and to his right, 2 bell
chimes; and an undisclosed number of drums behind the 4 chimes.
Another diagram shows that choruses occupied the left and the right of
the orchestra from the front to rear. On a third diagram, the dance orchestra
of forty-four players is arranged in a circle with an inscribed .sciuare; twenty
ya drums form the circle, while twenty-four performers with stamping
tubes, clapper tubes, and drums are drawn up alternately in the scjuarc.
The court musicians were provided by an Imperial Academy of Music,
the Garden of Pears. Its female section, the Garden of Everlasting Spring,
trained several hundred young ladies under the personal supervision of the
emperor, and it was also open to girls of outstanding beauty, though lesser
musical gift, who were admitted with the title of auxiliary musicians.
A part of the female court orchestra, performing before Emperor Ming
Huang (713-756) and his mistress, is depicted on a recently discovered de¬
lightful painting of the eighth century a.d. The conducting lady agitates a
clapper, and in the rear a girl strikes a big drum; the other instruments—
harps, long zithers, and lutes, transverse flutes, oboes, and mouth organs,
metallophones and hourglass drums—are played in pairs.'’'* (PL 5, p. 160)
Besides all these indoor orchestras, the imperial court entertained a huge
outdoor band. It consisted of a vanguard with 890 players of gongs, cym¬
bals, drums, and wind instruments, plus forty-eight singers; and a rear
guard of 408 musicians in similar arrangement; that is, in all no less than
1,346 men.®°
The Korean court in King Setjo’s time (1457-1468) entertained 572 play¬
ers and choir singers and 195 apprentices, and as late as 1897 emperor
had 772 musicians.®^ (PL 6a, p. 161)

Cf. Heinz Trefzgcr, *‘Das Musiklebcn der Tang-Zeit,” he, cit„ p. 68.
Maurice Courant, “Essai historique sur la musique historique des Chinois/* in Lavignac,
Encyclopidie de la Musique.
C. S. Keh, Die Koreanische Musi\, op, cit., p. ly.
 OrcKestras 151
The Chinese court indulged also in the diversity, not only in the sizes, o£
its orchestras. The aristocracy, like all higher civilized groups, had a strong
taste for exotic timbres and experienced the unique stimulus that imagina¬
tion receives from foreign music. The emperors appreciated presents of
singing and playing girls from allied kings, just as the Egyptian pharaohs
had done before. Confucius once took his departure from court as a pro¬
test, when “the people of Ts*e sent Loo a present of female musicians,
which Ke Huan received, and for three days no court was held’" —a pro¬
test that reminds one of the pronouncement of the great Jewish philosopher
and physician, Maimonides (1135-1204), that secular music ought not to be
tolerated, and by all means not when performed by a singing female.®^
Such delight in foreign music was seasoned with imperialistic pride in
times of expansion. Whenever a country had been conquered, native musi¬
cians were sent to the Chinese court to form a national orchestra—^not
merely on occasion or as a solitary tribute, but as a permanent institution
alongside those already in existence, much as a conquered country’s es¬
cutcheon would be incorporated in the victor’s coat of arms.
Of the so-called Seven Orchestras entertained in 581 a-d., one had come
from Kaoli, a Tungus country; another from India; a third from Buchara;
a fourth from Kutcha in East Turkistan, with twenty performers of mostly
Western instruments, which had been established as early as 384 a.d. and
was so much in favor that the emperor tried to bar it. Individual musicians
from Cambodia, Japan, Silla, Samarkand, Paikchei, Kachgar, and Turkey
mingled in them. The ‘scholars,’ puristic defenders of the ‘ancient’ music,
protested; but in vain.
The number of court orchestras was increased to nine in the seventh cen¬
tury; but some Cambodian musicians, engaged in 605, were sent back be¬
cause their instruments were too primitive. In 801 or 802, the emperor hired
thirty-five Burmese musicians, and between the year 1000 and the end of
the monarchy, two more Mongolian bands and a Ghurka, an Annamese,
a Tibetan, and an Islamic orchestra were added.
Japan was no less receptive than China. In 809, the Imperial Academy of
Music included twenty-eight masters of foreign styles—Cambodian, Chi¬
nese, Sillan, and others.^^

The Original Chinese Texts of the Confucian Analecta, op. cit., p. 237.
Cf. Eric Werner and Isaiah Sonne, “The Philosophy and Theory o£ Music in Judaeo-
Arahic Literature,” in Hebrew Union College Annual XVI (1941), p. 281.
6^ Cf. Paul Demieville, “La Musique dame au Japon,” in Publications de I’Ecolc Frangaise
d'Extreme^Orieni, Etudes Asiatiques I (1925), pp. 199-226.
1^2 East Asia
Orchestras, now almost extinct in China, Korea, and Japan (except the
Mikado’s court orchestra), have survived in the southeast o£ Asia, particu¬
larly in Java and Bali, and are there the centers o£ musical practice. Their
common name, in the Malayan Islands, is gdmelan, £rom gamd, ‘to handle.’
A gamelan is utterly different from a modern orchestra. Western orches¬
tras are bodies o£ musicians, playing £or almost all kinds o£ occasions, buy¬
ing the latest models o£ instruments, using them when they have been
expressly prescribed, and changing even within the same work. Malayan
orchestras, on the contrary, are bodies o£ instruments, mostly inherited
from times past and imposed on both players and composers. Composite
as they are, they form unalterable units with so personal a character that
they bear individual names with the tide ‘sir.’ Most courts possess
quite a number of them; the Sultan of Soesochoenan owns at least twenty-
nine full gamelans, each of which is assigned to special tasks.
Large gamelans consist of three sizes of metallophones with slabs resting
on the sound box and three sizes of metallophones with suspended slabs,
the various sizes being tuned an octave apart; three corresponding sizes of
gong chimes; two sizes of xylophones; up to a score of small and large
gongs; two hand-beaten drums; a flute, and a fiddle. In the glittering peal
of this strange orchestra, as I wrote in my History of Musical Instruments,
one can distinguish the plain and solemn melody of the basses, its para¬
phrase and loquacious figuration in the smaller chimes, and the punctua¬
tion of the gongs, of which the smaller ones mark the end of shorter sec¬
tions while the powerful basses of the large gongs conclude the main parts.
The two drums guide the changing tempo.

Caxcbodia, Siam, anb Burma, the Indo-Chinese countries between the ar¬
chipelago and China, complete the province of orchestral music, as opposed
to the vast area where chamber music prevails in the Middle and Near East.
The Siamese accompany their theatrical performances with orchestras
generally composed of two flutes, two gong chimes, two metallophones, two
xylophones, a single gong, and three large drums. The strict gemination of
the melodic instruments against three drums is reminiscent of the Chinese
orchestra of women during the T‘ang Dynasty just mentioned. The domi¬
nant metallic timbre, on the other hand, relates the Siamese orchestra to
the Malay gamelan. The comparatively large share of drums, however,
indicates the neighborhood of India.
 Orchestras
Still further from Javanese ideals is the women’s orchestra of Cambodia,
in which the three Malayan sets of idiophones, the xylophone, the metallo-
phone, and the gong chime, are matched by stringed instruments: a large
zither, a Chinese lute, and an Arabo-Persian fiddle.®®
Burma uses orchestras chiefly to accompany her shadow plays, the pwe.
These orchestras are small; they consist of two pairs of clappers, two pairs
of cymbals, a gong chime arranged in a circular framework around the
squatting player, a similar drum chime, a big drum suspended from a gal¬
lows, and two oboes blown with such energy and endurance that often an
assistant is in readiness to support the collapsing player. (PI. 6b, p. i6i)
These penetrant oboes, which lead the melody instead of the tinkling
gongs of Java and Bali, are definitely Indian. But still more Indian is the
unparaUeled drum chime of, normally, twenty-four carefully tuned drums,
suspended inside the walls of a circular pen, which the player, squatting in'
the center, strikes with his bare hands in swift, toccatalike melodies with
stupendous technique and delicacy
And now we turn to India proper.

™ Indiens und Indonesiens, and ed., Berlin,

8® Illu^ations m Curt Sachs, Die Uusi\instnimente Birmas und Assams, Munchen iqi7
Plate 2; Die Musi\instrumente Indiens und Indonesiens, ibid., pp. 4, 5, ’ ^
Section Four

INDIA
T he roots of music are more exposed in India than anywhere
else. The Vedda in Ceylon possess the earliest stage of singing that
we know, and the subsequent strata of primitive music are repre¬
sented by the numberless tribes that in valleys and jungles took shelter from
the raids of northern invaders. So far as this primitive music is concerned,
the records are complete or at least could easily be completed if special at¬
tention were paid to the music of the ‘tribes.*
But the following stratum is entirely wanting: we are not permitted to
watch the slow transition from folksong to art song, from hundreds of
tribal styles to one all-embracing music of India.
The facts and ideas that appear in the earliest Sanskrit sources prove that
this process had long ago come to an end. They show music as the center
of all religious rites, court ceremonials, and private entertainments. They
show a nation so deeply fond of music that in its belief the gods themselves
were ardent musicians and Siva in his enthusiasm had exclaimed, “I like
better the music of instruments and voices than I like a thousand baths and
prayers.** ^ They picture a country where musical practice had settled down
in many strata, from the slave-girl up to “sweet-voiced” eunuchs and to
famous masters, and where singing, playing, dancing were not wanting in
a well-bred lady’s education.
No music from those times is left. Still, when we read in Bharata’s classi¬
cal book of the twenty-two microtones in ancient Indian octaves, of in¬
numerable scales and modes, and of seventeen melody patterns with their
pentatonic and hexatonic varieties and chromatic alterations, we realize
that music at, or even before, the beginning of the first century aj). was by
no means archaic. Indeed, there is no reason to believe that India’s ancient
music differed essentially from her modern music, which is closer to our
Western taste and comprehension than any other Oriental music. The
strange division of the octave into twenty-two microtones still persists, al¬
though their sizes have changed; melody follows mode and rdga exacdy in
the same way as it did two thousand years ago; and the difference, within
this homogeneous style, between ancient and recent music may after all
not be much greater than the present difference between the more archaic
Carnatic style in the South and the Hindustani style of the North.
Away from art music, India has had its Vedic cantillation.
^ Bharata, ch. 36:27 (Grosset, in Encyclopcdie de la Musique, op. at., p. 260).
 THE VEDIC CHANT

THE VEDA is the whole of the (pre-Buddhist) religious wisdom of India,

collected in four books: Rig-Veda, the Veda of verses; Sama-Veda, the
Veda of melodies; and two others, Yajur-Veda and Atharva-Veda* The Rig-
Veda is the earliest section. Although its origin and date are not fully estab¬
lished, modern specialists believe that its older parts already existed between
two thousand and one thousand b.c. when the Aryans arrived from the
northwest and began to invade and conquer India.
The Vedic ritual culminated in the solemn Soma drink offering which
was assisted by four priests, each with one of the Vedas: the high priest,
who conducted the ceremony with the Atharva-Veda; the Adhvaryu, who
murmured incantations from the Yajur-Veda; the Udgatar, who sang from
the Sama-Veda; and the Hotar, who performed from the Rig-Veda in a
style that might be equally well described as reciting and chanting.
Early recitation probably used only two notes. The grammarian Panini,
who lived in the fourth century b.c., wrote unmistakably: “A vowel pro¬
nounced at a high pitch is called udatta; pronounced at a low pitch, it is
called anuddtta; their combination is called svarita!' This is a phonetic
statement; but it concerns recitation and cantillation as well, since the Rig-
Veda is provided with the graphic symbols of the same three terms* Ancient
Sanskrit had indeed the three pitch (not stress) accents that the Greeks and
Romans knew as oxys or acutus, barjs or grams, and penspdmenos or cir-
cumfiexus.
The svarita, however, was just as uncertain in its meaning as the circum¬
flex; contrary to Panini’s statement, and at least after his time, the svarita,
instead of being the combination of udatta and anuddtta, became an appog-
giatura falling from a higher tone or semitone to the udatta, so that the
later form of Vedic chant was a three-tone melody with the stress on
udatta. Occasionally, the high note was given a syllable without being tied
to the middle note by a ligature; but even so it was invariably followed by
the middle, never by the low, tone.
 The Vedic Chant 159
The sama style ignores rhythm; long and short notes follow the natural
meter of the words, and the last-note before a breath is strangely accented.
Modern Sama singers of the south distinguish sixteen time values from one
to sixteen units in steady progression; the shortest, anudruta, is said to equal
“four instants, or thirty-two moments, or 16,384 atoms.”
Melodically, there are two entirely different Sama types. The archaic
type is limited to the three notes of the Rig-Veda, with emphasis on the
middle note.

Ex. 56. INDIAN CANTILLATION, ARCHAIC STYLE

after Felber

The more recent type, indicated as early as about 400 b.c., is by some
scholars said to represent an adaptation to pre-existent melodies, often by
inserting meaningless syllables. It has the range of a sixth, although there

Ex. 57. INDIAN CANTILLATION, LATER STYLE after Fclbef

were theoretically seven notes. But the first and highest was seldom if ever
used; for, in the words of the book Samavidhanabrahmana, “the gods live
on the highest note of the Sama, the men on the first of the following.”
Consequently, the Hindus spoke of one plus six, not of seven notes and gave
number one either to the note that was actually second or to both the first
and the second note: they called \rushta the note of the gods, and to the
rest, in descending order, gave the names prathama, ‘first,’ dvitlya, ‘sec¬
ond,’ trtiya, ‘third,’ caturtha, ‘fourth,’ mandra, ‘fifth,’ atisvdrya, ‘sixth,’
or similar terms. If they used figures to write these notes, they arranged
them in the sequence 1123456 or 11123456, without 7, though
they occasionally availed themselves of the latter to designate a special kind
of ligature.
A. C. Burnell, editor of the fourth book of the Sama-Veda,^ describes

2 A. C. Burnell, The Arsheyabrdhmana, Bangalore, 1876.

 i6o India
this yama scale as (descending) F E D C B A G, But in spite o£ much
discussion it has not yet been ascertained whether absolute pitch and a
steady scale were required in the ancient rites. Phonographically recorded
Sama songs differ both from BurnelFs indications and from one another.
But they are too rare to give sufficient evidence.®
The two Sama styles differ widely.
The three-tone melodies of the archaic style are the freer. They vary short
motifs without running in regular beats or observing stricter rules of sym¬
metry; nor do they always conform to the syllables of the text. Most dis¬
tances are bridged over by a kind of glissando.
The six-note melodies of the more recent type are often based on several
motifs and uniform meters and regular structures. They also follow the
syllables of the text more closely and avoid continuous gliding.
The difference hints at an interesting chronology of chanting. In the
passage from recitation to singing, a speechlike glissando from pitch to
pitch came before the pitches were well detached from one another. In a
similar way, meter and structure became less ‘natural* and were reduced
and normalized.
The only problem is the increasingly syllabic character of melody. But
it should be evident that the partition of syllables was an analytical abstrac¬
tion posterior to the conception of undivided sentences.

No WILLFUL ALTERATION of either the text or its presentation has ever been
permitted lest the magic power of the Veda might weaken, and the style in
which it is chanted today may on the whole be authentic in spite of its de¬
generation and all the local and eral variants that nothing human can es¬
cape in the lapse of four thousand years.
The Vedic style would not have been preserved in its relative integrity
without certain expedients to support oral tradition.
One of these was raising, leveling, and bowing the head as comovements
with the higher, the middle, and the lower tone. When the original range
of two or three notes was enlarged, Sama singers gave up the metaphorical
reflex motion, resorted to counting the notes of the Veda scale, and accord¬
ingly called them by ordinal numbers: the first, the second, and so on.
Since in the ancient world counting has consistently been facilitated by
® Erwin Felber Berniiard Geiger, “Die indisclie Musik der vedisdben und der klassischen
der Kms. Akademic der Wissenschaften tn Wien, FhU.-Hist. Kl.
CLXX (1912), no. 7.
Plate 5. Chinese women’s orchestra performing before Emperor Ming Huang (7i3“75^ a.d.). From a silk scroll In
Dr. Otto’s collection, Canton. After Heinz Trefzger.—The conducting lady agitates a clapper, and in the rear a girl
strikes a big drum; the other instruments—harps, long zithers, lutes; transverse flutes, oboes, mouth organs; metallo-
phones and hourglass drums—are played in pairs.
Plate 6a. Korean orchestra. After Sachs.—Note the stone and bell chimes in their upright
stands.

Plate 6b. Burmese orchestra. After Sachs.—In front: gong chime, drum chime, barrel
drum; in the rear: oboes, cymbals, clapper.
 The Vedic Chant i6i
touching the fingers, the Hindus devised several methods of finger count¬
ing, and among them the one later used in medieval Europe under the
nickname of “Guido’s hand”: with the right index they touched a certain
place on the left hand where the note to be sung was located. There were
five such places: the small finger, for the lowest note; the lower end of the
forefinger, for the following note; then the ring finger; and finally the in¬
dex again for both the fourth and fifth notes.
These indications cannot be accepted without question. In the first place,
the notes indicated belong to the scale of ordinary music, not to Vedic can-
tillation. In the second: why is the middle finger omitted while both the
small finger and the index are used twice ?

As A NOTATION in a narrower sense, North India uses figures, as we saw,

and the South, syllables taken from the ordinary alphabet, \ai,
\au, and many other consonant-vowel combinations. Only a few of these
indicate single notes: ta means the fourth note of the descending scale; na
demands a ligature of the first and the second note and dwelling on one of
them; cho indicates the second, third, and fourth notes in succession; \e
stands for a group of no less than seven notes. Two hundred and ninety-
seven such indicatory syllables are known.
Once more a syllabic script, taken from the current alphabet, is coupled
with religious texts; once more it stands for sacred, inviolable melodies;
once more it designates stereotyped groups of notes. The only difference is
their place in the manuscripts: here, they are set right within the text, after
the first syllable of a line and also, but seldom, in the middle. Both positions
are illustrated in the beginning of the first saman, TA, CHO, and NA
being musical symbols:

o TA gna i
a CHO ya hi NA m ito i

To this form, discovered and discussed by A. C. Burnell,^ Richard Simon

was able to add another,® in which each parvan of the text was followed by
the melody; for example;

barhd-isa auhovd TA KHA SI RI

^ A. C. Burnell, The Arsheyabrdhmana, op. dt.. Introduction.

® Richard Simon, “Notationen der vcdischcn Liederbuchcr,” in Wiener Zeitschr. fur die
Kunde des Morgenlandes XXVn (1913), p. 346.
i62 India
Biirnell cals the South Indian letter notation ‘‘the oldest,” that is, older
than the figures used for the same purpose in North India. To his philologi¬
cal reasons one might add the general fact that South India has preserved
the older forms of tradition more faithfully than the North which again
and again was exposed to conquest and immigration on a large scale.
The possible relation of this script to Ethiopian and Babylonian nota¬
tions was discussed in a paper that the author read in 1939 at one of the
meetings of the International Congress held by the American Musicological
Scciety in New York.®

*Ciirt Sacks, "Tkc Mjstcry of tkc Babylonian Notation,” in The Musical Quarterly XXVn
(1941), pp. 62-^.
 [2]

PICTORIAL AND LITERARY EVIDENCES

PICTORIAL EVIDENCES o£ the earliest Indian music are rare. The

most ancient phase of Indian culture, the so-called Indus civilization of the
third millennium b.c., seems to have left only one musical trace: a frequent
ideogram of its puzzling script apparently represents a vertical arched harp
of the type common in early antiquity between the Nile and the Ganges.
After a gap of two thousand years, information becomes safer and ampler
when, under the influence of Greek art, Indian sculptors in North and
Central India begin to carve reliefs on the walls of temples and burial
mounds, many of which depict musical scenes. These important sources
have recently been made accessible in an outstanding French publication.’^
(PL 7, p. 176)
Pictorial evidences, however, tell little of the musical style in ancient
India. Still, they prove two facts. One is the important role of hand-beaten
drums, which has been characteristic of India to this day and indicates a
strong dependency on motor impulse and rhythm. Secondly, the only
stringed instrument is the arched harp; therefore the classical t/ind, so often
mentioned in poetry and musical theory, must in antiquity have been a harp
before the name passed to the present tube zither and eighteen other instru¬
ments ® at the end of the first thousand years a.d. The soundboard of leather,
mentioned in several ancient sources, confirms this statement.
The typical group of girls accompanying dancers with harps and drums
was exclusive until in the first century An. the Indo-Scythic courts of the
northwest entertained male musicians with lutes, lyres, and double oboes.
The two latter species disappeared soon enough, since the Greek influence
in music was small or none; but the lute was accepted. Cymbals appeared
between the fourth and sixth centuries, and the vind in the older of its two
modern forms only in the seventh century.

^ Claudic Marcel Dubois, Les Instruments de Musique de Vinde ancienne, Paris, 1941.
® C£. Narada, San^ta-makeranda, cd. Telang, Baroda, 1920.
 164 India
Lutrary evidences are fortunately more abundant than in most countries.
Poetical works like the great national epos Ramdyana ^ describe India's
musical life in the times of Plato without refraining from technicalities;
ancient dictionaries give some help, too; above all, there are special treatises
on music in prose and in verse, not always easily comprehensible nor free
from later additions, but well detailed and on the whole very useful.
Unfortunately, their ages are rather uncertain, and misdatings have been
frequent. “The Ocean of Music,” Sangita Ratnd^ara, by Sarngadeva, “the
greatest of Indian musical authorities and one who still inspires reverence
in the minds of India's musicians,” was, not long ago, dated at about 200
Aj>. and “considered to be the oldest reliable musical work extant.” To¬
day, we know that Sarngadeva lived no less than a thousand years later,
in the thirteenth century.
Actually the oldest, and certainly the most important, treatise on ancient
music are the seven chapters 28-34 in Bharata's unique book on the theatri¬
cal arts of India, the Naiya-sdstra, of which only the twenty-eighth has been
translated.^ ^ This excellent source would be even more valuable if we knew
its approximate date. Most critics agree in establishing it as the earlier cen¬
turies AJJ-; a recent bibliography, however, shifts it tentatively to the fourth
or even fifth century b.c.^^ Whatever its date may be, Bharata’s book testi¬
fies to a well-established system of music in ancient India, with an elaborate
theory of intervals, consonances, modes, melodic and rhythmic patterns.

C. Dhariiia, “Musical Culture in the Ramiyana,” in Indian Culture IV (1937), pp.

447-53*
C. R. Day, Tke Music and Musicd Instruments of Southern India and the Deccan, London,
1891, p. 13,
Sanskrit text, Frcncli translation, and commentaries: Jean Grossct, “Contribution a Fetudc
de la Musiqoe bindoue/’ in EiMiotheque de la FactdtS des Lettres de Lyon (1888) v. 6. English
translation (incomplete): E. Clements, Introduction to the Study of Indian Music, London,
1913, pp. 49-51. Sanskrit text, German translation, and commentaries (incomplete): Bernhard
Brcioer, Die Grundelemente der altindischen Musi\, Diss. Bonn, 1922.
M. S. Ramaswami Aiyar, “Bibliography of Indian Music,” in lournal of the Royal Asiatic
Soaety of Great Britain and Ireland, 1941, p. 237.
 [3]

SCALES

INDIA’S SCALES are numberless. Still there has been a kind o£ standard
scale, referred to in the very earliest sources, the Ri\pratisa\hya and the
Rdmdyana epos (both about 400 b.c.) : shadja, rsabha, gandhara, madhyama
(‘middle’), panchama (‘fifth’), dhaivata, and nisdda, generally abbrevi¬
ated to sa ri ga ma pa dha ni.
The seven names indicate in the first place steps, not notes. This unusual
conception probably has the same reason that Mr. Coomaras’wamy gives for
the frequent portamento of singers and players: in India the interval counts
more than the note.^^
As an inevitable expedient, the names of the steps \vere also given to the
notes that limited them. But a step has two limiting notes, and the question
is which one to prefer. In modern India it is the lower note: sa means the
note C with the whole tone above (C-D). In antiquity, it was the other
way around: sa meant the note D with the whole tone below. The contra¬
diction is probably due to the conflict between descending vocal and ascend¬
ing instrumental scales.
Instead of an elaborate notation, Indian musicians write the musical
syllables themselves, just as the Chinese do, which is particularly easy since
the alphabets derived from the Sanskrit script ndgari provide ready-made
symbols for syllables, not single consonants. Notation consequently dif¬
fers according to the musician’s native script; the symbols he uses may
pertain to the Hindustani, Bengali, Telugu, Malayalam, or whatever script
the district favors. The ancient Tamils, on the contrary, used their seven
long vowels instead of syllables,^^ which was in exact parallel with Egyp¬
tian and Greek invocations.^^
Signs for time values, formerly used in connection with the note sym¬
bols, have been given up as too complicated. Today, the original symbols

13 Ananda Coomaraswamy, “Indian Music,” in The Musical Qziarterly III (1917), p. 167.
N. Chengalavarayan, “Music and Musical Instruments of the Ancient Tamils,” in Quarterly
journal of the Mythic Society, n.s. XXVI (1935), p. 80.
13 Franz Dornseiff, Das Alphabet in Mysti\ und Magic, Berlin, 1925. C. E. Ruelle, “Le Chant
gnostico-magique des sept voyelles grecques,” in Congres International d’Uistoire de la Musique,
Paris, 1914
 i66 India
may be modified in order to distinguish longer and shorter notes, although
without exact time values.
Musical punctuation is indicated by special signs for repetition and for
the end of a period.

The ancieot orcaneation of this scale was startling. All distances were
subdivided—^the semitones into two elements and the whole tones into
either thr^ or four, in al twenty^two elements or srutis:
DEFGABCD
3244 324
u,. \_j
9 4 9
^^

2 2

There has been much pondering over the puzzling problem of why and
how the Hindus came to a division into twenty-two parts. Twenty-four
quarter tones would have been comprehensible; but twenty-two.? To ask
such a qa^tioE means to be prejudiced by the modern idea of equal tem-
peramenL^®
Actually, the srmtis were not units but, on the contrary, of three different
sizes necessitated by the very nature of Indian scales.
The two essential features of these scales are their shape and their trans-
fxjsirion.
India s standard scales depended on the divisive principle; they had
major whole tones of 204, minor whole tones of 182, and semitones of 112
Cdnts.
TEe^ ingredients appeared in several arrangements according to the
incMle required, and the modal scales could be transposed to any pitch.
The incessant readaptation of the octave required facilities for changing
amitones or major whole tones into minor whole tones, of adding and
cutting off adequate portions.
All permutations in these ‘give-and-take’ operations were feasible with
only three elements: (a) twenty-nvo Cents or a comma,’ the diflFerence
between the major and the minor whole tone (204-182 Cents); (b) seventy
Cents, the difference between the minor whole tone and the semitone;

I^chmaiin, “Das indische Tonsystem bei Bharata und

Ursprang, m ZaUchnp fur Verglezchende Mustkmissenschaft I (1933 ), pp. 73-91.
 Scales 167
(c) ninety Cents, the difference between the semitone and the comma.
Consequently, there were for

the major whole tone: 90 + 22 + 70 + 22 = 204 C.,

the minor whole tone: 90 + 22 + 70 =182 C.,
the semitone: 90 + 22 =112 C.

The give-and-take operation also indicates the exact sequence of the

twenty-two srutis:

D E F G ABC D
112 70 22 90 22 70 22 90 22 90 70 22 90 22 70 22 90 22 70 112

The first and last steps of 112 Cents, minimum steps with which any
modal scale begins and ends, are not split in this operation.

Two FUNDAiMENTAL SCALES or grdmas appear in Bharata's treatise: sa-grdma

and ma-gram a. And at once difficulties begin.
Bharata at first (in Uo\a 25) defines sa~grdma as the scale of 324 4 324
irutis, but later (in the following slo\as 26-29) describes it as 432 4 432:
he has shifted the series by one digit to the left without explaining the con¬
tradiction.
After all, he probably did not contradict himself; if any passage in
Bharata’s much rehandled book looks like a later addition, it is this un¬
expected, unnecessary, and contradictory restatement. The theory of scales
and modes leaves no doubt that sa-grdma started from the note sa and was
a D-mode.
Ma-grdma, the other fundamental scale, differed, according to Bharata’s
first definition, in nothing but the shift of one ‘standard’ {framdna) sruti
(of 22 Cents) from G-A to A-B:
DEFGABCD
Sa-grdma 3244324
!
Ma-grdma 32434 2 4

How could so tiny a difference cause and justify the existence of two
fundamental, indeed opposite, scales? A great many authors have been
unable to solve this puzzling problem, and some of them have denied
outright, and despite the detailed indications in ancient treatises, that ma-
 168 India
grama ever existed. This denial was indeed a poor move, and unnecessary,
too.
The actual nature of ma^grama follows from the second passage in
Bharata*s treatise: the scale started from ma and was organized in 434 2
432 srutis, which series must, in accordance with the correct sa-grama, be
shifted by one digit to 342 4 324 srutis,

Sa-grama DEFGABCD
3244324

Ma-grama G A B C D E F G
(3 2 4) 3424324

Within the range of the sa-sa octave, ma-grdma would indeed differ by
that one mui only. The actual difference was apparently the major third
and the minor seventh. But this is not the whole truth:
Sa-grima is the plagal, and ma-grdma the authentic form of Indian
scales.
Ma-grima is said to have disappeared from practice in the sixteenth cen-
mry.^'^ That the plagal form was actually more important seems to be con¬
firmed by Sarngadeva (thirteenth century), who relates that in the third
part of the alipa—ikt improvised introduction of a rdga—the singer begins
with the tonic and uses only three notes above and then descends to notes of
the cctave below before developing the upper tetrachord.
One should not dismiss the question of gramas without considering that
Bharata s second statement (which I believe to be a later addition) mirrors
the more recent stage of Indian music: sa-grdma has become a C-mode and
ma-grima an F-mode.
This latter scale is described in the very earliest source in Tamil language,
the Tim{aram (third century aj).).^® The scale, it reads, contains 4 432
432 srutis. This is an F-mode, too, and—a remarkable fact—in the exact
arrangement of the sa-grdma srutis from ma on.
This suggests that Bharata’s text was possibly rehandled as early as
antiquity, and it may confirm the idea that Bharata himself wrote his
treatise much earlier.

Evolutbn of the Theory of Music in the Vijayanagara Em-

L Aiyangar Commemoration Volume (1936), p.
Herbert A. Popicy, The Music of India, Calcutta, 1921, p,
 Scales 169
A THIRD SCALE, gandhata-grama or ga-grdma, has been an unsolved mystery.
It is not mentioned in Bharata’s book and had in the thirteenth century a.d.
already “withdrawn to Indra s heaven” when the great theoretician Sarnga-
deva wrote his Sanglta Katnd\ara,
I say, “not mentioned,” without adding “yet.” It is inadmissible to con¬
clude from Bharata’s silence that the ga-grdma was devised after his time.
Two more facts warn against such a rash conclusion. First, ancient Tamil
works even refer to four modes instead of Bharata’s two.^^ Second, there
is the story of Supriya.
One of the Buddhist legends relates how a famous musician, Supriya, was
able to play, on one string, in the French translator’s words, "sept notes
apec vingt-et-un tons et iemi-tons” I do not know exactly what Mr.
Feer fancies tones and semitones to be. The Sanskrit text does not suggest
any such things; it speaks of seven svaras and twenty-one murchanas.
This word, as the next paragraph will show, unmistakably means modal
toptail inversions of the gramas, each grama having seven of them. Conse¬
quently, there must have been a third grama in the time of the Hundred
Legends. Unfortunately, we do not know the date of these legends; but
they were translated into Chinese as early as the third century a.d., and the
original may have been written one or two hundred years before.^^
I refrain from dragging the reader through the maze of contradictory
descriptions in the later Sanskrit literature and of modern attempts to inter¬
pret them. Those interested in the evasive ga scale are referred to the latest
controversy between Mr. Fox Strangways and Mr. Ramaswami Aiyar.^^
This uncertainty suggests another question. We know that two basic
principles have shaped scales all over the world: the cyclic principle with
its equal whole tones of 204 and semitones of 90 Cents, and the divisive
principle with major whole tones of 204, minor whole tones of 182, and
large semitones of 112 Cents.
Bharata’s system derives from the divisive principle, and this, in turn,
stems from stopped strings. But the earlier part of Indian antiquity had no
stringed instrument except the open-stringed harp; no lute, no zither pro¬
vided a fingerboard. India must have had the up-and-down principle, and
it cannot but be hiding somewhere.

Poplcy, ibid., p. 34.

20 “Avadana-Qataka,” transl. by Leon Peer, in Annales iu Musee Guimet'X^Illl (1891), p. 76
(lyth talc).
J- S. Speyer, “Avadanafataka,” in Biblioteca Buddhica, St. Petersbourg, 1902, III, I v.
22 A. H. Fox Strangways, “The Gandhara Grama/’ in Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society
for Great Britain and Ireland, 1935, pp. 689-96; M, S. Ramaswami Aiyar, “The Question of
Gramas,” loc, cit., 1936, pp. 629-40.
 1^0 India
Bntj after all, does not the system of srutis serve equally well the purposes
of either principle? Does it not even allow for a smooth transition? Trans¬
fer, in a ‘divisive tetrachord/ one standard sruti (22 Cents) from F-E to
E-D, and you have the two major whole tones and the minor semitone
required in the up-and-down system:

D E F G
182 90 204

We certainly do not know whether the cyclic principle had anything to

do with the ga-grima. But at least we must suppose that this principle still
existed when the smti system was being formed.

The murchanas were scales of more specific nature than the gramas. There
were fourteen, seven belonging to sa-grdma, and seven to ma-grdma.
For a moment one might think they were transpositions of the two basic
scales. But several reasons are against such an interpretation. Transposition
along the octave would imply five sharps and one flat, while Bharata men¬
tions only the two first sharps. Moreover, Bharata expressly describes how
a murcham can be transposed into its upper fifth or lower fourth by sharp¬
ening F, which would be meaningless with seven transpositions. Lastly,
Bharata states that there were also some murchanas with sharps (or flats).
Consequently, the normal murckana must have had naturals.
The mmrchmm mere modal toptail inversions.
It is probable that the number fourteen was rather due to systematic com¬
pleteness than to the necessities of musical practice. The discussion on ^dtis
will show that only seven were in actual use.
Tinas ivere hexatonic and pentatonic versions of these fourteen scales,
with one or two notes omitted. Bharata enumerates no less than forty-nine
hexatonic and thirty-five pentatonic versions, in all eighty-four tanas, that
is, twelve forms, each in seven tonalities.
Players of stringed instruments had two ways of performing incomplete
a:ales; one consisted in passing lightly over the intermediate note between
a lower and a higher note, or vice versa; the other, in leaving the inter¬
mediate note untouched. However, “when the intermediate note is being
touched and held, there is murchanaT In other words, the notes in question
could he either skipped, or touched slightly, or even played in the usual
 Scales 171
way; there was no strict distinction between complete and incomplete
scales.
Speaking of incompleteness and omission is in a way embarrassing.
Mostly, the conception of “omitting” notes stems from the naive belief of
historically untrained minds that patterns usual in the person’s own time
and country are ‘natural’ and therewith timeless, so that archaic stages are
easily mistaken for abnormal varieties.
Here, however, things are different. Classification, especially in the
Orient, starts from actual facts, but is thorough in its accomplishment re¬
gardless of practice. The nearly one hundred murchanas and tanas were
almost certainly products of theoretical construction rather than of musical
necessity. Only a few of them appear in the melodic patterns that shall be
discussed next.
 [4]

RAGAS

THE STRICTNESS of mathematical laws and hairsplitting classifications,

however, has to a remarkable degree been counterbalanced by artistic free¬
dom—^in India as elsewhere. Deviations from the rule were not only con¬
sidered admissible, but necessary to make a melody more expressive and
human. Theory has often tried and always failed to get hold of them.
Nothing could be more Oriental than the continuous adjustment of
variation and stabilization, of spontaneity and tradition, of freedom and
law. Primitive singers seldom are able to repeat the same melody in exactly
the same form; their originality and their mood at the moment of singing,
the factor of detrition and other circumstances—all these influences bar
stcreotyi^ reproduction; every performance means actual re-creation.
The high civilizations of the Orient have to a great extent preserved the
flexibilty of melodic patterns, and singers are in certain respects not only
allowed but actually expected to offer individual interpretations.
Such freedom, unknown in the modern West, was checked by fetters
equally unknown. Melodies were conceived and performed in the limits of
a certain riga and varied only in so far as its laws remained intact.
Riga means 'color* or 'passion* and denotes a pattern of melody with
a wcll”<lefined mood and a modal scale in which every note has its individ¬
ual place as the starter, the predominant, the center, the final.
The 'predominant’ amh, originally identical with the starter, is neither
what we call a tonic nor a dominant. It is not even conditioned by the
stracturc of the scale and sometimes differs in various melodies of the
same riga. Modern Bilaml, for example, the counterpart of our major
mcxie, has the tetrachordal skeleton C-F-G-C, but the predominant E, Its
role kcomes perfectly clear from our Examples 58 to 62: in Bihag, it is E;
in Bhmramj A; in Bhairmi, C; in Mal\oSj C,
Certain melodic characteristics often join the obligatory traits of a raga.
Modern Bikhmi, for instance, requires the copious use of the turn A C B A.
The easiest way to make W^esterners understand what melodic patterns
arc is to compare them with the architectural orders of the Greeks. Hellenic
architats obeyed the rules of the Doric, or the Ionic, or the Corinthian
 Ragas 173
Style, Each implied certain proportions of the columns, the ground motives
of the capitals, the equilibrium of cornices, friezes, gables, and numberless
other qualities. The artist’s latitude was small and his inventiveness re¬
stricted to detail work and general harmony.
Oriental music has been ruled by the same idea of submitting individual
creative power to the binding force of ready-made patterns.

