Curt Sachs - The Rise of Music in The Ancient World - East and West-W W Norton & Company (1943)

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THE RISE OF MUSIC
THE ANCIENT WORLD
East and West
CURT SACHS
The
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.
ISDN 0 193 09718 8
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

FOR THE PUBLISHERS BY THE VAIL-BALLOU PRESS
23456/ 89
TO
THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY

CONTENTS
PREFACE 13
Section One THE ORIGINS OF MUSIC

1 MUSIC IN EARLY SOCIETY 19
Theories of the origin ot music The origin disclosed by the study of
early music Music begins 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 melodies
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

1 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

fingerholes Equipartition The lutanist in Nakht’s tomb The di-
8 Contents
visive principle and the seasons “Overtones” The singers' wrinkles
and hands Crying to God and silent prayer
Jewish music Melodic
patterns, tropes, and cantillauon Accents and neumes Jewish pros-
ody and rhythm Women's songs Parallelumus mumbrorum An-
tiphony and responsorial singing Syrian, Armenian, Coptic, and
Ethiopian church music Polypnony 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 ot the single note Music of the universe Cosmological
connotations Harmony of the spheres Music and measure Cor-
rections in music
2 THE LU’S 114
Ling lun's errand The standard tone The lu’s Kabbala Difficul-
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 Saltndro Siamese,
Cambodian, Burmese scales Piens, heptatomcs, and major
4 MELODY AND RHYTHM 136

The No Singing style The Daemonic Chinese opera Speech
melody Rhythm and form
5 NOTATION 140
The Ball 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 Pwe
Section Four INDIA

1. THE VEDIC CHANT 158
2 PICTORIAL AND LITERARY EVIDENCES 163

The reliefs Bharata
3 SCALES 165
Notes Notation Srutis Gramas Murchanas
Contents 9
4 RAG AS 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 Talas The art of drumming Alapa and raga
6 CONCLUSION 193
Credit and debit
Section Five 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 Anstoxemans The Ptolemaeans Greek music sounded ‘Orien-
tal’
5 EARLY MODES 216

Harmoma, the Dorian family Phrygian and Lydian Again, Japa-
nese parallels The pedigree
6 THE PERFECT SYSTEM 222

The Arrays ol keys
system Decline of authentic structure Aeolian
Early Mixolydian 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 Harmoma Raga?
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 Rhythms
preserved Rhythmic patterns Tempo
12 FORM 266
Evolution and stagnation Choral forms Dithyramb Drama Solo
istic music Nomos Contests
13. ROME 272
Section Six THE GREEK HERITAGE IN THE MUSIC OF

ISLAM
The "Arabian” style
1 SCALES AND MODES 279

The seven steps The seventeen steps Inversions and combinations
Three-quarter tones
2 MAQAM 285
Patterns Ethos, therapeutics, cosmological connotations
3 RHYTHM 287
Meters Emancipation from poetry Rhythmic patterns Drumming
Polyrhythm
4 POLYPHONY 289
Heteropliony Drones Ostmato Consonance
5 FORM 290
TaqsTm Pe$rev Nuba
Section Seven EUROPE AND THE ROAD TO MAJOR AND

MINOR
The harmony of brave hearts and
bestial singing The gulf between
northern and southern The puzzle of medieval tonality
music
Chains of thirds The Landim sixth The Gregorian chant un-
Oricntal also The meaning of our staff notation Countcrchains
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 Fnsia non carnal and the
neighing mare 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 1a 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 r6o
plate 6 a Korean Orchestra 161
plate 6 b Burmese Orchestra 161
plate 7 a Indian Dancers, Drummers, and Harpists 192
plate 7 b Indian Dancer and Players with Drums, Transverse Flute, Lute,
and Harp 192
plate B The Skolion of Seikilos 193

PREFACE
V
the pyramids
ISIBLE RELICS of the ancient
deeply imprinted on our imagination
the other remnants of antiquity
world
Our
in East
— the
and West are more
Bible excepted
visions crystallize
emerging from the yellow sands, the phantastic outlines of
— than
around
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'tn and Shi" 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 Preface
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, descnbers

have dealt with primitive, Oriental, and Hellenic music But they have
only covered certain musical aspects of single countries, of China or
India 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), 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 Still 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
consequently 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 AH perception, indeed, already is
difi memone Nous ne percevons, memory We perceive nothing, ac-

pratiquement, que le passe, le pre- tually, but the past, since the true
sent pitr etant Vinâisissuble pto- present is the umeizablc progress
gres du passe rongeant lavenir of the past which gnav t at the
future
henhi bergson, Matiire et Memoire

Section One
THE ORIGINS OF MUSIC

MUSIC IN EARLY SOCIETY
CIENCE has not yet dissipated the fog in which earlier centuries saw
S uncertain shadows of gods or heroes who

had “invented” music Scores of philosophers, economists, and scien-
in a supreme act of creation
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 music 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 rappresentativo e Tecitativo
in 1600 to Richard Wagner, clung to it with remarkable enthusiasm It
would be sterile to repeat and analyze these hundreds of opinions pro

1
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 in England,” m Vierteljahrsschnft fur Musif{wtssen
schaftI (1885), pp 261-349, Carlos Vega, “Teonas del ongen de la miisica," in Sintens II
(1929), pp 179-90
20 The Origins of Music
to our emotion in all its depth 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
Schubert's Du bist die Rufi 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
theories 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
possible 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-
finitely closer to the beginnings of music than Beethoven’s symphonies

and Schubert’s licdcr
However far back we trace mankind, we fail to see the springing up of

music Even the most primitive tribes are musically beyond the 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 arc 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
2
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
arc fully aware that among the races living today there no group of men
15
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 abn 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,
1
Cf Curt Sachi, The History of Musical Instruments, Hew York, 1940, pp 60-2
,

daces, 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 t{o\\ara
f bowed his head over it, and murmured a prayer Another,
scraped iron tube],
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 violently, 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
pagri 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-
8
cerity
Of this kind arc the typical songs that shamans perform when they try
to heal their tribesmen A medicine man’s song from the Taulipang in
North Brazil 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 Hornbostel

3 3 1 1 ^
3—
11 f p
iff
The triplets are 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
4
in a final note which in our example lasts eighteen seconds
• •
A H Fox Srrangways, The Music of HmdosUtn Oxford, 1914, pp 44-5

1
,
4
Transcribed by Erich M
von Hornbostel, "Musik der Makuschl, Tauliping und Yekuani."
in Theodor Koch -Grun berg, Vom Roroima turn Orinoco, vol III, Berlin, 1916,
p 436 Cf
also Cun Sachs, The History of Musical Instruments op ett pp 27 f ,
,
Music in Early Society 23

A primitive singer behaves in 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-
5
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 mashj might be an appropriate term With the Chukchi in North-
eastern Siberia, "the shaman drum for modifying his voice, now
uses his
”
placing it directly before his mouth, now turning it at an oblique angle 8
The earliest trumpets were megaphones cut from hollow branches or large
7
canes, into which the player sang, and in one of the most primitive tribes
of New Guinea the chieftain always held "a trumpet shell before his mouth
” 8
when speiking to his people, so his voice had a very hollow sound The
9
so-called mtthton , 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 arc often
more suggestive and essential than the melodies, cultural and anthropologi-
depend on the way things are done rather than on the things
cal traits
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-
sults from such factors as a certain voice-quality, strong accents on every time-
unit, pulsation, slowand constant time This style prevails among the
Indians of both Americas, including the Eskimo (also in Greenland), and
among Siberian tribes who are related to the Indians, both somatically and
culturally as, eg, the “Palaeo-Asiatic” Chukchci and the Keto (Ostyak) on the
Jenissei River, and among the semi-Tungus Orotchee on the lower Amur River,
10
and in Korean folksongs
8 Erich M
von Hornbostel, "Die Entstehung des Jodelns," in Beneht uber Jen Mwjif-
wissenschafthchen Kongress in Basel 1924, Leipzig, 19Z3, pp 203-10
8
Curt Sachs, The History oj Musical Instruments, op eit p 34
7 Ibid , p 47
8 Ibid , p 48
8 Cun und Werdcn der Musikinstrumcntc, Berlin, 1929, p 106
Sachs, Getst
M. von Hornbostd, "Fucgian Songs," m American Anthropologist, n a vol 38
10 Erich
,
(1936), p 363 Cf also George Herzog, "Musical Styles in North America, in Proceedings 1
The anthropological and historical importance of such statements is
obvious, 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
of theTwenty-third International Congress of Americanists, 1928, pp 455-81 A O Vaisanen,