The binding povter of the ragas is mirrored in a legend from the Adbhuta
Rdmdyana:

Once upon a time the great Rishi Narada thought within himself that he
had mastered the whole art and science of music- To curb his pride the all-
knowing Vishnu took him to visit the abode of the gods. They entered a spacious
building, in which were numerous men and women weeping over their broken
limbs. Vishnu stopped and enquired from them the reason for their lamentation.
They answered that they were the ragas and the mgints, created by Mahadeva;
but that as a rishi of the name of Narada, ignorant of the true knowledge of
music and unskilled in performance, had sung them recklessly, their features
were distorted and their limbs broken; and that, unless Mahadeva or some
other skilful person would sing them properly, there was no hope of their ever
being restored to their former state of body. Narada, ashamed, kneeled down
before Vishnu and asked to be forgiven.^®

The interesting point is that this legend represents an almost literal

replica of a satire, in one of Pherekrates’ comedies, against the then modern
music in Greece after the Peloponnesian wars and its protagonist Timo-
theos of Miletos. A woman, dejected, ragged, and limping, answers sym¬
pathetic questions: “I am Music, and once I was well off. But now Timo-
theos and others have manhandled me, oh, friend.—^What Timotheos?
The Redhead from Miletos.—Timotheos, too, maltreated you?—He is the
worst of all; his notes crawl about like ants, against melody, in the highest
pitch, and he has chopped me like cabbage and stuffed me with a stinking
mixture. And when I was alone, he overcame me, stripped me, and fet¬
tered me with twelve strings. . .
In India, this idea of personalizing musical sounds and patterns and
making them react to violation in a human way has been developed in a
great many versions. One of the most attractive is the story of the king of
apes, Hanuman, who was very proud of his musical attainments, and
foolishly boasted about them. Rama, the hero of the Ramayana epos, de-
23 Herbert A. Popley, The Music of India, op. cit., p. 8.
 174 India
¥iseci a plan to humble him. In the jungles there dwelt a noble rishi who
caused the Seven Notes to become embodied in seven lovely nymphs. Rama
tc»k Hanuman into the vicinity o£ the abode o£ the rishi, and Hanuman,
wanting to show off his qualifications, proudly took up the vina and began
to play. Just then the seven lovely nymphs or notes passed by them; they
were going to fetch water. Hearing the music, one stopped, swayed and
fell dead. Hanuman had sung that note incorrectly. The sister notes were
comfortless and moaned and lamented her death piteously: the rishi, see¬
ing all this, smiled, took up the vina and struck the notes loudly. As soon
as the dead note was played correctly it revived and gaily rejoined its sister
notes and there was much rejoicing. Hanuman, thoroughly ashamed of
himself, hung his head and performed penance for his silly vanities.^^

Es:4ctxess anb skill were not only a question of art; careless performances
endangered the extramusical potentialities of the ragas. For each of them
had its cosmic connotations, indeed had forceful secret energies that worked
on man and nature.
A singing girl, by exerting the powers of her voice in a certain raga, once
drew down from the clouds timely and refreshing showers on the parched
rice crops of Bengal and thereby averted the horrors of famine.
Whoever, on the ocher hand, attempted to sing the raga Dlpa\a was

to ix: destroyed by fire. The Mohammedan Emperor Akbar [sixteenth century

A.i>.] ordered Naik Gopaul, a celebrated musician, to sing that raga. he en-
dea%^ored to excuse himself, but in vain; the Emperor insisted on obedience:
[Naik Gopaul] therefore requested permission to go home and bid farewell
to his family and friends. It was winter when he returned, after an absence of
six months. Before he began to sing he placed himself in the waters of the Jumna
till they reached his neck. As soon as he had performed a strain or two, the
river gradually became hot; at length it began to boil; and the agonies of the
unhappy musician were nearly insupportable. Suspending for a moment the
melody thus cruelly extorted, he sued for mercy from the Monarch, but sued in
vain. Akbar wished to prove more strongly the powers of this rdga: Naik Gopaul
renewed the fata! song: flames burst with violence from his body, which,
though immersed in the waters of the Jumna, was consumed to ashes!

The mgas also worked on, and belonged to, certain hours of the day and
seasons of the year. A musician in Emperor Akbar’s time sang one of the
Aliya Begmn Fyzee-Raliamm, The Utmc of India, London, 1925, p. 87.
Sir W. ^sclcy, “Anecdotes of Indian Music/’ in The Oriental Collections I and in
Sounndro Moiiim Tag-ore, Hindu Music from Various Authors, 2nd cd., Calcutta, 1882,1, \
 Ragas 175
night ragas at midday: the powers o£ his music were such that it instantly
became night, and the darkness extended in a circle round the palace as far
as the sound of his voice could be heard.^® I need not remind the reader of
the similar legend from China related in the Far Eastern section.
The connection with a certain hour of the day is still respected. “No
musician, unless specially ordered, will sing any raga out of the proper
time of day apportioned for it. . . . It would be considered improper to
make any change. Even in educated circles among Hindus it would be
thought a display of ignorance to call for a particular rdga, unless for
some special reason, at an improper season.*'
Connotations with the signs of the zodiac, the planets, the days of the
week, the seven heavens, seasons, elements, colors, voices of birds, human
complexions, sexes, temperaments, man’s ages, and what not, exceed even
Chinese proportions. A complete list is printed in Atiya Begum Fyzee-
Rahamin’s book. The attributions, however, have not been consistent in
all parts of the country.
The theory of psychological effects can be traced back to early times. The
Ramayana (c. 400 b.c.) expects ragas to arouse one of the nine sentiments:
love, tenderness, humor, heroism, terror, anger, disgust, surprise, tran¬
quillity.^® Bharata’s twenty-eighth chapter ends with the promise “to indi¬
cate the sentiments that the ragas affect,” but the twenty-ninth chapter has
not yet been edited.
Unfortunately there is no answer to the question how all these physical
and psychological energies work, or on what account they are attributed to
certain notes or ragas; for neither the ragas themselves nor their connota¬
tions are the same in the north and the south of the country, and in both
parts they differ from those indicated in the ancient treatises on music.
Tradition is hopelessly lost. Every local school has a terminology of its
own, and when a northern musician associates the raga Sri with love and
evening twilight, a man from the south will rebuke him and relate it to
grandeur and the hours between noon and 3 :oo p.m.

This confusion frustrates any deeper insight into the relation of the
musical and the extramusical qualities of the ragas.

pp. 165 f.
C. R. Day, Tke Music and Musical Instruments of Southern India and the Deccan,
op. cit., p. 45.
28 P. C. Dharma, “Musical Culture in the Ramayana,’* loc. dt., pp. 447-53.
 176 India
Eyibence of rIgas appears in the earliest sources of Indian music, though
under different names. The Ramayana (c. 400 b.c.) as well as Bharata and
e¥eE the much later Narada call them jdtis, and both Bharata and Narada
mention eighteen of them. Bharata, however, already knows the word rdga
as the distinctive color given to the jdtis by sharps and flats.
The very existence of accidentals (which cannot be gathered from the
ancient terminology) makes the old descriptions vague and calls for inter¬
pretation.
Bharata explains in detail that only seven of his eighteen jdtis are pure
and simple; eleven are combinations of two or more simple jdtis. Four out
of the seven belong to the sa-grdma, and three to the ma-grdma.
What was their characteristic difference ?
An attempt to reconstruct the ancient rdgas logically starts from the
modern rigas which almost certainly must have preserved some of their
forerunners. Among the ten groups in use today, one is quite irregular,
three belong to the so-caied Gypsy scale, and the other six, to the three pairs
of tetrachordal scales we call by their Greek names Dorian and Hypo-
dorian, Phrygian and Hypophrygian, Lydian and Hypolydian.
It is hard to believe that these modes, in universal use in antiquity, should
have been wanting in India until more recent times, the more so since the
Hindus them^lves claim the tetrachordal character of their scales. That
they hide among the jdtis is the more probable as the numbers are sugges¬
tive: seven simple jdtis^ like the classical modes of Greece (the above-named
plus Mixolydiae), and three of these authentic or hypo, again as in Greece.
Moreover they follow stepwise like the Greek scales, notwithstanding
Bharata s different arrangement. Our survey is confined to the seven pure
mcxles; it neglects the hexatonic versions, but includes the pentatonic forms.
Brackets make the conjunct and disjunct tetrachords evident.
The Hindus, however, although they speak of tetrachords all the time,
seem to have lost the knowledge of conjunction. Instead, they interpret
conjunctional scales as being composed of two unequal tetrachords—^just
as the Arabs do.
Natural jdtis, says Bharata, are the so-called simple jdtis with all the
steps complete,* that is, with the sruti numbers prescribed for both gramas.
But there were also artificial jdtis with one, two, or more notes altered.
This definition seems to leave unlimited possibilities. But actually most
arrangements of whole and semitones ever used in Indian scales are real-
imd in the seven simple and eleven complex scales as they stand
 Ragas
The Seven Pure Jatis

Pancamt Arsahht

ABCDEFGA
V _I
EFGABCDE
. J
AB D E
\_/ ^ E F G ? B 5^
Modern Asavarl Modern Bhairavt
Hypodorian Dorian

Madhyamd

GA B C b E FG DEFGABCD
V_/

GAB D~E G D ? F G AB D
<■ _/ K_/

Modern Khamdj Modern Kdpht

Hypophrygian Phrygian

Gdndhdn Nisadi

F G A B C D E F CD EFG AB C
V - -_/

EGA F C EF G ~BC
s-1

Modern Yaman Modern Bilmd

Hypolydian Lydian

Dhaimil

BCDEFGAB

B C E F G B
\_J

Modern -
Mixolydian

Some alterations, for this reason, might have departed from diatonics and
given birth to those augmented seconds that characterize the chromatic
gender of the Greeks and the so-called Gypsy scales of later Hindu music,
like the raga Bhairava:

Ex. 58. RAGA BHAIRAVA a]ter Abraham and Hombostel

178 India
The number of ragas, already indicated as sixty in a Sanskrit-Tibetan dic¬
tionary of the seventh century aincreased, at least in theory, to several
hundreds, indeed, thousands; the ancient Tamils calculated the total as

Any enumeration would be both impossible and useless. A survey of the

groups actually in use will prove more helpful. And there is no want of
native classifications; quite to the contrary, there are too many.
The most interesting, typically Oriental division is used in the north: five
great rigas have sprung from Siva Mahadeva’s five heads, and a sixth one,
from Parvati, his wife; each of the six great rdgas has five wives or
riginis and eight putras or sons with eight daughters-in-law or bharyas.
In all there were 132 ragas.
A recent method of classification, based on musical traits and probably
the best ever devised, was indicated by N. V. Bhatkande in Bombay.®^ This
is its outline.
AH rigas are organized in ten groups according to the scale on which
they are built:

i) Bilami group: the octave consists of two disjunct tetrachords; both

have the semitone above, as in the Lydian octave of the Greeks. Our two
examples present one of the heptatonic patterns, BiMg, and, from Udai
Shankar’s repertoire, the pentatonic pattern of this group, Durgd:

Ex. 59. iIga bihag after Abraham and Hornbostel

Ex. RAGA DURGA transcribed by Curt Sachs after Udai Shan\ar

•l = 12S
 Ragas 179
%) Yaman group: the same scale with a sharpened fourth; Hypolydian.
3) Khamij group: the upper fourth has the semitone in the middle, and
the lower fourth, above; Hypophrygian.
4) Bhairava group: both tetrachords have augmented seconds (the so-
called Gypsy scale Ex. 58).
5) Burvl group: the same, except for an augmented fourth; no Greek
analogy.
6) Marvd group: the lower fourth similar, the upper fourth regular
with the semitone above.
7) Kdphi group: both tetrachords have the semitone in the middle;
Greek Phrygian.
8) Asdvart group: the upper fourth has the semitone below and the
lower tetrachord in the middle; Greek Hypodorian.
9) Bhairavi group ('ascetic’): both tetrachords have the semitone be¬
low; Greek Dorian. My two examples illustrate B hair apt proper and its
pentatonic version Mdlkos:

Ex. 6r. lAOA BiiAiiuvI after Lachmann

xo) Todt group: the upper fourth has an augmented second, while the
lower fourth is augmented and has the semitone below.

The members of a group differ mostly in the number of notes. In the

first group, for example, raga Bildval has the complete major scale; Bihdg
jumps from C to E and from G to B; Durgd passes from D to F and from
AtoC and thus is a pentatonic scale of the 124 type.
From a Western standpoint, wc should prefer a different arrangement
of the ten groups: a first unit, comprising the six diatonic groups (i) to (3)
and (7) to (9), and a second unit, comprising the scales with augmented
 i8o India
seconds (4) to (6) and (10). But Bhatkande was right from an Indian
stand{X)iiit, as we shall see in what follows.

Bhatkanbe®s classification takes into consideration the hours of the day at

which the rigas arc supposed to be sung.
Most Hindus divide the day into six periods: {a) 4:00 to 7:00 a.m. and
when day and night separate, {b) 7:00 to 10:00 a.m. and p.m., after the
separation, and (c) 10:00 to 4:00 a.m. and p.m., before the separation.
Musical attribution is ruled in the following way: the two groups of
hours in (£2) require those rigas that have the augmented second D\)-E;
(b) tho^ that have Dj E, and A natural; (c) those that have both E\) and

The two periods of hours that form a pair are musically differentiated by
the position of the predominant: a predominant in the lower tetrachord
denotes the hours between noon and midnight; a predominant in the upper
tetrachord those between midnight and noon.^^
There is no consistency, however, either in the division of the day or in
the asscciation of certain rigas with certain hours. Another system is based
on eight periods of three hours each and proceeds with the rigas in the fol¬
lowing way:

1) From 6:cx3 to g:m a.m. one plays slow, dreamy, pure ragas, estab-
Ished on the Gypsy scale, like Bhairam,
2) From 9:00 AJ^£. to noon: Asimri and Bhairam ragas, with three and
four iats.
3) From noon to 3:00 pj.£.: Kiphi ragas with two flats.
4) From 3:00 to 6:00 pj.£,: Burvl and Mirt/i ragas, with augmented
second and fourth.
5) From 6:00 to 9:00 p.m.: Yaman ragas, major with an augmented
fourth.
6) From 9:00 po.£. to midnight: major ragas of the Bilival group.
7) From midnight to 3:cx) a.m.: pentatonic ragas with three flats, like
Malhps.
8) From 3^0 to 6:cx) a.a.£.: pentatonic ragas, like Hindolam, in which
all the notes of Mal\Qs, except the first and its octave, are sharpened.

Poplcf, op, at., pp. 63 f.

ss Fyzcc-Raliamin, op. at., p. 76.
 Ragas i8i
The general idea is clear: ragas have most flats in the quietest hours, ex¬
tending from midnight to the hot time of the day, and reach a majorlike
character in the cooler time between six and midnight.

The raga, strictly speaking, also requires a drone or pedal note to em¬
phasize the ‘predominant.’ In vocal music, an accompanying lutanist plucks
it softly on the four thin wire strings of the tamhuri, a large, long-necked
lute without stopping frets, of Indo-Persian character, the place of which,
alas, is often taken by a European harmonium.
To provide drones in instrumental music, recorders, oboes, bagpipes, and
the clarinets of snake charmers are geminated to form pairs, in the hands of
either one or two players. One pipe plays the melody, while the drone pipe
has all fingerholes but one stopped with wax or no jflngerholes at all,
exactly in the manner of Western Asia and Egypt. Fox Strangways heard
two oboe players at Tanjore: “They took it in turns to play chanter and
drone. When the second was asked to surcease from droning, the first said
he felt like a ship without a rudder.’ ”

Gamaka or ornamentation has been ‘life and soul” of Indian music.

“Music without gama\a' Somanatha (c. 1600) claims, “is like a moonless
night, a river without water, a creeper without flowers.” Mr. Coomara-
swamy, more definite, though less poetical, says: “The Indian song without
grace would seem to Indian ears as bald as the European art song without
the accompaniment which it presupposes.” But I like particularly the way
Mr. Stoll briefly puts it: “Without gama\as a melody cannot smile.”
The English translation “ornament,” however, wrongs the gama\a.
Indian graces are not glued on some melody like trills and mordents in re¬
cent Western music. They are the very pulse and breath of melody and give
the individual note its weight, shade, and meaning.
In a way, Indian performance reminds one of skillful penmanship as
opposed to printing. It avoids the rigid array of separate letters, but joins

Curt Sachs, Die Musikinsirumente Indiens und Indonesiens, op, cit., pp. 135, 158, 159,

^^35 A. H. Fox Strangways, The Music of Hindostan, op, dt., p. 46.

Ananda Coomaraswamy, op. cit., p. 167.
Dennis Stoll, “The ‘Graces’ of Indian Music,” he. dt., p. 169.
 182 India
them ia one long dash of the pen that the writer’s mood and motor impulse
¥!¥% in spirited turns and flourishes.
And one more point should be understood: while East Asiatic music
stresses the single, indeed the isolated, note, Indian music emphasizes the
step or even the interval—not as a jump from note to note, not as the fusion
of two notes in one chord, but as the actual unit of melody. Therefore the
individual note leads to the next note portamento, or else, if there is no
melodic progression, it is rapidly deflected. Such a deflection may comprise
a larger interval, but often only the sruti nearest at hand, and frequently
such turns would require, in Dennis Stoll’s words, “an aural microscope
for our uncultiired Western ear in order to grasp them in detail.”
ITic ornaments for the vmi, the sarod, and other plucked instruments
have been neatly classified and even written down in special symbols: glis-
fflndo up and down with the stress put on the beginning, not on the end;
a wail by deflecting the string right after plucking; a weak echo produced
by rdifting the finger; flattening a note by pressure of the nail and plucking
with extraordinary strength; and many other refinements.^® We hinted at
India when we were discussing the similar style connected with instru¬
ments of the Far East. Whoever listens to phonograph recordings of this
kind of omamentation will often be at a loss to decide whether he hears
a Chinese performing on a ck"in or a Hindu playing the lute sarod.
Singers likewise indulge in numberless kinds of trills, portamentos, ap-
poggiaturas, backfalls, and mordents, and sometimes dissolve single beats
in more than a dozen pearling notes. To speak the truth, singers of the ordi¬
nal}’ type often overdo ornamentation. They

ap|»r to have an idea that the highest form of their art consists in introducing
^ much grace as fwssible, whether it adds to the beauty of their songs or not;
in they try to disguise the real melody as much as possible by embellishments
of their own, and so in nine cases out of ten it is quite impossible to follow either
Ac air or Ac words of a song, since Ae singer is only anxious to exhibit what
he fondly imagines to be his skill.*®

The mmg^t aspect of ancient gama\d appears in Narada’s surprising

classification of ragas into three groups: the first includes those sung with
a quivering voice throughout; the second, those with partial quivering; the
third, Aosc wiAout any qmvering.
p. 1^8.

p. So ^ Imrurncm of Southern India aj the Deccan, op. cit..

 Ragas 183
We would dismiss this unique tripartition as awkward and beyond our
comprehension. But then, it should strike a note familiar to students ac¬
quainted with the music of the Catholic Church, which among the melod-
icles that the neumes symbolize has two, quilisma and pressus, expected
to be performed tremula voce. These are late European traces of a once
important form of Oriental singing which was still in bloom in India in
the eighth century, indeed, was observed in the Vedic chant as late as the
seventeenth century and is customary to this day among certain Mongol
tribes who sing throughout with a bleating tremolo voice.^^

^ %

Singing, in its skill and ethics, was emphasized as nowhere else in the an¬
cient world. India’s national epos Ramayana, composed in the third or
fourth century b.c., expects a singer to know the science of music, to have a
sweet voice, to sing in the natural register, and to have a range of three
octaves. It recommends him to eat sweet fruits and roots in small quanti¬
ties, insists on his singing exactly as taught without any ingenious attempts
to improve the master’s composition or supplement it by flourishes, and
strictly forbids him to take money or any other remuneration.'^^
In later times, both northern and southern treatises on music dedicate
long paragraphs to the study of human physiology and to what a good
singer was supposed to achieve and what to avoid. The positive part of
these enumerations is less interesting. We take it for granted that the singer
be able to hold his breath, and that his voice be sweet and entertaining, not
very loud nor very weak, but deep and rich.
The negative part, however, strikes us as singularly up to date, and no¬
body can read these endless lists of rules without a smile of recognition:
that one should not sing with closed teeth; with fear; with the mouth wide
open; with eyes tightly closed; with a nasal twang; with all the words
jumbled up together and rolling in the throat so as to be incomprehensible;
with a contracted stomach; with a plaintive or weeping expression, or with
raised eyebrows; that the singer should not shake his head, move his eyes,
swell his neck, gape, or show his teeth; that he should not crane his neck
like a camel, or make frantic gestures with his hand. And many others.^^

C£,, for example, Joseph van Dost, ‘Xa Musique chez les Mongols des Urdus,” in Anthropos
X/XI (1916/17) pp. 3^3* 385* ^
**2 p. c. Dharma, “Musical Culture in the Ramayana/ loc, at,, pp. 447-53-
C. Tlrumalayya Naidu, Gana Vidya Sanjivini, 1896, p. 12.
^ Fyzee-Rahamin, op. at., p. 71; Chcngalavarayan, op. at., p. 8x
 [5]

RHYTHM AND FORM

INDIAN RHYTHM in its marvelous wealth and importance shows bet¬

ter than the system o£ the Western and the Eastern Orient the two basic
forms of rhythmic organization: meter and time.
The Roman orator Fabius Qnintilianus has given the shortest definition:
Mt$mm in perMs mode, rhythmus etiam in corporis motu est—“Meter
exists only in words, and rhythm—read: time—^in the motion of the
body”^^
Time, originating from pace and carriage, is ‘qualitative’; it organizes
melody in a rhythmical series of stressed and unstressed notes, independ¬
ently of their lengths and therefore counted by regular beats. The numeric
symbols of times are fractions:-^ means that the first out of every four regu¬
lar beats is stressed, and that the beats have the average tempo of human
steps; I means the same type of stress, while the tempo is double.
Me^r is ‘quantitative’; it organizes melody (like verse) in a rhythmical
^cs of long and short notes. Counting a long note as two shorts—which
is typical in ail meters—the numeric symbol of meters is sums: a dactyl
would appear as 2 +1 +1 and an iamb as i + 2, which means that the group
or foot or measure consists of long-short-short or of short-long.
Over and over the two forms of rhythm have overlapped—in modern
Western music no less than in ancient Oriental melody.
South India’s musical meter, d\shara, faithfully respected the numberless
foot patterns in which the arrangement of long and short was classified.
To help with this classification, the Hindus have fabricated the imposing
word yarnmrafabhanasdagdm. Each three consecutive syllables, counting
from the first, the second, the third, etc., syllable, indicate one meter:

yamdtd w — —
mdtdrd-
tdrd]a-w
rdjabkd — w —
jabhdna ^ — w

Fabias Quintiliaiiiis, Insiimtw oraioria IX iv.

 Rhythm and Form i85
bhdnasa — 'w- w
nasala w w w
salagdm w ^ —

In addition, using the two last syllables only:

lala w
lagd —
gala —
gdgd-

Symbols for rests occur, but only—like the medieval punctus dimstonis
—to define groups of three units, which, for lack of accents, could not other¬
wise be distinguished from even-numbered combinations.
An example of poetical meter in Indian music is the following fragment
of a praise of the divine ape, Hanuman, in which every short syllable is
rendered by an eighth note, while syllables long either by a long vowel or
by two consecutive consonants are given quarter notes:

^ M JslSO.
j j j j J'^i
mm - de san^iazn sii - Jm-^ita-imm-ican
It should be emphasized that meter in itself was in India closer to life
than anywhere else, since up to the nineteenth century it ruled all kinds of
written language.

India’s musical time has seldom the simple form of modern Western
rhythm. One form of time, e\a, corresponds to our and the north has
some simple patterns, allegedly introduced by the Mohammedans: dhtma =
f+T+T+T =i+i
But in expressing these rhythms as sums of fractions, we have already
passed to the most characteristic organization of Indian melody—the rhyth¬
mic patterns or talas.
The simplest explanation of tala might be: a rhythmic pattern that com¬
bines the essential features of both meter and time. Its numeric symbols
consequently are sums of fractions.
The above-mentioned |-would give an idea of tMa, since it combines
two three-beat groups in the metric relation of a spondee. But the true tala
avoids equivalence of its members.
After Erwin Fclbcr and Bernhard GeigeTj op. cit.t p. 109*
i86 India
Tlie space occnpied by a pattern is called vihagha, a term that we trans¬
late by 'period/ The subsequent periods, repeating the first one, follow
without any interruption. A period is composed of one, two, three, or four
mgas or 'members,* each one of which may be the size of one, two, three,
four, five, seven, or nine units of time or beats.
South Indian theory indicates the current patterns in the following
survey:

E^i 3 4 5 7 9
Rupj^a 2+3 2+4 24-5 24-7 24*9
3-rI+2 4-f i-f 2 54-1 + 2 7+1+2 9+ 1 +2
Tripziia 3-f2-f2 4 + 2 4- 2 5+2+2 7+2+2 9+2+2
5+2+5 7+2+7 9+2+9
if

44-24-4
Dkrum 3+2+3+3 4 4-2 -f 4 4- 4 5+2+5+5 7+2+7+7 9+2+9+9
Am 3 3 ^ ^ 4 4- 4 ri* 2 4- 2 5+5+2+2 7+7+2+2 9+9+2+2

The underEned symbol indicates which of the five jdtis or varieties of each
ids is the most frequent and does not need any distinctive epithet.
The first horizontal row denotes one-member periods (or simple meas¬
ures) of three, four, five, seven, nine time units or beats; in our nota-
tion:

j.,
The »:ond row indicates two-member periods of two plus three, four,
five, seven, nine units.
And so on.
Permutation is admitted; Dhrum reads 24-4-1-4-1-4 or 4-f44-24-4 as
well. Moreover, all members may be split and dissolved into units.
Skilful drummers go as far beyond the regular patterns as they want; one
of them, Sifnhanadana, has been credited with a monstrous pattern of a
hundred units in members of two, four, and eight

^ ^

Rhythmic patterns appear as early as Bharata’s book (Chapter 31) and

at that tiine must already have passed through a long period of evolution.
Bharata knows five patterns, two of which are pure and three mixed. Of
the pure rhythms.
 Rhythm and Form 187
one has eight time units:

J J J'i
and one ten time units:

J /J
Of the mixed patterns, one has six time units:

J J J
while two have twelve time units each:

J. /J J
and

J. J J J J. .
All five patterns appear in three versions: simple (as written); double,
with time values twice as long; and quadruple, with values four times as
long.
It is difficult to understand the actual meaning of these patterns unless
we know about Indian time beating, and the syllabic abbreviations used
to describe it in notation.
Classical practice had two kinds of beats, silent and audible. Of eight
beats altogether, four were silent gestures of the hands and four were
audible slaps.
The silent gestures were: (a) d, palm upward and the fingers bent; {b)
ni, palm downward and the fingers stretched out; (c) ui, hand to the right,
palm upward and the fingers stretched out; pra, palm downward and
the fingers bent.
The audible beats were: (a) dhru, snapping the fingers; (b) sa, slapping
(as the thigh) with the right hand; {c) td, slapping with the left hand;
{d) sam, slapping with both hands.
Every unit of time was accompanied by an indicative movement. Every
member was given one loud beat, in the simple as well as in the enlarged
versions of the patterns. If a member contained more than one unit, the
second and following units were given silent gestures.
 i88 India
In performing these movements, die hands alternated from member to
memfc^: h as tfie audible slap indicated that also the silent gestures of the
same member were made with the right hand; ta prescribed the same for
the left hand, and sam, both hands.
The fingers, too, alternated. In duple time, the four parts of a period
were denoted by pointing first with the small finger and successively add¬
ing the ring finger, the middle finger, and the index. This was different in
other rhythms.
These details are somewhat irrelevant here. The important point is that
in antiquity the audible slap did not mark the beginning, but the end of a
member; for example:

Simple pattern J. -rj J -rj.

Silent gestures s s s s s s
Audible beats A A AAA A

Once again, the ancient Indians did the opposite of what we would do:
just as they named the steps of their octaves for their upper notes, they
emphasized the last, not the first, beats of their rhythmic patterns; indeed,
they gave the greatest stress—sam, both hands slapping—to the very last
quarter note of a period. Actually, the audible beat did not stress, but warn.
It cannot be compared to the accented downbeat of our conductors, but
rather to the jerk in their arms that prepares the downbeat. Once more, the
shifted emphasis shows that Indian rhythm is basically different from the
stTKsed beats of our musical style.
With die knowledge of what roles were assigned to audible and silent
beats, we realize that the ‘mixed’ triple pattern mentioned by Bharata

J J J
is not what it seems to be: three equal beats, as in our time, which in¬
deed would not fit in the Indian picture. The beat notation reads ni
h h, meaning that the first beat is a silent gesture, and the other two,
audible slaps. This indicates that the two first quarter notes form one
member;

J J.
It was beyond the means of classical notation to indicate values higher
than three eighths or dotted quarter notes. So they had recourse to two
 Rhythm and Form 189
quarter notes instead o£ one half note (as in plain song) and explained
their actual meaning by the distribution of silent and audible beats.
One more question arises from studying the beat forms: Bharata’s plain
triple pattern in its simple version reads

j j'j j-
which again implies a symmetrical and therefore suspect rhythm. Now
both the double and the quadruple version indicate, by their audible beats,
the asymmetrical arrangement

j -r/J.
Is the first version a copyist’s mistake?
But then, were the members of those early patterns rigidly arrayed or
permutable as they are in modern talas? Could a pattern like 2 + 2 +1+3
just as well appear as i + 2+ 2+3 or in any other sequence?
If so, it would be easy to rearrange one of Bharata’s two six-unit rhythms.
But then it would not differ from the other six-unit rhythm, which thus
would no longer be a ground pattern. Permutation could hardly have been
permissible in Bharata’s time.
On the other hand, the combination of four- and three-unit rhythms led
to numberless complex patterns up to seventeen units, among which those
with five, seven, nine, ten, and eleven units were particularly in favor.
The vital quality of Indian rhythm is fully developed: there is no divi¬
sion into equal beats, as in our music; an measure is not divided into two
halves and four quarters, but is the total of, say, three members with 3 + 2
+ 3 or with 5 + 2 + 1 eighths. Since there is no accent of force on the first
units of members or periods, this smooth, fluctuating rhythm is to our even
time as the flight of a soaring bird to the gait of a horse.
The rhythmic patterns are given so much attention that the composer
seldom fails to indicate the tala after the rdga: a certain piece would be
headed Mdlsarz rdga and Sulphd\atd tala, or Bildi/al rdga and Tintdl tala.
The importance of rhythm in India becomes particularly evident in the
unique role of her drums. Musical scenes depicted on the earliest reliefs in
times B.c. prove that two thousand years ago they were just as indispensable
as today; in 1051 a.d., the Rajarajesvara Temple at Tanjore had no less than
seventy-two drummers among its one hundred and fifty-seven musi-
190 India
dans; and in the sixteenth century. Emperor Akbar’s band consisted of
one pair of cymbals, twenty-three wind instruments, and forty-two drums.
The drummer who accompanies a singer uses either one drum with two
heads or two drums with one head each. The heads are in both cases hand-
beaten and tuned to different pitches; besides, each head in itself yields two
notes, since the central part, loaded with a circular paste, sounds lower
than the outer ring.
Usually, the player drums the regular ‘audible’ beats with his right hand
on a tuned in the tonic sa, and the ‘empty’ beats or f(^halis with his left
hand on the other drum head in lower pa, as:

Right /j //j j'

Left t U

But skillful drummers do not rest satisfied with so easy a technique; in¬
stead, they dcYciop counterrhythms without ever violating the talas, A fa¬
vorite form is the counterpoint within the same tala: the right hand plays
the pattern in regular time, including the f^halis, while the left hand plays
it in ^augmeniation’ twice as slowly:

j' J /J J /J
12031203 or I 0230102 30

1203 10230

J J J J J J
CMten, however, the two hands play different talas, one in ordinary time
and the other in augmentation; for instance:

j-j i-i-i //J

1203 I 203 1203
I 0203 4

J J J J
The two patterns may even overlap:

/J /l/J /l/J /l/j /i/j

1203 1203 1203 1203 1203

1023 0102 3010 2301 0230

J -^J IJ /JIJ /JIJ J-Jl

F® Stangways^ Tke Mmdc of Hmdostsn, op. ciL, pp. 79 £
 Rhythm and Form 191
Tempo and agogics were fixed in classical times with all the methodical
precision of Indian classifications. The Hindus had three main tempi in
the ratio 1:2:4, and three shades in each of them. Within these nine tempi,
certain forms of accelerando and rallentando were admitted.

The musical forms of ancient India are unknown. But it seems admis¬
sible to date back, in a general way, the common traits of later forms and
particularly those characteristics that the north shares with the south. There
is scarcely a doubt that two thousand years ago the accompanied song was
—^to say the least—^placed foremost in musical life; and since the vital es¬
sence of melody was the rdga with all its implications, just as it is today,
the modern way of shaping musical structure in the spirit of rdga was prob¬
ably followed in antiquity as well.
The spirit of rdga, the carefully maintained balance of freedom and law,
has led to a dual form in art music: the antithesis of dldpa and rdga proper.
The first part, dldpa, is an improvised introduction in which the singer
rehearses the essential traits of the rdga in question, its scale, the notes par¬
ticularly stressed, the appropriate ornaments—^both for his own benefit and
to facilitate the listener’s comprehension. This is done without words or
rhythmic strictness in two first movements. Words and rhythmic pattern
are introduced in a third movement, but stiU with more freedom than the
rdga proper would admit.
The desire for freedom and virtuosoship has to a certain extent inverted
the roles of dldpa and rdga; performers occasionally would dwell an hour
on the dldpa and give the rdga not more than fifteen minutes. The south,
more conservative than Hindustan, has not allowed the dldpa to exceed the
limits of a mere introduction. Its hypertrophy thus appears to be a modern
development that should not be mistaken for a heritage from antiquity.
The second part or rdga proper is built in various forms, all of which
are ‘static’ rather than dynamic and follow the rigid rules of verse and
strophe. Within this pattern monotony is avoided either by a rondolike
insertion of ‘episodes’ before the main subject is resumed or by variations.
The pattern itself is doubtless ancient. But we are not able to tell whether
in antiquity it followed the rondo or the variation type.
Whatever the form, it relied on soloists or small, intimate ensembles.
“It is the chamber music of an aristocratic society, where the patron retains
musicians for his own entertainment and for the pleasure of the circle of
192 India
Ms friends.** Orchestras are not properly in the Hindu’s line. In truth,
modem theaters have built up some kind of orchestra, and a few contem-
|xsrary musicians indulge—^like Udai Shankar—in those delightful color-
isdc effects wMch so much appeal to the Western taste. But at the bottom,
Indian music has been, and probably will be, chamber music, performed
by a singer, accompanied with the delicate double drone of the tamburi;
or by two fiddles and two hand-beaten drums; or by a vina, a violin, and
a drum.

CcxMiaraswaiiij', op, at., p. 163.

Plate 7A. Indian dancers, drummers, and harpists. Relief from the temple at
Bharhut, c. 200 b.c. After Claudie Marcel Dubois.

Plate 7B- Indian dancer and players with drums,

transverse flute, lute, and harp. Relief from Pawaya,
first centuries a.d. After Coomaraswamy.
Pl4Te 8. The Skolion of Seikilos. From a tomb stele at Tralles in Asia
Minor, c. loo bx.—The skolion begins on the sixth line. The notes, placed
aix)\e the corresponding syllables of the text, are taken from the current
alphabet and belong to the so-called Vocal Notation. The dashes above
some of these notes are rhythmic symbols.
 [6]

CONCLUSION

INDIA’S MUSIC was never insulated. It has taken and given. In the reti¬
nue of Buddhism, it had a decisive part in forming the musical style of the
East, of China, Korea, and Japan, and with Hindu setders it penetrated
what today is called Indo-China and the Malay Archipelago.
There was a westbound exportation, too. The fact, of litde importance
in itself, that an Indian was credited with having beaten the drum in Mo¬
hammed’s military expeditions might at least be taken for a symbol of In¬
dian influence on Islamic music. Although complete ignorance of ancient
Iranian music forces us into conservatism we are allowed to say that the
system of melodic and rhythmic patterns, characteristic of the Persian,
Turkish, and Arabian world, had existed in India as the rdgas and talas
more than a thousand years before it appeared in the sources of the Mo¬
hammedan Orient.
In exchange, India’s music has been indebted to contributions from the
West.
Again, the picture must be pieced together out of tiny scraps of informa¬
tion- The South Indian frame drum tambattam was known in ancient
Babylonia under the Semitic name timbutu; the strange South Indian
stick zither \innari shared its name with King David’s \innor, the Hebrew
lyre; vlnd, a foreign word, as its spelling implies, and in times b.c. indi¬
cating the arched harp, had for at least three thousand years been the name
of the Egyptian harp.'^^
Direct reports give evidence of musical exchanges. The diary of a navi¬
gator at the beginning of the first century a J)., the Periplus Maris Erythraei,
relates that India in his time imported mousi\a from Egypt; Eudoxios of
Cadiz ships “musical girls” {mousiba paidis\dria') to India; and the geogra¬
pher Strabo advises his readers to present Indian rajahs with musical in¬
struments or pretty singing girls from Palestine or Alexandria in order to
win their favor. Palestine even sent pipers; rhe Acts of St. Thomas, written
before 230 ajd., tell how a piper came down to the place where the aposde

Curt Sachs, 'The History of Musical Instruments^ op, cit,, p. 153.

Strabo, Geography XV, i, 55.
 India
landed in India, ''stood over him and played at his head for a long time:
now this piper-girl was by race a Hebrew.’
Blit in all times the Indus Valley was the most vital gateway. In ever new
waves it conveyed to India most of the instruments in use today, and above
al, at a very late time, the long-necked lutes, such as tamburi and sitdr,
which from time immemorial had existed in Mesopotamia and Iran. The
name tamburi, it is true, appears in a late Sanskrit masquerade as tumburu-
mm (just as Babylonian priests distorted Semitic terms into Sumerian in
times in which this sacred language was no longer spoken), and linguis¬
tically untrained natives have not hesitated to confer on this beautiful in¬
strument the aureole of a genuine Indian origin and a venerable age of five
thousand years because of its spurious Sanskrit name. Actually, long-necked
lutes do not appear in any literary or pictorial source down to the end of the
iCddle Ages.
Any Greek influence on Indian music, on the contrary, is more than
doubtful, although Alexander the Great’s campaign (333 b.c.) had inau¬
gurated a cultural interchange with Greece. Indian and Greek scales were
crrtaialy similar in many respects; but this was hardly avoidable since they
were based on tetrachords in both countries. The drum accompaniment, so
vital in Indian music, had no analogy in Greece, and one ought to be
very careful in comparing the rhythmical patterns of India with the metri¬
cal combinatioEs of Greek melody. Also, while Islamic theory abounds in
Greek terms and quotations from Greek authors, there is not the slightest
mention of anything Greek in Hindu theory.
The most important factor against assuming direct Greek influence is
the dissimilarity of instruments. India possessed none of the instruments
of Greece, neither lyres nor pipes of the aulos type. Instead, Indian reliefs
in Heicnistic times, essentially created under the influence of Greek sculp¬
tors, depicted arched harps and tubular drums, which in turn were not
known in Greece,
The following section will show how different were the ways of Greek
musicians.

Jkm AiMuidomm Apoaypks, cd, lipsius-Boimct, H ii 108.

Section Five

GREECE AND ROME

N o MORE than a dozen Greek melodies are preserved, and several
among them are mere fragments. But long before the first relic
was discovered, the interest in Greek music outweighed the fas¬
cination of any other period of music history. Indeed, Greek music itself
was to a great extent history. For practically all writers on Greek music,
beginning with those who immediately followed the classical age, quoted
and interpreted the theories of the past more than those of the present, and
this kind of tradition, often misunderstood and marred, was handed down
to the Middle Ages and kept and assimilated into our own days without any
interruption.
It is hard to see what the unique appeal of Greek music has meant. The
overwhelming role of Greek civilization in two thousand years of European
education is probably the main thing. But this would not account for the
intensified interest in our own time, which in a way has swerved from the
exaggerated idolatry of classical antiquity.
Two reasons for this, however, might exist besides a purely humanistic
concern. First, the fact that nowhere else has a complete theory of melody
been created, and least of all in our own world, in which melody has been
drowned in harmony and polyphony.
The second reason is the changing position of Hellenic music. Though
Greece was geographically a part of Europe, its music was largely Asiatic.
The Greeks themselves admitted, indeed emphasized, this fact. They cred¬
ited Egypt, Assyria, Asia Minor, and Phoenicia with the invention of the
instruments they used, named two of their main tonalities after the Asiatic
countries Phrygia and Lydia, referred to Egypt as the source of their musi-
copedagogic ideas, and attributed the creation of Greek music to Olympos,
the son of Marsyas the Phrygian.
With the rise of comparative musicology, it has dawned on us that music
historians of earlier generations were doomed by their ignorance of Orien¬
tal music to misinterpret the sources.
Greek music, appearing in a new light, seems interesting enough to
justify a retrial. In resuming the discussion we are in a unique position
through the unprecedented accumulation of written, painted, and sculp¬
tured testimonies, through a quite well-preserved theoretical system, an
easily decipherable notation, and even a little stock of actual melodies.
 [1]

THE SOURCES

THE RELICS of Greek music number eleven, some of which are fragmen-
tary.
O. Pindar’s First Pythian Ode, allegedly fifth century b.c., was published
in 1650 in Father Athanasius Kircher’s Musurgia Unwersalis, But no source
asuid be found, and the piece, obviously written in a style later than Pin¬
dar s tiiiic, is probably fraudulent^
I* The first stationary song of the chorus {stasimon) from Euripides’
tragedy Orestes (fifth century), written on papyrus and fragmentary.^
2. A fragment, possibly from a tragedy, written on a papyrus from about
250 BX, in the Museum ai Cairo.^
3-4. Tm^o hymns in honor of Apollo, engraved in stone in the Athenian
treasmy at Delphi about the middle of the second century b.c.^
5. Skolion or drinking song by the ^Sicilian’ Seikilos, composed in the
second or first century b.c* and engraved on a column at Tralles in Asia
Mincr.^
6. Paean on the older Afax’s suicide and two other fragments on a papy¬
rus in Berlin, written down about 160 aj). but probably, indeed almost cer-
ismiXj older.®
7. Hymn to Helios.
L Hymn to Xemesis.
9. H}nin to ihe 3^Iuse, probably all three composed in the second cen¬
ter} Ajj, h\ iiesomedes (or the last perhaps by Dionysios) and published,

''IC ^ielody of Pindar’s ‘Golden Lyre,’ ” in Thi? Musical Quarterly XXVI

u* Erzker::og Rmner, 1892.

3VO frammciito di musica greca in un papiro del Museo del Cairo,”
3^9'
■cudlcs de Mpkti III ii (1912); Otto Crusius, “Die delphischen
zt,m Philohgus UII (1894).
je.-f hdUnique. 18S3; Otto Crusius in Philologus, 1891; Philipp
^ fur Mnsit^wis-

jcl-.ischer PapytM mit Noten." in Sitzungshrrichu dcr Komglick

>, .s.Ksrhi!ken XhXy (1918), pp. 763-8. Albert Thierfelder. “Ein
fiir Xhisitur:ssensch^t I (1919). pp. 217-25. Her-
u-f ‘ ‘I •’^l^^knoten,” in Archiv fiir Musikwissenschaft
Wagner. Der Berliner Notenpapyrus,” in Philologus LXXVII
 The Sources 199
though without transcription, as early as 1581 in Vincenzo Galilei’s Didogo
della Musica antica?
10. Hymn from Oxyrhynchos in Egypt, third century aj>., on papyrus.®
11. A small instrumental piece by an anonymous composer, of unknown
date, in an anonymous treatise on music.®

Numerous Greek treatises on music, later quotations from lost treatises,

and casual passages in the books of nonmusical Greek and Roman authors
supplement the few lifeless notations with discussions of the laws and prob¬
lems, the task and evolution of what the Greeks thought was their noblest
art.
The earliest approach was made by physicists. Pythagoras’ much men¬
tioned role is vague; but Lasos of Hermione (c. 500 b.c.), Pindar s teacher,
is unmistakably credited with discovering vibration as the cause of sound.
Archytas of Tarentum (c. 400 b.c.) saw that there were even two forms of
vibrations on which the perception of sound depended: stationary waves
in the sound-producing instrument, and progressing waves in the outer
air to convey them to the ear. Greek music theory culminated in Aristox-
enos of Tarentum (c. 320 b.c.). He was no less a scientist than his prede¬
cessors; but he passed beyond sound production to sound sensation and
became the earliest music psychologist. His “Principles,” Elements, and
“Rhythmics” exist at least in a fragmentary form. Shordy after him, the
so-called Pythagoreans, led by Euclid (c. 300), tried to find the exact mathe¬
matical ratios of the intervals as they presented themselves on the cah-
brated string of the monochord.
The theory of music reached another peak in the second century An. with
Nikomachos, Arabian-born Neo-Pythagorean, and with the famous geog¬
rapher Ptolemy, hbrarian of the great Library at Alexandria, who in his
Harmonica left the standard mathematical work on music. The impor¬
tance of Aristides Quintilianus’ Perl mousi\is in three books has only re¬
cently been fully realized. Its ample information is supplemented in the
slightly later Harmonise eisagoge of Gaudentios.
Among the books of late antiquity, we are pardcularly indebted to the
7 Friedrich Bellermann, Die Hymnen des Dionysitts und Mesomedes, Berlin, 1840. Janus,
Scriptores Mustci, 1895, PP- 462 £f. Theodore Reinach Mustque grecque, 1926, PP-
8 Grenfell and Hunt, The Oxyrhynchos Papyri XV, London, igp,
Abcrt, in Zeitschrifi fur Musik^ssenschaft IV (1922), pp. 524-9. Theodore Rcmach, m Rome
musicale III 9, pp. 8 ff. , ■ 1 o «
» Fridcricus Bcllcrmann, Anonymi Scriptw de Musica, Berol., 1841, p. 9»-
 200 Greece and Rome
Alexandrian Alypios (c. 360 aj).), whose comprehensive survey of Greek
notation made possible the decipherment of Greek music; and to King
Theodork’s unfortunate chancellor Boethius, who concluded musical an¬
tiquity with a presentation in five books De Musica which for a thousand
years was considered the musical bible of the West.
Most of these treatises touched upon the history of music. Glaukos of
Regium and Herakleides Pontikos laid its foundations in the fourth cen¬
tury B.c. The golden age of the historical branch of musicology was the
second century aj). The so-called Baedeker Pausanias inserted important
sections on the music at the ancient Pythian games and on folksongs in his
description of Greek curiosities; the encyclopedist, Julius Pollux, gave, in
Ms Onomastil{pn, important abstracts from authors since lost. The out¬
standing men were Athenaios, in the discussions of his Deipnosophists, and
Plutarch, in a special Dialogue Peri mousi^es, in which actual lectures on
the various epochs of Greek music were assigned to the guests at an imagi¬
nary banquet.
The details from Plutarch, Athenaios, and the other writers are scat¬
tered throughout tMs Greek section. One point, however, might be
stressed at once: the division of Greek music history into two main periods.
The earlier period, wMch we would call classical but which Plutarch de¬
fined as the era of “beautiful” music, was characterized by economy, sim¬
plicity, and dignity. It came to an end when the generation of about 440
Bx. began to sacrifice simplicity to virtuosoship, and dignity to vulgar taste.
This was written more than five hundred years later. And yet we do not
know whether Plutarch’s judgment was fair and firsthand or just a repeti¬
tion of contemjx)raneous opinions and a mirror of the universal unwilling-
n«s to do justice to 'modern* arL

Music history is deeply indebted to these men for having transmitted to

|»sterity a mass of musical facts unique in their superabundance. Unlike
Oriental authors, they have shown us the rough outlines of an evolution in
the fifteen hundred years of ancient life. Owing to them, we distinguish
a primeval period in which blended the songs of Grecian tribes and their
Asiatic, Thraaan, and Cretan neighbors; a classical period of national
Greek music, inaugurated in the seventh century b.c. by the Lesbian Ter-
pander; and a postclasskal, 'modern* period from about 450 b.c. on, when
subjectivism, characteristic of the time before the Peloponnesian war,
 The Soiirces 201
led to the revolutionary art of Phrynis of Mytilene and his disciple, Timo-
theos of Miletos. A sample of the bitter criticisms against these pioneers has
been given on page 173.
The questions that Greek writers on music suggest, however, far out¬
number those that they answer. The main trouble is the impossibility of
aligning the facts in chronological order: admittedly or otherwise, the
ancient authors drew knowledge and opinions from sources antedating
their own epochs by generations and even centuries and mingled them
carelessly with contemporaneous ideas.
This fatal confusion of times, men, countries, and styles has mixed up
terminology. Words like harmonia, eidos, toms, tropos, systema were any¬
thing but clean-cut and are misleading rather than helpful. As a conse¬
quence, the historiography of Greek and Roman music has been particu¬
larly exposed to misinterpretation.
Unfortunately, the monopoly and undivided sway of classical philology
had no altogether good results. Nobody would rail at so venerable a branch
of scholarship. But it has been misused as a charter for ‘emendation : when¬
ever the philologist did not understand some word or sentence, he sup¬
posed the text corrupt and ‘corrected’ it until he, a man of the nineteenth
century and patron of the philharmonic society of his town, was able to
associate it with his own musical background and experience. The various
‘criticaF editions of Plutarch’s Dialogue on Music should be a lesson: Plu¬
tarch’s unobjectionable statement that owing to certain mechanical devices
some musicians were able to play twelve tonalities on five strings was boldly
corrected to seven strings by Burette, to nine strings by Ulrici, and to four
tonalities on eleven strings by Reinach!
Not all philologists, including philologizing musicologists, were suffi¬
ciently aware that words weigh little unless one knows their meaning.
What is the significance, say, of in and sub, when we learn that in a double
pipe one tube was incentiva and the other succentivd? Large dictionaries
provide a disconcerting number of renderings for both of these two prepo¬
sitions, and picking out the proper ones is mere guesswork unless one has
facts at hand.
The only facts in the field of our vision are parallels outside ancient
Greece, and we may add as well: outside post-Hellenic Europe. The
double pipe of the Greeks, scarcely ever played in early medieval Europe,
is, with an incentiva and a succentiva tube, still a common instrument across
the vast span between Morocco and the Malay Archipelago. To this day,
Arabs, Nubians, Ethiopians, and Negroes use the lyres of antiquity. Should
202 Greece and Rome
diey not know more about playing them than Europe, which did away
with the last remainders of the ancient lyre more than a thousand years
ago? Pentatonic melodies, with major and with minor thirds, have had no
place in the evolution of European music; but they still exist in Japan,
China, and India in daily practice.
Is it really admissible to interpret the numberless dark passages in Greek
authors with the conceptions of modern European music ? Or is it not more
logical and promising to ask for information where tradition is still alive ?
While fanatical philologists, pluming themselves on their ignorance
rather than on their achievements, have not been willing to confuse the
*pure” music of their proteg& with the hideous cacophonies of “savages,”
advanced philologists have agreed that the essential features of Greek music
were misinterpreted. In the meantime, modern music historians, trained by
comparative musicology to avoid the pitfalls of projecting modern ideas
upon ancient and Oriental music, have taken the lead toward a revolu¬
tionary reorientation in every sense of the word.^®

10 Cf. D, B. Monro, Modes of Anaent Greek. Music, Oxford, 1894. J. F. Mountford, ‘“‘Greek
Relations to Modern Times,” in Journal of Hellenic Studies XL (1920). Cun
&c!is, “Die Gnccliischc Instrameotalnotenscfirift,” in Zeiischrift fur Musiku^issenschaft VI
(1924L pp. 28^301; and “Die Gricchische Gcsangsnotenschrift,” in Zcitschnft fur Musikwts-
sweA^t VI! (1925), pp. 1-5. R. P. Winnington-lngram, Mode tn Ancient Greek Music,

,
Caoioiidge, 1936. Otto folsaimes Gomixisi, Tonarten und Stimmungen der anti ken Mustk.
KopmMgm 1939.
 [2]

NOTATION

THE CRmCAL A111TUDE of the author of this book springs from

his own struggles with the tangle of a notation unique in the world.
The CJrceks used two different systems of notation: an obviously earlier
one, generally called the instrumental notation, and a later vocal notation.
We understand both of them and are perfectly able to transliterate them
into tnodern notaiioit. Their actual pitches, though, arc of necessity un¬
known, and our custom of calling the center a is conventional if not
arbitrary. It seems, indeed, to be rather high since it places the ranges of all
pieces pre.scrvcd Itetween b' anti e\). On the other hand, it is practical,
since it allow.s us to transcribe the ancient melodies with as few sharps and
Oats as possible.
Thi.s inicnialional agreement was unfortunately endangered when, at the
beginning of this century, Hug(» Ricmann destroyed the consistency of the
Orcck system. He lowered the vocal notation (almost exclusive in our
relics) because, as he said, the former interpretation favored Hypolydian
and wronged Dorian, which (allegedly) was in all times the main scale of
the Circcks; and the German school did not hesitate to follow. The conse¬
quences were catastrophic: while the old interpretation had allowed the
transcribing of the relics of Greek music without any signature or else
with one flat or sharp (Seikilos’ Skolion: two sharps), the Neo-German shift
charged them with from four to no less than seven sharps.
In the meantime I was able to prove that Riemann’s reasoning was in all
points erroneous. “ Thus we eliminate his and his followers’ impressive
tonalities and restore the old simple keys.

The instrumental notation was used for the mesauli]{d, interludes for
pipes between vocal sections, and for the kfoiiinata, pieces for stringed in¬
struments without singing.* =* It consisted of letters belonging to archaic
Curt Sachs, 'Due Gricchische Initrumcnmlnotenichrift/* loc. at.
^^^Ariitidcs Quhntilianus, op. dt„ p* 26.
 204 Greece and Rome
alphabets, bot differed from any known letter notation: the notes B and E
were given two symbols each; all other notes o£ the diatonic scale had three
symbols, or rather one letter written in three positions: erect, prone, and re¬
versed. The erect signs designated the diatonic naturals (corresponding to
our white keys), and both the iattened and the reversed signs meant sharps.

>‘cv a ni 3 P3T
There were several puzzling questions, however. Hellenic composers
never used erect signs for both B and C or for both E and F in the same
melcxiy. When these neighboring notes appeared together, the Greeks
wrote C with the iattened si^ of B, that is, as B|, and F with the flattened
sign of E, that is, as F|. Why? But when they needed either a sharp before
another sharp—say Gf before Ff—or a whole tone above a natural—say
Cf above B—they used the reversed signs of G or C. Once more: why ?
The author gave the answer many years ago: ''the lyre, chief instrument
of the Greeks, u/ss pentatonic without semitones and preserved its archaic
tuning even when the number of its strings was increased beyond five. The
script devised for such an instrument, indicating fingering rather than
notes, mas a tabhture, not a pitch notation^
With a pentatonic accordatura, the lyre had either a ^ or a F string, but
never both together; and the same is true of the ^ and /. When a lyre had
a string tuned to b, any F was artificially produced by pressing the b string
with one of the fingers. This was indicated by the flattened symbol When
a melody contained both g| and the forefinger was engaged in stopping
one of the two strings, and the other had to be sharpened with the middle
finger. This was indicated by the third, reversed, symbol. In melodies with
both b and 4, the latter was duly stopped on the b string with the middle
finger exactly as it would be stopped on a European lute as a whole tone
akive the o{Kn string. (In this case the third symbol was abnormally de¬
rived from F, though the note was actually produced by the b string, prob¬
ably to avoid a chromatic interpretation.)

The \ocAL notation of the Greeks is built on the same principle: each note
of the diatonic scale is given three symbols. However, this second notation
^®Curt Sadis, **r>ie Gnecfiisdic Instnimentaliiotcnschrift,” loc. dt., pp. 289-301.
 Notation 205
is apparently much more recent: the archaic letters, with their flattened and
reversed positions, have disappeared. Instead, the classic alphabet— A B r A
—runs through the groups of three, ABF serving the note A E Z serving
the note and so on. And it runs the other way around, descending from
A to n, as a vocal scale would be expected to do. Consequendy, the third,
not the first, symbol in each group of three represents the ground sign
indicating the natural or open string, while the first and second signs in¬
dicate the sharps to be stopped:

ir’r*z'i'M'o''6-u’ rz i m 0 3a.
B' E' e' A B E e A HPTrPF^Vl«!l»>-

The first sharp in each group of three (seemingly derived from a non¬
existent string but actually stopped on the next lower string) was used
when a whole tone followed below it, and the second sharp, when a semi¬
tone followed.^^ Thus, Seikilos wrote his Skolion with the letters Z I O C
for the naturals, and with the two first-row sharps K and X for (before
b) and (before e). In the Hymn to Helios, on the contrary, the com¬
poser wrote b\) ox rather with the second-row sign F because it was at the
distance of only a semitone from the following a, (PL 8, p. 177)
There is still one puzzle left: though in its downward trend the vocal
notation was adapted to vocal needs, it preserved the groups of three, which
were meaningless with vocal melodies. But this seeming contradiction is
easily explained: the singers, used to accompanying themselves on lyres,
required a tablature for their fingers rather than a tonal notation for their
voices. A tablature of downward direction was the proper way out.
Curt Sachs, “Die Griechische Gesangsnotenschrift,’^ in Zekschrift jur Musikwissenschaft
VII (i925)j PP* 1-5-
 [3]

THE GENERA

DIATONIC, CHROmTIC, ENHARMONIC, the three genera o£

Greek music, provide the supreme evidence that both notations were
tahktures rather than pitch scripts.
The Greeks called diatonic—as we do—a scale composed o£ five whole
tones and two semitones, that is, having two whole tones and a semitone
in each tetrachord.
TTic chromatic genus—in Aristides Quintilianus’ words “as chr6ma
[‘color ] is wedged between white and black”—^was the “sweetest” genus
and the best for expressing grief.^^ It had a minor third and two semitones
in each tetrachord.
An enharmonic tetrachord consisted of a major third and two microtones
of, more or less, a quarter tone each.
Both the enharmonic and the chromatic genus were written with the
same symbols; the py^non or ‘dense part’ was denoted by the three signs
of a group of three, meaning that the open string, the stopping forefinger,
and the stopping middle finger were used in sequence, regardless whether
the fingers were set closely enough to produce enharmonic quarter tones or
hr enough apart to yield chromatic semitones. Only a small dash through
the first symbol of the three indicated the chromatic genus (and its
juniority). This proves that the Greek notation meant fingering, not notes.
The Greek notations, being particularly adapted to the enharmonic
genus, failed the diatonic genus in its particular needs. A simple scale, like
the one in which SeikHos wrote his famous little Skolion, had to leap from
the sixth to the ninth, tenth, fifteenth, eighteenth, and twenty-second letters
of the alphabet.
Does this imply that the enharmonion was older not only than the
chromatic but the diatonic genus as well? ‘Plausibility,’ the foe of science,
could not readily accept such a hypothesis; for is not the diatonic much
more “natural” and therefore necessarily earlier than the “sophisticated”
enharmonion?
The earliest evidence of microtones, a fragment from Euripides’ Orestes
Belleiiiiaiiii*s Second AEonymtis.
 The Genera 207
(fifth century b.c.), is indeed relatively late. Still, Aristides Quintilianus
enumerates the three genera in the order enharmonic-chromatic-diatonic;
he and Plutarch call the enharmonic simply harmonia, ‘structure/ the
word otherwise given to all kinds of scales; and less than a thousand years
later, the Mohammedan heirs of Greek music theory describe the en-
harmonion as the ‘normaF genus.
Aristoxenos, more direcdy, asserts that while there are three genera, "‘the
ancients still have dealt with only one of them in their treatises. My pred¬
ecessors have discussed the enharmonic genus exclusively, neither the
diatonic nor the chromatic genus.” The strongest opinion, however, is
presented by Plutarch 34: “Of the three genera into which the musical
scale is divided, corresponding in the number and power of their respec¬
tive systems, sounds, and tetrachords, one only was cultivated by the
ancients. In their treatises we find no direction given on the use of the
diatonic genus or the chromatic, but of the enharmonic alone.”
Scholars of the nineteenth century were unable to understand how Greek
singers could have caught and reproduced differences so tiny, and some of
them suggested that the so-called quarter tones might merely have been
symbols to indicate portamento.
This is untrue; for, unlike India, Greece tabooed portamento. Aristox¬
enos stresses the fact that the singers avoided sliding and tried to poise
every note as much as possible. Perfect singing depended on precise and
sustained intonation. And Ptolemy briefly states: Sliding tones are the
enemies of melody,”
However, in Hellenistic times the microtones were abandoned. “Our
contemporaries,” writes Plutarch about 100 a.d,, “have thoroughly neg¬
lected the finest genus, to which the ancients devoted all their eagerness.
Most of them have lost the discernment of enharmonic intervals.” And
Gaudentios confirms, in the second century aj)., that diatonic was the only
genus sung in his days.

The original enharmonion, however, was pentatonic; its tetrachords had

a major third with one uncleft semitone below. The quarter tones were a
later refinement and are certainly not referred to in those evidences that
stress the previous importance or even exclusiveness of the enharmonion.
The earlier enharmonion did not entirely disappear after the semitone
had been cleft. It continued to persist along with the other genera whenever
 2o8 Greece and Rome
a solemn, archaic style was wanted; and it might even have outlived its own
quarter-tone offshoot. As late as the second century b.c. the two Delphic
hymns, with their truly megalithic downward leaps of a major third, then
a semitone, and again a major third and a semitone, give an impressive
picture of Greek music eight hundred and more years before.

Ex. 63. FIRST DELPHIC HYMN

Players of the aulos clung to this archaic genus with particular tenacity;
Plutarch recommends that whoever wants to know about the old enhar-
monion should listen to their performances: no piper would allow himself
to subdivide the semitone. It was indeed a Phrygian piper, the legendary
Olympos, whom Aristoxenos credited with the “invention” of the earlier
enharmonion. Olympos, happening to skip the note g in some melody, was
so fond of the open major third a-f that he transferred it to the Dorian scale.
This remark is certainly cryptic. But Hugo Riemann had a “plausible”
explanation ready: Olympos, as a Phrygian, must needs have devised his
new genus in the Phrygian mode; only later, he bowed to the Greek taste
and adapted it to the Dorian mode.
Nothing speaks for, but everything speaks against, involving the Phryg¬
ian mode at so early a date. Olympos, or whoever the “inventor” was, must
rather have started from the original heptad of two conjunct tetrachords
which, as we shall see, was called Ionian, lastian, or Aeolian, not Dorian,
and later passed to the more recent octave of two similar, but disjunct, tetra¬
chords, which indeed had the title Dorian, Or else, since Plutarch speaks
only of one note omitted, Olympos might have started from a mere tetra-
chord and later have skipped the corresponding note in the higher tetra-
chord in order to transform the entire Dorian octave.
Whatever the truth was it has been confused by the later mistake of
assuming that Olympos delighted in skipping an already existing g and
at last discarded it from the scale. Such a childish explanation is contrary
to necessity as well as to the elementary laws of evolution. And it ignores
the fact, known to the reader of this book, that major-third pentatonics
existed in Japan, the Malay Archipelago, and India, that is to say, in the east
 The Genera 209
aad the south o£ the continent in which Olympos himself is supposed to
have spent his life. In other words: a West Asian contributed an Asiatic
scale to Greek music.

Once again, our attention is focused on Asia, and particularly on Japan,

which offers the clearest picture of ancient Asiatic music.
Comparisons are certainly dangerous. Parallels are at best useless when,
seeing some common traits, we just compare isolated facts, regardless of the
whole and the place they take in it. But we should, indeed we must, com^
pare similar facts that exist in, and depend on, similar circumstances. And
this is the case here. Both Greek and East Asiatic music are strictly estab¬
lished on a melodic basis and organized in genera, keys and modal systems;
consonances are used as spices to a certain degree, without interfering with
the exclusive orientation toward melody- Stringed instruments are penta-
tonically tuned in both these areas, while vocal melodies evolve to hepta-
tonic forms. Both racial groups indulge in cosmological connotations and
general ideas concerning the influence of music on man, politics, and edu¬
cation.
I need hardly emphasize that this does not mean deriving Greek from
Japanese or Chinese music. Both reach down, rather, into one Asiatic
mother civilization that may be several thousand years earlier than either
area. Do not the Chinese claim that they got their music from the West,
and did not the Greeks inversely boast of the Eastern origin of theirs?
This had to be said before recalling to the reader s mind that the national
pentatonic scale of the Japanese, the tetrachords of which had a major third
above and a semitone below, was the exact counterpart of the Hellenic en-
harmonion in its archaic structure. One of its modes, \umoij is the form in
which it appears in the Delphic Hymn just mentioned.
In a more recent form, zo\u-gaku, the major third of the Japanese scale,
has been cleft in two seconds: the tetrachord A F E has become A g F E,
This shows that in a natural evolution major-third pentatonicism turns into
the structure we know as Dorian.
The extraordinary significance of the enharmonion may throw some
new light on the evolution of Greek lyre tunings. Paintings on early vases
and also literary sources from the early ninth and eighth centuries give
evidence of lyres with only three and four strings. This fact has not been
criven much attention; the few authors who extended their interest from
 210 Greece and Rome
readable to visible sources took this to be an artist’s license; after all, vases
were small, and the painters had not much space to spend. But Ludwig
Dcubner was finally able to prove the existence of lyres with three or four
strinpd^
We even know their tuning: Plutarch’s Perl mousi\es indicates d'-a-e as
the accordatura of three strings. This is convincing when we consider the
stopping practice of Hellenic lyre players on the one hand and, on the
other, the importance, if not exclusiveness, of the enharmonion in early
centuries; the strings, far from providing a mere skeleton, made possible
the playing of a complete enharmonic or chromatic heptad if the py\na
were duly stopped on the a and e strings. They did not, however, suffice for
any diatonic melody.
The tuning of four strings was, according to Nikomachos (c. 150 a.d.),

^ b a e. Again, the four strings made possible both enharmonic and

chromatic, but not diatonic, melodies, although having the range of an
octave.

Ludwig rfcubaer, Ticrsaitigie Leier/’ in Athenische Mitteilungen UY (1029),

|ip. i§4-2m. \ y
 [4]

THE SHADES

IT IS MISLEADING to speak simply of thirds, seconds, semitones, and

quarter tones. So rough a classification is admissible in civilizations con¬
cerned with harmony and equal temperament; it was not compatible with
the sensitivity of Greek musicians and the conscientiousness of the mathe¬
maticians interested in music.
The eternal wish to adapt the inexorable rigidity of codes and systems
to the freedom of living, changing melody dissolved the three genera into
an astonishing number of subgenera or ‘shades’ {chroai) with differently
balanced intervals.
Aristoxenos, for instance, indicated six .shades (the ratios of which we
translate from fractions into modern Cents):

Enharmdnion: 400-f 50-1- 50

Chrdma mala!{6n: 366-I- 67-1- 67

Chrdma hemMion: 350+ 75+ 75

Chrdma toniaion: 300 -I-100 +100

Didtonon malakdn: 250-I-1504-100

Didtonon sfntonon: 200 + 200 -I- too

The didtonon malakdn is particularly interesting because in the penta¬

tonic accordatura of the lyre (which skips the two smaller notes) it resulted
in the series
E D B A G E
250 250 250 250

200

which is, like certain Japanese singers’ scales and Javanese salendro octaves,
organized in halved tetrachords.
Only three of Aristoxenos’ shades (the first, fourth, and sixth, respec¬
tively) answer our rash conception of enharmonic, chromatic, and diatonic
tetrachords. The rest consist of awkward steps that have no place in our
music: third, three-eighth, three-quarter, six-seventh, five-quarter tones, and
neutral thirds of two sizes.
 212 Greece and Rome
These are only a few typical cases, however; practically, Aristoxenos
ays, “one must understand that the number of lichanoi [notes second high¬
est in the lower tetrachords] is unlimited; you can place a lichanoid at
any distance from the preceding note.” Plutarch (39) indeed complains
that singers invariably flatten the second-highest notes of all tetrachords,
and Ptolemy’s lyre scale, printed on page 213, evidences a lichanos, g,
flattened by a third of a tone.
A tetrachord was considered softer than another if the distance between
its two top notes was larger. Soft tetrachords were supposed to narrow
and weaken the soul; hard tetrachords expanded and stimulated.
Arabian theorists later gave a somewhat different definition: a Greek
tetrachord was soft if one of the three steps exceeded the sum of the two
others. Soft forms were as a rule rejected, except for the characteristically
Oeental tetrachord with the lessened minor third 7:6 (i.e., 267 Cents).
The so-caMed Aristoxenians, who like their master and his teacher
Aristode relied on man s senses rather than on mathematical subtleties,
took an astomshiog step to evaluate their shades; instead of representing
iniewds by ratios, they represented distances by dividing a fourth into
sixt}’ units of 8.3 Cents. Anticipating the latest achievement of modern
musicology—distance measure instead of interval ratio—they reached a
kind of equal temperament, with (supposed) equality of the two en¬
harmonic quarter tones, the two chromatic semitones, and the two diatonic
whole tones.

Ptolemy and his partisans, however, were passionately opposed to tempera¬

ment; mathemadcaBy minded, they believed exclusively in the ratios their
test monochord provided. They particularly insisted on dividing the whole
tone into different semitones: {a) the apotome or dut,’ which is the
difference between a perfect fourth and a major third (4/3 *5/4 = 16/15
or 112 Cents); and (b) the leimma or ‘remainder,’ which makes it up to
a whole tone (9/8:16/15 = 135/128 or 92 Cents).
Ptolemy’s own shades, again translated into Cents, read:

Enharmonion: 386+ 74 + 38

ChrSma mala\6n: 316 + 120 + 62

ChrSma syntonon: 267 4-151 4- 80
 The Shades 213
Didtonon malakpn: 233 + 182+ 83
Didtonon toniaion: 204 + 233+ 62
Didtonon syntonon: 182 + 204 + 112
Didtonon ditoniaion: 204 + 204 + ^
Didtonon homalon: 182 +165 +151

The didtonon ditoniaion was the normal scale that obeyed the up-and-
down principle; the didtonon homalon was brought about by dividing a
string into twelve equal parts (see page 75).
The digest of Greek theory in Arabian treatises might help us in compar¬
ing the systems of Aristoxenos and Ptolemy. A tetrachord, they say, was
‘weak’ when the two small distances were equal; it was ‘energetic’ when
they were about two to one in size. Aristoxenos’ tetrachords were ‘weak/
and Ptolemy’s ‘energetic.’
The two systems held by no means undivided sway. Plato’s friend,
Archytas (fourth century b.c.), proposed an enharmonion of 386-50-62
Cents, while a century later Eratosthenes, Hbrarian at Alexandria, preferred
an enharmonion of 410-45-44 and a chroma of 316-94-88 Cents; and many
others had different suggestions.
Only one of these should be mentioned: another Alexandrian, the
grammarian Didymos (first century a.d.), is credited with a didtonon of
204-182-112, in which—as in Ptolemy’s didtonon sjntonon—^a major whole
tone 9:8 and a minor whole tone 10:9 differed by the ratio 81:80 or 22
Cents, named for Didymos the Didymian comma. Being the typical
tetrachord of the divisive principle, it was well known in India and sur¬
vived in the Islamic Orient and even in Europe until, after 1700, eqitd
temperament was generally adopted.
In all, the Greeks had at least three major thirds, of 386, 400, and 411
Cents respectively; five minor thirds, ranging from 267 to 374 Cents; seven
seconds, from 150 to 250 Cents; thirteen semitones, from 62 to 151 Cents;
nine quarter tones, from 38 to 74 Cents. There was close touch between
thirds and seconds, and even overlapping of seconds, semitones, and so-
called quarter tones.
We have still not done with the complication of Greek shades.
Ptolemy relates that in his time players of the lyra favored two normal
forms of intonation: a hard one, stereon, that is, the didtonon toniaion; and
a soft one, mala\6n, which was hah didtonon toniaion and half ckrSma
syntonon:
214 Greece and Rome
^ d' c b a g f €

Hard: 204 231 63 204 204 231 63

Soft: 204 231 63 204 267 151 81

In both there is deviation of as much as a third of a tone from our modern

scale.
These intonations were valid only for players of the lyra. Those who
performed on the Idthara preferred the two forms called parhypdtij which
was half diMonon toniaion^ half didtonon m(il(i\6nj and lydion (half
diMoriQu tonmiofi^ half didtonon syntonon):

Parhypiti: 204 231 63 204 231 182 84

Lydion: 182 204 112 204 204 231 63

And m with al these unwonted experiences, one more surprising fact

must be taken in: the Greeks did not rest satisfied with scores of genera,
mcxlcs, scales, shades, and keys; they even disregarded the symmetry of
equal tetrachords and formed unbalanced octaves out of contrasting tetra-
chords, indeed, of contrasting genera. The two Delphic hymns are examples
of mixed scales.

Modern musicians, spoiled by the ready-made distances on equal-tempered

keybtsards, could hardly be blamed for sneering at an overrefinement that
to them meant decadence and snobbishness. Still, the Greeks would have
stopped their ears had they heard our piano scales, just as, vice versa,
modem music lovers unfamiliar with the different principles of Oriental
^les would be utterly disgusted by Greek melodies.
For Greek melodies were indeed ‘Oriental,’ and their next of kin have
lived in the Middle East to this day, not in the West. And the nearly one
hundred scales of the Islamic Orient are not only the exact counterparts
of the various Grecian Shades, but the great majority of them are actually
‘mixed.’ Two of the most popular Oriental scales, Baydti and Isfahan, are
cxsmposed of a syntonon tetrachord and a ditoniaion pentachord; and
Higiz, the most “Oriental” scale of all, consists of a chromatic tetrachord
and a diatonic pentachord. And this is not the music of decadents or snobs;
Wth the Arabs and the Turks were young and unspoiled at the time their
mdexhes were being classified.
The Oriental warning suggests a reconsideration of what norm and
exception arc. Is it really normal to construct an octave out of two similar
 The Shades 215
tetrachords? On the contrary. The performer who starts with a whole
octave in his mind creates a new configuration essentially different from
the mere sum of its parts. Running up and down between the tonic, the
confinalis, and the octave, his melody needs leading notes of different
weight and measure and an equilibrium that totally ignores the boundaries
of tetrachords and pentachords. The theorist, often at a loss to find the
mathematical ratios under the comparatively simple conditions of a single
tetrachord, has much greater difficulties in the complicated relations within
a whole octave. Thus he helps himself from different kinds of tetrachords
and pentachords in order to legalize by a combination of ratios what in
itself is irrational and immeasurable.
The Shades, far from being hyperesthetic subtleties or mathematical
sophistications, were serious, indeed vital, attempts to reach a norm that
satisfies both nature and taste.
Despite all hairsplitting, no actual singing or even playing stands the
test of measuring devices. Outstanding Egyptian virtuosos (whose musical
position toward scales is well comparable) have been put to such tests with
the first pentachord of a melody in the maqam ISIahawand}'^ We print
their distances under A and B and add the normal distances as indicated
by Raouf Yekta Bey:

(A) 179-108-193-222 Cents

(B) 180-144-209-169 Cents
(Y) 204 -90-204-204 Cents

Such deviations seem to discredit both the players and the norm. This
would be a wrong conclusion. Actually, it is the rigid law that allows
melody to be so free and supple without sinking into anarchy.

Alfred Berner, Studien zur arabischen Must\, Leipzig, 1937, p- 15.

Raouf Yekta Bey, “La Musiquc Turquc,” in Lavignac, Encyclopedic de la Musique I
I V, pp. Z993, 3000.
 [5]

EARLY MODES

THE TANGLE of Greek systems, scales, keys, and modes is unbelievable.