“Wogulischc und Oscjakuche Melodien/' mSuomalais-U grilatsen Seuran Toimitukjia, LXXIII,
Helsinki, 1937
[
2 ]
COMPARATIVE MUSICOLOGY AND

ITS METHODS
NO SERIOUS RESEARCH work in the field of primitive music was 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 Schweinfurth, 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 car 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 arc 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
« ®
s
The white musician must set aside not only his music but his very self,
with all his tradition and prejudice However mechanically and hence
objectively our car 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
with 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 phonograph with wax cylinders that Thomas A Edison invented
in 1877 A dozen years later, about 1890, another American, Dr Walter
Fewkes, introduced the new invention into musicology by recording se-
Passamaquoddy and
lected songs of the the Zuni Indians Dr Benjamin
Gilman of Harvard University marked the very beginning of scientific
study in primitive music when he published transcriptions of these records 11

As a consequence, archives of phonograph records have been founded
12
in the United States and other countries They provide suggestions, equip-
ment, and instruction to missionaries and anthropological field workers,
they keep and duplicate the recordings and hold them ready for students
These latter, again, are encouraged to transcribe and edit the melodies
recorded
Transcription 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 music, is unable to record distances different from
standardized tones and semitones, or the timbre or the peculiar technique
11 Benjamin Ives Gilman, “Zuni Melodies, in Journal of American Ethnology and Archae-
'
ology I (1891), pp 63—92 Jesse W

Fewkes, “A Contribution to Passamaquoddy Folklore,
in Journal of American Folklore III (1890), pp 257-80 Carl Stumpf, “Phonographierte In-
dianermelodien,’' in Vierteljahnschnft fur Musikwissenschaft VIII (1892), pp 127—44, the
same in Sammelbande fur Vergletchende Musik wlSiensc îa f t I (1922), pp 113—26
1Z George Herzog, "Research
in Primitive and Folk Music in the United States, in Ameri- ’
can Council of Lramed 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,
13
etc Most of these suggestions have become obligatory, notwithstanding
some alterations made by later authors

For instance, we feel today that a senes 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
14
to be accepted
Transcription of exotic melodies by means of Occidental notes and staves
is, however — at least psychologically— misleading It rakes 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
9 9
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 a = 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,
b' 495 v , and c" 528 v ,
the distance from </ to b’ is to the distance from
b’ to c" as—
440 495
Nobody can '
see from this ratio of ratios that the two
18
Otto Abraham und E M von Hornbostel, ‘Vorschlage fur die Transknption cxotischei
Melodien, in Sammelbande der Intcrnationalen \1 unk,gesellschaft XI (1909), pp 1-25
14
Cf B I Gilman, "Hopi Songs," in Journal of American Ethnology and Archaeology V
(190B)
,

distances are as 2 i 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% 534 613 694 809 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 15
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
Major third 400 C Minor seventh 1000 C
Fourth 500 c Major seventh 1100 C
Tntone 600 c Octave 120D 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
la
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
lB 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
translation by Frich M
von Hornbostel, in Sammelbande fur V ergletchende Musihwissen-
tchajt 1 (1922), pp 1-75
18
Indicated, eg, in Grove, Dictionary of Music and Musicians II, p 7185 V "Interval
’
Comparative Musicology and Its Methods 29
smaller number by three, before starting the operation indicated 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.
—
MELODIC STYLES
PRIMITIVE LIFE is almost uniform, despite all differences in tempera-

ment, character, and intelligence, every act, be it practical or artistic, is
understood 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 instructed in this art While carving a boat or a bow,
or while rowing, the Andamanese sings his song quietly to himself until 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 ]oin in the refrain If the piece is
17
successful, it is added to his repertory, if not, it is discarded
The texts themselves arc unpretentious and within the reach of every-
body in the tribe "Poio, the son of Mam Golat, wants to know when my
boat will 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
which it is sung The Andamanese quite unconcernedly sing hunting or
boatbuilding texts al 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
obscure 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
Curt Sachs, World History of the Dance, York, New W W Norton, 1937, p 182, after
A R Brown, The Andaman Islanders, Cambridge, 1922
Melodic Styles 31
of melodies on the natural speech tones of the 18
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 understood 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
arrangements of words that often wrong the rules of grammar
artificial
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 senes 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 fall.ng off or rising
on the last syllable The most fascinating examples of this style are to
1B
be found in Celebes and the western Carolina Islands
Ex 2 CAROLINA islands after 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
18 This latter subject has been discussed in G Herzog, "Speech-Melody and Primitive
Music," mThe Musical Quarterly XX (1934). no 4
18 George Herzog, "Die Musik
der Karolincn-Inscln,” m
Ergebnuse dcr Sudscc-Expeditian
1908— 1 pio, II B, Band 9, II Halbband, Hamburg, 1936, nos ai, 32, 34—6, 70, 73, 83, 85,
86, 89, 93, 94, 96, and p 340
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 have two tones
The two-tone style, 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 case, we may be allowed to speak of a ‘negative melody,’ as in
geometry we speak of a ‘negative curve,’ which in the main runs below

the zero or ‘reference line ’
In a melody in which the first and the last
notes are approximately at the same pitch, the imaginary connecting line
indicates 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 botocudos after Strelm\ov
20
cudos in East Brazil ,
who again and again repeat the poor group,
and among the Pygmoids of the Dcm tribe in Central New Guinea, who per-
20
J D Strclmkov, m
Proceedings of the Congress of Americanists 1928, New York, 1930,
p Bo 1 Unfortunately, the Botocudo songs printed in this paper have not been phonographically
recorded
Melodic Styles 33
two notes 21
sistently repeat a fourth apart ,
an example we mention here
despite its larger interval.
Though rudimentary, these melodicles arc 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 ostvnati, ciaconnas and pas-
sacaglias 22 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 Anti, chief of the God',
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 arc his child, he is your child
21 Jaap Kunst, A Study on Papuan Music, Weltevreden, 1931, Plate II
22 Cf Robert Lach, “Das Konstruktinnsprinzip der Wiederholung in Mustk, Sprache
also
und Literatur," in Academic der W
isxenschaflen in Wien, Phil Hist Klasse, Sitzungsbenchte ,
201-2, Wien, 1925
2 s Charles Gordon Cummmg, The Assyrian and Hebrew Hymns of Praise, New York,
1934 P 73
.
,
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
24
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 some of his notes in order to maintain the rhythmic
flow Falling 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 revolutionary 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 complex unit by varying the final
form a
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
14 George Herzog, "Speech Melody and Primitive Music," loc cit

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 slowlv down an
on the ropes, and, as soon as the contents of the skin had been
incline, pulling
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 (D) This process went on to my knowledge for three hours,
and probably many more 25
Ex 6 poona, india after Fox Strangways
.
II
—1 1
i
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-
28
tivities and processes the harmonious, satisfying, restful norm is sought”,
and the accompanying song as a rule ends on a semicadence 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
26 A H Fox Strangways, The Music of Hmdostan, op ett pp 20-1

20 Curt Sachs, World History of the Dance, op cil pp 168 f
Two-tone melodies 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

Hornbostel
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 arc 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 shall 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 consequently 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-
21
ment and expanded movement 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.’
1T Curt Sichi, ibid

, pp 34-48
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

1) 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 g uitoto Indians
after Bose
3) Second plus fourth Song from Buka, Solomon Archipelago
Ex 10 solomon islands after Frizzi
4) Third plus second Song from East New Guinea
Ei1 11 east new guinea after Manus Schneider
9 (— 1
— :
-A
*r- 3^3 ' ' 3 »
5) Third plus third Bakongo Negroes
Ex 12 BAKONGO NEGROES
8) after Marius Schneider
6)
9) Third plus fourth No example
7) Third plus filling note (infix) Example from North New Guinea.
Ex 13 NEW GUINEA after Marius Schneider
Fourth plus second Song from Buka, Solomon Archipelago
Ex 14 SOLOMON ISLANDS
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 by Curt Sachs
Melodic Styles 39
n) Fourth plus infix Brazilian Yecuana Indians
Ex 17 yecuaNjI Indians after Hornhostel
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 23
Ex 18 papua after Jaap Kunst
A truly extraordinary chain of no less than five consecutive thirds occurs

20
in the music of the Zuni Indians
Ex 19 ZUNI INDIANS after Stumpf

J = 50 nrip- iriR.l A tone h;pfl (T
cgA
J0
The Hopi sometimes sing in chains of fourths
Ex 20 hopi Indians after Stumpf

>=160 >
±
3>
+ +
>
*• A-
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
2 -
Jaap Kunst, A Study on Papuan Music, op at , p 630
29 Carl Stumpf, “Phono^raphu rte Indian* mclwlien, 1
loc
i cit p 123
30 Beniamin Ives Gilman,
'Hopi Soups, loc at
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 co 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
will 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 lull 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, al only, we give the German song the slightly different form in
which we ourselves have known it
Ex 21 macusi Indians after Hornbostcl, firs: line

laterne, laterne, second line
=J
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-called Songs of Fate,
32
arrange their melodies in simple and regular verses
81 Robert Lachmann, Musik der aussereuropaischen Natur- und Kulrurvolker," p 8, id

Ejdsi Bucken, Handbueh der M
usi\u>issenschaft (1929)
82 Cf AO Vaisancn, ‘Wojjulische und Ostjakischc Melodien/' loc at p 3 ,
Melodic Styles 41
Ex. 22 vogues, Siberia after Vauanen
J.KU
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 f\r is logo genic or word-born Men who sing
on two notes actually use the melody as a mere vehicle for words and
keep it in 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 possibilities 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:
alta vox 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 m 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
Straits between Australia and New Guinea

on the islands of Torres 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’ 8

01 E Harold Davies, “ Aboriginal Songs of Central and Southern Australia," in Oceania II
( 193 a). PP 454-67

Describing 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 octave,” 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 ns steps are well graduated
The most impressive stair melodies are sung by North American In-
dians (cf 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
« »
»
Melogenic music represents the wide middle area between the extremes
of logogenic and pathogenic music Here, cantillation of words has suf-

ficiently increased in range to reflect 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, with the greater range, too, the level trend of the logogenic
style yields to the same drift downward that characterizes the pathogenic
style This tendency appears as early as the stage of three-tone melodics,
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 melodies, the level trend
has become a rare exception

On this melogenic level, both the logogenic and the pathogenic styles are
submitted to structural intervals as a second principle of organization

The logogenic melodies of two tones, and even of three tones, discussed
in the first part of this section, were still beyond the notion of rational in-
tervals The singer, starting from an initial note, arbitrarily proceeded to
the following one, much as a walker takes his steps without conforming
to any rule except his ease The space in between is a distance, which,
though measurable in terms of Cents, does not obey any law of nature.
Most melodies exceeding the range of a third, on the contrary, tend to
crystallize in certain intervals, that is, spaces determined by simple propor-
tions of vibration numbers the ratio 2 1, which we call the octave, 3 2,
the fifth, 4 3, the fourth 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 letrachord,
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
phonograph recordings 34
formerly of Vienna, a methodical series of 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
84 Heinz Werner, “Die melodische Erfindung im fruhen KlndesaIte^, ,, in Aâdemte der
Wusenschaften, Vienna, Philol -His tome he Klasse, Sitzungsbenchtc CLXXXII (1917), no 4

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 undeveloped in two- and
three-tone cantillation 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-
35
ing the ground, or slapping his abdomen, chest, legs or buttocks
flB
CF Curr Sachs, World History of the Dance, op cil p 25, and The History of Musical
Instruments op cit p 26
6 , , ,

In order to intensify the effect, primitive singers reached for extrabodily
devices — rattles, clappers, stamping tubes, and drums — and therewith created
instrumental music
There can be no doubt rhythmic intoxication is the natural

that a species of
consequence of this many cases have been experienced
vigorous clashing, and
by the writer where an unwillingness to sing on the part of the native has been
overcome by beating together a couple of boomerangs In every case it acts as a
stimulant to greater enthusiasm 30
Man does 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 alternation of accented and unaccented beats He organizes the mo-
notonous into a sequence of periods and would even
unite every two of these periods to form a higher unit tich^-a toc\-a
Tick-a tock-a is more than just strong- weak/strong-weak It is also light-
weak/dark-weak, or bnght-weak/dull-weak Two new elements have

entered rhythmic organization timbre and pitch
Instruments meet end Stamping tubes appear in pairs of different
this
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
both slicks, the second with only one — a trochaic pattern ” 3T
The resulting rhythmic pattern is in the first place due to the player’s
personal motor impulse under the special conditions of mood and ability,
age and sex, race and profession But the shape and playing position of
the instrument are important factors, too, the player acts in a different way
according as his drum is big or small, vertical or horizontal, suspended or
in hobby-horse position, or as from a drum he passes to a xylophone or any
other instrument All of them deflect the personal motor impulse into a
special technique that determines the realization of musical ideas Musicians
know this principle from modern Occidental practice an organist im-
provises in another style than a flutist or a violinist, every instrument creates
its own style 38
« 0
*
80 E
Harold Davies, "Aboriginal Songs of Central and Southern Australia," loc at p 459
87
Curt Sachs, World History of the Dance, op at p 38
flB
Cf Curt Sachs Prolegomena zu einer Gcschichte dcr InstrumentalITlusik, ,, Zcitschnft m
fur Vcrgleichcndc M tin f^wtsiemc haft I (1933), pp 55 “®* T Ae Hirfory of Musical Instruments
op at , pp 26, 37, 52
,,
Rhythm and Instrumental Music 47

Vocal and instrumental styles never 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
39
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 mighL 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
Drum l
n c s
:"4 j 2
4- 1
lriangvle
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 40
Apparent syncopation (though not the example just de.cnbed) is often
41
explained by the fact that some peoples understand tîe 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 suck, the
lifting phase is practically insignificant and the sound appears on what we
call the down beat
80
Robert Lachmann, Zur aussereuropaischen Mehrstimmigkeit,” in Kongresibcrtcht dcr
Bccthoven-Zcntenarfeier, Wien, 1927, p 324
40 A H Fox Strangways, The
Music 0/ Hindostan, op cit p 34
41 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 realizes 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 42 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 arc,

they differ in one point while the uppei 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
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
42 Curt Sachs, Ijrs Instruments de Musique dc Madagascar Paris, 1938, p 53

48 George Herzog, Die Musik der Karohnen-Inseln,' loc cit p 274
northern end of the Adriatic Sea, 44 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, 45 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 /', 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 LtFOU, LOYALTY ISLANDS

transcribed by Curt Sachs
* 1 + \ 18 *
against the f Irregular drones arc 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 senation 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,
alternaied, either to escape from exhaustion or to stress the dualism in
some pantomime —combat, wooing, the struggle of the light and the dark
46
moon
Whenever continual antiphony without the regulating force of dance
movements becomes too wearisome, impatient singers start repeating be-
44 Ludwig
Kuba "Einiges uber das lstro-dalmatinische Lied, in 7/7 Kongress der Inter-
1
naiwndlrn Musi^gesellschajt J909 Bencht pp 271-6 Cf aho Frnst Th Ferand, 'The 'Howl-
ing in beconils' of the Lombards, in The Musical Quarterly XXV (1939),
PP 313-24
45 Cf Erich
M von Hornbostcl, 'Ucber die Musik tier Kubu in B Hagen, Die Orang-
Kuhu auf Sumatra Frankfurt aM 1908, no 25, and in Sammelbandc fur Verglcichende
Must^wusenschaft f (1922), p 374
<fl
Curt iachs World History of the Dance, op cit pp 155 ff Nguyen Van Huyen, Lts
,
Chants al/ernes des garfons el des flies en Annam, 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 after Kohru\t
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 after faap Kunst