The Greeks started this confusion themselves; they misunderstood their
own terms and almost promiscuously used them where tonos, tropos, eidos,
hsrmonm, schema, tasis should have been carefully distinguished. They
spoke of lastian, or Aeolian, or Locrian, without saying whether they had
keys, modal octaves, or structures in mind; and lastian, Aeolian, Locrian,
such as Plato conceived them, had anyway nothing in common with the
meaning of the same terms in Alypios’ tables.
Disentangling, then, can start neither from terminology nor from the con¬
ceptions themselves. The third and last way would be chronological; but
alas, the ancient authors continually referred to older sources the dates of
which we do not know, and chronology is just as vague as terminology.
And yet it is the relatively safest way. Only, it must be covered as by a
dog: ninning to and fro, forward and back, anticipating and reverting.
At least, we shal try to separate the classical times from the postclassical
period in which the so-called perfect system unified and leveled the old
mod^.
The word mode, appBed to Greek music, evokes the familiar terms
Etorian, Phrygian, Lydian and the notion of tetrachords with the semi¬
tone below, in the middle, or above.
The picture is correct; but the perspective is wrong.
Dorian was much more than just a mode; it was the standard form
of the diatonic genus just as the similar arrangements with the small steps
beloW' were plainly the chromatic and enharmonic genera. Whenever an
ancient author discusses the scale, it is the Dorian scale; his tetrachord is
the Dorian tetrachord; his systems—that is, complete organisms with a
center of melodic gravitation—are Dorian systems.
The smallest of these systems was the tetrachord a g f e. Two conjunct
tetrachords formed the earliest complex system, the heptachord, or organism
of Kven notes, {f i}) a/a g f e. The linking note a was called the ‘middle’
note or mese, and a true center it was, equidistant from either end of the
heptachord.
The ^cond comfK>sitc system was the octochord or octave, in which a
tttiachord and a pentachord were Hnked. Such conjunction could be made
 Early Modes 217
in two ways: (a) the pentachord was placed above the tetrachord (fifth’-
on-top), as in the 'plagaF church tones; or (b) the pentachord was placed
below the tetrachord (fourth-on-top), as in the ‘authentic' church tones.
Octaves were given the well-known names Dorian, Phrygian, and
Lydian. Dorian may be roughly represented on the white keys of our
piano from E to E; Phrygian, from D to D; Lydian, from C to C. That
is to say, the Greek names differed from the terminology of both the
Middle Ages and our own counterpoint studies. And there was one more
difference: whereas these names designated authentic scales in the Middle
Ages, they denoted plagal scales in Greece. Indeed, even Islamic music,
heir to Greek theory, called plagal the first form.
But it is important to know from the very beginning that the Greeks
used authentic octaves as well and in later times even preferred them to the
plagal octaves. In current terminology, the authentic octaves were later
given the prefix hypo: Hypodorian, Hypophrygian, Hypolydian. There
are, unfortunately, only two hypo melodies preserved, the hymn on the
papyrus from Oxyrhynchos and the First Berlin Fragment.
It is not fully clear whether these scales evolved from one another or
existed side by side from the very beginning. Nor is there any certainty
as to whether the few evidences that we have refer only to the Dorian
or also to other scales, or even to Dorian heptachords and to Phrygian
and Lydian octaves. The latter possibility would explain the contradictory
assertions in Nikomachos' Enchiridion (second century a.d.) that in pre-
Orphic times the Greeks tuned their lyre in ground tones, fourth, fifth,
and octave, and that in post-Orphic times, up to Terpander, they had
heptads only, not octaves.

Terpander, the greatest Greek musician of the seventh century b.c., has
been credited with both the completion of the octave and the creation of
the Mixolydian scale. This evolution, too, is mirrored in a feature of
Japanese music: in the different arrangements of the zohti-ga^u scale
(which we write in the pitch of the Greek scales):
, r.
Hirajoshi: i' (f b a g f^ e

Kumoi: e- d'd b a g f e

Iwato: e'd' (/ b\) a g f e

2i8 Greece and Rome
Exactly the same three arangements appeared in Greece and were later
called Hypodorian, Dorian, and Hyperdorian or Mixolydian. The Greeks,
like the Japanese, developed three different modes out o£ the Dorian tetra-
chord.
In the light of these simple statements, we at last understand the cryptic
in¥ecti¥e, ascribed to Herakleides Pontikos (fourth century b.c.), against
the current triad Dorian, Phrygian, and Lydian. The two latter, he angrily
says, must not be called harmoniai; the only harmoniai are Dorian, Aeolian,
and Ionian.
Why? Were not harmoniai modes, and could anybody deny that Phryg¬
ian and Lydian were indeed modes? Hugo Riemann tried to solve the
puzzle by saddling Herakleides with nationalism: Aeolian and Ionian took
their names from truly Greek tribes, while Phrygian and Lydian were
taken from foreign nations. But were the Greeks eYcr ashamed of the many
foreign traits in their music?
We had better realize at once what Aeolian and Ionian were, and since
we have reasons to postpone a detailed discussion of these two scales, it
may here suffice to anticipate the result: Aeolian was similar to Hypodorian,
and Ionian, or lastian, to Mixolydian or Hyperdorian. All three of Hera-
Hddes^ harmoniai were Dorian.
A puzzling limitation of the term harmonia had occurred before: it stood
for the enharmonic genus. In the meantime, we have already found that
the archaic enharmonion developed into Dorian; indeed, that both were
the same scale, in its pentatonic and heptatonic forms. Consequently, the
title harmonm seems to have belonged to this scale exclusively, in any
stage and arrangement, before it was indiscriminately given to all kinds
of modes; and if so, Herakleides, as one of the earliest writers, followed the
older usage.

0 ^

The fikt development visible in Greek music is the construction of lyres

with more than four strings: five strings appear on vases of the eighth
century b.c., and seven strings on vases of the seventh century. Such in¬
struments were rather antienharmonic, since they forced the performers to
skip strings. Instead, they were perfectly convenient for melodies in minor-
third pentatonics and even for diatonic melodies. In other words, the ap-
fxarance of five strings in the eighth century certifies the arrival of minor-
third with or without their heptatonic ofishoots. This substitution
 Early Modes 219
is possibly, indeed probably, connected with a well-known substitution
of names: the Homeric terms phorminx and kitharis yielded to the classical
terms hjtharu and lyra.
Boethius relates that the fifth string was “invented” by a legendary mu¬
sician, Torrhebos. We do not actually know who this man was; but he
happens to be credited by Dionysius lamblicus with another invention:
the Lydian mode. Tradition, consequently, links the five-stringed lyre
with the introduction of non-Dorian modes.
Lydian and Phrygian are generally understood to form a trio with
Dorian, and it .sounds convincing enough: Dorian tetrachords have the
semitone below, Phrygian in the middle, Lydian above.
Still, a number of rca.sons indicate that Dorian, on the one hand, and
both Phrygian and Lydian, on the other, had come from very different
rootstocks before they seemingly converged.
It may hint at a pentatonic past of Clreek music as a whole (and by no
means only of Dorian) that neither the perfected lyre nor even the late
notation ever abandoned their pentatonic arrangement. Moreover the
tuning of all lyres with more than four strings indicates, by its minor thirds,
a penttiionic ptist different from the Dorian pedigree.
Another symptom is, in Plutarcli’s words, “the custom among the ancients
of omitting the note trhe in the Spondacan mode,” that is, in the archaic
melody sung on drink offerings before dinner. This omission of </ definitely
created a pentatonic tctrachord (e'd' b). The corresponding / in the lower
tetrachord was not omitted, however: Plutarch adds that the omitted trite
was unhesitatingly played on the kithara, in consonance with /, which
consequently must have been sung. I'hus, the tropos spondeiakfis was cer¬
tainly not pciuaionic, liut hexatonic—either as a direct remnant of older
pentatonics, or as an indirect remnant suggested by the pentatonic tuning of
the lyre.
Once more, our attention focuses on the clear picture of Japanese music,
which ha.s in actual life preserved the three things we are looking for:
(a) stringed instruments tuned in minor-third pentatonics; (^) scales in
minor-third pentatonics; (c) diatonic scales derived from minor-third penta¬
tonics.
The Far East uses two entirely different forms of minor-third penta¬
tonics, which, as stated in the Ea.st Asiatic section, go back to different
roots anti have cxi'.ted side by side.
The first form, ui iapanese ntsu. is /efrachordic with a fourth and a
minor rliird ■ H (IAH l)K and corresponds exactly to the main accordatura
 220 Greece and Rome
of Greek lyres. In the Far East, it appears both in its original pentatonic
form and in the heptatonic version E /J GAB r# DE.
This is the Phrygian scale of the Greeks.
The second form of minor-third pentatonics of the Far East, in Japanese
fjo, is a pentachordlc scale without a fourth: EGA CD F. It appears in
East Asia both in its original pentatonic form and in the heptatonic version
FGAbCDeF.
This is the Hypolydian scale of the Greeks.

These paraiuels provide the following tentative picture of early Greek

music.
1) A strong pentatonic heritage may be inferred from the stubborn
tenacity with which the Greeks clung to the pentatonic tuning of their
two main instruments, the lyra and the kithara. Even in some vocal melo¬
dies, in Seikilos* Skolion (Ex. 79, end) and the Hymn to the Muse, for
example, vestiges of pentatonic structures are easily found.
2) These pentatonic structures were of two kinds: with major thirds
and semitones, and with minor thirds and whole tones.
3) The evolution from a pentatonic scale to a heptatonic zo\u-ga\u in
Japan makes a similar evolution from the so-called Olympian enharmonion
to Dorian almost certain. This development is emphasized by the fact
that early Dorian scales were heptads of conjunct tetrachords, like original
zo\u-gaI{u scales.
4) Minor-third scales of the forms 124 and 134 begot the Phrygian octave.
5) Minor-third scales of the form 123 begot an octave, probably called
Lydian at the beginning, and later Hypolydian. This would confirm the
statement of Aristides Quintilianus: “Originally, there were only three
scales, Dorian, Phrygian, and Lydian.”
6) The intercalated notes that transform minor-third scales into hepta-
tonic octaves are in Chinese called pien, “becoming,” with the name of the
next higher note. Without question this means an ascending scale. It is
probable that Phrygian and Lydian, too, were ascending.
7) The Japanese major-third scale, on the other hand, is considered a
descending organism—^so much so that it sometimes combines with an
ascending minor-third scale. That Dorian, too, was descending is indicated
by the epithets arche or “starter,” and teleutS or “final” which the nine¬
teenth pseudo-Aristotelian Problem gives to the highest and lowest notes
 Early Modes 221
of the original tetrachord; it is confirmed by the name trite which, in the
two higher tetrachords, is given to the third note from above.
8) As a result, there would be a definite contrast between I>orian, as a
descending heptad on the basis of an ancient major-third scale, and Phryg¬
ian and Lydian, as ascending octaves on the basis of ancient minor-third
scales. And this contrast at last would explain Aristotle’s cryptic statement
in Politics that “of harmonies there are said to be two kinds, the Dorian
and the Phrygian; the other arrangements of the scale are comprehended
under one of these two.”
9) If Greek enharmonic scales derived from pentatonic major-third
scales, it is possible, or even probable, that Greek chromatic scales derived
from pentatonic minor-third scales.
10) The entire pedigree would be:

Major-third pentatonics Minor-ihird pentatonics

Older Enharmonion 1
_I_ _!_
The semitone cleft: The third cleft: The whole-tone cleft: The third cleft:
Later Enharmonion Dorian Chromatikon Phrygian-Lydian
 [6]

THE PERFECT SYSTEM

THE READER was and will be confronted with a large number o£ modes,
each of which is referred to by one or more tribal names: Aeolian, Boeotian,
Dorian, lastian, Ionian, Locrian, Lydian, Phrygian, with or without dis¬
tinguishing epithets; aneimenCj chdara, hyper, hypo, tnixo, syntono, in
an e¥er changing and often contradictory terminology—the same uneasi¬
ness that he feels impelled the methodical spirit of Greek masters to organize
the chaotic multiplicity of modes into one consistent system and eliminate
those modes that were not adaptable.
This process was on its way in the fifth century and came to an end in
the fourth century b.c., when the great mathematician Euclid first described
the perfect system or systerna teleion. As early as about 400, the kithara
had progressed to eleven strings which in some pentatonic sequence
covered exactly two octaves and therewith had offered the possibility of
representing the new system in its totality.
However, the perfect system was more than just a double octave; it was
f^rfart as a unique attempt to organize the musical space from one center,
a. The center stands in its original octave of Dorian structure, e'-e, which,
by adding half an octave above and half an octave below, is extended to
two octaves a'-A, This new unit could be shifted both up and down by
half an octave either way and thus cover three octaves.
The notes added above and below the inner octave were named after
the three extreme notes at either end of it: nete, parunite, trite above;
lichanos, parhypate, hypate below. Only the lowest note was given a name
of its own: the 'added to’ note, proslambanomenos.
The organization of the two octaves was rather strange. Subdivisions
were neither cctaves nor pentachords, but tetrachords throughout. This
implied two kinds of junctions: conjunction at either end of the inner
cxrtave and disjunction or diazeuxis in the middle. Read downward, the
arrangements resulted in the tetrachord hyperbolaidn, 'of the exceeding’
notes, conjunct with the tetrachord diezeugmenon, which, as the name said,
was 'disjuna’ from the tetrachord meson, 'of the middle’ notes; this, in
Ckto Gembosi, op, dt., p. 77.
 The Perfect System 223
turn, was conjunct with the tetrachord hypaton, ‘o£ the low’ (literally:
‘high’) notes. The proslambanomenos remained over.
The somewhat cryptic remark “literally high” refers to a strange in¬
version in Greek terminology: nete, the highest note, meant low’; hypate,
the lowest note, actually meant ‘high.’ The current explanation is the
inclined position of the kithara, in which the musically highest string be¬
came—or rather was supposed to become—^low in space, and vice versa.
But it is more convincing to relate the contradiction to the identical in¬
version in Oriental music discussed on pages 69-70.
nete
ff’ paranete t ^ t y •-
^. hyperbolaton
f trite ,
e' nete
^ a par mete
mezeugmenon , - -
^ c trite
b paramese
a mese
g UchanSs
f parhypate
e hypate
, d UchanSs
hypaton ,
c parhypate
B hypate
A proslambanSmenos
Similarly, the Greeks constructed a lesser perfect system or systerna tileion
Hatton on the basis of the old heptad of two conjunct tetrachords. It com¬
prised only an eleventh, from to A. The top tetrachord did not exist,
and the disjunct tetrachord diezeugmenon was replaced by a conjunct tetra¬
chord synemmSnon:
r d^ nete
d paranete
^ b\) tnte
a mese
g UchanSs
f parhypate
e hypate
, d UchanSs
hypaton ,
c parhypate
B hypate
A proslambanSmenos
224 Greece and Rome
Sets of keys appear in the fourth century b.c. Aristoxenos indicates two
of them. In one, the original (Dorian) scale was shifted upward three
times by either a tone or a semitone, and again downward by one semi¬
tone. The resulting five Dorian keys were given well-known tribal names:

Mixolydian
Lydian cf'
Phrygian h
Dorian a
Hypodorian

This means that the Dorian scales, called by these five tribal names, fol¬
lowed one another at the distance of a tone or semitone.
Aristoxenos' second key arrangement was awkward enough: Mixolydian,
Phrygian, and Dorian were kept in place; Lydian and Hypodorian, on
the contrary, were flattened by a quarter tone each, and an additional key,
Hypophrygian, followed on /}. These three-quarter tone distances were
due to the peculiar hole arrangement of the pipes, Aristoxenos said.
The Hypodorian followed the Dorian key in both arrangements; indeed,
it was the key later called Hypolydian. Such inconsistency cannot be sur¬
prising. The prefix hypo allowed for a certain vagueness, since in earlier
times it was used in the meaning of ‘approximate’ rather than ‘under’:
Herakleides Pontikos (fourth century b.c.) explicitly states that Hypo¬
dorian is “not entirely [we pany^ Dorian”—“just as we say what resembles
white is rather white {hyp6leu\ony^ adds Athenaios.
Later times provided transpositions of the Dorian scale in the range of a
full octave (and even more). The two leading orders of transposition are
called Aristoxenian and Ptolemean.
Ptolemy, who lived in the second century aj)., admitted seven keys, the
centers of which ascended diatonically from e to d' in the sequence sol-
la-si-do, do-re-mi-fa. We add the s' key, although Ptolemy expressly dis¬
approved of it as being a mere repetition of the lowest key (which, as we
shall see, was only a half truth). AU eight Dorian double octaves were
given tribal names; the term Dorian itself was left to the nontransposed
scale with as the center. (See page 225.)
The reader must be warned against authors who call the Dorian key A
minor because |he section from the mese downward resembles a modern
.4-minor scale, and, for similar reasons, against thinking of Phrygian as
B minor and of Mixolydian as D minor. Such terminology is inadmissible,
both musically and logically. The term is musically inappropriate since
 The Perfect System 225

Hypcrmixolydian

Mixolydian

Lydian

Phrygian

Dorian

Hypolydian

Hypophrygian

Hypodorian

‘minor’ is a recent Occidental conception; it is logically unfit and con¬

tradictory in itself because ‘minor’ denotes a mode, not a key, while the
writer who uses the word wishes to indicate a key, not a mode.

The TRn>ARTiTiON is obvious: there is a higher group of hyper scales, a

lower group of hypo scales, and a middle group without epithets. At first
sight, all of them are similar Dorian keys; but the modal structures are
fundamentally different in the three groups:
1) The middle scales, based on disjunct tetrachords, have the fifth on
top and are plagal.
2) The hyper scales, based on conpmct tetrachords, with an additional
note above, are likewise plagal
3) The hypo scales, based on conpmct tetrachords, with an additional
note below, have the fourth on top, or rather, should have the fourth on
top and be authentic:

Hyperdorian E D C B\) A G F E

Dorian E D C B A G F E

Hypodorian E D C B A G F% E

But the perfect system ignored the authentic structure, obviously in order
to keep a as the common center of all modal scales.
 226 Greece and Rome
This was technically possible because hypo scales allowed for two
structural forms each: in Hypodorian, for example, the same structure of
tone, tone, semitone, tone, tone, semitone, tone could serve as TTs TTs
T and as T TsT TsT.
Possibly, this fact solves the problem of the cryptic Aeolian scale. A
strange passage in Athenaios 14:624 states that “since in certain songs the
melody is Hypodorian, it naturally follows that Lasos [of Hermione, c.
50) B.C.] callsthe harmonia Aeolian.”
The passage is unintelligible, indeed nonsensical, unless Hypodorian
in the perfect system was not exactly—Hypodorian. It becomes logical and
momentous if we assume that both scales were A-modes and had the
same notes and the same range, but differed in structure: one was right¬
fully 'authentic,* while the other had the plagal form that the perfect
system forced upon all its scales:
t-V

Aeolian: d' (f b a g e
i-\

Hypodorian: d' (f b a g e

In other words, an Aeolian melody found itself in the perfect system mis¬
represented as Hypodorian.
Two passages confirm the Hypodorian character of Aeolian: Herakleides
Pontikos calls AeoBan “Hypodorian,” and Ptolemy, five hundred years
later, cals it “Dorian confunct.” Hypodorian is indeed a conjunct Dorian.
Moreover, the pseudo-Aristotelian Problems mention Aeolian as the main
scale of kitharodists, and this matches perfectly well, since with only one
sharp it must have been easy to play. And lastly: Herakleides calls Aeolian
“iow’ sounding,” barybromos. No scale, indeed, had a lower center of gravity
than Hypodorian.

The earlier Mixolydian, too, can probably be restored.

Plutarch, in Peri momsi]{es, relates that at about 475 b.c. the Athenian
Lamprokles, “perceiving that the disjunction of its tetrachords should be
higher up in the scale than it was almost universally supposed to be, raised
it to its true position; and determined its modal structure to correspond to
the cx:tave between b and B!'
Many explanations of this passage have been presented, but none of them
is convincing.
 The Perfect System 227
The first conclusion should be: when a musician shifts the disjunction,
he is changing a conjunct into a disjunct structure or vice versa. The perfect
system is based on a mobile scale made of disjunct Dorian tetrachords.
All difficulties vanish when we look for the earlier Mixolydian in the so-
called lesser perfect system, which was based on a mobile scale made of
conjunct Dorian tetrachords (cf. p. 223). (i) The earlier Mixolydian must
be expected to derive from a conjunct heptad rather than from the later
disjunct octave. (2) Such a scale did actually exist: the archaic Second
Delphic Hymn shows continual modulation between Mixolydian conjunct
and disjunct, (3) The two scales are

disjunct (later) A G F E D C B\) A G F E

conjunct (earlier) G F E\) D C B\) A G F E\),

(4) In confirmation of Plutarch's words, the earlier Mixolydian (based on

a conjunct Dorian key) was no so-called B-mode, and it had the disjunc¬
tion lower in the octave: a-g, instead of e-d.

Other scales, too, were excluded from the perfect system, though they had
been highly respected in earlier days: Boeotian, lastian or Ionian, Locrian,
Syntonolydian. Shall we once more attempt to determine their nature
from the unsatisfactory descriptions the Greeks have left? I confess that
after so much unconvincing guesswork in earlier books I feel little inclined
to add new conjectures. Our hopes for solving the puzzles of ancient scales
decline somewhat when we learn that nor only Aeolian but also Locrian
were similar to Hypodorian. The tetrachords within an octave can only
be regrouped once; what, then, was the difference between Locrian and
Aeolian ?
But are there really no other possibilities? Have we not been all too
much under the spell of neatly arranged white-key octaves, of tidy A-, B-,
C-modes, and of our own equal temperament?
One glimpse at the Islamic world should warn us against so dangerous a
bias. In the music of Turkey, which, as we shall see, is entirely ruled by
Hellenic conceptions and laws, we face no less than six A-modes of the
228 Greece and Rome
Hypcxlorian-Aeolian kind. One of them, Nahawand, has the fourth on
top (which we have claimed for Aeolian); all the others have the fifth on
top. Of these, Hmsdni *asirdn and Aradbar have the ‘divisive’ structure
with two sizes of whole tones and the major semitone (Greek: syntonos)
and three, 'JJssiq, Baydti, and Isfahan, have both sizes of whole tones and
both sizes of semitones (Greek: syntonon mixed with ditoniaion). The
scales of these three maqamit, and again those of the two preceding
maqamit, are indeed similar. Still, the maqamdt themselves are essentially
different for reasons that we discussed in the Indian section and shall
once more go into in the Islamic section.
But then, certain facts in Greek music proper should caution against
the prejudice that every tribal name necessarily meant a tidy diatonic
octave of individual form.
Two of our terms, syntonon and lydion, have been mentioned in the dis¬
cussion on Shades with a meaning quite different from modal scales. Aris-
toxenos called syntonon a certain shade of the diatonic Dorian tetrachord;
Ptolemy’s syntonon was a shade of the diatonic Dorian tetrachord, too,
though a different one; and also a shade of the chromatic tetrachord. Lydion
was a special tuning of the kithara: an octave composed of two different
shades of the diatonic Dorian tetrachord.
These are just shades, however; and the names themselves have slightly
different endings.
With the usual endings and the meaning of modal scales (though not
exactly in the later meaning) they were used by “the very oldest” musi¬
cians, according to Aristides Quintilianus:

Lydian e* f a b (d d
Dorian g a b\^ d' d d' f cd
Phrygian g a d" b\) d' d e"' f gf
lastian e e" f add'
Mixolydian e e* f g a a^ b\)d
Syntonolydian e e" f ad

All tetrachords in these six scales are enharmonic Dorian, either conjunct
or di^unct, with open or filled major thirds. The seemingly abnormal
Lydian structure is confirmed in a passage where Aristoxenos describes a
certain arrangement of the enharmonic tetrachord with one quarter tone
at the upper, and one at the lower end.
The essential features of these scales, however, are their ranges and
omissions. They are not necessarily octaves: Dorian has the range of a ninth;
 The Perfect System 229
lastian, of a seventh; Syntonolydian, of a sixth. And the two latter scales
do not differ from each other save by the addition of d' in lastian. Phrygian
and Dorian are identical except for the highest note, which is g' in Phrygian
and in Dorian. lastian and Syntonolydian, again, have a minor third
A-C close by the enharmonic major third F-A,
To sum up: the “very oldest” musicians gave the tribal names not to
toptail inversions of the same basic octave, but to scales, chiefly established
on the Dorian tetrachord and differing from one another in range and
density.
This fact alone should suffice to caution us against the obsession that all
cryptic names of scales belonged to diatonic octaves.

The lyre, almost indispensable in Greek music both as a support to the

singer’s voice and as a solo instrument, was not prepared to meet the in¬
tricacies of such a network of keys—even within the simplification that
the perfect system implied. With its pentatonic accoriatura, it forced the
player either to avoid certain notes or to produce them with the help of
artificial devices difficult in technique and most probably unsatisfactory
in timbre.
As a consequence, players were ready to vary their accordatura when¬
ever such permutation granted more open strings for the melody to be
performed. But even so, they never abandoned the pentatonic pattern of
three seconds and two minor thirds in the octave.
One of these accordaturas was as natural as it was desirable. The player,
we are told, started tuning from the central note a; jumping down to e
by a fourth and back to ^ by a fifth, and, in the same way, upward to
by a fourth and back to g by a fifth, he obtained:

dr
h

This was an excellent heptad of open strings for Phrygian melodies, but
unusable for Dorian conjunct and Mixolydian, which, instead of b, needed
b\). Relaxing the h string would not have been possible: the semitone b\)-a
230 Greece and Rome
was against the anhemitonic principle. Thus the b string must have been
replaced by a string (c£. page 204) even before the Dorian octave was
created.
Censorinus (c. 230 ajd.) alludes to the introduction of this alternative
EDC accordatura when he credits the Cretan Chrysothemis with adding
synemmenos. Since d' and a, of the tetrachord synem-
the sixth string or
menon, had their strings already in the EDB acco^dutura, and b\)^ as we
saw, could not be given a separate string, the note in question must indeed
have been (d. Only, it was not a sixth string, because (d could not exist
beside b. They alternated, and the lyre still was five-stringed. (In Greek
terminology, 'string* and 'note* were synonymous.)
The actual sixth string was necessary when Terpander, according to
tradition, added the high / in order to transform the original heptad into
an octave.
The seventh string, on d beyond low re-established the central position
of a that had been sacrificed on the six-stringed lyre.
The double form of Greek tuning with the alternation of b and <d can
easily be gathered from the notation of the melodies preserved: the ground
signs clearly show the open strings required. These are the tunings that
we find:

ED BAG E Seikilos* Skolion

Second Hymn to Apollo
Berlin Papyrus
Oxyrhynchos Papyrus
EDC AG E Hymn to the Muse
Hymn to the Sun
Hymn to Nemesis
Bellermann’s instrumental piece.

A THUSD ACCORDATURA for Open strings, however, is disclosed by the ground

signs: E has been sharpened to F. And to the list just given we have
to add:

F DC AGE First Hymn to Apollo

Cairo Fragment

In connection with the F tuning, the entire perfect system with all its
shifts underwent transposition by a semitone upward, which did not sup-
 The Perfect System 231
plant the E series, but was alternately used when musical reasons made it
preferable. The result (restricted to the central octave) was:

Hypermixolydian f
Mixolydian f
Lydian 1
Phrygian f
Dorian

Hypolydian

Hypophrygian

Hypodorian

Recent music historians who have tried to explain the F series failed to
see the point. This is what happened: Owing to developments unknown,
the Dorian mode was driven from its once privileged position. Whatever
the date of this change may have been, Bellermann’s Anonymus, in post-
Christian times, speaks “particularly of the Lydian trope”; Alypios claims
that of the fifteen tropes “the first is Lydian”; and Boethius deals “of all
keys” only with the Lydian.
Possible as a general shift of pitch might be—and especially a shift upward
—^all circumstances are against such an interpretation. When Bellermann’s
Anonymus speaks of the Lydian trope, he says that it has the Hyperlydian
above and the Hypolydian below; no other trope is mentioned. Both
Gaudentios and Alypios start from the Hypolydian, not from the Lydian.
Thus the salient point is the structure common to the modes of the Lydian
family, not the pitch of the Lydian key.
The inner reason for this change does not matter at the moment. It will
be discussed presendy. But the way it acted on the general system of keys
can easily be seen.
i) At whatever time the change took place, it met with the accorda-
turas EDC AG E and ED BAG E.
232 Greece and Rome
2) Keeping the E-E octave meant four sharps for Lydian and five sharps
for Hypolydian. Such complicated fingering might have been accepted at
a time in which these scales played a minor role, but not with Lydian
and Hypolydian to the fore.
3) The simplest expedient was to play Lydian on the EDC accordatura
and Hypolydian on ED B, which allowed all strings to remain open pro¬
vided that the higher E was taken for the paranete, and a new nete, F,
was stopped on the E string,
4) The notation of Lydian and Hypolydian in the tables of all Greek
theorists and among the melodies preserved confirms this statement: E
was written with an open string symbol, and F, as £#.
5) This first step toward an F-F octave had grave consequences. It
shattered the ingenious consistency of Greek scales with their terminology
and made any transposition anarchic.
6) To re-establish order and consistency, a general shift became un¬
avoidable in order to adjust the remaining scales in the new F-F range
of Lydian and Hypolydian. This, of course, altered all signatures: Phrygian
got three flats, Dorian five flats, and Mixolydian as many as six flats.
7) Except for Lydian and Hypolydian, none of these F-F scales could be
played on either EDC or EDB strings. Dorian, for instance, would have
had one open string in EDC and not even one in EDB, and still both G\)
and F had to be stopped on the same E string. Consequendy, another
tuning became imperative, with F as an open string.
8) Even then, Lydian and Hypolydian kept to the E accordaturas, which,
on account of the semitone F-E, offered an easier fingering. Good examples
are the instrumental piece in Bellermann’s Anonymi and the papyrus from
Oxyrhynchos (Exs. 76 and 82).
9) This might have been one reason for preserving the E accordatura
and the E series of scales. But the mere fact that among the relics of Greek
music all nine Mixolydian pieces require the E accordatura clearly shows
that the ancients chose the easier fingering as far as possible and therefore
kept the two accordaturas, jusi: as the clarinettists of the nineteenth century
carried instruments in B\) and in A,

The two series of harmoniai that could be performed with three different
accordaturas of a pentatonic lyre at last exculpate Plutarch who, quoting
a snappish criticism of the poet Pherekrates, relates that the boldest ‘modern’
 The Perfect System 233
composer of the fourth century b.c., Phrynis, gave the lyre a turning device
in order to play no less than twelve harmoniai on five strings.
Plutarch’s editors were utterly at sea with so cryptic an assertion. And
they did what embarrassed philologists do: they emended the text. Burette
averred that five strings, being an obvious understatement, ‘‘seven” must
have been meant; Ulrici outdid his guess by printing “nine”; and Th&dore
Reinach, still unsatisfied, translated “eleven.”
Pherekrates and Plutarch, however, knew better than those who so
profusely offered benevolent emendations: with two stopping devices, one
for sharpening E to F, and another for sharpening B to C, twelve and
more tonalities could easily be performed.

The two pitch forms of the perfect system were finally dovetailed to form
a dense double series of thirteen, or even fifteen, keys in chromatic sequence.
The names of the keys were ekher duplicated and, to avoid confusion,
distinguished by the epithets ‘lower’ {baryteros) for the E scales and
‘higher’ {oxyteros) for the F scales, or else kept apart by reviving obsolete
names, lastian (Ionian) and Aeolian:

f eV c bb a g f Hyperlydian

e' I a
cr b’ g^ € Hyperaeolian
Hypermixolydian or Hyperphrygian
0 bb do
f
eV dt>' c g f
/
0
d c b a g /* € High Mixolydian or Hyperiastian
Low Mixolydian or Hyperdorian
f £V do' cb' bb do gh /

f e m c bb a
/
g f High Lydian or Lydian
9
€ d%' m b a g^ n e Low Lydian or Aeolian

r eV d 0 bb do g f High Phrygian or Phrygian

Low Phrygian or lastian
e d d' 0 a g n e
f eV do' c
/
[?b1 ah g^ f Dorian
High Hypolydian or Hypolydian
f e' d c b
m g f
e' di' cr h d ■gi n c Low Hypolydian or Hypoaeolian

r eh’ d c bh a E f High Hypophrygian or Hypophry^an

e d cr b a gt n c Low Hypophrygian or Hypoiastian

f eV do' c
f
bh do g 0 Hypodorian
234 Greece and Rome
Were we mistaken, after all, when we thought that Dorian, Phrygian,
Lydian, and the rest of them were modes? Or had all the tribal names
two meanings? But if so, how was such confusing ambiguity possible with
a nation eminent in grammar, mathematics, and philosophy?
In trying to answer this question, I shall ignore the F series in order to
simplify the argument. And I shall also avoid the calamitous term “trans¬
position scales,” which is so frequent in recent books on Greek music but
only adds to the general confusion, since the reader rarely knows who
transposes what, whence, whither.
The entire range of those seven, eight, thirteen, or even fifteen, double
octaves would be three octaves and more, from Hypodorian E up to the
two-lined octave. Neither singers nor instruments could be expected to
cover so vast a range; Aristides Quintilianus expressly stated that voices
did not span more than two octaves. For this reason, he adds, Dorian was
the only key sung in its total range; the lower keys, from Hypolydian to
Hypodorian, were cut off at the Dorian terminal A, and the higher keys,
at the Dorian terminal o' (as indicated in our diagram on page 225). In¬
deed, far more restricted than even Aristides held, four out of the dozen
melodies preserved are confined to the central octave: the Skolion runs
from iri to e, and three other pieces, the Oxyrhynchos Papyrus, Beller-
mann’s short instrumental piece, and the Hymn to the Sun, from f to /.
Lyre players were no more able than singers to change through three
cctaves; no set of strings could at one blow be tuned now a fifth higher,
for Hypermixolydian, now an octave lower, for Hypodorian. The player
always started tuning from a, and from a proceeded to the outer strings.
Thus he was confined to a normal medium accordatura whatever the key.
The consequences were strange—indeed unique. Musical space, vague
and shapeless in our music, became a palpable reality in Greece. Each key
had its own center, to be sure; but also musical space as a whole had its
immovable center which, being the pitch tone, was never neglected. As a
result, every melody had two foci; every note or group of notes gravitated
toward two different centers at once, toward the center of the individual
key and toward the center of the immovable perfect system. The first
bearing was called dynamis or ‘mobile force,’ and the second, thesis or
‘stationary force.’ A note changed its dynamis according to the key; its
thesis was immovable. The note for example, was in all melodies nete
\atd thesin or highest stationary note, whatever the key; but in Mixolydian,
it was also mSse \atd dynamin or ‘mobile center,’ and in Lydian trite I^atd
iynamin or ‘mobile third’ from above. The mobile and the stationary
functions coincided only in Dorian.
 The Perfect System 235
Whoever looks at a Greek melody from the dynamic center—b in
Phrygian or d' in Mixolydian—finds the modal structure that we call
Dorian; descending, he steps through two whole tones and a concluding
semitone to the (dynamic) hypdte. Things look different from the stationary
center. The player, adjusting his a and tuning the outer strings to / and
e (the usual range of melodies), realized that each transposition of the
(Dorian) scale altered the structure of his octave, since it shifted the semi¬
tones to places where previously whole tones had been. The central rectangle
in the diagram on page 225 encases the resulting structures in all eight
keys. The Phrygian key, by one tone higher than the normal Dorian,
sharpened two notes of the central octave, and /; thus the two central
tetrachords became e'd' <r|' b and a g /f e: the semitone moved to the middle
of the tetrachord, and the originally Dorian octave changed to the Phrygian
species. In the same way, the Lydian key sharpened d^, (f, g, f and shifted
the semitones to the upper ends of the tetrachords that formed the central
octave. Dorian as a key (DSrios tdnos) created a Dorian mode {Doristi
harmoma) in the perfect system; a Dorian mode in the perfect system
could only originate if the melody followed the Dorian key. And the same
was true for Phrygian, Lydian, and the rest. Key and mode conditioned
each other and rightly were given the same tribal names.
This explains the hopeless confusion of terms in Greek theory, which
allowed Plutarch to speak, in De anima, of “the tones, tropes, or harmonies,
or whatever you would call them.”

The puzzle as to why the Greeks represented their modes as sections of

Dorian keys finds a natural solution in the poverty of their musical termi¬
nology, which had no special words for sharps or flats. They actually con¬
tented themselves with a true and an approximate form of solmization.
The true solmization, designed for singers, symboHzed the relative posi¬
tion of the notes regardless of their absolute pitches (which were nearly
meaningless in singing). It called the (descending) Dorian tetrachord te
to ti ta, just as our own solmization would call it mi re do si or la sol fa mi,
so that te-ta—just as our fa-mi—^indicated the semitone wherever it stood.
The standard attribution was:

a' ffe'd'c'bagfedcBA
te to te ta t6 te ta te to te ta to tc ta tc
(te) (te)
236 Greece and Rome
But with diarps or flats, the syllables had to be shifted accordingly

^ / ff etc. / f ^b' etc.

te to te ta te to te ta

in order to have the indicative pair ti-ta on the semitone. As a consequence,

every octave of Phrygian structure, having the semitone in the middle of
its tetrachords, would read to te ta/to te ta/to, and every octave of Lydian
structure, having the semitone above, te ta tS/ti ta tS/te. All modal octaves
practically materialized in sections cut from the same standard te-te series.
There was no other way to describe them by means of a solmizatlon.
The official terminology of Greek music was no less a solmization,
although instead of a standard (Dorian) tetrachord it covered a full stand¬
ard (Dorian) octave: nete, paranHe, trite, paramese, mese, lichanos, par-
hypati, hypate. And since it had no special terms for sharpened or flattened
notes either, it did not allow musicians to describe non-Dorian scales any
better than the actual sohnization: the tone words were made independent
of absolute pitch and, without changing their sequence, moved up and
down to bring the words trite-paramese and parky pate-hyp ate to wherever
the ^mitones stood. While the Dorian tetrachord read nete, paranete, trite,
paramese, the Phrygian tetrachord ran paraneti, trite, paramese, mese,
and the Lydian tetrachord, trite, paramese, mese, lichanos.
The folowing table makes evident that as a consequence all modal scales
within the same range appeared as differently shifted Dorian octaves. The
central octave is in ail cases represented by capitals; italicized small letters
indicate extensions up and downward; parentheses illustrate the shifted
Dorian octave; the letters themselves stand for the names of the tones
given in the foregoing paragraph.