[ 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 logogentc or 'word-born ’
Its melodics 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, melogentc, 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 divergent, 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 of 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 civilizaLion, 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,
depended on
prone
single persons,
to personalize evolutions that
and more
of creation than in slow and simple developments, has ascribed
the art of music to gods and deified mortals The

interested in scenic acts
Bible makes Adah’s son

never
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, lie
1
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 quadnvium with arithmetic, geometry,
and astronomy, and the tnvium of grammar, rhetoric, and cbalectic
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 civilization,”
not of primitive life They require thought beyond the nearest needs of
1 Lu Pu-we, Shi Ch'un Ti'iu (3rd century k), cd Richard Wilhelm, p 66
58 The Western Orient
existence, and the aptitude for subsuming 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 style and in any case naive The upper class, on the contrary,
which paid for its musical entertainments, fostered the gradual formation of
a class of well-trained professional singers and players able to provide both
amusement and splendor and anxious to outdo their competitors Still
higher was the standing of musicians attached to the temples where they
were in contact with priests trained in mathematics, astronomy, and philoso-
phy, who assisted them in establishing a sound theoretical basis of
music
The typical 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
musicians who read notation and specialized in spiritual music The second
class,formed by players of secular music who were uneducated and, the
koto players excepted, ignorant of notation, was on the social level of the
merchants The third class embraced the blind singers for folk music
Women were, as a rule, confined to the lowest style of music, and this was
true also for girls of society who performed music as a part of their educa-
tion The better classes of musicians insisted on their privilege of playing
music ofa higher style, certain pieces were the property of a certain guild
and must not be played by other people The guild masters were entitled to
confer honors on the members —on koto players, for instance, the curious
right of tuning their first string 2
an octave lower
» *
9
The oldest records of organized and systematized music are Sumerian and
Egyptian Sumerian texts written in the third millennium b c frequently
speak of ecclesiastic music, in the great temple of Ningirsu at Lagash, a
special officer was responsible for the choir, and another for the training of
1
Mueller, "Einige NoDzen uber die japamsche Musik, '
in Mitthalungen drr Deutschen
Gcscllschafi fur die Natur- und Voider \unde Ostasicns I (1B76), Heft 6, pp 13, 14
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 official
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 Enlil in Nippur, of Innini at
1
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 oE David and Solomon (c 1000 bc.),
Foreign instruments appeared all of a sudden, |ust as they had appeared

in Egypt after 1500 a c harps, zithers, oboes, cymbals, sistra, and Pharaoh’s
daughter, whom King Solomon took to wife, is, in the Talmudic tractate
Shabbat 56 b, 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 Danus 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 re-
1 Stephen Langdon, Babylonian Liturgies, Paris, 1913, pp au, xix

,

turned to the Holy Land, had with them some seven thousand servants and
some two hundred “singing men and singing women," doubtless attached
4
to the households 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 instruments of music, harps and lyres and cymbals of both forms So
the Levites appointed Heman the son of Joel, and of his brethren, Asaph
the son 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
0
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 before the ark of the Lord, the God of Israel Asaph the chief”
with cymbals, nine Levites with lyres and harps, and two priests with
0
trumpets
This 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 Jeduthun, 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
” 7
“under the hands of their fathers
When at last King Solomon 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, stood at the east of the altar, and with them a hundred and
twenty priests sounding with trumpets — it when the
came even to pass,
trumpeters and singers were as make one sound to be heard in

one, to
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 good, 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
8
the house of God.”
» »
•
* 2oo Ezra 2 65, 245 Neh 7 67
B
I Chron 15 16-22
6 Ibid 1 6 4-6
7 Ibid , 25
8 II Chron 5 12-14
Daily temple music at the beginning of the Common Era is well described
in the Talmudian tractate Tamtd 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 Lastly 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 iheir hands They blew a prolonged,
a quavering, and a prolonged blast Then they came and stood by Ren 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 Den 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
firstday 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 Lhat shall be all SabbaLh 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” B
He had a great name as a brilliant virtuoso, but his
memory “was kept in dishonor” because he would not teach his special
10
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 11
• Talmudian tractate Shekalim 5 1

10 Tractate Yoma 3 11
11 Tractate Arak^hm 1 3
"

The First Temple, which was destroyed in 586 b c ,
had no oboes in its
service
l •
•
Like 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 bc, 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
book Historians 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
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 cither 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
" 12
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
12 Herodotus, Huionarum Liber II, ch 79

[
2 ]
MUSICAL SYSTEMS IN GENERAL
NO DIRECT SOURCE betrays the nature of Hebrew melodies, nor

do we know how the temple singers of Egypt and Babylonia regulated
their chants But one thing is certain wherever a higher class of musicians
was distinguished from a lower class, wherever the official standard of an

educational center was respected, there must have been law and logic,
measure and reckoning Heman, Asaph, Jeduthun, and their brethren
in Mesopotamia 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

All such systems are based on one presystematic trend to make, as Her-
bert 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
melodic 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
teirachord (from Greek tetra "four”), that is, a melodic organism spanning
a fourth, usually with one or two filling notes of minor importance Wider
melodies with the fourth as regulating force crystallize in two such tetra-
chords linked together, or 'conjunct,' so that the note of contact belongs

to either retrachord 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 the 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 i Egyptian players with double oboe, lute, and harp Mural from the tomb of
Nak.ht near Thebes, 15th century bc After Davie*
2000-1800
Dynasty,
Twelfth
the
of
tomb
from Blackman
Relief
After
singer
bc
and
harpist
flutist
Egyptian
zb
Plvte
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-called 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, confinahs 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 DEFGABCD
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 'plagal' 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 versatility 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 heptatomc 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-
tions 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
• e
•
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 seem-
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
CiD% Ft Gt'At C# £>}' •
v /
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
Q Dt Fj B
In a similar way, the simple case of the diatonic or heptatome 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) arc 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 —a
cycle circle with an arrow on it —denotes the
direction in which the circle devolves, clockwise or counterclockwise a
mode is cither ascending or descending, at least in its prevalent trend The
clock 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 lone 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 TTT T s s T
Phrygian T T T s s TT
Lydian TTT s T T s
Mixolydian T T s T T s T
In other words, the various modes of a genus appear as a senes 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 loptail inversions
It is almost needless to emphasize that such shifting and inverting is a

theoretical expedient rather than of the essence of mode Mode did not
come from any dead abstraction but from living 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
is above or below the 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 with the semitone in the middle, as in medieval music In this
book, we consistently eliminate the medieval misnomers, but for safety’s
sake add che 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-Latin 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 Mixolychan is a Si mode
If the melody does not reach the range of an octave, analysis is often
more 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
Scm.es, 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
,

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
” 13
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 anuddtta, and raise it
14
for the higher note svanta
The association of the spjcial categories "high” and "low” with qualities
of sound has nevertheless not been consistent

The West calls sounds with more vibrations per secon 1 higher sopranos
are “high” voices and bases, “low” voices, and the vowel i is "higher” than «
The ancient Greeks did )usl 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, hagbahah, from
gavoah "high”, in Hebrew script, a dot below a consonant means that it is
followed by the vowel 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 /, and above it, to indicate that it is followed by

a, they call the / group of vowels haf£ or "sinking,” and a man’s voice
A H Fox Strangways, op ett p 32
18
14 Martin Haug, “Ueber das Wescn
und den Wcrih dcs wedischen Acccnli,” in Abhand-
lungcn der ^ Bayrischcn Aâdcmie der Wissenschaften (1873), P 20
1B
“high," while a woman's voice is low Accordingly, they ‘jump up’ to a
”
lower note and call the lowest lute string bamm, 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
lfc
Ebcrhard Hommcl, Vntersuchungen zur hebraischen Lautlchrc, Leipzig, 1917, p 47
-
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 (PI a,
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-
18
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 a d ,

defines the Egyptian
harp as an organon trigonon cnarmdmon 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 disj unct 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,
10 Cf the illustrations in Curl Sachs, Die Munînstrumente des alien Aegyptem Berlin,
igai, Figs 73, 76, log, ioga, ua
about twelve or thirteen hundred years later than harps first appeared on
reliefs, 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 D, 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,
S a
rising and falling, as The cyclic principle might be an appropriate
short name for it, or, less formally, the up-and-down principle
• 0
0
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 17
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
18
B c )
one, though cut without much care, 95 cm long, has fingerholes
1T Op cit j pp 1 B 1 f
18 The Burial Customs London, 1907, pp
J Garstanjf, of Ancient Egypt, 154 ff
— —
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 n, 11 10, 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 insufficient 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
l*
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 cone generation that
nghdy 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 V/ estern antiquity were loops tied
about the fingerboard at the given points

18 In the
museums at Leyden, the oboes nos 475 and 477 12 9 B 7 6 twelfths, Torino —
no B snd Berlin no 20667 12 11 10 9 ® twelfths, Torino no 12 14 12 11 — 10987
fourteenths, Torino no 11 —
11 10 9 S 1 6 elevenths
Stopped instruments first reached Egypt in the fifteenth century b c.
on their way from Asia — together with oboes They belonged in the family
of long 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 bc), of a lutanist
who plays aWest 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 Hornbostcl endeavored to measure the
20
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, Hornbostel’s 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
lutehad 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 docs 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
21
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
10 E Mvon Hornbostel, Musikalische Tonsysteme,” in H

Geiger und Karl Schccl,
Handburh der Phynt{ VI II, Berlin, 1927, p 435
81 For number 40, cf Wilhelm Heinrich Roschcr, "Die Zahl 40 1m Glaubcn, Brauch
the
und Schnfmim der Scmiten.’ in Abhandlungcn der philologisch-historuchen Kiasse der Kgl
Sdchnschen Academic der Wtuensehaften XXVII (1909), pp 91—138
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 i 2, the fifth i 3,
the fourth 3 4 Pythagoras, according to Gaudentios’ Isagogc, divided

his lânSn or monochord into twelve parts In the second century a d the ,
Greco-Egyptian Ptolemy followed him, when he recommended his tetra-
chord diatoni\on homalSn, 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 22 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 |ust 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
f
three principal intervals, they logically went a step urther 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 dc Vaux, Le trasti da rapports musicaux par Safi ed-Din Pans, lBgi, pp 30B-17
by deducting a fourth from a fifth, that is, C-D is C—G minus D—G This
isdone by dividing the ratio of the 3 2, fifth, 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 ratios 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 therefore invariably 9 8
is
In the cycle of fifths and fourths, consequently, the major third follows
not 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
also a difference in size between the two semitones of the two systems, the
semitone being the difference between 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
The equivalents in Cents for the intervals derived from the two systems
are
One fierfect fifth 702

One perfect fourth 498
Cyclic 408
Two major thirds
{ Divisive 386
Cyclic 3 l6
Two minor thirds
{ Divisive 294
Cyclic and Divisive 204
Two whole tones
{ Divisive l82
Divisive 1 12
Two semitones
{ Cyclic 90
—

A remarkable and somewhat 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 of
which Plutarch speaks about ioo a d — and in China Both civilizations
connaturalized the intervals between the four seasons of the year and the
simplest musical intervals The connotation (starting, sav, 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 Lhe 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 (r i), octave (1 2), 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 on ‘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
* fl
Plutarch, "De anim procr in Timaeus 31
,

in arranging the frets of his vlna 24 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 exactly 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 sincers 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-
24
ing a few stereotype gestures, they turn the palm upward or the thumb
upward, 2"
bend the thumb against the forefinger 27 or turn the palm down-
28
ward (Pi 2 b, p 65)
Exactly the same thing has been done in India Hindu singers silently
beat time by lifting the forearm, turning the palm either up or dow n, and
stretching or doubling up the fingers
Audible time beating was known in Egypt as well the tomb of Ame-
nemhet at Thebes (soon ic) depicts a conductor, standing be-
after igoo
fore and facing the performers, pounding time with his right heel and
snapping both his thumbs and forefingers 28
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
24 N S Ramachandran, The Evolution of the Theory of Music in the Vijayanagara Em-
pire, '
in Dr S Knshnaswami Aiyangar Commemoration Volume (1936), pp 396 f
26Cf the illustrations in Curt Sachs, Die Mustînstrumente des alien Aegyptens, op ett
?ig 86 from the 5 rh Dynasty
39 Fig 1 10 from
the 5th Dynasty, and Fig 109 from the 12th Dynasty
,T Fig logo from
the 5th Dynasty
BB Fig 76
,B Fig 9 from the iBth Dynasty
and Sumcna 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 melodies
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 bc ) 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 C'hurch 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 sink-
ingly similar 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
kindly drawn my attention to the fact that the synagogue in Bagdad had,
in the thirteenth century, instrumental music on the Middle Days of
30
Pa ssover 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 are called kje shir,
” 31
the "tools of singing,” or Isharim, "for the singers
In ancient Egypt, 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-
12
tioned without instruments, and, leaving our Western area for an instant,
we might think of the Chinese Tsai Yu’s words “The ancients did not
sing without accompanying the words on the strings, nor played a stringed
” 33
instrument without singing
It is hard to say why such an obligatory connection existed and why it
was discontinued bv 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 ihey 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 docs in the original actually pant At best, the verb zS aq
”
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
80 Leopold Zunz, Dir Ritus Berlin, 1859, p 57
81 Ps 117,1 Chron 16 42, II Chron 9 11, and 1 Kings 1013
82 Stephen Langdon, Babylonian Liturgies, op clt Introduction ,
88 R H van Guhk, The Lore of the Chinese Lute, Tokyo 1940, p 66

,

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 ajj ,
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
34
the highest point of ecstasy and are completely exhausted
The drastic and anthropomorphic idea that God’s 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, either
he is talking, or he is pursuing, or he is in a journey, or peradventure he
” 36
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 fSanctus),
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
38
are preferred
Nevertheless it is true that Yemenite as well as Persian Jews sharpen
the notes the more their frenzy increases 37
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 (iqi 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 T almud Idelsohn’s tests have yielded
469, 533, and 566 vibrations for these three notes, of which the middle one,
(? 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 in the Middle Ages, New York, 1940, pp 66, 94
80 Kings ifl 27
I
88 A Z Idelsohn, Hebraisch-Onentalucher Melodienschatz I, Leipzig, 1914, p 17
,T Ibid III,
p 37
A melody, reaching or exceeding 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 solemn; Clemens Alexandrinus, the Church Father, who

lived in Palestine from 202 on, quotes Aristoxcnos as having said that
aB
King David’s psalms were similar to the Dorian harmoma
Ex 30 Babylonian jews after Idehohn
Wy-jo-iha a- do- nny
« •
•
The Talmud scorns those who read the Scripture without melody and
study the words without singing Service, based on reading the Holy
Books, was musical throughout, alternating between the cantor’s chant
and the tunes of the congregation In both forms it was what we call
cantillation, though not in the stagnant monotone of a Christian lesson,
but rather in the noble fluency of Gregorian melodies Keeping a middle

line between boring recitation and independent melogenic tunes, it was
the ideal means of conveying the divine word in all its shades, from the
—
dry enumeration of pedigrees “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 recitativo 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 arc cantillation just as much as the epic parts of the Scrip-
tures
Ex 31 Persian jews after Idclsohn
How did all these melodies originate ?
All Jewish melodics arc in the proper sense of the word composed out of
ready-made melodicles
88 Clemens Alexandnmis, Stromata 6 II
, —

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 Idelsohn
¥ Vv%y-yd- ibe a-do-nay

f tetfC /f e lj Mrr
ba-ytmha hu
lt r icLjl
et yis-ra-el
There arc 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 ngtnot, 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
JB
very probably indicated the appropriate melody
However, no ready-made melody invited to compose some
the poet
poem fitting it in meter and length — as indicated modern hymnbooks

in
for the simple reason that the psalms were different in Lngth and had no
equal meter “Melody," in the Orient, has always meant one of those
flexible patterns that the Arabs finally classified as maqamdi and the Hindu
as ragas, 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 two or more notes each and altogether some twenty in
motifs, of
number, change from word to word, not from line to line In the first line
Curt Sachs, The History of Musical Instruments, op cit pp 124—7

of the Bible, for example —Breshit in the beginning bard created Elohim
God it hashamaytm the heaven writ haares and the earth —each of the
seven words has its own motif (although writ shares its motif with the
corresponding accusative prefix it, and hashamaytm repeats the motif of
breshit ) 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 |oined 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 all folksongs, in the art of the German Meisternnger,
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 cantillation 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 tvlr ‘broken’, Ichol-ztqni,

'for all the elders,' on palta ‘stretcher’, Israel, on tarcha ‘burden’ or tipcha
’
'hand’s breadth
,

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 ballt
• «
•
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 Masorctic
The melodic symbols of the Babylonian Jews weie the initials of those
names under which the tropes were known the letter taw denoted the
trope tvlr, the letter yod stood for the ‘staying’ yctiv, the letter zain for
the ‘raising’ zaqaj and so on Thev 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
ku ku lu lu
etc
‘