Hjpermiiolydiaa {n pnt pmM L PH H) L PH H

Mixolydian {n pnt PM M L PH H) L PH H
Lydian {n pnT PMM L PH H)L PH h
Phrygian (n PW T PM M L PH H) L ph h
Dorian N PN T PM M L PH H I ph h
Hypdydian T (N PN T PM M L PH h) I ph h
Hypophry^ PN T (N PN T PM M L ph h) I ph h
Hypodorian N PN T {N PN T PM M I ph h) I ph h

Following the table downward along the vertical line that marks the
upper limit o£ the modal scale, the reader seems to ascend the Dorian scale,
 The Perfect System 237
though he actually never leaves the note He starts from mese and
proceeds to paramese, trite, paranete, nete; going on, he would find
trite, paranete, and nete o£ the higher tetrachord.
This sounds familiar. We find similar statements in some later Greek
treatises and until recently all books on the subject taught that the modal
scales of the Greeks were toptail inversions, that is, so to speak, cut out
of the series of white keys:

Hypodorian AGFEDCBA
Hypophrygian GFEDCBAG
Hypolydian FEDCBAGF
Dorian EDCBAGFE
Phrygian DCBAGFED
Lydian C B A GF E D C
Mixolydian BAGFEDCB

The only exception to this confusion of absolute and relative pitches is an

English thesis, written almost two hundred years ago. Explanation of the
Modes or Tones in the ancient Gruedan Music by Fr. Haskin Eyles Stiles-
Dn Otto J. Gombosi has finally proved that the Greeks did not say
“Phrygian ran from paranete to the lower lichanos or d —d, nor did they
claim that “Lydian ran from trite to the lower parhypateT d-c, but care¬
fully intercalated the words hoton to, ‘quasi.’
Indeed, since the Greeks had no terms to denote black keys, so to speak,
they were forced to shift their set of seven terms from nete to parhypate
until it fitted the particular tone-and-semitone organization of the mode
to be described.
Skeptics may look at the instruments. Athenaios gives the detailed
description of a triple lyre in the form of a tripod that a certain Pythagoras
of Zakynthos, at a time unknown, devised for playing in rapid change in
the Dorian, the Phrygian, and the Lydian mode, each being given one of
the three sides. With a white-key arrangement, it would scarcely have been
necessary to construct a complicated triple instrument of this kind; one
or two more strings would have sufficed to cut out the modal scale of
each of the three harmoniau The same is true with Athenaios’ statement
that “there were pipes peculiarly adapted to every harmonia, and every
piper had pipes suited to every mode used in the public contests. But Pro-
nomos of Thebes began the practice of playing all the harmonias on the

Philosophical Transactions 11 (1760) PP* 695‘“773* ,,

Otto J. Gombosi, “Studien zur Tonartcalehre des rrunen Mittclalters, m Acta Musico-
logica XI (i939)> P- 85*
238 Greece and Rome
same pipes,” that is, he obviously devised fingerholcs in turnable rings
to change the mobile notes between the immovable hestotes. Had the modes
had white-key scales differently cut, two additional fingerholcs would have
sufficed.
The confusion outlined above also explains why the medieval monks mis¬
understood the system of the Greeks and transmitted to posterity (ioclud-
ing our own counterpoint studies) a pseudo-Dorian between D and D, a
pseudo-Phrygian between £ and 'E, a pseudo-Lydian between F and F, and
so on. Lost in the tangle of Greek terminology, they mixed two opposite
faas: {d) that, defined in ‘white key’ terms, Hypodorian was an A-mode;
(5) that in the perfect system Hypodorian was the lowest \ey. As a con¬
sequence, they established the following well-known system of eight church
tones on Hypodorian as the lowest modal scale between A and A:

Seventh tone or Mkolydian GABCDEFG

Fifth tone or Lydian FGABCDEF
Third tone or Phrygian EFGABCDE
First and eighth tones or Dorian and Hypomixoly dian DEF GAB CD
Sixth tone or Hypolydian CDEFGABC
Second tone or Hypophrygian BCDEFGAB
Second tone or Hypodorian ABCDEFGA

*2 cf. aijo Octo J. Gomixmj iMd,, pp. 128-55.

 [7]

THE RELICS

THE INSEPARABLENESS, indeed oneness, of key and mode fully ex¬

cludes twofold interpretation. To assert, as Hermann Abert did/^ that
the Oxyrhynchos hymn must be Hypolydian in key and Hypophrygian
in mode was basically impossible and moreover an arbitrary diagnosis,
based on entirely subjective impressions of what might be the characteris¬
tics of a mode.
But subjectivity can be eliminated for good and replaced by objective
analysis on the ground of the following simple facts:
1) The two semitones of the Dorian octave, (f/b and f/e, are a fifth apart;
€ is simultaneously the lower end of the octave, while the third between
and / is the mese, a,
2) All keys preserve this (relative) structure, since they are merely shifted
Dorian octaves.
3) To find the key of any melody in question, pick the fifth between the
semitones out of your melody, and you will at once know the lower end
and the mese and therewith find the desired octave in the tables on pages
225 and 231.
4) The resulting name indicates both the key and the mode.
In two cases, however, analysis is less simple.
The first one is particularly momentous in view of an important part
of the Greek relics: both Mixolydian in the E series and Lydian in the F
series have one flat and the same dynamic mese df; and while generally the
open-string symbols show perfectly well whether a piece belongs in the
E or the F series, this does not come true in F Lydian which, as proved,
was played and written in E tuning though it was an F key.
The best recipe in this dilemma is: look at the thetic mese; E Mixo¬
lydian tends toward a, and F Lydian toward b\). In all the nine pieces that
I am going to call Mixolydian, a is continually stressed, while b\) is at best
a passing note or does not occur at all. The opposite is true in the only
Lydian fragment, Bellermann’s short instrumental piece.

28 Hermann Abert, “Ein neu entdccktcr fruhchrisdicher Hymnus init andken Musiknoten,”
in Zeitschrift fur Musi\wissenschaft IV (1922), p. 528,
240 Greece and Rome
In a similar way, it is somewhat dilBcult to keep E Dorian from F Hypo-
lydian, both of which have scales without a signature. Here, too, the center
decides: Dorian needs a, and Hypolydian, or b}) (c£. the following analy¬
sis of the Oxyrhynchos Papyrus).
The second difficulty results from modulation within the same piece.
The Greeks knew two kinds of modulation: (a) the simple passage to a
key higher or lower by some regular, diatonic interval (metaboU'); (F)
the awkward passage to a key higher or lower by some irregular, non-
diatonic interval (pathos) y as upward by three quarter tones (spondei-
asm6s)y or downward by three quarter tones (€\lysis)y or upward by five
quarter tones (e^bole)?^
The relics of Greek music show only metaboU; apparently it is always
an alternation of disjunct and conjunct structures. In two melodies, the
Cairo Fragment (Ex. 77) and Section A of the Second Delphic Hymn
(Ex. 68), the upper of the two 'Dorian’ tetrachords is lowered by a tone to
form conjunction with the lower tetrachord; in other words, the melodies
are built on both Dorian and Hypodorian structures. This might be a
relapse into earlier heptadic organization rather than sophistication.
The archaic Second Delphic Hynm even has a triple modulation in its
Section C: from pentatonic Mixolydian disjunct to conjunct; to disjunct
with an enharmonic lower tetrachord; to Dorian with a pentatonic lower
tetrachord.
The methodical use of these considerations leads to the following analy-
^ of the musical relics.

The First Delphic Hymn, Section B, is written in FDC tuning with four
iats in the range Dynamic mese is f, and the key and mode
Hypermixolydian with modulation into the conjunct parallel
Ex. 64, FIRST DELPHIC HYMN

^ Aristides QuintiEamis, op. pp. 25 5.

 The Relics 241
The First Berlin Fragment is written in EDB tuning in the range
with one sharp. Dynamic mese is and the key and mode Hypermixo-
lydian. The melody has two centers of gravity, a stronger one on the
dynamic mese and its lower neighbor (forty quarter notes each), and a
weaker one of the thetic mese a (twenty-seven quarter notes), while the
extreme ends of the range, a' and g, are only given six quarter notes each.
Ex. 65. FIRST BERLIN FRAGMENT

m m

The Second Berlin Fragment, instrumental postlude, is written in EDB

tuning with one sharp in the range F-c', Dynamic mese is and the key
and mode Hypermixolydian. Hermann Abert s rhythmic interpretation as
4/4 is unsatisfactory; I tentatively propose the 5/4 time that the Greek
musicians called pawn epibatos.
Ex. 66. SECOND BERLIN FRAGMENT

J ■'J J

<i>
The Second Delphic Hymn, Section A, is written in EDC tuning with
one flat in the range g'-a. Dynamic mese is and the key and mode Mix-
olydian pentatonic with modulation to the conjunct parallel.
Ex. 67. SECOND DELPHIC HYMN
The Hymn to Nemesis is written in EDC tuning with one flat in the
 The Relics 243
range g'-/. Dynamic mese is and the key and mode Mixolydian. The
third is particularly stressed; outstanding tetrachords belong to the
dynamic octave.

Ex. 72. HYMN TO NEMESIS

The Hymn to Helios is written in EDC tuning with one flat in the range
Dynamic mese is d', and the key and mode Mixolydian. Strong
accents fall upon the three highest notes the thetic mese, however, is
used fourteen times as the starter, final, or repercussion, while the dynamic
mese serves only three times in these qualities.

The Hymn to the Muse is written in EDC tuning with one flat in the
range /'-e. Dynamic mese is d', and the key and mode Mixolydian. Here,
and a are stressed; the tetrachords that occur are thetic, and the thetic
mese stands out seven times against one for the dynamic mese.

Ex. 74. HYMN TO THE MUSE

Euripides’ Stasimon is written in ED(C) tuning with one flat in the

range Dynamic mese is d', and the key and mode Mixolydian enhar¬
monic.
 Greece and Rome
Ex- 75- EURiproEs* stasimon

Beilermami’s instmmeiital piece is written in EDC tuning with one flat

in the range f-f. Dynamic mese is and the key and mode Lydian. The
dynamic center is stressed with ten out of thirty-six quarter notes and serves
as the main finalis; the thetic center gets only seven quarter notes. Two
outstanding tetrachords, both with the semitones above, confirm the Lydian
interpretation.

Ex. 76. belleemann’s instrumental piece

The Cairo Fragment is written in FCD tuning with three flats in the
range Dynamic mese is c', and the key and mode Phrygian. At
the beginning of the short fragment, the piece has modulated to the con¬
junct parallel.

Ex. 77, CAIRO FRAGMENT

The First Delphic Hymn, Sections A and C, is written in FDC tuning

with three flats in the range Dynamic mese is c', and the key and
mode Phrygian.
 The Relics 245
Ex. 78. FIRST DELPHIC HYMN

Seikilos’ Skolion is written in EDB tuning with two sharps in the range
e'-e. The dynamic mese, b, is neglected—the melody is distincdy Phrygian
without any dynamic bearings.

Ex. 79. SEIKILOs’ SKOLION

The Second Berlin Fragment is written in EDB tuning with two sharps
in the range The key and mode are Phrygian; the dynamic mes^ b,
is stronger than the thetic mese.

Ex. 80. SECOND BERLIN FRAGMENT

The Second Delphic Hymn, Sections B, D, and F, are written in EDB

tuning without signature in the range f-e. Dynamic mese is a, and the
key and mode Dorian.

Ex. 81. SECOND DELPHIC HYMN

M
246 Greece and Rome
The 03cyrhynchos Papyrus is written in EDC tuning without signature
in the range f-f. The key and mode are Hypolydian. Notice the two con¬
junct tetrachords and the thetic mese on instead o£ in accordance
with the authentic structure that Hypolydian needs.

Ex. 82. OXYRHYNCHOS PAPYRUS

The First Berlin Fragment, instrumental postlude, is written in EDB

tuning with one sharp in the range of-e. The key and mode are Hypodorian,
and the accent falls on the thetic mese a rather than on the dynamic mese c.

Ex. 83. FIRST BERLIN FRAGMENT, POSTLUDE

These analyses leave no doubt that key and mode were merely two diJffer-
ent aspects of the same phenomenon. But they also reveal that the two
aspects were not necessarily balanced. Some melodies gravitated toward
the dynamic center rather than toward the thetic center; the opposite was
true in other melodies. Indeed, prevalence of one gravitation might exclude
the other: thesis is entirely neglected in the First Delphic Hynrn; Seikilos’
Skolion, on the contrary, avoids the dynamic center and is purely thetic.
Modal structure is more pregnant in melodies that gravitate toward the
thetic center; it is nowhere more evident than in the Skolion, and nowhere
more equivocal than in the First Delphic Hymn.
With this lack of balance between thesis and dynamis, between mode and
key, we have at last an answer to the puzzling question why so many Greek
theorists were entirely indifferent to mode. This paragraph must indeed end
in the reluctant statement that the later period of antiquity disintegrated
 The Relics 247
the modes just as the sixteenth century disintegrated the church tones, and
the twentieth, major and minor. The predominance of the Dorian structure
was so strong that, when the perfect system was achieved, scales with sig¬
natures were considered rather as shifted normal scales than as scales in a
different mode. In earlier times, the smaller range of lyres had worked
against this conception; later, the increased number of strings weakened
the resistance on the part of instrumental music.
In the second century a.d., modal conception is so much overshadowed
by key relations that Athenaios scorns “those who cannot see specific differ¬
ences”—^he says eidos or, literally, “according to the pattern”—“but
simply attend to the highness or lowness of tones and assume a Hyper-
mixolydian harmonia and again another higher than that.”
What Athenaios means is simply this: Hypermixolydian, having one
sharp and merely duplicating Hypodorian in the higher octave, was, from
the standpoint of modal structure, entirely useless and testified to modal
disintegration. Athenaios’ testimony is not the only one: Ptolemy, too,
opposed Hypermixolydian, and Plutarch related that in Argos the law
prohibited paramixolydidzein—a word that we must more clumsily circum¬
scribe as “not to go beyond the Mixolydian key.” These men had forgotten
that Hypermixolydian, which seemingly duplicated Hypodorian, was actu¬
ally a plagal Phrygian mode, while Hypodorian was an authentic Dorian.
At the end of antiquity, Boethius’ summary of Greek theory did not so
much as mention modes.
Deipnosophtsts 14:625.
 [8]

ETHOS

‘‘A HARMONIA should have a shaped ethos or pathos,” eidos ithous e

psthous. Thus Athenaios ends the passage quoted on page 247.
The famous term ethos denoted the emotional po'wer of melodies ac¬
cording to their scales. Aristotle says in his Metaphysics 8:5 that “the musi¬
cal scales differ essentially from one another, and those ’who hear them are
differently affected by each. Some of them make men sad and grave,
like the so-called Mixolydian, others enfeeble the mind, like the relaxed
[flueifneuffi'] harmonias, others, again, produce a moderate and settled
temper, which appears to be the peculiar effect of the Dorian; the Phrygian
inspires enthusiasm.”
Exactly what gave a scale such emotional power? What made Dorian
virile and bellicose; Hypodorian, majestic and stable; Mixolydian, pathetic
and plaintive; Phrygian, agitated and Bacchic; Hypophrygian, active;
Lydian, mournful; Hypolydian, dissolute and voluptuous?
The rationalistic authors of the nineteenth century were at sea with
this problem. They looked upon Dorian, Phrygian, and Lydian as modal
tetrachords and, as one easily understands, were unable to discover any re¬
lation between man’s emotion and the arrangement of a semitone among
whole tones. Had it not been for the great consideration the ethos was
obviously given in Plato’s and Aristode’s time, they would have laughed
at it just as many a Greek critic had done in his own time.
Real progress was made when they took the absolute pitches into account
rather than the modal arrangement.
Pitch was doubtless indispensable in creating an ethos. The pseudo-
Aristotelian Problem 19:49 expressly calls a low note “soft and calm, and
a high note, exciting.” The most direct evidence of the emotional power
of pitch is Ptolemy’s statement that “the same melody has an activating
effect in the higher keys, and a depressing one in the lower keys, because
a high pitch stretches the soul, while a low pitch slackens it. Therefore the
keys in the middle near the Dorian can be compared with well-ordered
and stable states of the soul, the higher keys near the Mixolydian with the
 Ethos 249
stirred and stimulated states, and the lower keys near the Hypodorian
with the slack and feeble moods.”
Aristides Quintilianus obviously means this antithesis of low, middle,
and high when, in the chapter on “The Art of Composing Melodies”
{melopoiid)^ he opposes three kinds of melodies: hypatoid, mesoid, netoid,
which, he says, coincide with the three tropoi or styles of melodies: tragic,
dithyrambic, nomic. Dr. Schafkc, editor and commentator of Aristides, is
certainly mistaken when he likens the three kinds to the hypo, middle,
and hyper scales: melodies, not scales, are at stake. Notwithstanding their
scales, they are netoid or mesoid or hypatoid when their prevalent zones
are near the thetic nete or mese or hypate.
Out analyses of the pieces preserved make this perfectly clear. Of the
three hymns by Mesomedes, which are all Mixolydian, two have their stress
on the notes between and since is the thctic nete, they are doubdess
netoid. The Hymn to the Muse, on the contrary, has the emphasis on (f
and a, which latter is the thetic mese; it certainly is mesoid, although it
belongs to the same key and mode as the two other hynms. Further netoid
examples are: the Hypermixolydian Paean and Bellermann’s Lydian piece;
mesoid examples: Seikilos' Phrygian Skolion and Euripides’ Mixolydian
Stasimon. There are no hypatoid melodies among the relics.

The three pitch regions, high, middle, low, and their ethical qualities
were stressed in Islamic music as well, so we may be sure that this is
the meaning of the passages quoted from the pseudo-Aristotelian Problems
and from Ptolemy. However, pitch regions are not the only ethical qual¬
ities of Oriental melody patterns. There are also {a) the steps used—
quarter tones, semitones, etc.; {b) their arrangement and sequence; (r)
whether the scale appears in a medium altitude or transposed up or
downward by a fourth or a fifth or an octave; (d) certain melodic turns;
and (e) the tempo and mobility. As to the last trait, the maqam Rost is
always performed in a moderate tempo without small time values or
graces. The maqam Mahur, the “trotter,” which practically has the same
scale as Rdst, is much faster.
The ragas or melodic patterns of India are in a similar way characterized
by their initial, final, and central notes, by their modal scales, and by the
notes omitted.
2Q Ptolemy, Harm. 2:7:58 and 3:7:99.
250 Greece and Rome
This is remarkably reminiscent of the petteia or draughts or check¬
ers’ of the Greeks, a branch of their Art of Composition which taught how
to apoii and to play certain notes, how often each should be used, which
one was to start, and which one to finish. And Aristides Quintilianus, who
mentions this branch of learning,adds: This aids the ethos.
Here, at last, we gain a firm footing. The ethos of a melody depended on
the co-operation of c|uite a number of equalities that Oriental musicians
know as the characteristic traits of their maqamat and ragas. No single
feature makes up an ethos, neither modal structure nor pitch nor astrologi¬
cal connotation.-^ The problem of the Greek ethos is considerably more
complex than previous authors realized. We may assume the question of
pitch to have been more involved in Greek music, with its unique dualism
of thesis and dynamis, than it was in Oriental music.
High and low in their simplest, absolute meaning seem to be irrelevant
in view of the fact that aU Greek scales, in spite of their theoretical ranges,
were cut off at both ends to fit in the best re^ster of voices and instruments:
three of the pieces preserved run from f to /: the Qxyrhynchos Papyrus,
Bdermann’s short instrumental melody, and the Hymn to the Sun; and
yet one of them is Hypolydian, one Lydian, and the third Mixolydian.
*High’ and low,’ perceptible in the theoretical scales but imperceptible in
actual melodies, must have meant something different from range, and
probably something that the Greeks themselves found hard to grasp and
describe—else they would have been more explicit.
The solution can certainly not be given out of our own experience of
musical pitch, but rather from the two points that essentially distinguish
the modern and the Greek co-ordinations of keys. Our Western music has
{a) no definite borderline between high and low, and Q)) the keys follow
one another at equal distances without being organized in a consistent
body. In Greece, on the contrary, the Dorian mese immutably parted high
from low, and in the relation of thesis and dynamis, this same note, im¬
movable center of gravity whatever the key, linked the tonalities together
in a perspective that made their characteristic distances apparent. Not the
distances of range, however; but the distances from the thetic to the dy¬
namic mesi, which gave Greek melodies their musical, and hence nervous,
tension.
True, not aU pieces preserved gravitate toward two centers: the Oxyrhyn-
chos Papyrus has no thetic, and the Seikilos Skolion no dynamic, center.
Arisiicia Qamtiliaims. M. p. 29, Sdb,. p. 207.
&k!i M. YOU Hombostei, “Tonaxt imd Ethos,” in Festschrift fur Johannes Wolf^ Berlin,
1929, pp. 73-4.
 Ethos 251
Still, this is rather a confirmation than a contradiction. The ethos theory
belongs in the classical period; it did not exist in preclassical times, and was
derided in the centuries a.d. Similarly, keys as such, that is, dynamis, were
not considered in preclassical times, and the modes, that is, thesis, disinte¬
grated in the postclassical epoch. The two opposite forces coincided chron¬
ologically, and they probably also were in themselves connected. This
would result in the presumption that ethos rested on the oneness of key
and mode, of dynamis and thesis.
The two exceptional pieces represent styles in which this oneness was
absent: the purely dynamic Oxyrhynchos Papyrus is known to be late, and
the purely thetic Skolion might have been written in a much earlier spirit
whatever its age, since popular songs follow styles given up by more so¬
phisticated composers. The Oxyrhynchos Papyrus, an early Christian hymn,
was certainly not “dissolute and voluptuous,” in spite of its Hypolydian key
and mode, and Seikilos’ Skolion was rather melancholy than “agitated and
Bacchic,” as a Phrygian melody should be. These pieces, unifocal and
therefore without the tension between two foci, defy the ethos theory. Thus
they confirm our belief that ethos is a quality of bifocal melodies.
Just how the tension between two gravitations affected the Greek mind
is beyond our understanding. But can we expect to comprehend the ethos
in ancient Greek music any better than we grasp the definitions that Hin¬
dus and Arabs give of modern rdgas and maqamdt?
In view of the perfect analogy of the Greek ethos and the specific qualities
of both the Indian rdgas and the Arabian maqamdt, the lack of any cor¬
responding Hellenic term is extraordinary and questionable. But is it any
less surprising that without discrimination the Greeks used three or four
different terms for the scale, so that Plutarch could with a certain impa¬
tience speak of the “tones, tropes, or harmonies, or whatever you would
call them”.^^ After all, there is no such thing as absolute synonymity; terms,
confused in a later stage, must originally have covered different notions.
If one of Plutarch’s three terms had in earlier times the special meaning
of a pattern in the Indian and Arabian sense, it must be harmonia, since
this word, and never tonos or tropos, is connected with ethical qualities.
Athenaios insists on the ethos and pathos that a true harmonia has, and
Plutarch speaks of a “tearful,” threnodif{e, harmony.
This possibly sheds light on Plutarch’s dark description of Olympos’
composition Nomos Athends, in which the first movement is called arche
or andpeira, and the main movement, harmonia. To Rudolph Westphal,
this tide was so incomprehensible that he assumed—once more—a scribe’s
252 Greece and Rome
mistake and in his translation rendered the word by noncommittal dots.
To one familiar with Oriental music, on the contrary, the passage suggests
the principle of form, preserved in Indian music to this day. On page 191
I explained the dual form in art music which carefully maintained the
balance of freedom and law: “The first [arche] part, dldpa, is an improvised
introduction in which the singer rehearses the essential traits of the rdga
in question, its scale, the notes particularly stressed, the appropriate orna¬
ments—both for his own benefit and to facilitate the listener’s comprehen¬
sion.” This is exactly what andpeira means: ‘practice, test.’ And the part
following the didpa is simply called rdga, exactly as the part following the
andpeira is simply called harmonia.
 [9]

HEALTH AND EDUCATION

ARISTOTLE, in a long paragraph on music in his Politics, accepts the

division of melodies according to their ethos, each class having its special
harmonia. But, countering illibcrals, he adds that one should not judge
their value from preconceived standpoints; music ought to be studied with
a view to (a) education, (^) purification, and (c) intellectual enjoyment,
relaxation, and recreation.
“Some persons,” he continues, “fall into a religious frenzy, whom we see
disenthralled by the use of mystic melodies, which bring healing and puri¬
fication to the soul.”
Here, we are right in the middle of what the Greeks called \atharsis or
healing through purification* Aristotle states in Politics 8:1340 b 8 that if
insanely overwrought (“enthusiastic”) persons “listen to enthusiastic mel¬
odics that intoxicate their souls, they are brought back to themselves again,
so that their catharsis takes place exactly like a medical treatment ” Werner
and Sonne are right in calling this a “treatment basically homoeopathic.”
Allopathic treatment, on the other hand, sought to soothe maniacs by
impressing “upon their disorganized souls the magically numerical and
cosmic order, attuning them, as it were, to the proportions of the uni¬
verse.”
Treatment of bodily diseases is less frequently mentioned, though it was
by no means unusual. Athenaios expressly states that “persons subject to
sciatica would always be free from its attacks if one played the pipe in
the Phrygian harmonia over the part affected.” Nor should we forget
that the paeans were originally charms against sickness and death.

Intoxication and healing through music were among the numerous

primeval remainders in the spiritual life of Greece. The twofold power

29 Eric Werner and Isaiah Sonne, “The Philosophy and Theory of Music in Judaeo-Arabic
Literature,” loc. cit., p. 274.
99 Ibid.
s^Athen. 14:624.
254 Greece and Rome
o£ music, both to soothe and to stir the mind, was in the classical stage o£
Hellenic civilization understood to affect the moral c][ualities of the nation.
It strengthened or weakened the character, created the good and the evil,
order and anarchy, peace and unrest. In the ninth century b.c., the musician
Thaletas was appointed to assist Lykurgos, the Spartan lawgiver; during a
civil war, the Delphic oracle advised calling the composer Terpander that
he might pacify the town; and in Athens, Plato urged on the guardians of
his ideal state to ground the republic on music.
These ideas were by no means Hellenic; they had existed in China and
Egypt before they came to Greece. But it was a Greek trait (though
Egyptian in its beginnings) to organize them in a pedagogical system. To
Plato, the practice of music was simply education, paideia. Thus, musical
training, both vocal and instrumental, should be obligatory. And it actu¬
ally was obligatory to a great extent: every citizen of Arcadia was com¬
pelled to learn music from early youth to the age of thirty; music took
precedence over grammar in Spartan schools; and as late a poet as Lucian
still demanded that music should be the first subject in education, and
arithmetic only the second.
For the idea of selecting music for educational purposes, Plato certainly
depended on older authorities. In the fifth century b.c., Herodotos had
related that Egyptian youths were not allowed to learn music at random;
only good music was conceded, and it was the priests who decided
what music was good. In the same order of thought, Greek boys
started from the oldest hymns and eventually arrived at contemporary
music; melodies of bad tonality were avoided, while those particularly
appropriate to steeling the character took precedence. Aristode gives in
Politics 8:6 the clearest idea of the order of thought in his time:

And now we have to determine the question that has been already raised,
whether children should be themselves taught to sing and play or not. Clearly
there is a considerable diference made in the character by the actual practice
of the art. it is difScult, if not impossible, for those who do not perform to be
good judges of the performance of others.Tesides, children should have some¬
thing to do, and the ratde of Archytas, which people give to their children in
order to amuse them and prevent them from breaking anything in the house,
was a capita! invention, for a young thing cannot be quiet. The rattle is a toy
suited to the infant mind, and [musical] education is a rattle or toy for children
of a larger growth. We conclude, then, that they should be taught music in
such a way as to become not only critics but performers.
The question what is or is not suitable for difierent ages may be easily
answered; nor is there any difEculty in meeting the objection of those who say
 Health and Education 255
that the study of musk is vulgar. We reply (x) m the first place, that they who
are to be judges must also be performers, and that they should begin to practice
early, although when they arc older they may be spared the execution; they
must have learned to a})preciat:e what is good and to delight in it, thanks to the
knowledge that they acquire in their youth. As to (2) the vulgarizing effect
that music is supposed to exercise, this is a question [of degree] which we shall
have no difficulty in determining, when we have considered to what extent
freemen who are being trained to political virtue should pursue the art, what
melodies and what rhythms they should be allowed to use, and what instru¬
ments should be employed in teaching them to play, for even the instrument
makes a diflfcrerice/mlxc answer to the objection turns upon these distinctions;
for it is quite possible that certain methods of teaching and learning music do
really have a degrading effect. It is evident, then, that the learning of music
ought not to impede the business of riper years, or to degrade the body or render
it unfit for civil or military duties, whether for the early practice or for the later
study of them.
The right measure will be attained if students of music stop short of the arts
that are practiced in professional contests, and do not seek to acquire those
phantastic marvels of execution that are now the fashion in such contests and
from these have passed into educaiion^%et the young pursue their studies until
they are able to feel delight in noble melodics and rhythms, and not merely
in that common part of music in which every slave or child and even some
animals find pleasure.

Painted vases give an idea of Greek music teaching, especially the beauti¬
ful bowl of Duris, excavated in Caere and preserved in the Museum at
Berlin. The master is sitting on a stool: in front of him, the pupil watches
his playing. In a singing lesson the boy is standing in a respectful attitude,
while the teacher blows the tune on a pair of pipes: in a lyre lesson, the
pupil is sitting and playing with the master, reading from the latter’s hands
in the way familiar to all Oriental and folk musicians who do not learn
from written music. The master was expected to accompany in a simple
unison; Plato thought that in a normal three years’ course with a boy
from nine to twelve years old, a contrapuntal accompaniment would be
too sophisticated.
But—did counterpoint exist in ancient Greece?
 [10]

COUNTERPOINT?

THE PROBLEM whether or not the Greeks had any kind of counterpoint
or harmony has been so fierily discussed if discussion it is ^that the
reader occasionally wonders at the high spirits of both parties. Science
is, after all, interested in finding the truth rather than in carrying some
preconceived opinion through and defaming the opponent s character.
The champions, for all that, fought blindfold, since they were not aware
of the only comparable facts: the polyphonic forms of the primitives and
of the ancient Orient. One cannot answer this diiSicult question with fugues
and dominant chords in mind.
Even so, most evidences in Greek texts remain ambiguous. The only
uncontested fact is negative: the Greeks had no vocal polyphony except
those octave parallels forced upon singing by the co-operation of high-
and low-pitched singers in choruses.^^
Things were different in accompanied vocal pieces and purely instru¬
mental music,
Preclassical accompaniment was simple, and all attempts to find evidence
of harmony for that period in a certain passage of Aristoxenos were
failures. The only conclusion possible is that Olympos and Terpander,
the legendary patriarchs of Greek music, played notes in the accompani¬
ment that they omitted in the melody (which is also true of the Euripides
fragment, Ex. 75). We do not know how closely the instrument followed
the voice; but we know for certain that the strict unison that most modern
authors have claimed for preclassical times is out of the question. Unison
is neither usual nor even natural—^nowhere in the primitive or Oriental
world has such a practice existed. The role of instruments is often con¬
fined to just restriking the main note, to adding a short ostinato motif, or
to playing *heterophonically,’ that is, in our own words, to interpreting
the same melody according to the personal tastes and abihties of the players
The earliest monographs: Fr.-Jos. Fetis^ “Les Grecs et les Romains ont-ils connu 1 harmo¬
nic simultanee des sons?” in Memoires de VAcademie Royals de Belgique, 1859.
Wncent, Reponse a M. Fhis, Lille, 1859. A. Wagener, Memoire sur la symphonie des Anaens,
i863(?).
Aristotle’s Broblemaia 19:18.
Plutarch, Pm moustJ^h ^ 18.
 Counterpoint? 257
and to the sjKcial conditions of their instruments without caring “for the
consonant, or tit Ictisi: prcgntuit, character of their collisions.”
The term heterophony has Iteen borrowed from the Greeks themselves.
But it unfortunately seems to htive had a ciuite diderent meaning in Greece.
Pl.'ito uses it in llic Juiws: a music teacher, he says, who trains boys from
nine to twelve yctirs old, should simply double on his own lyre the melody
that the pu[hrs lyre plays; he had better refrain from heterophony, without
answering closer by wider intervals, lower by higher notes, speed by
slowness.
Some scholars, firmly determined to oppose the idea of Greek polyphony,
have not been afraid to insist that, far from being an evidence of polyphony,
this passage clearly testified to hetcrophonic paraphrase (in the meaning
that modern terminology gives to this word). I do not share their belief.
Whoever prticticcs hetcrophony takes the two melodic lines for similar
“without caring for the consonant or at least pregnant, character of their
collisions.” Plato, on the contrary, insists on their difference; the accompani¬
ment he has in mind is willfully dissimilar in intervals, pitches, rhythms,
and numl)cr of notes; and various intervals, ‘.symphonic’ and ‘antiphonic’
(whatever these terms mean) are expressly indicated.”" Several hundred
years later, probably in the first century a.d., the pseudo-Aristotelian book
Peri lidsmou still clings to the same differences: “Music mixes high and
low, short and long notes in different voice parts [phonais] to achieve one
harmony!' It would be scarcely possible to find a clearer description of
what we call a mixed two-part counterpoint.
These counterpoints had not always the proper transparence. Athenaios
14:618 warns a piper: “Wherefore you and this girl shall go on with this
piece . . . where you are to play together, or where you again play sepa¬
rately, there’ll be no do together—no riddles—to make each part clear.”

The author Pseudo-Longinus asserts at about the same time that melody
—the hyrios phtongos or ‘regal voice’—is usually “sweetened” by the two
‘paraphonic’ intervals, the fifth and the fourth.*® This is an unmistakable
testimony to the frequent use, not of functional chords in a modern sense.

Plato, Imws 7:8x3 D-E.

J. PLindschin, '’Musikalische Miszellen/* in Fhtloloms 86 (X930), p. 57.
00 re K0ip6p icTTtp^ 00 irdXtp^ crvppe{>fJLaT\ ov 7rpo/0X^/xa(9’, ots crefjLaherat, ^/caorra.
J. Plandschin, op» cit., p. 53.
258 Greece and Rome
to be sure, but of consonant notes, just as in East Asiatic, Babylonian,
Egyptian, and medieval music.
Pseudo-Longinus, who probably wrote in the first century aj>., is a
comparatively late witness. But we know from Plutarch that' even those
whom he called “the ancients” played d in consonance with /; the higher
ef, both in dissonance with df and in consonance with a; and d', in dis¬
sonance with (f and b and in consonance with a and g.
Such rudimentary harmony must have been the rule; for Plutarch re¬
lates that those musicians who opposed the enharmonic genus put it to
“the incompatibility of quarter tones with consonance.”
Only six intervals were called symphonies or consonances: the fourth,
fifth, and octave and their higher octaves. Terminology, however, varied:
Theo of Smyrna, an author of the second century aj)., called the octave
and the double octave anUphonies, and the fourth and the fifth, paraphonies;
maybe half a hundred years later, Gaudentios understood paraphony to
be an interval neither consonant nor dissonant, such as the tritone and the
major third,while Aristides Quintilianus defined the octave as homoph¬
ony.
The ancient definition of consonance had a remarkably modern flavor. “If
symphonic notes sound together on stringed or wind instruments,” Gau¬
dentios said, “the lower one, in relation to the higher, and the higher, in
relation to the lower one, form a unit. We call them symphonic, as the
two notes melt into oneness.” Bacchius found a more concise wording for
the same idea: consonance is the combination of two notes in which neither
seems to be higher or lower than the other. Boethius, however, gave the
best definition: in a dissonance, each note is expected to go its own way,
that is to say—^to quote Grove’s nice definition of the term discord—
dissonance is “a combination of notes which produces a certain resdess
craving in the mind for some further combination.”
Consonances, Boethius says, are “pleasant,” and the pseudo-Aristotelian
Problem 19:13 states that “any consonance is sweeter than a single note.”
And are we supposed to believe that the Greeks did not use them.'^
Gaudentios, “Eisagoge,” in Carolus Janus, Musici Scriptores Graeci, 1895, p. 17.
 [11]

ACCENTS AND RHYTHM

GREEK VERSES have two kinds of accents, which may be distinguished

as melic and metric:

Melic Chi-o-no-ble-phd-rou pdt-er a-oAs

Metric ~ *“

This initial verse of the Hymn to the Sun clearly shows the dualism of
accents: the two acutes and the circumflex, inseparable from the words
themselves, and the longae, stressed by the specific meter of the verse in
which they gather.
At first sight, the second accent seems to kill the first; modern readers
would indeed, in reciting the verse, obey the poetic meter and entirely
neglect the natural accents of the words. But they would be wrong. Ancient
recitation, whether sung or spoken, did justice to both accents; the poetic
meter shaped its rhythm, the word accents affected its pitches.
The three accents—acute, grave, and circumflex—were indeed symbols
of tonal inflections which, as in Sanskrit and Chinese, were essential qualities
of the ancient Greek language. They helped to indicate high, medium,
low and rising, falling, level pitch.
These tonal inflections were respected unless they interfered with purely
melodic conditions. The acute was often rendered by a higher note: in the
first lines of the Hymn to the Sun, for instance, twelve out of sixteen acutes
are marked by ascending steps. Exceptions are easily explained; in the
same hymn, the accented syllable of the word agallomenos is lower, in¬
stead of higher, because the composer wished to assimilate this portion of
the melody into the previous ichnessi diol^eis.