The texts ended with the solemn formula “Secret The initiated may show
”
it to the initiated
In 1923 I 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
40
I resumed
41
the question from a new angle in 1939, dropping the assumption of single
notes at definite pitches and correlating the Babylonian script with musical
group notations of Ethiopia and India
Villoteau, the excellent musicologist in the French scientific expedition
that explored Egypt during the Napoleonic conquest (1798-1801), had
learned from Ethiopian priests in Cairo that Abyssinian church singers
used a secret —again secret — notation of syllables written above the sacred
I
verses The forty-seven syllables that he was taught were either single, like
he, le, ma, or else double, like lama or raha, or even contracted, like hal,
just as in the Babylonian script
Some decades later, the French Orientalist, Hermann Zotenberg, 42

found no less than 168 symbols of the same kind in a liturgical book in
the Bihliotheque Nationale, of which he published a complete list in his
catalogue of Ethiopian manuscripts Unfortunately their meaning js un-

known, our knowledge does not go beyond the forty-seven definitions that
Villoteau 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 syllable re, to give a few examples, indicates a descending semitone,
\a, an ascending whole tone, wa, a whole tone up with a trill on the
higher note, wa, a minor third with an infix, we, a fourth up, either in a
leap or with infixes, zeze, the same, a fifth up, re, a final cadence
This is obviously the principle of the Judeo-Babyloman accents the
syllables (Abyssinian has no single letters) mean groups of notes, melod-
lcles, 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
fall —
exaedy like rvia in the recitation of the Prophets by Babylonian
cantors
Eastward from Babylonia, in South India, chanters of the Veda use a
*B Francu W Galpin, The Music of the Sumerians, Cambridge, 1937, pp 38—50, 99-104
41 Cun Sachs, The Mystery of the Babylonian Notation, in The Musical Quarterly XXVII
'
0940
,s
. PP 62-9
Hermann Zotenberg, Catalogue des Manuscnts Ethiopians de la Bibhothique Nationale,
Paru, 1877, p 76
similar script syllables, like \a, \i, \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
43
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 rhe
Jewish accents indicate commas, colons, periods — all these facts and many
others point to a common loot of certain linguistic and musical phenomena.
An illuminating, though late, testimony comes from a Judeo-Synan
authority, Bar Hebraeus, who lived in the thirteenth century ajd 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 fiom the master’s
44
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
(a) correct vocalization and ( b ) correct intonauon 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
40 Cf Peter Wagner. Neumenkundc, 2nd ed Leipzig, 1912, Cars ten Hocg, La1 Notation
,
ecphontttquc Copcnhague, 1935

44 Car? ten Hoeg, La Notation ecphonAttquc, op at., p 142.
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 still 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 an unmistakable text
in the interest of
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,
meins a narrow, creeping melisma in Ashkenazic countries, while a pashta

is answered by a step downward in the Babylonian, and a step upward in
the Sephardic reading of the Prophets
Ex 34 JEWISH ACCENTS
P
Munach
j
^
i
fjsH 1
f
mg — "11
Pashla
* l
âbyiaman
~T 1 J
1
Sephardic
T\
Sepfa^faroccan Asbltenadic
not yet in a position to explain these discrepancies
* «
•
In Virgil's Aeneid, the hero says
ln-jan / dum Re- / gi-na ju- / bes re-no- / va-re do- / lo-rem
A translation, in poor English but faithful to the original syllables and

their metrical characters, would be
Un-spcak- / able, my / La-dy, you / bid to re- / mem-ber af- / fhc-tion

where the natural meter of unspeakable is being violated, as the meter of
tnfandum 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 differs 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-
" ls
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
1
verses weie 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-m min-nc-shi-qot pi-hu
ki-to-vtm do-de-ha miy-ya-ym
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-
” 48
mined by the accented syllable
46 Elcanon Isaacs, “The Metrical Basis of Hebrew Poetry/ 1
in The American Journal oj

Semitic Language! XXXV (1918), pp 29 f
40 Ibid
, p 30
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
poetry —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 "it si-chon

h)-esh
/
jdz' - ah / mc-chcsh-bon
/
le-ha-vah mi-qir-jal
In Greek terminology, each verse consists of an iambic dipody and an

It t
anapaestic tnpody, the only difference is that the Greeks would not allow
a long syllabic like "ir 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
1000 bc was less unrestrained than in the later liturgy Two reasons seem
to confirm this conclusion Firstly, almost all musical episodes up to the
time of the Temple describe choral singing with group dancing and drum
beating wedding songs of modern Yemenite Jews show how the ac-
the
companiment of dancing men and drumming women forces free rhythm

into regular two quarter beats 47 And secondly, this kind of singing was
47 A Z Idclsohn op nt p 42
to a great extent women’s musjc, and in a]] times and countries women
have preferred neat and lucid form (see pp 40-41)
® »
*
Jewish women’s songs in archaic communities have recently been described

18
by Robert Lachmann The essential fact is that such a species of music
exists and is strictly 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 hinds 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 — 1 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
48 Robert Lachmano, )eunsh Cantillation and Song m the Isle of Djerba, Jerusalem, 1940,
PP 67 -82 and passim
Parallel ismus membrorum is the philological term to express the leading
principle in the structure of Hebrew poems the half-verse is answered by

another 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, all ye inhabitants of the land
Hath this been in your days,

Or in the days of your fathers?
Tell your children of it,
And let your children tell their children
Or the earliest 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 Lamcch 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-
sponsonal singing
Antiphony on a gigantic scale is roughly outlined in the Talmudian
tractate Sotah, which refers to an episode of the Book of Joshua
4® Charles (>ordon Cumming, The Assyrian and Hebrew Hymns of Praise, New York,
1934. P 97
When Jordan and came unto Mount Gerizim and unto
Israel crossed the
Mount Ebal Samaria

in 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 were on this side and on that
Israel
and began with the blessing . and both these and these answered,
t0
“Amen!"
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 Life 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
’’ B1
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
and David his ten thousands ” 52
’
said ‘Saul hath slain his thousands,

"
The verb ‘andh 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 o£ David And the other company of
chem that gave thanks went to meet chem, and they stood still in the gate of
Sotah 7 5
Bl Philo, De Vita Moym I ^ iflo
13
I Sam iB 7
-

the guard So stood the two companies of them that gave thanks in the house of
511
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 responsonal 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-
S4
gregational supper of the Therapeutic sect
They allup together and

stand two choruses are formed the one
of men and women, and for each chorus there is a leader
the other of 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 all 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 shrill voices of the women mingling with the deep-toned voices
13
of the men
Responsonal anliphony is still used in all Jewish liturgies The Yemenites,

particularly, sing the Hallel in the form (1) 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 bv 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 heat the rhythm, on Sabbaths,

in case they are not available or,
not admissible, the onlookers clap their hands Never are these antiphonies
11 Neh 12 27-4^ (abbreviated)

i4 Philn, Dr Vita
-B Quoted from
contem plattva n
f B3
Gustave Reese, Music in the Middle Ages, op cit p 60
,

sung without one or two couples of 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 Cumming, 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, Villotcau, saw them
sing and dance in two fronts of four, sis, 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,
“T
or else the second chorus |ointng 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
I Leader
H. Chorus
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 responsonally, as do "the Egyptians, Libyans, 1 hebans, Pales-
BB
tinians, Arabians, Phoenicians, Syrians, the dwellers by the Euphrates."
This proves that antiphonal and rcsponsorial singing between Libya and
Mesopotamia was no less than universal.
* e
88 Charles Gordon Cumming, The Assyrian and Hebrew Hymns of Praise, op cit pp
72-82, 99
8T Villotcau, "Dc l’6ut acmcl dc I’art musical cn Egyptc,” m Description de L’Egypte, Etat
moderne, Pans, 1826, XIV, 254-9
88 Cf Gustave Rccsc, op cit,
p 63
,

The Christian liturgy of Syria, nearest to the Jewish liturgy of Palestine,
proves that antiphony is by no means the only trait that Israel had in
common with the rest of the Eastern world between Libya and Mesopo-
tamia
Although none of its melodies can actually be traced back to antiquity,
unanimous in assuming that they contain original elements
scholars are
Ex 36 SYRIAN CHRISTIANS after Idelsohn
There is, indeed, the same preference given to tetrachordal structure, the
same style of cantillation, and even certain standard melodies closely re-
lated 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, parallelismus membrorum, and elaborate antiphony in its
BB
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-
80
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 Copts, 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 Idelsohn, "Drr Kirchengesang der Jakobiten,” in Archw fur Mustk.wissenschafl IV

( 9 aa ), PP 364-89 Egon Wcllcsz, and other sources cf Gustave Reese, Music in the Middle
Ages, op cu ,
p 43 a
*“ Cf the bibliography in Guruve Reese, op at p 434
u
EQ
— —

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

— ^rr r+r
’V
•SK
—--u- mi 1—2 i — r * J- P-T-
But whoever attends Coptic — as the author many times did

services 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 a.d Syrian monks
came to that land as missionaries
Ex 38 abyssinians after Herscher-CKment
The cantillation of Abyssinian churches has scarcely been investigated so

far, but at least in its performance there is reminding us of the
a trait
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
,
gS The Western Orient