Ex. 84. HYMN TO HELIOS

®
-g r
pla-ncSs %p'ih-nes-si di ~ o - keLsjchiy-

r -tJ'.
® -seal - sin B'-gal16-irie “DOS lt6-iDais
26o Greece and Rome
In the Skolion of Scikilos, the circumflex accent is—with one exception
—answered by the ligature of a falling third, which recalls the svarita in
the Vedic chant.
There are pieces, however, in which the melic accent o£ speech is more or
less neglected. Greek music, too, knew the eternal difEerence of logogenic
and melogenic music, of melody submitting to natural speech and melody
disregarding its text.
Wherever at least the acute accent is respected, the Western musician is
tempted to give it a downbeat. But it often falls on an upbeat or the short
note after a dot, which are unstressed or even secondary in our music. But
in Greece, the note rendered an actual accent and could not be secondary.
As a consequence, such melodies must have had a delicate flexibility of
rhythm that complied with both the melic and the metric accents.

The meimc accents in both poetry and melody followed the so-called
quantitative principle; they materialized as long syllables or notes among
short ones, not as strong among light beats.
The short note or bret/is—^that we render by an eighth note in modern
notation—^was the time unit or chronos prStos. The Greeks defined this
‘first time’ as an ultimate atom, which could not be divided by either a
syllable or a note or a gesture. The longa measured two breves, or a quarter
note, except at the end of a verse, where it required the length of an entire
foot.
The feet were considered to have two (equal or unequal) phases each—
not time units—and were classified in four groups according to whether the
ratio of length of the two phases was i: i, 2: i, 3:2, or 4:3. The Greeks
realized very well that the rhythmic ratios coincided with the harmonic
ratios of the unison, octave, fifth, and fourth; indeed, Dionysios of Hali-
karnassos (first century b.c.) expressly stated that rhythm and harmony
were essentially one.
The four groups were:

A. Isa ‘equals’ or dactylic feet—our even-beat measures:

i) Pro^eleusmati^os or Pyrrhichios n 2/8

2) Pro\eleusmau\os, double nn 4/8

3) Anapaistos (our dactyl) j n 2/4

 Accents and Rhythm 261
4) Anapaistos n j 2/4

5) Spondeios J J ^4

6) Spondeios, double J J
B. Diplasia, ‘doubles’ or iambic feet, in which one part of the measure
was double the other, that is, 2 +1 or i + 2, corresponding to our three-
beat measures:

i) lambos /J 3/8

2) Trochaios J s- 3/8

3) Orthios J » 3/2

4) Trochaios Semantos . J 3/2

C. Hemiolia, ‘by one and a half’ or paeonic feet, in which the two beats
were as three to two, corresponding to our five-beat measures:

i) Faibn didgyros or hent paion’ = J. J 5/8

11

2) Paibn epibatos or ‘climbing paion’ 5/4

D. Epitrita, ‘by four thirds,’ in which one part of the measure was to
the other as four to three, corresponding to our seven-beat measures. These
rhythms, however, were very rare.
The two beats of all these feet were called arsis and (by Aristoxenos) basis
or (later) thesis. The term arsis means the lifting, and basis or thesis the
dropping of the time-regulating hand or foot; in our terms: upbeat and
downbeat. In groups (B) to (D), the shorter beat is up; in dactyls and
anapaests, the two shorts are up; in proceleusmatics and spondees, the first
is usually a downbeat.
All kinds of feet could be combined. There were two-foot units or
dipodies, as, for example,

J J(^);
or the ba\chios, which consisted either of an iamb and a trochee or, vice
versa, of a trochee and an iamb:

/J J t (^)
262 Greece and Rome
or

3+3
J //J ( 8 ).
Such dipody was assigned two beats as well: arsis-thesis in the two first
examples, and thesis-arsis in the last.
Tripodies were combinations of three different feet, as a pyrric plus an
iamb plus a trochee:

(2+3+3);
/J J 8
tetrapodies were combinations of four feet, as iamb plus pyrric plus iamb
plus troche:
(3 + 2 + 3 + 3).
8
The tripody and tetrapody just described were prosodia\oi or march¬
ing rhythms for solemn processions, which in our civilization are reduced
to poor 4/4 beats—left, right, left, right. Nothing could better illustrate
the richness of Greek rhythm.
Such wealth was possible only in a country where mousi\S included
poetry and the dance and took its inspiration, not from lifeless beats but
from the spirited word and the expressive gesture of well-trained limbs.

Dactylic, iambic, paeonic rhythms are represented among the relics of

Greek music.
The anapaests of the Hymns to Helios and to Nemesis and both the
Cairo and the Berlin fragments are dactylic. Bellermann was certainly
wrong when he transcribed the first two hymns in a hopping six-eight
time; anapaests require two- or four-beat measures.
The Hymn to the Muse is iambic and has correctly been rendered in
three-eight time.
The strange paeonic rhythm is recorded in the two Delphic hymns:

Ke-\Iyth' He4i-J{6-na ha-ihy-den'dron hai la^che-te

Unfortunately, most students have known the two hymns in the un¬
forgivable transcription of Hugo Riemann, who was foolish enough to
 Accents and Rhythm 263
‘drop’ the five-beat time in order to make the melody “considerably simpler
and more convincing.” The reader should forget this clumsy offense against
the genius of Hellenic music and re-estabUsh the admirable nimbleness of
the floating five beats.
Meter was important enough to provide the names even of wordless
forms like the instrumental nomos. One was called nomos trochatos, and
another, nomos orthios. And as a rule, meter was not changed during a
piece. It is expressly said Sakadas’ Pythian nomos had an iambic, a
dactylic, a spondaic, and a cretic, that is, paeonic, movement, and that
the nomos Athends had a strong effect on the audience because from the
initial paidn epibatos it modulated into the trochaic meter. So these must
have been exceptions.

Over against quantitative meter stood ‘qualitative’ time wuh the rhythmic
alternation of strong and weak beats and their free subdivision. It was the
natural form of instrumental rhythm: Cicero speaks of beats as the char¬
acteristic rhythm of pipers’ music.
Whether vocal practice, on the other hand, was ever able or willing to
ignore time in its meters is more than doubtful. Even in poetry the metrical
unit was called a verse foot, which like all metaphors must originally have
been a reality: the Greek, accustomed to conceive poetry, melody, and the
dance in its widest sense as one mousikS, cannot have forbidden his body
and its time rhythm to interfere with meter.
So it happened that choir leaders used the foot to beat time. Indeed, on
the stage they increased the downbeat by a thick wooden sandal, krodpalon
in which two boards with castanets between were linked at the heel and
clapped together with a sharp cracking sound.
The contrast between the noisy downbeat or thesis and the noiseless arsis
or lifting was so strong—even without the clapping sandal—that a ‘qualita¬
tive’ discrimination was inevitable.
But this was not the essential issue. Above all, any beat rhythm leads
straightway to conceiving the beat itself as the time unit or chronos protos,
to uniting two, three, or more of these units in groups of measures; and
to subdividing these measures in entire freedom, without sticking to poetic
meters, by simply following those ratios that man’s ear accepted as rhyth-

"^A Lies of ten beats, the Greeks said, could not be rhythmically divided
264 Greece and Rome
into one plus nine, or two plus eight, or three plus seven beats* Four plus
six, on the contrary, would be admissible as hemioUa in the ratio 2:3, and
also five plus five, as isa in the ratio 1:1. Three plus seven beats were ac¬
ceptable by cleaving the seven into three and four, so that the ten beats
could be organized into three plus three plus four in all permutations.
Not only permutation was conceded; two or more beats could be drawn
together in order to form longer notes.
Actually, this is nothing but the Indian tala, the asymmetrical combina¬
tion of meter and time. A period of three and two and two is exacdy the
tala Triputa.
Time beating, too, might have been similar. The orator Fabius Quinti-
lianus’ description of time beating with both the feet and the fingers not
the hands—recalls the complicated gesticulation of the various fingers that
the ancient Hindu singers used; and the Hindu dhruva, the snapping
thumb, reappears in Horace^s Fourth Ode, which invites the maidens and
youths to obey the Lesbian meter and the snapping of his thumb.

Two EXAMPLES ILLUSTRATE the difference between meter and time in Greek
rhythm. The Hymn to Helios is strictly anapaestic: short-short-long, short-
short-long; it is typically metric in rhythm (Ex. 73).
Seikilos’ Skolion, on the contrary, is antimetric (Ex. 79). It has four
verses, but of a very irregular form. The first has five, the second seven, the
third eight, and the fourth nine syllables. But the composer, preferring
a regular musical pattern, subordinated the metrical feet to the melody
he had in mind. Each verse was given twelve beats, which allowed even
the longest verse to stretch out the last two syllables, and while this latter
was syllabic, the other, shorter, verses needed ligatures to house all twelve
beats. Meter itself was destroyed: of the first three words—hoson zes pkamou
—the metrically short syllable phai- is given three units, and the metrically
long syllable ho- only one. The Hindus would call such a rhythm tala, in
fact, tala Rupaf^a,
Singers and players could not be expected to guess the antimetrical in¬
tention of the composer. He therefore added certain signs, which would
have been unnecessary when he followed poetic meters: a horizontal dash
above the note indicated two units, that is, an ordinary longa, an angle
L-, three, lj , four, and UJ, five units.
A upright angle denoted a rest. It corresponded, when single, to
 Accents and Rhythm 265
the unit of time; longer rests needed the proper symbols among those
just named. The angular rest A stood for the Greek letter lambda, the
initial of leimma, ‘left over.’ It was sometimes replaced by an arc f)- (PI-

P- 177)
The importance of signs for rests can hardly be overrated. There were
no rests in poetry or verse-ruled melody. A verse might have a caesura;
but it was a mere breath to emphasize the incision. A relaxing silence might
separate the verses; but the disconnection was irrational and not counted
in: meter ran from the first to the last syllable of a verse; the following
vacuum was ametric, indeed, antimetric. A musical rest, on the contrary,
was rational and counted in as a part of the measure; though inaudible, it
was felt to obey a beat and to hold the listener’s attention.

The tempo unavoidably varied, since to a certain degree it was inseparable

from the temperament of the performer, from the particular mood of the
piece, and from the circumstances. But it was not vital, as it is in our
music, and therefore not properly considered. Changes of speed were rather
opposed: a fast tempo was too nervous, and a slow tempo too effeminate
and passive. The chronos prdtos was expected to be given a steady moderate
tempo, and the necessary variations in tempo merely consisted in choosing
metric feet of an adequate number of time units: a double spondee was in
itself twice as slow as a single spondee, and an orthios lasted four times
longer than the reduced form called iamb.'^®
There is no wonder, then, that Plutarch does not mention tempo when
he enumerates the “three impressions rapidly made on the ear at the same
time; one, by the sound uttered, as it is acute or grave; another by Ac
quantity of the same sound, as long or short; and a third, by the syllabic
or letter enunciated.” _
One other means of expression, so essential in our modern music, is not
mentioned either by Plutarch or by any oAer auAority: Ac contrast of
loud and soft. In all probability, Ae Greeks did not consciously the
various degrees of loudness beyond Ae physiological implications of big
and low, of vigor and fatigue.
^0 Cf. Aristides Quintilianus, M. 42, Sch. 226, and M. 100, Sch. 294.
Plutarch 35.
 [12]

FORM

THE FORMS o£ Greek music elude defining and description. The relics,
to a great extent fragmentary, do not allow of structural analysis, and
literary sources indicate either mere names or at the best a few characteristic
features without giving a clear picture.
Besides, musical forms could not have remained untouched by the change
of Uste and circumstances from the Dorian migration to the decay of the
Roman Empire. Otherwise Plato would not have lamented in the Lati/s
that in the good old days when musical forms were classified and fixed
**it was forbidden to set one kind of words to a different class of tune . . .
but later on, with the progress of time, there arose as leaders of unmusical
illegality poets who, though by nature poetical, were ignorant of what
was just and lawful in music; and they, being frenzied and unduly pos¬
sessed by a spirit of pleasure, mixed dirges with hymns and paeans with
dithyrambs . . . and blended every kind of music with every other.”
We may add: “And they did well.” After all, the evolution of musical
forms is a history of creative blending and mixing. Without such con¬
tinual regrouping we would not have Monteverdi’s operas, or Bach’s pas¬
sions, or Beethoven’s quartets. And the hymns and paeans that Plato, the
incurable reactionary, wished to protect from contamination would not
have existed either.

Chorai, singing, the most striking trait in Greek music, was not aboriginal
in Hellas. The invading Dorians had found it in the ancient civilization
of Crete, which they overran, and appropriated it. We do not know to
what extent they maintained the Cretan association of choral singing and
dancing; the Hyporchemata, at the least, were pieces in which, according
to Athenaios’ definition, “the singing chorus danced.” But we do not know
the exact range of this term, and in any case the definition implies that there
were also choruses that did not dance.
The democratic esteem for choral singing spread from Sparta all over
 Form 267
Greece. Men and women joined in choral societies, and the famous Alkman
(c. 650 B.C.) is said to have introduced special partheniai or ‘maidens’ songs’
for choruses of girls. Official celebrations of all kinds, processions, sacrifices,
and missions to interrogate oracles abroad were accompanied by choirs,
and rivaling townships made boast of sending as many singers as possible.
There were six hundred on one of these occasions. Such choirs may have
sung the two Delphic hymns and the hymns to the Sun, the Muse, and
Nemesis we have discussed so many times. Choral singing had, from the
sixth century on, formed the concluding section of the musical contests at
the great agones: the Pythian games in honor of Apollo, the Panathenaean
and Dionysian games in Athens, and the Karnaean games in Sparta. There
still stands in Athens a lonely monument from 335 b.c., destined to com¬
memorate such an event: a graceful circular structure with, on top, a
bronze tripod, the prize at the Festival of Dionysos, and, in front, the
inscription “Lysikrates, son of Lysitheiedes of Kikyuna, was the dance
leader when the boys’ chorus of the Phyle Akamantis won the prize. Theon
was the piper, Lysiades of Athens had trained the chorus. Enaenetos was
archon [mayor of Athens].”
Choral singing entered even private life: Athenaios 4:130 mentions a
nuptial choir of one hundred men. He does not say what form of choral
melody they performed; but we know that at least one of the weddmg forms
was the paean.
Paean meant ‘healer’; it originally was a medicine dance and later, more
generally, a chorus dance in honor of Apollo, the healing God. As early
a source as the Iliad describes a paean to ban the plague, and several
centuries later, when the plague raged in Sparta, the governing board
appointed the Cretan musician, Thaletas, to organize paeans.
The only example preserved, from the second century a.Dt is the first
fragment on the Berlin Papyrus, Paian 6 paidn. It is Hypermixolydian m
the range g-af; the meter cannot be stated beyond doubt.

The dithyrambos, second choral form in importance, had come from

Phrygia, not from Crete. It was a strophic melody sung by ecstatic wor¬
shippers of Dionysos, but raised to the level of a choral art form as early
as about 600 b.c. by Arion of Methymna, who founded the first dithyrambic
choir of fifty boys and men performing in a circle around the pipen ^
This kind of dithyramb underwent a bifurcation at the end of the sixth
268 Greece and Rome
century b.c. As a choral song, it developed into the tragedy and on the stage
slowly blended into the nomos. Outside the drama, its enthusiastic char¬
acter and melodic features merged in the intricate solo songs of professional
virtuosi and were even admitted to the highest honor in this field: Lasos
of Hermione, probably the discoverer of sound waves, prevailed upon
the authorities to admit the dithyramb to musical contests.
The only thing we know about dithyrambic music is the fact that of the
three styles of Greek music—the nomic, the dithyrambic, and the tragic
—the dithyrambic melody was ‘mesoid,’ that is, its prevalent zone was near
the thetic center a right in the middle of the musical space.
The dithyrambs seem to have been dramatic from the very first, as I
pointed out in my World History of the Dance: the dance leader in the
middle was the god Dionysos who lived, suffered, sickened, and died with
the vegetation of the earth and at a given moment wakened anew like
Osiris in Egypt and Attis-Adonis in Asia Minor; and, circling around
him, fifty dancing singers shared his fate, interpreting, suffering and re¬
joicing with him. It was from these dance plays that in the sixth century
B.c. the Greek drama originated, which, leaving the worship of Dionysos,
took from mythology whatever subject aroused both awe and compassion.
Dramas were not singly presented, but always in tetralogies: three
tragedies and, as a relaxing epilogue, a comedy. Strangely enough, the
tragodia or ‘goat song’ had its name from the disguised satyrs and silenes
of the Dionysian dithyrambs; the comedy preserved the paraphernalia them¬
selves, the beards and tails and phalli for its chorus, though its name was
no more reminiscent of the older dance plays.
The transition from a religious to a spectacular choir necessarily disrupted
the circular formation. The tragic chorus acted and sang in a semicircle in
front of the stage. It consisted of twelve singers, and later, of fifteen; the
comic chorus had fifty, and later, sixty singers.^^
Dramas to be performed were selected from the scripts of competing
masters who were supposed to be poets and composers, and also conductors
and stage directors. Some wealthy citizen paid for a choir of amateurs, while
the state provided the actors. The accompaniment consisted of one or two
pipers, and occasionally a lyre player to support the actor-singers.
At first the Greek stage had only one actor—the former leader of the
Dionysian dance choir. Aischylos introduced a second, and Sophocles, a

Edith Hamilton, ‘The Greek Chorus, Fifteen or Fifty?” in Theatre Arts Monthly XVH
(1933), p. 459.
 Form 269
third. The dialogue was spoken, but once in a while interrupted by songs
entirely soloistic or else alternating with the chorus.
The chorus, singing, dancing, and acting as an ideal spectator, played
the main role up to the time of Sophocles (fifth century b.c.). It entered
the stage with the pdrodos and left it with the exodos; singing the strophe,
it turned to the right to picture the orbit of the stars, so Michael Psellos, the
Byzantine, said; in the antistrophe, it turned in the opposite direction. The
songs between these two marchlike movements, sung in place, were called
stasima or ‘stationary’ (which Psellos called the steady harmony of the
earth). The fragment of a stdsimon from Euripides’ Orestes, has been
preserved (Ex. 75); its enharmonic melody proves that the choral parts
of the Greek drama were by no means simple or amateurish.
While the older tragedy dwelt upon lyric episodes and contemplation, the
tragedy of classical times became more and more dramatic. This meant a
momentous repression of the chorus, which by nature was better able to
play a part in stylized tragedies of a meditative lyrico-epic type than in
rapid action and counteraction and in refined psychology.

Soloistic music may, in this survey, be mentioned in only two of its most
characteristic forms: the amateurish skolion and the professional nomos.
The s\olion was a drinking song. It was sung in banquets over the
brimming cups, says Clemens Alexandrinus, “after the manner of the
Hebrew psalms, all together raising the paean with the voice, and some¬
times also taking turns in the song while they drank healths round; while
those that were more musical than the rest sang to the lyre.” Everybody
in Greece was expected to know such songs; one general who refused to
sing because he did not know any was unfavorably criticized.
The name meant ‘zigzag’: the guests lay crosswise at either side of the
table so that the lyre was passed zigzag from the singer just finishing to
the next one at the opposite side.
Seikilos’ immortal skolion gives an excellent idea of the mellow and
subjective character of this art form which, though certainly belonging to
the highest lyrical style, still was popular in text and tune.
The nomos or ‘law,’ main art form for professional soloists and para-

■*3 Clemens Alexandrinus, Opera, cd. Otto StaWia, Leipzig, 1905, I, p. 184. “Clement of
Alexandria,” cds. Roberts and Donaldson, Edinburgh, 1867,1, 218 (Paedagogus 2:4).
270 Greece and Rome
mount music in agonistic contests, has already been discussed on pages
251 and 263. Here, we state in a general way that it was a cyclic monody
without strophic repetitions in three, five, or seven movements. In the older
nomos, performers were not allowed to change the harmonia; later nomoi
were written in different modes and meters. Aristides Quintilianus calls
‘nomic’ the so-called netoid style, which had its prevalent zone near the
thetic nete If this holds true for a normal nomos, it means that an
agonistic singer was expected to have a tenor voice. We indeed learn from
Suidas (tenth century a.d.) that two well-known nomoi, Nomos Trochaios
and Nomos Orthios, were high in pitch and euphonious. But the pseudo-
Aristotelian Problems (the date of which we do not know) stigmatize
these two nomoi as particularly diflEcult. Both the discrimination and the
express mention of two high nomoi caution us not to generalize from
Aristides’ classification.
There also was an instrumental nomos, best known from the description
of a concert piece that the piper Sakadas performed in 586 b.c. at Delphi,
at the Pythian games. On his double oboe, he represented the contest be¬
tween Apollo and the dragon in five movements: a prelude, the first onset,
the contest itself, the triumph following victory, and the death of the
dragon, with a sharp harmonic when the monster hissed out its last breath.'*®
Readers familiar with European music history will be reminded of the
similar program Johann Kuhnau gave his sonata on the combat between
David and Goliath (1700).
It was no little surprise when, as a much closer parallel, Robert Lach-
mann found a very similar nomos among the Cabyles of Tunisia.^® The
oboe had become a flute, Apollo, a Bedouin, and the dragon a lion. But
even the division into five movements had been kept. The Bedouin Dr.
Lachmann saw added pantomime to music; crouching, he acted the horse
shying when the lion neared, and he managed to free one hand to illustrate
a girl grinding barley and donning her coiffure and belt. All evidences
hint to a similar pantomimic illustration of the Greek nomos.

Sportiw competition, not entirely unknown in modern music history,

so dominated Greek musical life that even mythology saw music in the
Aristides Quintilianus, M. 30, Sch., p. 207.
Strabo, Geographica 9:3, 10; Julius Pollux, Onomastikpn 4:84; E. Hiller, “Sakadas der
Aulet,” in Rheimsches Museum fur Rhilologie, N. F. XLIV (1876).
Robert Lachmann, “Die Weise vom Ldwen und der pythischc Nomos,” in Festschrift
fm Johannes Wolf, Berlin, 1929, pp. 97-106,
 Form 271
form of challenge and duel. The Thracian Thamyris invited the muses to
compete with him and was blinded for his insolence; and the Phrygian
Marsyas, beaten in a contest by Apollo, lost his skin while King Midas,
who had acted as the umpire, was given ass’s ears.
With gods and muses, with blinding and skinning, myth mirrored the
Greek conception of musical performance. Music was an essential part of
the great tournaments that played so important a role in Greek civiliza¬
tion. The Pythian games, probably the oldest, celebrated at Delphi in honor
of Apollo, were at first exclusively dedicated to poetry and music; the
participation of wrestlers and charioteers came at a later time. These agones
must have been a marvelous experience. No snobbish audience made acie
de presence; the people as a whole, as it does in our games (and nearly does
in our recent mass concerts in stadiums), listened to the \itharod6s; and
had they not kept quiet, the plucked strings of a single lyre would not
have been heard in the gigantic open space. No citizen was absent; some
Persian general made the census of conquered Greek towns simply by
counting the listeners when a noted \itharod6s performed in the arena.
Later, especially in Rome, the singer lost his hieratic dignity and became
a virtuoso, who in his caprices, professional jealousy, phantastic fees, and
hired claque was the equal of his brethren in the nineteenth century. Nor
was he less spoiled by the fashionable ladies who would snatch from him
the plectron with which he had touched the strings, much as the afficionados
fight for the trophies when the matador has killed the bull.
 [13]

ROME

NO ROMAN MUSIC has been preserved, nor have we much informa¬

tion about the musical habits of Rome. There is one fact, however: ancient
Rome did not recognize any instrument except pipes, either for her cere¬
monies or even at banquets; tolerance was frustrated by a special law
promulgated in the year 639 b.c. Livius and Virgil called the Roman pipers
Etruscans, and it is quite possible that Etruria was responsible for the
privileged position of pipes in Rome.
Matters were changed when, at an unknown time b.c., the so-called Sibyl¬
line Books fostered the Ritus Graecus, which resulted in the admission of
the lyre and other instruments of the Greeks even to solemn sacrifices and
also in the creation of a Societas Cantorum Graecorum in the City.^*^
From this time on, Roman music cannot be separated from Greek music.
No source gives evidence of ancient folk music in Italy; its quality and
plenty can be gathered only from its present state. In art music, Greek style
and theory, Greek instruments and musicians were in authority. In accept¬
ing this fact, we too readily forget that Sicily and the south of Italy up
to the gates of Rome were Magna Graecia, ‘Greater Greece.’
The only references to specifically Roman developments are poetic satires
against the nuisance and impropriety of music. Seneca, who lived at the
beginning of the first century a.d., complains that orchestras and choruses
grew to gigantic proportions, so that there were often more singers and
players in the theater than spectators; and five hundred years later, Mar-
cianus Cappella describes lyres as large as sedan chairs. Private teachers
and conservatories train the daughters of the bourgeoisie to strum on the
lyre; day and night, the slaves of the wealthy reduce the neighbors to
despair with their singing voices and instruments; at table, nobody can
talk for music; and an intolerable host of virtuosi, capricious, insolent,
intriguing, strut the stage.
This is the picture Roman poets trace.
Music had certainly lost the “austere sweetness” Cicero had found in

Cf, R. Paribeni, “Cantores gracci nell* ultimo secolo della reppublica in Roma,” in Aegyp-
tus, Saie scientifica HI (1925), pp. 287-92.
 Rome 273
the older music of the Roman theater. In its present state, he said, it could
give us some childish pleasure, but was practically useless since it led to
no happiness.
Many Roman thinkers regretted with Cicero the degeneration of music,
its sensuality, effeminacy, and lack of dignity. It is hard to subscribe to
this judgment, however, which we hear throughout the history of music
whenever a style abandons academic standards. It is still harder to accept
a permanent state of decadence supposed to have lasted more than five
hundred years.
Thus we prefer to draw the curtain over this section of music history.
Section Six

THE GREEK HERITAGE

IN THE MUSIC OF ISLAM
T he heritage of Greek music was enormous. Or, rather, the
heritage of Greek music theory. Rome, Byzantium, and Alexander’s
conquests from North Africa to India boasted of being heirs to the
ereat Hellenic tradition; medieval music in Europe appealed to Boethius as
the supreme judge; and the Persians, Arabs, and Turks underpinned their
musical systems with the solid structure of Grecian scales, modes, and

^Tts influence on Islamic music is more fascinating than any O'Shee the
Greeks exerted, since, in opposition to the Westerners, the Arabs un er-
stood and applied classical theory without committing the mistakes of the
West. Thus, any research in Greek musk is incomplete without a glance
at the practice and theory of Islamic music. ^ i • • u
Arabian music in its proper sense is music of the Bedomns m the
desert and the oases—emotional songs of a hmitcd range in hee rhythm,
thoroughly heptatonic and mostly what I have called ‘positive, starting
from a low note, curving upward, and returning.
after Helfritz
Ex. 85. SOUTH ARABIAN BEDOUINS

The musical style we colloquially call Arabian comprises much more

than the music of Arabia proper, or even of the Arabic-spe^mg nations.
Its province reaches from Morocco in the west along the African border¬
land of the Mediterranean through Syria, Iraq, and Turkey, to Persia an
even to the northern part of India. No racial or national tie links these
heterogeneous peoples; their only bond is the Mohammedan religion.
Hence°this is an Islamic rather than an Arabian section.
The international character of Islamic, and even of pre-Islamic, music in
the Orient appears from an ample stock of evidence. The young Persian
king, Bahram Ghur (430-438)> was sent to the Mesopotamian town of Al-
Hira to study Arabian music. But Arabian music did not exclusively feed
on Arabian sources. Hassan ibn-Thabit, a visitor to the court of an Arabian
monarch two hundred years later, “saw ten singing girls, five of thein
Byzantines, singing the songs of their country to the accompaniment of
the barbat, and five others from Al-Hira, who had been given to King
Jabala by lyas ibn-Qabisa, singing the songs of their country. Bilal ibn-
Riyah, allegedly the earliest muezzin (d. 641), was the son of an Abys-
278 The Greek Heritage in the Music of Islam
sinian slave girl, and it was Abyssinian women who used to sing. An
English author, Lyall, even went so far as to say that Arabian singing
girls “were all foreigners, either Persians or Greeks from Syria, and an
ancient Arabian writer claimed that the origin and source of music were
to be traced to the slaves in the market towns of the Arabs.^
The instruments, at least, were kept apart in this conflux of musical
styles: in the tale of King Omar bin al-Nu‘uhman, in The Arabian Nights,
the princess had her slave girl bring some instruments, and the maid re¬
turned in the twinkling of an eye with a Damascus lute, a Persian harp,
a Tatar pipe, and an Egyptian dulcimer.”
Music itself could not avoid an ever growing fusion into one Islaimc

It would have been hard, however, actually to blend all the innumerable
and heterogeneous melodies from countries between the Mediterranean,
the Black Sea, and the Indian Ocean without the help of Greek theory,
which provided a thorough system and an easily adaptable terminology.
The Persians called the Greek Pythagoras the patriarch of all scholarly
music. They had been under a strong Hellenistic influence until the dy¬
nasty of the Seleucides (226-641) brought a nationalistic, anti-Greek reac¬
tion. Toward the end of the first thousand years a J)., however, the Orient
underwent a second, decisive Hellenization of its sciendfic life, and its
music, together with mathematics, medicine, and philosophy, took posses¬
sion of Greek theory. The masters of Islamic musicology, the Arab Al-
Kindl (d. c. 874), the Turk Al-Farabi (c. 870-950), and the Bukharan
Ibn-Sina (980-1037), better known under his ladnized name Avicenna,
shaped their doctrines to a great extent upon Greek patterns.

1 Henry George Farmer, A History of Arabian Music, London, 1929, ch. I ^ i.

 [1]

SCALES AND MODES

THE HELLENIC TREND was strongest in the theory of scales. The

conceptions, indeed the very terms of the Greeks, reappear in Turkish,
Persian, and Arabian works: tetrachord, diapason, the shades and genders,
leimma and apotome, and many others.
Greek classification helped, above all, in legalizing, adapting, and merg¬
ing the heterogeneous intervals that the modey mass of Mohammedan
tribes had brought into the common stock of music. The irrefragable rule
was that a scale had seven steps in the octave, no less, no more, as Al-Farabi
expressly states (tenth century a.d.) ; pentatonism or hexatonism existed
just as little as microtonic scales. The standard shade was what Ptolemy
had called didtonon ditonidon: the scale based on the up-and-down prin¬
ciple and consisting of major whole tones of 204 Cents and minor semi¬
tones of 90 Cents, that is, kimmas.
Symbol of this scale built on the cycle of fourths was the short-necked
Persian lute 'ud, ancestor of the European lute and typical instrument of
Islamic theory. It had four strings or double strings a fourth apart; the
fingers stopped a tetrachord on each, and the stopped notes were expected
not to disagree with the open strings.
This principle led to an arrangement that has haunted so many books
on music like a troublesome hobgoblin: the alleged Arabian scale of seven¬
teen thirds of tones. The number seventeen is correct; but there are no
thirds of tones; nor do the seventeen steps constitute a scale. The earliest
discussion, in Al-Farabl’s treatise, is unmistakable. It occurs in the descrip¬
tion of a long-necked lute with only two strings (of which but one was
used for the melody) called the tanbur of Hurasan, a province in the north¬
east of Persia. There were five fixed frets for the skeleton intervals, the
fourth, the second, the fifth, the octave, and the ninth. In addition, there
were mobile frets which, together with these frets, divided the octave into
seventeen sections. Far from being of the same size, the sections followed
the sequence of one leimma of 90 Cents (1), another of the same size (1),
and a Pythagorean comma of 24 Cents (c), repeated five times and sup¬
plemented by two kimmas (11c 11c 11c 11c 11c 11). This arrangement allowed
28o The Greek Heritage in the Music of Islam
the player to perform in all three tetrachordal structures, by placing the
mobile frets accordingly:

11c 11c 1
Semitone above
204 204 90

11c 1 Id
Semitone in the middle
204 90 204

1 Id Id
Semitone below
90 204 204

It is obvious, then, that the seventeen steps formed a set of elements, not

a scale*
The dit/isive principle, of outstanding importance m later times, first
appears in Al-Farabl’s work, among many other shades and genders, as the
Second Species of the Strong Conjunct Genus. Its scale is similar to Ptol¬
emy’s didtonon sjntonon and to the Hindu ma-grdma. And like the grama
of India, it has been presented by later authors mostly in the mistaken form
of a set of elements: the Pythagorean comma of 24 Cents, leimmas of (p
Cents, apotomds of 114 Cents, minor whole tones of 204 Cents. Like their
counterparts, the Indian irutis. these elements allow of an easy and correct
permutation of the seven steps of the octave and therewith are the funda-
ment of modal changes.

Modes are first indicated in 'AH al-Isfahani’s tenth-century collection of

poems, the Kitdb al-aghdni: each of its songs is accompanied by a short
note indicating which tonality and rhythm are required.
The complicated terms with which the poet described the eight occurring
tonalities had been incomprehensible until the ]ournal Asiattque published
an acceptable interpretation by the Reverend Father Collangettes in 1906.
But the scales in which his ingenious deduction resulted were hardly qmte
correct, in either material or orthography, particularly since they had dif¬
ferent thirds on the upper string, which was neither musically convmcmg
nor in keeping with the terms ‘ring finger’ and ‘middle finger’ that the
Arabs used for the major and the minor third. The Arabic descriptions
may be broadly translated as: (i) and (2) starting on the open string of
 Scales and Modes
the ‘ud and having respectively the minor the major third; (3) and
(4) starting on the first fret and having respectively the minor and the
major second; (5) and (6) starting respectively on the third frets of (i) and
(2> • (7) and (8) starting on the fourth fret and having respectively the
minor and the major third. If this translation is correct, the eight modes
(if we start from D) were:

def g a B\) C or Phrygian conjunct

1)
DEF^GAB C or Lydian conjunct
2)
E F G A B\) C D or Dorian conjunct
3)
E F^ G A B CD or Phrygian conjunct
4) V=---

F G A B\) C D E F or Lydian disjunct

5)
F% G A B CD E' or Dorian conjunct
6)
G A B\) C b E F G or Phrygian disjunct
7)
GAB C b E Fjf G or Lydian disjunct
8)
With the countless possibilities of permutation and combination, so dear
to Oriental scholars, an incredible number of modal scales was brought
about. Interchanging the places of semitones and of major and minor
whole tones; putting a tetrachord on top of a pentachord, or oftener vice
versa; coupling ‘divisive’ and ‘up-and-down’ groups-all these operations
provided scores and scores of scales which the Near and Middle East—
notwithstanding the individual languages of its various countries-has
known under common names such as ‘Again, or Nahawand, or Awag.
It would be a mistake, however, to imagine that the intellectual processes
of combining, permutating, and coupling were actually responsible for the
motley diversity of Mohammedan music; in other words, that lifeless
theory created living melody. If the anatomic structures give such an im¬
pression, one look at the physiology of these scales proves the contrary:
the note next in importance to the tonic—the confinalis, is now the fifth,
now the octave, now the fourth, now even the third of the tonic. This
clearly emphasizes the self-evident fact that things happened the other way
around: melodies of very different equilibrium and structure, sung in
Arabic-, Turkish-, and Persian-speaking countries long, long before the
282 The Greek Heritage in the Music of Islam
scholars constructed their theories, were pressed into a system of apparent
consistency that singers and players had never followed before and were
never to follow afterward*
At first sight, these nearly one hundred scales seem chaotic in the con¬
fusing swarm of thirds, major and minor whole tones, three-quarter tones,
and major and minor semitones. But detached from their Oriental order
and rearranged according to their structures, they easily fall into line.
A first group, following the up-and-down principle, is made of equal
major whole tones of 204 Cents and minor semitones of 90 Cents. Such are
'Agam 'asIran—2L true Lydian on P—and Nahau/and—z true Hypodorian
on G.
A second group, following the divisive principle, is made of two sizes of
whole tones (204 and 182 Cents) and of major semitones (112 Cents),
Such are:

Rast, a Lydian scale on G

Nawd, a Phrygian scale on A
Ya\d^ a Hypophrygian scale on D
Huseinl 'aslrdn, a Hyperphrygian scale on E
'Arad, a Hyperphrygian scale on A
Awag, a Mixolydian scale on F

A third group combines both principles in the same octave: 'UHdq,

Baydil, and Isfahan have a divisive tetrachord below and an up-and-down
pentachord above; the structure of Busltq is the other way around.
A fourth group includes the typically “Orientar* interval 7:6 or 267 Cents,
that is, the augmented second, like, for instance, the most popular of all
Arabian scales:

Higdz: 119 267 112 204 90 204 204

G A\) B C D E\) F G

This classification is confirmed by an interesting statement of Islamic

writers: with all possibilities of permutating the Greek shades, they finally
concede that only four were really accepted: (i) 204-204-90 Cents, (2)
204-182-112 Cents, (3) 119-267-112 Cents, (4) 151-267-80 Cents.
We know three of them: the first is Eratosthenes’ didtonon; the second,
Ptolemy’s divisive didtonon syntonon; the fourth, Ptolemy’s “Gypsy scale”
chrdma syntonon. The two chromatic scales (3) and (4) are—again as in
Greece—combined with diatonic tetrachords in order to form complete
octaves.
 Scales and Modes 283
One remarkable fact should not be passed over: majorlike scales with
major thirds and sevenths are Persian, not Arabian. East, “though gener¬
ally known in musical circles, yet lives as a Persian art maqam only; the
[Arabian] people just does not sing it.” ^ In the same way, the Do-modes
Mahur, Mahurani, Sasgar, and Gihar\a are Persian. The case of the Sol¬
mode Nawa is doubtful.

Theory and practice have seldom agreed, despite all attempts of the for¬
mer to catch and legalize the vagaries of singers and players. Performers
have never been able or willing to reproduce the rigid norm even of simple
systems with the faithfulness of acoustical devices. How can the Persian,
Turkish, Egyptian singers be expected to have stood the clash of two
opposed systems and to have carefully distinguished between two different
whole tones and two different semitones with all their combinations? Less
than other countries could the province of Islam escape the common
destiny of all scales; temperament.
The earliest temperament appears in the practice of Eastern lutanists.
Just as the Greeks generally violated the law in playing the lichanos,
second-highest note in the tetrachord, Mohammedan players had their own
ways with this very note. Both “the Persians” and Zalzal, famous lutanist
of Bagdad (d. 791), tried to enlarge the semitone at the cost of the neigh¬
boring whole tone and assimilated them by taking a quarter tone from the
whole tone and adding it to the semitone: 204-90-204 became 204-147-
147 Cents.
The Reverend Father Dechevrens thought that this temperament was a
compromise to facilitate the transition from conjunct to disjunct tetra-
chords. This may be correct (cf. page 130). But not all three-quarter tone
scales can be thus explained, neither the didtonon homalon, described six
hundred years earlier by Ptolemy, nor the many modern Islamic scales of
this kind.
The critical point seems to have been the proper size of the minor whole
tone. Differing from the major whole tone by only a ninth of a tone, it was
exposed to being reduced in size until its difference was sufficiently obvious.
But the complementing semitone increased at the same rate and drew so
close in size to the lessened whole tone that assimilation became una¬
voidable.
*A. Z. Idclsohn, “Die Maqamen der arabischen Musik,” in SammelbSnde der Interna-
tionalen Musi^esellschaft "XV (1913), p. 17.
284 The Greek Heritage in the Music of Islam
The three-quarter tone has since conquered large parts o£ the Moham¬
medan world, but only as far as scales of the divisive type are concerned.
rwo scales and 'tJethuu/erndf on the contrary, both derived from
the up-and-down principle and, having merely one size of whole tone, have
not been subject to this temperament.
The final step in achieving three-quarter tones was taken at the end of
the nineteenth century by the Syrian, Michael Meshaqa, and the Egyptian,
Kamel el-Kholey, who divided the octave into twenty-four quarter tones,
allotting four of them to the major whole tone, three to the three-quarter
tone, and two to the (minor) semitone.
This modern system allows for smooth transition from scale to scale,
but it is more or less a theoretical fiction. Equal temperament has been in¬
evitable in a musical world established on harmony and on the fixed key¬
boards of organs and pianos; in purely melodic styles it is a mistake.
Neither singers nor players have ever sacrificed the vital freedom of mel¬
ody to any rigid system, be it quarter tones or three-quarter tones or even
the simple ratios of natural scales.
 [2]

MAQAM

MAQAM, originally the name o£ the stage on which the singers performed
before the caliph, is the exact counterpart of the Indian rdga: a pattern of
melody, based (though with a certain freedom) on one of the modal scales,
and characterized by stereotype turns, by its mood, and even by its pitch-
middle, high, low—which is reminiscent of the Greek classification of me-
soid, netoid, and hypatoid melodies. The initial note, too, is important:
maqam Rdst starts from the tonic and Mahur, from the fifth; Rdst is digni¬
fied in carriage and tempo and avoids grace notes, while Mahur is faster;
Baydt stresses the fourth, and Si\dh the third below the tonic.
Again, the classification of these patterns has at least one trait common
with the classification of rdgas: the twelve main and inter-Islamic maqa-
mdt are called ‘fathers,’ and the thirteen secondary, rather local, maqamat,
‘sons.’ Rdst, for example, is a father, and Mahur, starting on its fifth, his
son.
Maqam is, like rdga in India, the essential quality of a melody; a piece
not in keeping with the traditional and obligatory traits of its maqam is not
considered ‘musical’ So important is maqam that every diwdn, or coUec^
tion of poems, is arranged according to the maqamat in which they are to
be composed and sung; first, the Rdst poems, then those in Mahur, and after
them the others in various arrangements.^

Ethos was among the qualities of maqamat as it pertained to ragas and

harmoniai, though perhaps to a lesser degree. The maqamk evoked, said
Al-FarabI, “such emotions as satisfaction, ire, clemency, cruelty, fear, sad¬
ness, regret, and other passions.
It should be remembered that the Islamic Orient has always known
musical styles in which attributions of this kind were not merely system¬
atic connotations of a philosophical order, but actual physiological effects.
We think above all of those persistent, monotonous melodies used to create

3 CL ibid., pp. 14, 15-

286 The Greek Heritage in the Music of Islam
ecstasy and trance in the gatherings of dervishes and other religious fra¬
ternities, which are related to primeval shamanic rituals of Central Asia
rather than to the practice of modern Islam.
No wonder that the maqamat, as the official, systematized patterns of
Islamic melody, were also believed to have heaHng force, though in a less
refined spirit than they had had in Greece. Rdst healed the eyes; 'Irdq^ pal¬
pitation of the heart and dementia; Isfahan^ colds; Rahdwi, headache; Bu-
zur\, colic; Zangula, heart diseases.
On the other hand, the Arabs—like the Hindus—have connected certain
maqamk with the hours of the day and the signs of the zodiac:

Maqam Sign of the Zodiac Time of the Day

Rdst Ram sunrise

Isfahan Bull
'Iraq Twins nine o’clock
Kuce\ {Ztr-ef\end) Crab
Buzurli Lion
Hi^dz Virgin midnight
Bu‘Sili\ Balance afternoon
"Ussdq Scorpion sunset
Huseint Archer night end
Zangula Capricorn
Nawd Water carrier before night prayer
Rahdwi Fishes morning

As early a theoretician as Ibn-Sina (980-1037 a.d.) protests, however, in

a quite modern spirit against “comparing musical ratios with the stars or
with mental states, since this is the habit of those who do not keep the
various sciences apart nor know what they direedy or indireedy include.
 [3]

RHYTHM

ISLAMIC RHYTHM stems from the meters of poetry. These meters had
feet of three, four, or five syllables and—^with a long syllable equaling two
short ones—either five units of time, or even seven, as

j j j » n} J'i .
I am not going to bother the reader with the involved Arabian classifica¬
tion of meters light, light-heavy, heavy-light, heavy, conjunct, disjunct,
equal and unequal, fast and slow, first and second. Only a few details are
worth mentioning in this context.
The two main divisions of this classification are ‘conjunct’ and disjunct.
Conj unct meters, called hazag, are uninterrupted series of equal beats with¬
out accents or any other grouping into superior units of two, three, or four
beats; or series of actual feet, like iambs, trochees or otherwise. Such meter
could easily be mistaken for our -|time; but it is definitely—^as in India
a two-beat meter.
‘Disjunct’ meters, on the contrary, had an adequate rest before repeti¬
tion set in, such as
These, again, were subdivided into meters with equal and meters with
unequal beats. All this was lifeless. It took to pieces the undecomposable
rhythms of Islamic music in their fanciful and almost irrational configura¬
tions; it retied to verse meters instrumental rhythms that had broken loose
from the despotism of poetry.
The antipoetic patterns, which the Arabs call iqadt, are said to have been
introduced into Arabian music in the seventh century ajd. by the first male
professional musician in Islam, Tuwais, His lifetime coincided with the
end of the Persian dynasty of the Seleucides, to which Persian tradition has
attributed the elaboration of rhythm.*^ Persia might well have given the new
principle to Arabia; but it is an open question how much she herself in
turn was under Indian influence.

CL Huart, “La Musiquc pcrsane,” in Lavignac^ 'Encyclopidie de la Musique I v 5, p. 3065.

288 The Greek Heritage in the Music of Islam
The rhythmic patterns appear in all melodies, whether vocal or instru¬
mental, but particularly in the drum parts, which are almost as obligatory
in Islamic music as they are in Indian music.
Accents are given in timbre rather than in force. The Islamic drummer
knows muffled beats, called dum, and clear beats, ta\; less muffled beats,
dim, and less clear beats, ti\. When two litde ketdedrums are used, the
dum skin is wetted, and the ta\ skin, heated; with one frame drum, dum
is struck on the skin, and ta\, on the hoop. If the player has no drum, he
strikes dum with the closed hand on the right knee, and ta\, with the open
hand on the left knee. The clear timbre is often reserved for the actual beats
of a pattern, and the muffled timbre for intercalated beats that decompose
longer beats into their units. The simple pattern short-long, for example,
would be rendered by two clear beats and one muffled beat to subdivide the
long member.
The Arabian and the Indian patterns arc doubtless related. They share
one vital quality: the combining of meter and time; and both materialize
essentially on drums.
But there are also differences. Arabian patterns are simpler. They scarcely
exceed four units per member, and members which by exception have seven
units are said to belong to “very old” and “Indian” patterns. In India, a
certain piece is composed to a certain tala, which the accompaniment keeps
just as strictly as the melody does. Arabian practice is much freer. The
drummer would accompany in a quite different pattern with counterac¬
cents; indeed, he would with two or three independent drums act against
the melody in the intricate openwork of an actual polyrhythm.
 [4]

POLYPHONY

POLYPHONY is not essential in Islamic music. It exists, however, in the

three forms of heterophony, drone, and occasional consonance.
Heterophony was less developed than in East Asia and in India. But it
has been unavoidable in those small ensembles that we somewhat grandilo¬
quently call orchestras: a singer, a flute, a plucked zither, a lute, a drum,
and sometimes a fiddle.
Drones are mostly used in the taqslm, the improvised prelude of solo
instruments before the ensemble sets in. The zither qdnun frequently sup¬
ports the taqsim of the flute or the fiddle with the rapid, mandolinlike to
and fro of the plectron on one string. In bands, the larger oboe plays a pedal
while the smaller oboe performs its improvisation; or the player of the
double clarinet arghul accompanies himself on its dronepipe.
Ostinato basses spring up when the persistent drone dissolves into the
so-called wahda: a series of eight quarter beats which, to mark the begin¬
ning of a period, start with a silent eighth and subsequently syncopate.
Lute and zither players often play such a wahda on several notes instead
of one drone note and thus perform obstinate ground basses.®
Consonances have a definite, though modest, place in the classical theory.
Ibn-Slna (980-1037) defines a certain Arabic term, tarhjb, as “an ornament
in which two consonant notes mingle in the same stroke. The noblest con¬
sonances are large intervals, and among these, the octave and the fourth
are the best.” This description appears in the section on ornaments: to Ibn-
Sina, and probably to the Islamic world in general, consonance was not a
harmonic function in the Western sense, but a simultaneous appoggiatura.

® Alfred Berner, Studien zur arahuchen Musi\, Leipzig, 1937, pp. 43-50.
 [5]

FORM

STRUCTURES, in Islamic music, are of two kinds: simple folk melodies

and elaborate art forms. Folk melodies have a small range and consist
either of symmetrical periods in plain two-beat rhythms or of simple, end¬
lessly repeated phrases of a declamatory and often richly ornamented char¬
acter.
All art forms, on the contrary, rest on the contrast of free and strict
movements. Most pieces, both vocal and instrumental, begin with a kind
of cadenza, called taqsltn in Egypt. This is a free introduction, without a
definite rhythm and, when sung, without words, in which the performers
after one another improvise on the melodic pattern of the maqam and dis¬
play to the best of their ability the peculiarities of their instruments and of
their personal skill and inspiration, while the zither or the lute unobtru¬
sively accompany with a drone or a short ostinato. Then the other instru¬
ments join in to start the strict movement which would have one of a num¬
ber of similar forms as, for example, an instrumental prelude, a vocal
strophe of eight lines, an instrumental strophe, and again a vocal strophe,
all of exactly the same structure and in the same maqam and rhythm.
Instrumental ensembles without voices have a form of their own, die
Turkish pe^rev, which is also preceded by a taqsim of every melodic instru¬
ment and itself consists of from two to six movements, each followed by a
ritornello of the same structure.
I suggested in my History of Musical Instruments that the typically
Oriental contrast of taqsim and pe^rev may already be alluded to in the
strange description of King Nebuchadrezzar’s orchestra in the Book of
Daniel: “O peoples, nations, and languages, that at what time ye hear the
sound of the horn, the pipe, the lyre, the horizontal and the vertical harp,
and [then] the playing together [not bagpipe] of all kinds of instruments,
ye fall down and worship the golden image that Nebuchadrezzar the king
hath set up; and whoso falleth not down and worshipped! shall the same
hour be cast into the midst of a burning fiery furnace.” ®

«Dan. 3:5, 7,10, 15. Curt Sachs, 7he History of Musical Instruments, op, cit., pp. 83-5.
 Form 291
Tim NtJBA is the largest cyclic form, in Oriental music. The name appears
for the first time in die tenth century A,n* to denote a company of musi¬
cians and later is transferred to the particular form of composition dc-
veloficd in medieval Granada while it was under Mohammedan rule. There,
it was abandoned after the Christian rcconquest; but it has been preserved
in Morocco and Algeria.
The niiba may best be described as a cantata in nine parts of the same
tonality. The first, daira or '‘circle,” presents a singer’s prelude without
percussion instruments, comparable to the taqslm and the Indian dldp; it is
vocalized on a text now incomprehensible. The second movement is an in¬
strumental prelude; the third, an instrumental symphony; the movements
four, five, and six are three sets of songs, each set following a different
form; after another instrumental symphony, the eighth movement is again
a set of songs, and a single song, as the ninth movement, ends the cantata.
Under the fresh impression of one of the eleven niibas still performed
in Morocco, the author once wrote:

I still see them sitting on the floor in a long row with one or two players seated
at right angles at either end: the ten or twelve men, slender, thoroughbred,
with aquiline noses and short black beards, in white burnuses and white turbans
and before them, taken off, the yellow slippers. I still hear the cracking sound
of lute strings under the beat of the quill plectron, the trenchant melody that
the short bows drew from tiny fiddles, and the boyish falsetto of the- rapt old
singer in the corner. How different was the incorporeal limpidity of this en¬
semble from the viscid sound of Western orchestras!
Why does this music captivate us so much more than any other Oriental
style? Things foreign can touch us only if under the unwonted surface we
sense familiar traits. Do We recognize the melody, the powerful impetus of the
Magnificat which over and over again appears throughout the endless work?
There is more than that. The longer we listen, the more distinctly we feel that
this is the last living witness of that great music which half a millennium ago
was played in Andalusia. The seven or eight hundred years of Moorish domina¬
tion in Spain do not only mean the acme of Islamic civilization, which could
not fail to set its seal on the medieval culture of Europe. The fateful war and
interbreeding of the races also shaped the Mohammedan world, and not least
its music. If we did not know it before, the singers and players of the Moroccan
sultan, with their music so different from other Arabian music, have impres¬
sively taught us this fact. Future music history will find a remunerative task
in examining this intersection. For to our stock of medieval notations, dead,
incomplete, and difficult to interpret, the Moroccans contribute actual sound and
unlost tradition.®
’’ Henry George Farmer, A Bistory of Arabian Music, op, cit,, p. 153.
8 Free translation from Curt Sachs, “Die Marokkaner,” in Zeitschrift fur Vergleichende
Musifimssenschaft I (1933), pp. 17--18.
Section Seven

EtJROPE AND THE ROAD

TO MAJOR AND MINOR
R oman ear witnesses were not exacdy appreciative o£ the
musical achievements in barbarian countries—not even Tacitus,
who for pedagogical reasons liked to stress the bright side of every¬
thing German. His book Germania did not mention music at all, excepting
the barritus or battle song, in which, he said, the raucous sound was in¬
creased by singing against the shields and the harmony of gallant hearts
mattered more than the harmony of voices.
Three hundred years after Tacitus, Ammianus Marcellinus (d. c. 400 a.d.)
described the same barritus in his History of Rome 16:12; it began with a
soft hum and grew stronger and stronger until at last it thundered like
waves that broke on the rocks.
Other Germanic songs reminded Emperor Julian the Apostate of the
shrieks of birds; as late as about 600 a.d. Bishop Venantius Fortunatus dis¬
paragingly asserted that the Burgundians and the Franconians were not
able to tell the cackling of geese from swan song; and another two hundred
years later, in Charlemagne’s time, Roman church singers protested against
the ‘‘bestial” song of the Franconians who with an artless, barbaric voice
crushed the melodies in their throats (naturali voce barbarica frangentes in
gutture voces)}
A deep gulf separated Greco-Roman and Oriental from cxtraclassical
music in Europe.

How DEEP this gulf was has been brought out in the author’s recent paper
on The Road to Mapr} of which—with the editor’s kind permission—the
following section (with its musical examples) is an abridgment.

Ancient Europe was illiterate and thus unable to leave any musical docu¬
ment. When in the later Middle Ages it had achieved literacy, the evidence
dealt exclusively with ecclesiastic music. The old jugglers and minstrels did
not care about notating melodies. They saw no point in divulging what
they knew; on the contrary, they would not have been willing to make
available to everyone the repertoire by which they got their living. The
monks, on the other hand, knew how to write and loved to handle the

1 “Vita Caroli Magni per Monachum Egolismensem,” in Du Chesne, SS, Hist, Franc, II, 75.
2 Curt Sachs, “The Road to Major,” in The Musical Quarterly XXIX (1943).
296 Europe and the Road to Major and Minor
quill. Eagerly bent on devising adequate means of notation, they did their
best to keep alive the music sung in gloriam Dei. But they were no more in¬
terested than the jugglers in preserving secular music.
Music historians, therefore, have entered Europe by the church door.
They have received their information from monks and learned to use, and
abuse, Greek conceptions in analyzing the melodies of the Western Church.
As a fatal consequence, they have tested all archaic melodies with a modal
gauge, whether folk tunes still in use or ‘art music* written down in the
Middle Ages. Icelandic tvisbngmr and Corsican voceri, Proven<;al cansos
and Spanish cantigas have indiscriminately been called Dorian or Phrygian
or Lydian and thus likened to Gregorian melodies.
But as early an authority as Johannes de Grocheo (c. 1300) had warned
his readers against looking for church modes in secular music: ''Non enim
per tonum cognoscimus cantum vulgarem!' Most serious scholars have in¬
deed had misgivings and have conceded that many melodies cannot be
properly classified.
Still, a correct classification is possible if only we get rid of our modal
obsession and realize that a division into a tetrachord and a pentachord is
not the only melodic pattern in the world.
Aware of the motley diversity of musical styles that comparative musi¬
cology conveys to its students, the author has tried to look at medieval
music with an unbiased mind. As a result, he has found that—regardless of
race and region—there has been an all-embracing European style, neither
modal nor pentatonic, but very primitive, though ready in due time to pro¬
create the marvels of Western music.
This style, utterly different from Oriental styles, ignores the interval of
the fourth, indeed the octave itself. Its melodies, rather, fall into patterns of
thirds, as do many melodies of North American Indians, Melanesians, and
Africans, especially African Pygmies and their Asiatic cousins. From Ice¬
land to the Balkan States, from Sweden to Spain, they consist of single
thirds, but mostly they jump to another third and yet another; there are
melodies of no less than five such thirds of alternately major and minor
size, each two of which form a perfect fifth. These thirds are sometimes
open, sometimes filled by a note of minor importance. A few examples
follow:

Ex. 86: one third, b\)-g

A Rtliaania (after Bartcfc) r9s
±
& f’T f
 r r r r r "f f

The thirds, above all the triple third, indicate the structure of an over¬
whelmingly great number of those medieval melodies which, in Heinrich
Besseler’s words, show that “strange tonal vagueness that admits an inter¬
pretation both as either Dorian or Lydian and as a melodic major.”
Vagueness disappears once these melodies are gauged by their own
standard.
The thirds also explain the famous cadence by the minor third (instead
of the semitone) below the final that music history has erroneously called
after the Italian master Francesco Landini, the blind organist at the cathe¬
dral in Florence.
298 Europe and the Road to Major and Minor
Gregorian chant, the traditional music of the Roman Cadiolic
which again and again provides examples of third melodies, has had a
somewhat contradictory position in music history. Most books suggest,
though with reserve if not reluctance, that the national styles of Europe
might have helped in shaping the melodies of the Church. Still, these hints
are rare and vague, and the general impression that the reader is expected
to form is rather that inversely the Gregorian chant has left its imprint on
most national styles. How could they have reasoned the other way around,
with all the authority of church music, with its elaborate theory and appar¬
ent unity of style, as against the seemingly illiterate and motley, indeed
amorphous, mass of secular music?
The question should be re-examined in the Ught of our new knowledge
of the European thirds.
After all, the composers of so-called Gregorian melodies were not born
in church. They had passed at least their early childhood in secular homes
and had been brought up on the songs of their mothers, of playmates, of
street singers. They had been EngUsh, French, German boys before they
entered Catholic monasteries; and even cloistering did not separate Aem
from the musical world outside. A strict borderline between ecclesiastic
and secular music is possible only where an old, traditional stock of melo¬
dies is kept alive without contemporary additions; and this was not the case
with Gregorian chant.
The Orient doubtless contributed the first melodies. It imposed the gen¬
eral mood and also the performing style. But melodic invendon itself has
been free—and Western.
The ‘Oriental style,’ supposed to be at the basis of Gregorian chant, is
the style of Oriental-Jewish, of Syrian-Christian, of Copdc-Egypdan candl-
ladon. Definitely diatonic, it has almost exclusively the fourth as its struc¬
tural interval; it is tetrachordal. Two examples might suffice, one from
the Babylonian Synagogue and one from the Copdc Church:

Ex. 91

Ex. 92
 Europe and the Road to Major and Minor 299
And it often has the subsemitone, or leading note, that the earlier Gre¬
gorian chant, allegedly Oriental, so carefully avoided.
Ex. 93
A BaJtylomanJeWB (after IdelaolaL)

While the Gregorian chant has very little connection with the Orient,
it easily provides examples for all phases of medieval evolution in the West.
Our survey has referred to melodies of the church just as it has referred to
folk and written secular songs.
The so-called church modes should not deceive our judgment. In their
classical form, order, and terminology, the system of eight dovetailed oc¬
taves, four of them (the odd-numbered ones) authentic and four (the even-
numbered ones) plagal, they certainly depend on Greek and Oriental proto¬
types:
Authentic Plagal

First DEFGA/ABCD
Second ABCD/DEFGA
Third EFGAB/BCDE
Fourth BCDEIEFGAB
Fifth FGABC/CDEF
Sixth CDEFIFGABC
Seventh GABCD/DEFG
Eighth DEFG/GABCD
But this system was established as late as the tenth century—four hundred
years after St. Gregory’s redaction of the church music. Moreover, it is
sometimes very hard to find these fifth-fourth structures in the melodies
themselves. The fifths of the authentic modes are obvious enough, to be
sure. But the fourths of the plagal modes and also the fourths on top of the
authentic modes are not so clear; about half of the melodies ascribed to
the Second Mode do not even reach the finalis D. Many attributions to one
of the eight modes are so hard to comprehend that a real connection ma
naturae seems more than doubtful. Why, for instance, is the hymn Im¬
mense Caeli Conditor classified under the First Mode.? Is not the simple
melody a clear-cut F major with F as the tonic and C as the dominant?

Ex. 94

IfflL-tQciMe coe4i conditof

300 Europe and the Road to Major and Minor
Other systems o£ a different cast contradicted and partly antedated the
array o£ eight church modes. Monks had, as early as the ninth century,
devised a notation in which the letters o£ the alphabet from A lo G repre¬
sented a C-major scale.® It was only later that it was shifted in order to
start from the modern note A, which was the lowest note of the lowest
Church mode. In the eleventh century, Guido d’Arezzo based melody—
every melody, including those of the Gregorian chant—on three hexa-
chords, starting from three different notes, C, F. and G. All of these had the
same structure T T s T T-that is, tone, tone, semitone, tone, ton^nd
Guido adopted the same set of names for the six notes of the hexachord,
regardless of the particular hexachord—re mi fa sol la. These three basic
scales were definitely maiorUke and averse to most Gregorian chants which
actually demanded a continual veering from hexachord to hexachord, a
so-called mutation.
Guido d’Arezzo, the greatest theoretician of the eleventh century, has
been credited also with devising the perfect staff notation that we have
used to this day, though we have added a fifth line. The original four lines
and the three spaces in between them housed seven consecudve notes of the
diatonic scale: the first, third, fifth, and seventh notes were privileged with
places on the lines, while the second, fourth, and sixth were squeezed into the
intermediate spaces. The abnormal consequence—so hard to grasp when
you try to learn music—^is that, of two notes an octave apart, which carry
the same name, one is allowed to perch on a line, and the other is not. And
the same is true of two notes a fourth apart.
The European staff notation is definitely in favor of chains of thirds:
according to the key prescribed, it reads either DeFgAbC ox FgAb
C d E ox A b C d E f G.
Is this not a true mirror of the medieval conception of music?

A SINGLE CHAIN as the exclusive element of structure is tolerable in the

fluent, ‘endless’ melody of true Gregorian cantillation. It is an ideal trellis
to support the smoothly creeping compound neumes and keep them from
lawlessness.
It is a lifeless principle, on the contrary, where syllabic and symmetrical
melodies depend on a continual pendulating between tension and relaxa¬
tion—not only from syllable to syllable, but also from phrase to phrase.

8 Cf. Gustave Reese, op. at., p. 135 £.

 Europe and the Road to Major and Minor 301
In such symmetrical forms, the infixes, by nature unstressed and rather
transitional, exchange parts with the structural thirds in all phases of relaxa¬
tion : they take the stress and degrade the structural thirds. In doing this,
they form a chain of thirds in their own right, indeed a counterchain.
Almost all melodies outside the church, and many inside it, actually con¬
sist of a chain and counterchain dovetailed. In the following dance of the

thirteenth century, the two chains fitted together are

FAC:
CE G
Ex. 95

^ 10* C. (af-trer johatmea WoU)

r-r—F■n :--L .. 1.1 n 1 ■' 1
trr% y 1.. m . 1 I n 1 T T I 1 [ 1 rr^3 1 "T . 1
Lr -■ W ‘ -

Dovetailed chains of thirds were certainly richer than single chains, since
they allowed for pendulating between tension and relaxation. Nevertheless,
they were far from being perfect organisms; the two chains existed side by
side rather than as functional parts of one greater unit.
From the time of our earliest evidence, however, that is, from the tenth
century on, the unpremeditated piling up of thirds has been questioned. A
strong trend toward actual integration acted upon the chains and slowly
succeeded in transforming them. The result was what we call major and
minor today.

A NATIONAL CLAIM to major for the Germanic race was made by Oskar
Fleischer at the end of the last century. Referring to him, the Dane, Angul
Hammerich, emphasized that Icelandic folksongs represented the urtypus
of that primeval major scale “which has been stated to be the national scale
of the GermanO'Gothic peoples.” His particular example is poor and far
from being major. The other Icelandic songs printed in Hammerich’s paper
are even less to the point; he himself calls them Dorian or Phrygian or
Lydian.
National and racial claims in general have, in our day, the advantage
that few students care about verifying them. Since it is equally comfortable
to pride oneself on the alleged deeds of one’s forefathers, and dangerous to
question them, most music historians, otherwise ready to fight indefatigably
for a single sharp or flat in some manuscript or print, have bowed to the
slogan and let it pass without examination—^and without proof.
302 Europe and the Road to Major and Minor
The origin of major cannot be established through noisy slogans, but
only through sober analysis. The earliest melodies with all or most of the
features of major must be parsed and tested.
These features include a skeleton consisting of an octave made up of a
perfect fifth and a perfect fourth; the other intervals, reckoned from the
tonic, are major; and a seventh degree acts as a leading note.
Melodies with most of the features of major first occur in the tenth cen-
mry. The earliest evidence, an Italian (probably) love song in Latin, needs
only the subsemitone and the octave to be a perfect major melody:

Ex. 96
Latin, lO^-c,
-5

But ofScial theory rejected the subsemitone, and although it praised the
subfinal as emmelis or ‘well-sounding’ as long as it was a whole tone from
the final, it avoided the lower neighboring note in the Fifth Mode, where
it would be a subsemitone: E-F.
Still, at least from the eleventh century on, even the church yielded to
the growing tendency to raise the tuba (or note of recitation) from B to C,
which replaced the previous subtonal inflection B-A by the subsemitonal
inflection C-B,

Ex. 97
-A Gregorian
:-=--—=—■: -

^ • j- - ti-uai "ttetan in-■ted •"

])eus in

Correspondingly, secular and semisecular melodies show the subsemi-

tone as early as the eleventh century:

Ex. 98
France, 11^ C. (afterP.mgaer)

Gauu-cle-te

This and similar melodies were created in the same

Guido d’Arezzo so violently opposed the subsemitone; it must have be-

come dangerous.
 Europe and the Road to Major and Minor 303
Singers abandoned the consistent perfection of the fifth in the counter¬
chains and admitted tritones several centuries before the monastic theorists
eventually took cognizance of the procedure in the thirteenth century.
The supercilious names given the new style—musica ficta and musica falsa
—show how reluctant this cognizance was. The theorists could not foresee
that a hundred years later the Frenchman, Philippe de Vitri, would disown
them by professing that actually the music they had called “false” was the
only true music.
The seventh, so important in triple and quadruple chains of thirds, had
to yield to the octave: all over the world the octave has imposed its su¬
premacy on more rudimentary scales when music has evolved to a certain
stage—in the Far East as well as in ancient Greece.
In medieval music, the conflict is often obvious; the seventh has kept its
accent, but the octave follows immediately. The rondeau from the Roman
de la Rose may serve as an illustration:

Ex. 99

Further examples are given in my paper in the Musical Quarterly men¬

tioned earlier.
The final preference given to the octave changed the skeleton CEGB
into CEGC, and the counterchain shifted to DGB, since the subsemitone
had become obligatory: the dominant G became the ‘joint’ of the two sets.
In an analogous development, DFAC became DEAD, with B and C|
in ascending, and B\) and C in descending—in strict accordance with
musica ficta. The ambiguous scale resulting was what today is called minor.
The power of the octave worked downward also. The A below C in the
Landini sixth, lying below the octave, could not avoid the influence of the
dominant G and became a G itself.

The growth of major and minor seems to have been indigenous: the basic
principle of chains of thirds, also known from other continents, was all-
304 Europe and the Road to Major and Minor
European, regardless of race and region, and the development of chains of
thirds into major and minor patterns was just as all-European. A German
or Germanic origin is out o£ the question, since the earliest examples are
French.
Indeed, just the opposite is true: Germany accepted the major and minor
scales comparatively late and with reluctance. She found the subsemitone
and leading notes in general so little to her liking that German versions of
the Gregorian chant substituted a leap of a minor third for progressions of
a whole or semitone in the Roman original.
The logical development from all-European principles makes the hy¬
pothesis of an Asiatic descent for major and minor almost superfluous. It
is nevertheless important to state that Asia, too, shows evolution toward
major and majorlike scales.
It may be useful in this connection to give some attention to the so-called
Ugro-Finnish peoples. Anthropologically, they are Mongolian; linguisti¬
cally, they are related to Hungarians and Finns. Scattered in small rem¬
nants over parts of Eastern Russia and Western Siberia, they live in a rather
primitive state of civilization.
Owing to A. O. Vaisanen’s magnificent publication, we know the music
of the Voguls and the Ostyaks better than any other Ugro-Finnish music.
These two peoples, about twenty-five thousand individuals, live in North¬
western Siberia on the Ob and the Irtysh and make their living as fisher¬
men and hunters.
The Voguls, like the Europeans, build most of their melodies on thirds
or chains of thirds. Some mythological songs have kept the original single
third, notwithstanding occasional deviations. Examples are in my paper.
The leading note appears at a very early stage, in simple three-tone melo¬
dies.
Other Ugro-Finnish peoples show similar tendencies. The five thousand
Votyaks in the northeast of European Russia often sing in single and
double thirds, but never use the leading note. The Syrianes, their northern
neighbors (not the Syrians), start from single thirds and achieve major
pentachords and even full major octaves. The Mordwins have pentatonic
scales of five, six, or seven notes; but in a lower stratum, in old-pagan
melodies of only three or four notes, they use the leading note:

Ex. 100

MordwineS (after Ladi)

 Europe and the Road to Major and Minor 305
Some non-Ugro-Finnish peoples deserve special mention also. The
Turko-Tataric Kirghizes, whose habitat extends all across Asia from
European Russia to the borders of China, have a surprising number of
melodies in major with all the characteristics required, including the lead¬
ing note.
It is not yet possible to give a comprehensive survey of structures in thirds
and major-minor patterns outside Europe. There are many thousands of
square miles that have not yet been musically explored. But it is important
to have found in West and Central Asia the nearest relatives of the Euro¬
pean thirds, and thus to have indicated a possible link between Europe and
the earliest Asiatic seats of the North American Indians, who share with
Europe the third and chains of thirds as structural elements.

Major in a wider sense, however, has not necessarily depended upon struc¬
tures of thirds. The pentatonic so-called Chinese scale CDE GA was given
two piens, FJ and B, that actually were double leading notes in the sense of
European music in the fourteenth century—two thousand years later. And
in the sixth century a.d., a true major scale without the tritone C-FJ was
very much admired and to a certain extent introduced. Though by no
means generally accepted, it represented the latest development in China.
Of the three Indian gramas, only sa-grdma has survived, which from an
original D-mode has been converted into a C-mode and practically coin¬
cides with the major scale.
In ancient Greece, the Dorian mode, outstanding in earlier antiquity,
later yielded to the Lydian mode, which in its scale arrangement coincided
with major.
A similar process is running its course in modern Morocco. The tritonic
maqam Si^d. which uses a B scale without signature, is more and more
frequently given a perfect fifth by sharpening the note F; and the F maqam
Maya, tritonic as well, is, by a more and more general flattening of its sug¬
gested fourth B, well on its way to F major.
The common development toward majorlikc and minorlike melodies
from systems as different as East Asiatic pentatonicism, IndoJslamic and
Greco-Roman modes, and European and Ugro-Finnish thirds, suggests
that there may be some immanent force at work, a force embracing all
mankind rather than merely a race or region.
The development had nothing to do with sentiment. And that mis¬
sionary who once wrote that African Negroes had no songs in major, since
3o6 Europe and the Road to Major and Minor
only believers in the true God were blessed with its cheerfulness, was cer-'
tainly well meaning but not exactly enlightening. The explanation lies else¬
where*
Most higher civilizations have tended to evolve, in all their arts, from a
mere coexistence of parts to an actual integration, in which the elements
are organically related to one another and to the whole. Such evolution has
led to the sophisticated balance that the Greeks achieved in the dualism of
thedc and dynamic centers, and the Hindus in the intricate relationship of
starters, finals, tonics, dominants, and ‘prevalent’ notes that characterize
their ragas. In systems established on the third and the fifth, the classical
stage of integration and perfect balance between static and dynamic forces
is the major-minor tonality with its dominant function and the significance
of the tonic to which the leading note inevitably leads.
The contrast between the tetrachordal patterns of Hindus and Greeks
on the one hand and the third-fifth patterns of Europe on the other hand is
at bottom the conflict between vocal and instrumental styles. An actually
vocal style originates where emotion results in singing, where mirth and
aflEiedon, hope and longing burst into melody. Such melody organizes
mosdy in descending fourths; the singer, under an irresistible stress, begins
at the top of his voice and range and comes down as his vocal chords
slacken.
Players behave differently. A piper’s scale is brought forth by opening
the fingerholes hole by hole or by stopping a string fret by fret; it is as¬
cending, and organized in fifths and thirds, indeed, in sevenths. It is cer¬
tainly not accidental that such chains occur in those few archaic civilizations
in which instruments have a normative role. There are excellent illustra¬
tions from the Solomon Islands (pieces for panpipes) or in the following
(pentatonic, thirdless) co3nposition for three large mouth organs from
Laos:
 Europe and the Road to Major and Minor 307
The theories o£ Chinese and Indian music acknowledge the contrast in
trend by juxtaposing descending scales for voices and ascending scales for
instruments. In all Oriental civilizations, however, instrumental music has
steadily gained, and since systems are after all much more meaningful in
instrumental music with its inevitable interest in correct tuning than in
the relative vagueness of vocal music, instrumental scales have gained the
ascendancy over vocal scales.
This process has been abbreviated in countries in which emotion docs
not often result in singing. Such countries sing; but their melodies are born
from words and either merely convey poetry or else intensify it, and, beau¬
tiful as they may be, they are basically different from those melodies that
follow purely vocal impulses. This deficiency—from a singer’s point of
view—implies greater independence from vocal laws and less resistance to
the normative power of instrumental music. As a consequence, the phys¬
iologically conditioned fourth and the downward trend scarcely ever
appear.
Europe, with the exception of its Mediterranean region, has been a typical
nonsingers’ land.
A thousand bits of evidence confirm the leadership of its instruments.
The ancient texts of Scandinavia never mention them as the source of a
mere accompaniment; singing and playing existed side by side. Every
well-bred Anglo-Saxon was expected to play and own a hearp. The instru¬
ment was his by an unrestrained right of possession, and not even a creditor
was allowed to sequestrate it. All miraculous effects that in India, for ex¬
ample, were attributed to the singing of certain maqamdt, emanated in the
north from instruments. Pirates, an Irish legend tells us, had stolen the
druid Daghda’s cruit. Daghda hunted them up, found the instrument sus¬
pended from the wall, and called it back. It obeyed with such force that it
killed nine men before reaching its rightful owner. Daghda then took it
in his arms and played three melodies; the first made the women cry;
when he played the second, men and women burst into laughter; but the
last piece lulled them all to sleep, and he safely stole away.
The later history of European music confirms the innate and never aban¬
doned preference given to instruments. The climax of this preference is
seen in the evolution of an all-dominating orchestra since the middle of the
eighteenth century and the role of this orchestra in the opera, so entirely
un-Oriental and antivocal, in which often three or fourscore instruments
drown the singer’s voice.
Singing, in contrast, has had a minor position. It has, in the main, been
a vehicle for words, and wherever melismatic effusions have been attempted
3o8 Europe and the Road to Major and Minor
—as in the Gregorian Alleluia and in the organa—nmvt reaction has rap¬
idly solidified them into syllabic melodies with new texts. Singing in a
narrower sense, as a self-sufficient art, has always been imported from the
Mediterranean; Frisia non cantatj says a proverb, and Frederick the Great
retracted his impatient remark that he preferred a neighing mare to a
German singer only when he realized that Miss Schmeling sang “like an
Italian.”
The king’s verdict is too reminiscent of ancient Roman judgments upon
German and Frankish singing for us to overlook the eternal antithesis be¬
tween the playing north and the singing south.