Ethiopians, indeed, do not deny that there are close ties between their
01
church music and the melodies of the Copts
» *
#
Polyphoni, too, is a fascinating trait of Abyssinia, and the more fascinat-
ing as — except for the Arabian influence in the masantjo 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 ohserver,
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 62
He tells of begging lepers who perform lalibaloe 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
” 03
words, tn "a simple harmony, generally based on the third
A third form of musical teamwork in Ethiopia belongs to the folksongs
called 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
04
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 i 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 05 Maybe they were played in unison
and caused unpleasant pulsations when not tuned with the greatest care,
or 1 1st they might have played separate parts, possibly and even probably
in the mariner of a drone
Droning is indeed the basic form of counterpoint wherever double pipes
41 Cf the hihliORraph) in Gustave Reese, ibid p 434 RLCeni contribution J Herschcr-

Climeni ‘Chants d Abjssinie, in Zatschri/t fur Vcrglcic/icndc Musi^wijjsnschaft II (1934),
PP Si -7
83 Mondon Vidailhet, Lavignac, Encyclopedic dc la Mustquc
‘La Musique ethiopiennc," in
I 3 v, p 3191
•• Ibid
p 31B1
•• l hid p 3 1 Bo
,
aB Curl Sacha, The Hufory of Musical Instruments, op at , p 120

Music in the Ancient Western Orient
gg
arc 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

60
Instruments a well-known relief in the British Museum represents the
Elamic court orchestra welcoming the Assyrian conqueror in 650 »c and,
among its players, seven harpists similar in all details except that they are
plucking different strings Such difference must noL be considered acci-
dental in an art work of realistic, indeed almost photographic, accuracy,

nor can that single variation among otherwise umfoim players be explained
by an artist's formal consideration (PI 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, e and e" The result is an empty fifth orchestrated in the modern wjy,
the two notes being distributed among the seven players in different com-
binations, as double octave, octave, unison and fifth-
Ibid , p S2
"
ioo The Western Orient

First harpist A-e?
Second harpist e-e'
Third harpist c'-e"
Fourth harpist e'-e'
Fifth harpist a'-e"

Sixth harpist a'-e
Seventh harpist (fl)-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
87
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 pentatomcally tuned instruments, although this, in turn, does not
necessarily imply pentatonic melodies
fl7
Curt Sachs, “Zwcikiangc im Alterrum,' in Festschrift fur Johannes Wolf Berlin, 1929,
pp 16B-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 mehsmas 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
1
‘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 phoncticall) 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 Musi ^ 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
cries of the victims who burned in the glowing arms of Moloch ” What a
difference from the calm simplicity and noble grandeur of Greek music 1
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 be its pupils
Section Three
EAST ASIA
[1 ]
GENERAL FEATURES
HIS SECTION
T
deals with the music of China, Korea, and Japan;
of Indo-China, from Annam to Siam, and of 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 a d ,
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 Buga\u 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, |ust as these men are thrown on books
exclusively written by monks on monks’ music, while no heed
monks for
was given to secular songs or dances, China's "popular music was con-
trary to established literary principles, and there was no recognized prec-
" 1
edent for it, so it was simply ignored
The few passages in which ‘vulgar music
1
is mentioned are contemptuous

1 Gulik f 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 of 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 Lu Pu-we, the poet of ‘Spring
1
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 whde They aimed at new
and strange timbres, at never heard of tones, at plays never seen before
’’ 2
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-
” 3
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 nomnitiated Thus Lu Pu-we “was ahle to speak of
”
music only with a man who has grasped the meaning of the world
*
No sticcato, no accelerando, no strong crescendo or decrescendo had a

place in such music — nothing that aroused unrest, passion, lust Music was
ihe wisdom of the heart No doubt 'good music’ could be exasperating, and
we do not blame Prince Win of Wei (426-1587 b c ) for exclaiming “When
in full ceremonial dress I must listen to the Anuent Music, I think I shall
fall asleep, but when 1 listen to the songs of Cheng and Wei, I never get
’’
B
tired
Rut 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 lones, and again, whatever sounds affect man's soul 8
Con-
fucius himself, the nation's spiritual paragon, was so deeply impressed by
Lu Pu op cil ,
V 3
1
Wilhelm, op at
4 Lu Pu-we op at V a
• R H \an Gulik, op at p 37 ,
• Lu Pu-we, op at 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'tng, a man who passed his house exclaimed,
” 7
“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, whac I aim at is not tones my heart
Not until I have reached it in
can I express it on the instrument, therefore do not dare move my hand I

”
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
1
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 tiees deployed their splendor When it was summer
and he plucked the Yu 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
7
The Original Chinese Texts of the Confucian Analecta, Uranjl by J Steele, London, 1861,
P 105
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
Saldm’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
capacitywould 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 bevond its natural pitch
B
The long zither in its two forms She and Ch'in , often erroneously called
"lute," is the outstanding repiesentative 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 wailing 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 an entity in itself, calculated to evoke in the mind of the hearer a
is
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 co understand and appreciate this music, the ear must learn to distinguish
subtle 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
the right hand, has a different timbre The technique by which these variations
in umbre are effected is extremely complicated of the vibrato alone there exist
8 Curt Sachs, The History of Musical Instruments, op cit , pp 1 8 5—8
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-
6
spired the composer
The single note actually counted for more than melody chimes, numer-
ous in all hinds 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 tn 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
" 10
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 unalteiahle 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 wa L er 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 difierent aspects of the same One Their differentials,
consequently, were congruent as well a certain season corresponded to a

11
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,
8
R H van Gulik, op cit pp i f
10 Lu Pu we, op cit V 2
11 First described in theChou It
no East Asia
and a fifth 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 twelve 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 even in the Christian Middle Ages seasons, months, days, hours,
planets, parts of the human body, moods, illnesses, elements, and what not
are compared and associated, and finally the cosmos itself sounds in an
eternal harmony of spheres
Certain passages from the Bible have been quoted as inspired bv 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 earih”
ought to sing unto the Lord and "declare his glory among the naiions, his
marvellous 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 12
The link between them is that question in Job 38 “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 bc) 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-
ia Philo, De V ito Moyiv II % 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 differs
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 does 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 fiom 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 comparutionts 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 ad 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
1 12 East Asia
needed absolute pitch or, in other words, a standard length Indeed, Lu

13
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,
14
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 a d 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 look 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 acts, for, would the preceding dynasty have been eliminated unless
itsmusic was out of harmony with the universe 5
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 1285 bc, impressed on his chief musician, so Shu King, the earliest
"
Chinese chronicle, relates ‘Kwei, I command you to regulate music
The measure The reed regulates the voice
notes should accord with the
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
u Pu wr op at V 2
18 I
14
Yehuda HilrM Cusart cd Cassel IT % 6 IV quoted from Eric Werner and Isaiah
§ 25
Sonne The Philosophy and Theory of Music

‘
in Judaeo-Arabic Literarure in Hebrew Union

1
College Annual X\ (1941), p 265 I

. . and adjusted the four seasons, the months and the first days and tested
" 16
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
18
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
16 The Shoo King, era ml by W

H Mcdhurst Shanghai, 1846, pp io, 33 f The Shu
King ,
by Walter Gorn Old, London, 1904, p 20
transl
10 Mcdhurst edition, pp 69 f
6
[ 2 ]
THE LU’S
“EMPEROR HUANG TI, so legend says, one day ordered Ling Lun to
make pitch pipes Ling Lun went from the west of the Ta Hia and came to
the north of the Yuan Yu mountain Here he took bamboos from the
valley Elia Hi, selected those the internodes of which were thick and even,
and eul 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 Yuan Yu 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
" 11
note huang chung
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 lease since the thirteenth century hc, were peace-loving
people and acted as agents between the Eastern and Western civiliza-
18
tions Pitch pipes, however, were unknown in the West as far as we can
sec 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
1B
"irrelevant" and only called it to notice in a short footnote And tust
this detail is particularly illuminating Ling Lun, n 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
1T lu Pu wr op cit p 478
18 Olio Fnnkc Das allc Ta-hia in Oxtanatuche Zeitschnft VIII (1910),
der Chincscn,'
PP 11 7-3
19 P£re Amioi \femoirc iut la Mustquc dcs Chtnots Pans 1779, p 86 r.
The Lu’s 1
15
huang chung, primarily, was roughly taken from the medium pitch of a
man’s voice and only subsequently normalized in feet, inches, and lines
® *
c
The standard tonf 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
4s
Graphically /54\ / \ / and so on
81 72 64
The way up (musically speaking) was called an infertor 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
6 fourths
F
/\/\/\/\
G A B C%
/ \/
D%
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 lu’s, had names which meant "companions, intermediate,
and were feminine This shows that at the beginning the notes
lateral”
produced by inferior generation had no musical significance proper, or at