The contrast between vocal and instrumental styles may well have been
decisive in the fundamental contrast between the melodic and harmonic
concepts. A survey of the music of ancient Greece and the Orient shows
very distinctly that the need for harmony develops with instruments more
easily than with voices. Everywhere, in China, Japan, India, the Middle
East, and Hellas, attempts at chordal formations are bound up with instru¬
ments, whether in accompaniment or in purely instrumental music. Paral¬
lel singing in intervals of various kinds seems to be an exception. Actually,
it confirms the rule, since it has never occurred in the singing of mature,
truly vocal melodies. The delicate rdgas of the Hindus as well as the
maqamat of the Middle East pulse with life in their sensitive and untram¬
meled lines and do not stand harmony any more than a perfect engraving
would stand coloring. And just as, inversely, good painting is incompatible
with self-sufficient drawing, polyphony subordinates the line of melody to
its harmonic needs.
In Europe, which had no self-sufficient singing in the sense of Indian
and Arabian melody, the chances for the development of harmony were
good. Conditions were similar to the situation in the Far East. There, too,
vocal melody was merely a vehicle for conveying words and never became
autonomous; inversely, instrumental music has been to the fore and, just as
in Europe, has resulted in colorful orchestras that have never played in
unison.
There is certainly more than one reason, nevertheless, why the Far East
did not, and Europe did, achieve actual harmony and counterpoint. There
is the essential contrast of their musical genera. The static character of Far
Eastern pentatonicism is definitely antiharmonic, though it favors con-
 Europe and the Road to Major and Minor 309
sonance. Europe, on the contrary, had harmony latent in the triads of its
chains; and the contrasting triads of its dovetailed double chains anticipate
the functional oscillation on which real harmony is based. The final de¬
velopment of major and minor in their balance of statics and dynamics
facilitated this oscillation, indeed made it inevitable.
Even in Europe, singing and harmony are inversely related. The instru¬
mental center of the Continent has brought harmony to the peak of mean¬
ingful complication; the singing south gives it an accessory role and reduces
it to a mininium of simplicity.
This is certainly not the whole truth. The secret forces far behind the
musical scene are still invisible. But it may be more than a coincidence that,
at exactly the same time as Europe attained the third dimension in music
that harmony represents, its painters conquered the third dimension in
space by means of perspecuve.

European polyphony and harmony in their earlier phases I shall not de¬
scribe or discuss. A voluminous monograph on this subject was recendy
published by Dr. Marius Schneider, and any rediscussion would endanger
the balance of this book.^
Instead, we end this section with a short discussion of European rhythm.
The problem is hard. Neither the neumes nor the plain-song notation of
the Middle Ages indicates time values, and even the mensural notation of
the twelfth and thirteenth centuries is by no means beyond doubt. Nor is
folksong rhythmically reliable; the development of language and also the
change in style of ‘official’ music must to a certain degree have influenced
both beat and meter. Still, a few general conclusions may be reached by
other means.
In antiquity, the Continent had no drums (except for the occasional use
of Semitic frame drums in Greece and the Roman Empire). Medieval
drums, imported from the Western Orient, were exclusively struck with
sticks, never with the bare hands. Wherever such is the case, drumming
consists in mere time beating without any leaning to metrical patterns. This
holds true of modern practice, in both Europe and the Far East; but not
even the earliest book in which percussion is written down, Thoinot
Arbeau’s treatise on the dance (Orchesographic, 1588), has the slightest
trace of metrical conception beyond the simple dactyls in which a drummer
likes to subdivide his quarter notes.
^ Marius Schneider, Geschichte der Mehrstimfnig\eit, 3 vols., Berlin, 1934.
310 Europe and the Road to Major and Minor
Meter itself consisted in the contrast of accented and unaccented syllables;
no European language, including later Latin, had the ‘quantitative meter’
based on the contrast of long and short syllables.
The antiquantitative disposition of European music is particularly evi¬
dent when humanist circles of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries make
experiments—and nothing but experiments in metrical writing. The
most outstanding examples, the German Melopoiae secundum naturam et
tempora syllabarum et pedum (Augsburg, 1507), a product of the learned
society around Conrad Celtes, and the French Pseaumes en vers mezvrez,
a posthumous work of Claude Lejeune inspired by Baif s Academie de
Poesie et de Musique, show how artificial, indeed un-European, these ex¬
periments were.
One might object that the Middle Ages expressly established metrical
modi to rule musical rhythm. First described in the treatise Discantus post-
tio vulgaris (c. 1230-40), they appear as six meters: the first, trochee: long-
short; the second, iamb: short-long; the third, dactyl: long-short-short; the
fourth, anapaest: short-short-long. A fifth mode contracted all short values
into lengths, and a sixth mode dissolved all long values into shorts.
No doubt, this means meter. But whoever knows actual poetico-musical
ujgrer in India and Greece must see that the modi are somehow different.
instead of following the all-metrical distinction of two breves equaling one
longa, they behave almost antimetrically: the dactyl takes the form three
plus one plus two beats, and the anapaest, one plus two plus three; the long
syllable is by no means twice as long as the short one, while there are two
different shorts, one being twice as long as the other.
This comphcation was a consequence of a thirteenth-century trend to
impose three-beat rhythms on the polyphonic music of the church. But
triple time collided with the obvious duple time of dactyls and anapaests
and needed special adaptation. Thus the modi were evidently a recipe to
fit the main meters of poetry into an antimetrical principle.
Modern music historians have unduly exaggerated the binding force of
these modi and extended it to practically all secular compositions (which
in the Middle Ages were written down in plain-song notation without time
values), whether the melodies had been composed in the fourteenth cen¬
tury or in the tenth—three hundred years before the modi made their first
appearance, whether in their probable homeland France or in remote Den¬
mark. Without discrimination, the briskest and straightest melodies were
transcribed in a tedious, limping triple time.
This has been a violation of common sense in music and of scientific
 Europe and the Road to Major and Minor 311
method. But it also has been a blind neglect of the only contemporary
source at hand. For we have the unmistakable statement by the outstand¬
ing theorist around 1300, Johannes de Grocheo, that musica mensurata
comprised exclusively the three polyphonic forms—motets, organa, and
hoquets—but neither Gregorian chant nor any monophonic secular music.
Fortunately, a certain reaction against triple-time fanaticism has set in.
But would duple time be correct? There is not one allusion to duple time
or triple time in Grocheo’s long treatise, no reference to beat, no hint of
accents. The only enlightening passage is a discussion as to whether non-
modal music should be described as immeasurable or as not so precisely
measurable, even when it was sung totaliter ad libitum.
Whatever exact translation we give the term mensura, there is hardly a
doubt left that the medieval performer of secular melodies was rhythmically
free. Rhythm was accessory lust as the accompaniment was accessory.
Played for a marching dance, a piece would assume duple time; for a fast-
leaping dance, triple time. Its singer, independent from the dancers’ needs,
was no more interested in any consistent time pattern than the singer of
Gregorian melodies. Such freedom, and nothing else, would account for the
awkward fact that composers wrote all monophonic music in the vague
signs of plain chant, although they possessed in the mensural notation a
perfect means of expressing time in general as well as the length of each
individual note.
The reason why we are so late in understanding essential features of the
past is, once more, our education on the piano and the staff-lined music
sheet. Once more, we have tried to squeeze into bars and staves what was
created without keyboards and writing pens. Thus, the last section of this
book ends as the first section begins: with the statement that music as a
whole, in its overwhelming wealth and endlessness, is inaccessible unless
we free ourselves from the limitations of our own restricted training.
 EPILOGUE

THIS FIRST ATTEMPT at a musical archaeology has unveiled a motley

picture of constancy and variation. In China and India, changes since
antiquity appear to be insignificant. On the other hand, we have found
Japanese scales in Java, Egypt, and Greece; Hellenic theory in Arabian
countries and medieval Europe; Indian conceptions in Egypt and Morocco.
Musical provinces stand out with satisfactory clearness; the Far Eastern
district and the Indian district, overlapping in Southeast Asia; the Western
Orient; Greece. But all of them, including Greece, belong to the vast
Oriental commonwealth in which music was firmly established on a subde
art of melody, on conjunct or disjunct tetrachords and pentachords, on
modal inversions, and on cosmological connotations.
Non-Mediterranean Europe, on the contrary, had no connection with the
cultivated musical styles of the East. Until far into the Middle Ages, it re¬
mained in a primitive musical layer that we can trace to the northern parts
of both Asia and America and, in the south, to Melanesia and Africa.
The European chains of thirds brought our Western music into other
ways than those of the fourth-based music of the East. They barred the
development of actual melody in the Oriental sense and led instead to the
typical Western melody, which has essentially been harmony broken up
and cemented with passing notes. They took the shape of major and minor
and eventually found the way to simultaneous harmony and, as a conse¬
quence, to equal temperament.
The global trend of Western civilization has not spared music. European
and American compositions have been exported wholesale; the Imperial
Academy of Music in Tokyo teaches Beethoven and Chopin; Egyptian
colleges have jazz bands; and even native music, in Turkey, China, Japan,
has recently been influenced by Europe.
But the West, too, is questioning the validity of its latest heritage. The
regular tension and relaxation in harmonic functions have been aban¬
doned; consonance and dissonance are no longer what they were a genera¬
tion ago; and most rules of harmony have been consigned to the rubbish
pile. This revolution implies a renovation of our musical language, which
has been modeled to fit the needs of harmony.
Some composers write solo pieces without any accompaniment, and
 Epilogue 313
Others, tired of the ceaseless one-two-three-four that we take for rhythm,
are developing a new sense of periodicity. Indeed, there is opposition
against the very limitation to twelve semitones and the antimusical rigidity
of our equal temperament; some composers have endeavored to write in
quarter tones and to discuss the possibilities of other microtones.
In doing so, they mostly take Oriental music as a precedent. This is un¬
just; the East has never had such scales and is not responsible for these
attempts any more than Greek tragedy should be held answerable for its
would-be children, the opera of the Florentine Camerata and Richard
Wagner^s Musikdrama.
Yet this acknowledgment is one of many symptoms that the orbit of
Western music has passed beyond the point furthest from Oriental music
and in its cyclic course is again approaching regions we thought we had
left for good. With the illusion of ever-flowing progress broken, our musi¬
cians have begun to realize that once more they themselves are engaged in
the ceaseless battle for melody and rhythm that their ancestors fought for
the rise of music in Asia and Europe, in the East and the West.
 INDEX

Aalst, 123 Archytas, 199, 213

Abert, 198, 199, 239, 241 arghul, argul, 99, 289
Abraham, O., 27, 36, 125, 137, 177, 178 Arion, 267
Abyssinia, cf. Ethiopia Aristides Quintilianus, 199, 203, 207, 220,
accelerando, 106, 191 228,234,240,249,258,265,270
accents, 84, loi, 259 Aristotle, 212, 221, 248, 253, 254, 257
Admiralty Islands, 49 Aristoxcnos, 82, 199, 207, 208, 211, 212,
Aeolian, 226, 233 224, 228,256, 261
affix, 37 Armenia, 87, 96
*agam, 282, 284 Atsabht, 127, 177
agon, 267, 271 arsis, 261, 263
Aiyar, 164, 169 Asaph, 60
ahjhara, 184 Asavari, 177, 179, 180
Al-Farabi, 278, 279, 285 ascent, 32,119, 220, 306-7
Al-Kindi, 278 Assyria, 32, 92, 95, 100, loi, 197
alapa, 191 astrology, cf. cosmology
*Ali al-I§faham, 280 ata, 186
Alkman, 267 Athenaios, 200, 224, 226, 237, 247, 248,
Alleluia, 308 251, 253, 257, 266, 267
Alypios, 200, 216, 231 atisvdrya, 159
Ambros, 101 Australia, 41, 46
Amiot 114 authentic, 65, 217, 225,299
Ammianus, 295 Avicenna, 278
arnsa, 172 Awag, 282
anapaest, 260-1, 262, 264
anapeira, 251 babble songs, 43
Andaman, 30, 48 Babylonia, 77, 85-6, loi, no
aneimene, 222, 248 Bacchius, 258
anga, 186 backfall, 182
Anglo-Saxons, 307 hal{chios, 261
Annam, 50, 151 Bakongo, 38
antiphonic intervals, 257, 258 Bali, 43.48, 128-32,140,152
antiphony, 50, 59, 92-5, loi hamm, 70
antistrophe, 269 Bar Hebraeus, 87
anudatta, 69, 158 bar an g, 129
anudruta, 159 barbat, 277
harritus, 295
Apollo, 57» 270
apotome, 212, 279, 280 Bartok, 296, 297
appoggiatura, 182, 289 Bashkirs, 138
Arabia, 95, 201, 214,277-91 basis, 261
basso ostinato, 33
*arad, 282
Baydtl, 214, 228, 282, 285
Arad bar,, 228
Bedouins, 270, 277
Arbeau, 309
Bellacula, 38
arche, 220, 251
316 Index
Bellcrmann, 199, 206, 230, 231, 262 Censorinus, 230
Bells, 106,109, no, 117,118,138,140,149> Cents, 27-9
150 chain, 39, 297, 300-1
hem, 129 chalam, 222
Berbers, 127 Champa, 135
Berner, 215, 289 Chenaniah, 60
Besseler, 297 Chengalavarayan, 165, 178, 183
Bhairam, 172, 177, 179, 180 ch*i, 138
Bhairavt, 169,177, I79> chiao, 107, 121
Bharata, 157, 164, 167, 176,186-7, 189 cUh, 107, 121
Bhatkande, 178-80 children, 40, 43, 49, 61, 81,137
bifocal melodies, 251 cUin, 108, 122, 149, 182
Bihag, 172, 178, 179 China, 77, 105-52; (cf. also Table of Con¬
Bilahari, 172 tents)
Bilaval, 172, 177, 178, 179, 180,189 chords, 101
biwa, 146 choruses, 145, 150, 256, 266-9, 272
blind musicians, 58, 97, 149 chtodi, 211
Bloch, 80 chroma hemiolion, 211
Boeotian, 227 chroma mala^on, 211, 212
Boethius, 200, 219, 231, 247, 258, 277 chroma syntonon, 212, 213, 282
boomerang, 46 chroma toniazon, 211
Bose, 37 chromatic genus, 206-10, 221
Botocudos, 32 chronos protos, 260, 263, 265
Breloer, 164 Chrysothemis, 230
Brown, 30 chuen, 122
Buchara, 151 Chukchi, 23
Bucher, 19 ciaconna, 33
bugaku, 105, 139 Cicero, 263
Buka, 38 clapper, 46, 150, 153
Bukofzer, 117, 129, 303 claque, 271
Burette, 201 Clemens Alexandrinus, 82, 269
Burgundians, 295 Clements, 164
Buriats, 127 Collangettes, 280
Burma, 132-3,151,152-3 comma, Pythagorean, 28, 279; Didymian,
Burnell, 159, 161, 162 76, 213
BusUq, 282, 286 “comparative musicology,” 29
Buzur\, 286 confinahs, 65, 281
Byzantium, 277 Confucius, 106-7, 108
contests, 267, 268, 270
cadence, 34, 83 Coomaraswamy, 165, 178, 181, 192
Cambodia, 132-3, 135, 151, 152-3 Copts, 96-7
canon, 51, 52 cosmology, 77,109-11,149,174, 25o> 269
cansos, cantigas, 296 counterchain, 301
cantillation, Jewish, 79*^95 East Asiatic, Courant, 150
136, 145; Indian, 158-62; cf. also Gre¬ crescendo, 106
gorian chant Crete, 200, 266
Carolina, 31, 49 aetic, 263
Carra de Vaux, 75 cruit, 307
caturtha, 159 Crusius, 198
Celebes, 31 crying, 80-1
Celtes, Conrad, 310 Cumming, 33, 92,95
 Index 317
cyclic principle, cf. up-and-down prin¬ Dornseiff, 165
ciple drama, 268
cymbals, 59, 60, 61, 93, 97, 139, 150, 153, drone, 50, 63, 98, loi, 145,180,192, 289
163 drum, primitive, 23, 46; West Oriental,
62, 63, 90, 91, 95; East Asiatic, 106, no,
dactyl, 260, 262 128, 136, 138, 146, 148, 149, 150, 152,
dMra, 185 153; Indian, 163, 189-90, 192, 194; Is¬
Daghda, 307 lamic, 288, 289; European, 309
ddira, 291 Dubois, 163
dang, 140 dulcimer, 278
Darwin, 19 dum, 288
David, the king, 59, 82 dung, 140
Davies, 41, 46 Durgd, 178, 179
Day, 126, 164, 175 dvitiya, 159
Dcchevrens, 130, 283 dynamic, 234, 250
decrescendo, 106
Dem, 32 Edison, 26
Dcmicville, 135, 151 education, 254-5
deng, 140 Egypt, 62-3, 72-4, 78,95, 99,100, loi. III,
Densmore, 27 165, 197
dervishes, 286 etdos, 201,216, 247
descent, 41, 43, 52, 119, 205, 220, 306-7 eka, 185,186
Deubner, 210 eJ^bole, 240
D haw at a, 165 e^lysis, 240
Dhaivatt, 127, 177 Elam, 99-100, loi
Dharma, 164, 183 Ellis, 27, 133
dhtma, 185 emmeles, 302
dhruva, 186, 264 enharmonic genus, in Egypt^ 71; in
diatonic gender, 206 and passim Greece, 206-13, 221
didtonon ditoniawn, 213, 279 epitriton, 261
didtonon homalSn, 75, 213, 283 equidistance and equipardtion, 725
didtonon mala\6n, 211, 213 Eratosthenes, 213, 282
didtonon syntonon, 211, 213, 280, 282 Eskimos, 23, 40, 124
didtonon toniaion, 213 Ethiopia, 72, 8r, 86, 97-8, 201, 277-8
diazeuxis, 222 ethos, 248-52, 253, 285-6
Didymos, 76, 213 Etruria, 272-3
diezeugmenon, 222, 223 Euclid, 199, 222
dim, 288 eunuchs, 157
ding, 140 Euripides, 198, 206, 243-4, 249, 269
Dionysios, composer, 198 exodos, 269
Dionysios of Halikarnassos, 260
Dionysius lamblicus, 219 Fabius Quintilianus, 184, 264
Dlpa\a, 174 Farmer, H. G., 278,291
diplasion, 261 Fcer, 169
dipody, 261 Felber, 160, 185
distances, 42, 212 ‘female,’ 114, 115, 116, 118, 123, 130, 137
dithyramb, 266, 267-8 Ferand, 50
divisive principle, 75-7, 122, i66, 169, 280, Fetis, 256
282, 283 Fewkes, 26
dong, 140 fiddle, 128,152, 153, 192,289
Dorian, 209, 216, and passim finalis, 35, 65
318
Index
Gulik, 80,105, 106, 109, 134
fingerholes, 72, 73
Gypsy scale, 176,177, i79s
Fleischer, 301
Flores, 51
flute. West Oriental, 62, 71, 72; Far East¬ Halevy, Yehuda, 112
ern, 106, 108, 120, 128, 134, 136, i43> Hamilton, 268
Hammerich, 301
145, 146. 147. 149. 150. 152; Islamic,
hamsadkvani, 132
270, 289
hanchilot, 83
foreigners, 62,151,193
four-tone melodies, 39, 42 hand of Guido, 141,161
Fox Strangways, 22, 35, 47> 69, 169, i8r, Handschin, 257
Hanuman, 173, 185
190
harmonia, 201, 207, 216, 218, 233, 237?
Franconians, 295
247, 251, 253
frets, 73
harmony of the spheres, iio-ii
Frizzi, 38
harp, West Oriental, 593 ^83 7^>
Fuegians, 23, 37, 4^
80, 93, 99-100, loi; East Asiatic, 15O3
Fuller, 116
Indian, 163; Islamic, 278
Fyzee-Rahamin, 174, lyS* 183
Haug, 69
ga-grama, 169-70 hazdg, 287
healing songs, 22, 253-4, 267, 286
Galilei, 199
hearp, 307
Galpin, 86
Helfritz, 277
gama\at 144? 181-3
gamelan, 152 Hcman, 60
gandh^aj 165, 169-70 hemiolian, 261
Gandhdn, 177 heptad, 64
Herakleides, 200, 218,224, 226
Garstang, 72
Gaudentios, 75,199, 207, 231, 258 Herodotos, 63
Herscher-Clement, 98
Gautier, 29
Herzog, 23, 26, 31, 33, 49
Geiger, 160, 185
kestotes, 238
geishas, 137
heterophony, 48, 146, 147, 256-7, 289
Ghurkas, 151
kichiri\i, 146
gihdr\a, 223
Higdz, 214, 282, 286
Gilman, 26, 27,39
*high,’ 69, 223
gittit, 83
Glaukos, 200 Hiller, E., 270
glissandOf 136, 137, 143, 160, 182 Hindolam, 180
Gombosi, 198, 202, 222, 237, 238 hirajoshi, 125, 217
gong, 119,131,146314S315O3153 Hoeg, 87
Hommel, E., 70
Gopaul, 174
homophonic intervals, 258
graces, 69, 143,144> 1S1-3
grama, 167-70 Hopi, 27, 39
Grande, 198 horn, 77
Hornbostel, on primitive music, 22, 23,
Greenland, cf. Eskimos
Gregorian chant, 84, 90, 92, 182, 298-9, 27, 28, 36, 50; on Egyptian music, 74;
on Far Eastern music, 124, 125, 127,
304, 308
137; on Indian music, 166, 177,178; on
Grenfell, 199
Grochco, 2^, 3II Greek music, 250
Grosset, 157,164 ksiang, 107
Grove, 28, 258 huang chung, 114, ii5»
Guarani, 20 Huart, 287
Guido d’Arezzo, 141, 161, 300, 302 Humbert-Lavergne, 306
 Index 319
Hont, T99 Khamdj, 177, 179
I:iusemif 228, 282, 286 King fang, 117
1‘Iuycn, 50 j(innari, /{innor, 193
1-Iygros ben Levi, 61 Kirchcr, 198
hypate, 69, 222, 223, 236 Kirghizes, 138, 305
hypatoid, 249 kjthara, 214, 219
hypatbn, 223 \itharis, 219
hyperbolaidn, 222 ^itharodos, 271
hypdrchema, 266 f^odoJ^ ngore\, 129
Kolinski, 51
iamb, 261, 263 }{pma juye, 146
lastkn, 227, 228-9, 233 \oto, 58, 120, 125, 143, 144, I45» 3^48
Ibn-SIna, 278, 286, 289 Krohn, 127
J^roumata^ 203
Idelsohn, 79»
broikpalon, 263
incentiva, 20x
\rushta, 159
infix, 37
Kuba, L., 50
infrafix, 37
Kubu, 4X, 50
intervals, 42, 212
Ionian, 227, 233 kudet 286
\uinoi, 125, 217
tqafat, 287
Iraq (conntry), 277 \ung, 107, 12I
Kunst, J., 33, 39, 51. 127, 128, 129, 130,
'Iraq (maqam), 286
isa, ison, 260-1 I3i> 140
Kutcha, 151
Isaacs, 89, 90
Kwei, 112, 149
IffaMn, 214, 228, 282, 286
\yrios phtongos, 257
Istria, 49
^un, 122
Iwato, 125, 217

Lach, 33, 304

Jan (us), 199, 258
Lachmann, 40, 47, 91, 127, 166, 270
jatis, 176
lalihaloc, 98
Java, 26, 48, 127-32, 152
Lamprocles, 226
Jeduthun, 60
Jews, organization, 59-62; style, 59-95? Landino sixth, 297, 303
harmony of spheres, iio-ii; kabbala, Langdon, 59, 80
• 116; in India, 194; psalms, 269 Lasos, 199, 226, 268
launeddas, 99
jhampa, 186
left music, 146
Josephus, 7X
Idmma, 212^ 265, 279, 280
Jubal, 57
Lejeune, 310
Julian the Apostate, 295
Levis, 137, 141
Libya, 95
Kabbala, 116
lichanos, 212, 222, 223, 236
Kachgar, 151
Lied, 35
Kadar, 69
Lifou, 50
\a\kp, 146, 148
lim&, 129, 131
Kamel cl-Kholey, 284
Lindblad, 297
Kanika, 22
Linos, 63
Kapht, X77, 179, 180
Livius, 272
\atharsis, 253
Locrian, 227
Keh, 126,133,150
logogenic, 41, 52, loi, 137, 260, 307
keys, 224-5, 235, 239
Lombardy, 50
\hali, 190
320 Index
mcse, 216 and passim in the Greek swr-
Longinus, 257
tion
low; 69, 223
Meshaqa, 284
lu, 114-20,121,140-1
mesoid, 249
Lucian, 254
Mesomedes, 198, 249
Lu Fu-we, 57, 106, 107, 109, 112, 114
lute, West Oriental, 62, 63, 74, loi; East meson, 222, 223
metahole, 240
Asiatic, 134, i4Ij 1469 ^47> ^535
Indian, 163, 182,194; Islamic, 278, 279, metailophone, 109, 13O3 ^53
meter, primitive, 45-6; Jewish, 88-90;
283,289,290
Chinese, 137; Indian, 160, 184-5; Is¬
Lyall, 278
lamic, 287; European, 309-11
lydion (accordatura), 214, 228
Midas, 271
/ym, 214,219 ^ r
lyre, West Oriental, 59, 60, 61, 02, 03, mirliton, 23
Mixolydian, 226-7 and passim in the
71-2, 80, loi; Indian, 163? Greek, 201,
204, 205, 209-10, 213-14, 217, 218, 229, Greek section
mode, general, 66-8; East Asiatic, 122-5,
234, 237, 247, 254, 257, 268, 269; Ro¬
131-2; Indian, 169-83; Greek, 216-52;
man, 272
Islamic, 280-6
Lysiades, 267
modi (metric), 310
Lysikrates, 267
modulation, 126,240, 241,242,244, 263
Mohana, 132
ma-grama, 65,167-8, 280
Mondon-Vidailhet, 98
Macusi, 40
Monplia, 43, 127, 141, 151,1^3
Madagascar, 49
madkyama, 165, 177 Moni, 51
monochord, 199
Madhyamamft, 132
Monro, 202
Mshur, 249, 282, 285
mordent, 182
Maimonides, 151
Mordwins, 304
maior, 283, 300-11
Morocco, 277, 291
Malahan, 126
Moses, 59
mala\6n^ 213
motor impulse, 36,46,69
Wle; 114, 118,123,130,137
Mountford, 202
Malkps, 172, 179, 180
mousi\i, 262, 263
Malsari, 189
mouth organ, 145, 14^3 i47j ^49j 3^^
Manchuria, 105, 146
mandra, 159 Mueller, 58, 1443 i47i
muezzin, 277
man jura, 132
maqdm, maqamdt, 83, 249, 250, 285-6 munggang, 129
Marcianus Cappella, 272 mure hand, 169, 170-1
music a falsa or ficta, 303
Marsyas, 197, 271
mutation, 300
Mama, 179,180
masanqo, 98
Nahau/and, 228, 282, 283
masora, 86
mathya, 186 Naidu, 183
Ndrada, 57,163,176
mats, 46
nasalization, 23, 78, 97, 1373 183
Maya, 305
Nawd, 282, 283, 286
McPhec, 139
negative melody, 32
megaphone, 23
melogenic, 42, 52, 260 nem, 129,131, 132
nete, 69, 222, 223, 236
melopona, 249
netoid, 249
men sura, 311
neumes, 101, 300
mesauli\a, 203
 Index 321
Newlandsmith, 97 Passamaquoddy, 26
figiimt, 83 pathogenic, 41, 52
Nikomachos, 199, 3io, 217 pathos, 240
nmda, 165 Pausanias, 200
no, 20, 136 pdog, 128-30
nomos, 251, 263, 268, 269-70 pentachord, 43, 64, 124, and passim
notation, of primitive music, 26; West perfect system, 222-38
Oriental, 85-S, loi; East Asiatic, 109, Peri, N., 123, 125, 126,134, 135
140-4; Indian, 161-2, 165-6; Greek, period, 35
203-5; nicdieval, 300 Periplus, X93
nuba, 291 Persia, 59, 193, 277-91
Nubia, 72, 95, 201 pe^rev, 290
petteia, 250
6 te\i, X46 Pherekrates, 173, 232
oboe, West Oriental, 59, 61, 62, 63, 73; Philippe de Vitri, 303
East Asiatic, 146, 150, 153; Indian, 163, Philo, 93, 94, no
18 r; Greek, 270; Islamic, 289; c£. also Phoenicia, 63, 95, 101, 197
pipe phoenix, 114
Olympos, 197, 208, 251, 256 phonograph, 26
one-tone melodies, 31 phorminx, 219
ontogeny, 43 Phrynis, 201, 233
Oost, 183 p^i fa, 134,141
orchestras. West Oriental, loi; East Asi¬ pihi, 134, 220
atic, X29, 146-53; Indian, 192; Roman, Piggott, 120
272; European, 307 Pindar, 198, X99
organum, 308 pipe, West Oriental, yx, 77; East Asiatic,
orthios, 261, 265 106, 141, 149; Greek, 201, 208, 237-8,
ostinato, X48, 256, 289, 290 255, 268, 272; Islamic, 278; c£ also oboe
Ostyaks, 23, 304 pitch, 120, 203, 248-50, 285; cf. also lu
Ousclcy, 174 pitch pipes, X14, xi8, 120,134
overtones, 77 plagal, 65, 2x7, 225, 299
Plato, 2x6, 254, 255, 257, 266
paean, X98, 253, 266, 267 Plutarch, 77, 200, 20x, 207, 208, 210, 2x2,
Paikehei, 151 219, 226, 232, 235, 247, 251, 256, 264
pawn, 241, 261 Pollux, 200, 270
Panan, 47 Polynesia, 3X
panchama, 16$ polyphony, primitive, 48-51; West Ori¬
Panini, 158 ental, 98-100; East Asiatic, X45-8; In¬
panpipes, 109, 118, 306 dian, 180-1; Greek, 256-8; Islamic, 288;
Papuas, 33, 39 European, 308-9
parallelismus membrorum, 92, 96 polyrhythmy, 47,139, 288
parallels, 48-50, 100, 145, 146, 256 Popley, 64, 168, 169, 173,178, x8o
paramesi, 223, 236 portamento, 34,165, 181,182,207; cL also
paranete, 222, 223, 236 gUssando
paraphonic intervals, 258 positive melody, 32, 277
parky pate, 214, 222, 223, 236 pramana, 167
Paribeni, 272 prathama, 159
parodos, 269 pressus, 182
parthenia, 267 program music, 270
partials, 77 pro\eleusmati\6s, 260
passacaglia, 33 Pronomos, 237
322 Index
proslambanSmenos, 222, 223 sa-grdma, 65, 167-8
frosodia\6s, 262 Sadp, 177
psalmody, 31; cL also cantillation sddjodisyamti, 127
Safi al-Din, 75
Pscllos, 269
Ptolemy, 75, 199, 207, 212-14, 226, 247, Sakadas, 263, 270
248, 279, 280, 282, 283 Sakai, 30
punctus divisionis, 185 sedendfo, 130-2
sdman, c£. Veda
Purvi, 179,180
Samarkand, 151
pwe, 153
Samoa, 46, 51
py^non, 206, 210
sangd, 131, 132
pyrric, 260, 262
Semang, 51
Pythagoras, 75, 199, 278
Pythagoras o£ Zakynthos, 237 semicadence, 34, 83
Seneca, 273
sequence, 52
sex, 40, 46; c£. also women
qdnun, 289
shadja, 165
quadrimum, 57
shadow plays, 153
quarter tones, 3i3> Enharmonic
shakuhachi, 120
genus
shamans, 22, 23, 286
quilisma, 183
shang, 107,121
Shankar, 178,192
she,108,149
raga, (83), 172-83, 191, (249, 250)
sheng, 146
Rahawh 286
shi, 138
rallentando, 191
sho, 146
Ramachandran, 78, 168
shokp, 146
Ramamatya, 77
249, 282, 283, 285, 286 Siam, 119,132*3»
Sikah, 285, 305
rattle, 46, 138
Silla, 151
recitative, 136
Simhanadana, 186
Reese, 81, 94, 95^ 3oo
Simon, 161, 182
Rcinach, 198, 199, 201
sistrum, 59, 97
repetition, 43, 48, 5o» 5^
sitdr, 194
responsorial singing, cf. antiphony
sbplion, 269
rhythm, primitive, 45-6; Hebrew, 88-91;
slendro, 130-2
East Asiatic, 136-9; Indian, 184-91; Is¬
solmization, 235-6
lamic, 287-8; European, 309-11
Solomon Archipelago, 38, 124
rice stamping, 139
Somanatha, 181
Richard, 119
Somervel, 139
Riemann, 203, 208, 218, 262
sSne \oto, 146
right music, 146
Sonne, 112, 151, 253
ritsu, 120,122-3,133,219
speech melody, 19, 23, 137
Rome, 272-3, (277)
Spencer, 19-20
rondo, 191
Speyer, 169
Rousseau, 19, 20
sphirot, 116
Roussel, 114
Spitta, 198
rsabha, 165
spondeiakps, 219
ruhato, 136 spondeiasmos, 240
Rucllc, 165
spondeios, 261
tupdka, 186
Sn, 175
tyo, 122-3, 134
 Index 323
srtai, 166-7, 182, 280 tempo, 144, 152, 191, 249, 264
Staccato, 106 Terpander, 200, 217, 230, 254, 256
stampers, 46, 150 tetrachord, 43 and passim
stasimon, 198, 242-3, 249, 269 tetrapody, 262
Thaktas, 254, 267
stereon, 213
Thamyris, 271
Stiles, 237
Theo of Smyrna, 258
Stoll, 181, 182
stones, 106, 107, 109, II7> Therapeuts, 94
thesis, 234, 250, 261, 263
149, 150
Thierfelder, 198
Strabo, 193, 27°
Thompson Indians, 36
Strclnikov, 32
Thorsteinsson, 297
strophe, 269
Thot, 57
Stumpf, t9,26,38, 39, ir9,132
Thrace, 200
succentiva, 201
three-tone melodies, 37-8, 43
Sulphakata, 189
Sumeria, 58-9> ^3, 73, 78, 80, 99 ti . 134
Tibet, 38,138,145,151
suprafix, 37
tiger, 149
Supriya, 169
288
svara, 169
timbrel, 59, 93; cf- also drum
svarita, 69, 158? 260
timbutu, 193
syllabic, loi
symmetry, 40, 50, 52, 160, 2^, 300-1 time, primitive, 45; Hebrew, loi; East
Asiatic, 138; Indian, 184-6; Greek, 263-
symphonic intervals, 257, 258
5; European, 309
syncopation, 47
time beating, 78, 187-8
synctntnenon, 223
time of the day, 132, 174, 179-80, 286
synemtnenos, 230
Timotheos, 173, 201
syntono, 222
tintal, 189
Syntonolydian, 227, 228-9
Tochars, 114
syntonon, 214, 228
Todi, 179
Syria, 63, 95, 9^, 277
tonos, 201, 216
Syrianes, 304
toptail inversion, 67, 124, 169, 237
system a, 201
Torres Straits, 41
systema teleion, 222-38
Torrhebos, 219
*‘transposition scales,” 234
tablature, 143, 204, 206
Trefzgcr, 138, 144, 150
Tacitus, 295
tremolo, 182-3
taiJ{o, 146, 148
triangle, 47
ta\, 288
trill, 182
tala, T39, ^ 85-90, 264
tripody, 261
tambaU<^m, 193
Triptipa, 186, 264
tamburi, 181, 192, 194
tnte, 219, 222, 223, 236
Tamils, 165, 178
trivium, 57
tana, 170
trochee, 261
Tanabe, 120, I47
tropes, 84, 201, 216
taqstm, 289, 290
trough, 149
tarhtb, 289
trftya, 159
tasis, 216 trumpet, 23, 60, 61, 93
Tatars, 138
Tsai yii, 80
Taulipang, 22
tuba (Gregorian), 302
teleute, 220
tumhufu vtna, 19^
temperament, 212, 2I3» 283
 Index
324
wakda, 289
Tungus, 23,151
Wang, 144
Turko-Tatars, 138, 305
wedding songs, 90, 267
Turks, 138, 151, i93> 214, 227, 277-9, 312
Wegelin, 145
Tuwak, 287
Wellesz, 96
tmsdngpar, 296
Wen, 107
twotone melodies, 32, 43
Werner, E., 112, 151, 253
Werner, H., 43
*ud, 279, 281 Wertheimer, 34
Udai Shankar, 178,192
Wessely, 198
uddtta, 69, 158
Westphal, 251
Ugro-Finns, 304
Wilhelm, 57, 106
Uitoto, 37 Winnington-In^am, 202
Ulrici, 201 ^ ^ women, primitive, 40, 50, 51; West Ori¬
up-and-down principle, 72, 77, 109^
ental, 58, 59, 81, 90, 91, 93, 94> 9^^
122, idpj 2.79> 281, 282, 283
East Asiatic, 150, 151, 1531 Indian, 157,
*Ussaq, 228, 282, 286
163, 174
Vaisanen, 24, 40, 124, 304
variation, 191 xylophone, 46, 152, 153
Vedas, 69, 86-7, 158-62, 183
Veddas, 32-4, 40 ya, 150
Vega, 19 Ya\d, 282
Venandus Fortunatus, 295 Yaman, 177,179, 180
ventriloquism, 23, 137 Yamana, 37
vihdgha, 186 Yecuand, 39
vibration, 199 Ye\m, 215
vihfCtQj 108 yodel, 23
Villoteau, 86, 95 yu, 107,121
mitdf 163, i74j "^9^ ^93 yue fu, 113
Vincent, 256
violin, 192
zafan, 98
Virgil, 272
Zalzal, 130, 283
virtuosi, 271, 272
zangula, 286
Vitri, 303
Ztr-efkend, 286
mcerif 296 zither. West Oriental, 59; East Asiatic,
Voguls, 40, 124, 304
108, 120, 122, 125, 143, I44j 145? i4^»
voice mask, 23
148,149,150,153; Indian, 163; Islamic,
Votyaks, 304
289,290
vowels, 165
Zodiac, 286
2o\u-gaJiu, 217, 220
Wagener, 256
Zotenberg, 86
Wagner, Peter, 87, 302
Zuhi, 26, 39
Wagner, Richard, 19, 3^3
Zunz, 80
Wagner, Rudolf, 198