, ,
ii 6 East Asia
best a subordinate significance the scries 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
all nine following sphirot in successive generations The second sphira,
called understanding (
bind ), was negative and feminine, the third sphira,
called wisdom (hdf^md), 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 Upamshads, the Bhagavad-
Gita and the Vedantas, and much of the practical Qabalah to the Tantras
more especially In it will be found 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 lu 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 lu's from
the West
Twice in explaining the lu's 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
I F C Fuller The Secret Wisdom of the Qabalah London (1937)
The Lu’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 lu’s was no less faulty The proportions 4 3
for the fourthand 3 2 for the fifth, correct in theory, failed in practice, since
pitch depended, not on one but on three factors the length of ihe tube,
to be sure, but also its diameter and the position of the player’s lips The
21
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 Buhofzer’s experiments/ 2
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 ad, for instance, the official 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 t hung The very
number nine, derived from the nine times nine lines of the huang chung s
length, indicates that the diameterwas 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
%, but no power of
ratio % to a higher power, the octave has the ratio
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 lu’s 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
Cf Curt Sachs, The History of Musical Instruments op cil p 418

21 ,
22 Manfred Bukofzer, "Prazisionsmcssungcn an prunmven Musikmsu-umcntcn," in Zeit-
schnjt fur Phynk, IC 0936), pp 643-65, esp p 660

,
n8 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 huang chung 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.
« •
9
The set of lu’s has been called a "scale ” Especially in its mature form, with
the auxiliary lu’s dovetailed in, it seemed to be, and consequently was de-
scribed 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 1,200 = 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
well tempered, the set of lu's — at 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 boih 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 lu's “male,”
and the six even-numbered "female " The legend related above tells this in
its own way it ascribes six of the lu's to a male bird, and six to a female
bird So definite was the contrast that musical instruments, tuned to the lu’s,
never mingled the two sets in stone and bell chimes the male lu's 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 23 In the Occidental conception, such
instruments would play continuous melodic lines dirough all kinds of
intervals The Chinese, on the contrary, aimed at single notes only, the
11 Cf Curt Sachs, The History of Musical Instruments, op cit pp 168, 169, 176, 177
The Lu’s 1 19
selection of which depended on the season and the particular rite of the
day rather than on musical considerations
The confusion of the series of lu’s with scale — “dim” scale indeed, as
a a
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 fingerholes hole by hole, it is ascending In

the same way, lutamsts, fiddlers, and players of fretted zithers depart from
the open string and pass to the higher notes of the stopped siring Indeed,
the second part of the seventh of the bocks called Yo tse relates that in the
ancient worship of heaven and earth the instruments played in an ascend-

24
ing senes of lu’s, and the voices sang in a descending series of lu’s
This contrariness, still in use under the T'ang (618-907 ad), had been
simplified by the end of the sixteenth century Prince Tsai Yu 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 che 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 28
Mrs Timothy Richard, Paper an Chinese Music, Shanghai (1899), p 5

aD Cf Carl Stumpf, "Tonsystcm und Musik der Siamcscn,” in Beitrage tur A\ustik_ und
Must\wuseruchaf/, Heft 3, 1901, the same in Sammclbande fur V ergleichendc Mustkwtssen-
schaft I (1922), pp 172 f
,
120 East Asia
In Japan, the twelve lu’s arc known as rttsu —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
Generally, the ritsu are fixed on the ground of the up-and-down principle,
players of the unfretted long zither lôto 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 C " 28 The latest Japanese source indi-
cates, as pitch tone, the lowest d’ of the vertical flute shakuhachi at 292
27
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
Francis Piggou, The Music and Musical Instruments of Japan and cdiuon, Yokohama-
Lomlon, 1909, p 85
87
Huao Tanabc, Japanese Music, 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, ]ust as in the series of
black keys on our pianos

The scale is usually presented in the form {ung (do), shang (re), chiao
(mi), chth (sol), yu (la), ung ) (do)
These five notes were tied into the network of cosmological connotations
much in the same way as the twelve lu’s There was close interrelation be-
tween the
Notes K" n g 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 lu’s Such misrepresentation should not be repeated indefinitely In the
first place, lu’s formed intervals out of tune and therefore unusable for
scales Secondly, the scale itself must have existed before the artificial sys-
tem of lu’s was constructed Thirdly, the lu's 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 lu's 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 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'tn 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 little mother-of-pearl studs, inlaid in the soundboard to mark
the stopping places, arc 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 \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
ch in, a picture that Prince Tsai Yu 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
• «
e
Modal arrangements 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 ntsu
The Scales
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 easih 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 after van Aalst
Ritsu, called “female” and preferred in Japan, is very different It forms

an octave of two disjunct fourths, each of winch is divided by a filling note
closer, sometimes to the upper, sometimes to the lower end Accordingly,
the rttsu scale appears in two forms, DE GAR D and D FGA 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 after Noel Pen
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
I2 3 CDE G A C
To judge from sources of the Chou Dynasty, there were seven loci for
modal inversions of the pentatonic scale prob lbly 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
»
124 East Asia
Thu arrangement CDE GA (123) has generally been considered the

original, standard form from which the other modal arrangements were
derived by the usual toptail 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 octaves, goes back to primitive patterns in which under the normative
power of (he fourth an original third nucleus grows a second affix or, in-
versely, a second nucleus grows a third affix 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 GREENLAND
Farther back, two four-tone patterns precede the 123 scale one, with
the lower third filled in, but without a sixth (1235), appears in this Song
of Fate performed by the Voguls in West Siberia
Ex 43 voguls, Siberia after Viisanen

J= 108
The other, with the sixth, but without fillers (1 356), may be represented
by a vocal melody from the Solomon Archipelago
Ex 44 solomon islands after Hornbostel

J = 132
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 ‘anhemitomc’ each of its tetrachords has an

undivided major third above and a semitone below
1
This impressive scale appears in three ‘tunings, which actually corre-
spond to the three aspects of Greek modes, Hypodorian, Dorian, and

Hyperdorian
Hirajosht A BCE F A
(conjunct tetrachords with the supplemental octave below, hypo)
Kumot(joshi) E F A B C E
(disjunct tetrachords)
lwato 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 N oel Pen
Presto
ie
A solo on the long zither kjoto, played in a death scene in the tragedy Kesa,
illustrates Kumoi
Ex 46 KOTO SOLO FROM THE JAPANESE TRAGEDY KESA
after Abraham and Hornbostel
2B After Otto Abraham and E M von Hornbostcl, Tomystem und Musik der Japaner,
in
Sammelbande der Internationale n Mujif&erellschaftIV (1903), P 35 * and Sammelbande fur

Vcrglcichende Musifûnssenschaft \ (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 sonc after 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 Jajaancse folk music never accepted

the Chinese scale, but, in spite of court and temple rituals, has again and
again come back to the ma|or thirds and semitones
The situation is somewhat similar in Korea, they have a pentatonic scale
of the 123 type and ‘flatten’ the third DEF AB, and this scale, too, occurs
29
exclusively in folk music
The ma|or-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 MALAHARl after C R Day
*• C S Keh, Die Korcamschc Sirassburg, 1935, p 15

1
The Scales 127

a later desire for completeness, rather than to musical necessity, in any
event, four of the scales enumerated in Bharata’s Natyasastra, India’s ear-
liest source of music, already have either two or at least one major third
Arlabhi, SddjodUyavati, Dhaivati, Niiadi 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, 30
too, uses major-third scales, though apparently no longer
always in pure form, our example, printed from Carl Stumpf’s short mono-
graph on Mongolian music, 31 contains a D that obviously belongs in a later
stratum
Ex 50 BURIAT MONGOLS ajtar Stumpf
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 cn-
harmonion
And the ancient Egyptians also tuned their temple harps to the maior-
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
assumption 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 stones, for instance
B1
The Malay Archipelago clings to the major third more than jny other
country outside Japan In West Java, the most archaic part oi ihe island,
singers perform in scales with two major thirds, such as (descending)
aa
398 + 94 + 210 +402 + 96 Cents
v. / V '
492 498
fl0
Ilmari Krohn, *
Mongohsche Melodien," in Zeitschrtft fur Munkwissenschaft III (1920),
P 7i
B1 Vicrteljahrsschnft fur Musif{wisscnschaft
Carl Stumpf, ‘Mongohsche Gesinge, in III
(1887), p 303, and in Sammelbandc fur V crgletchende Munhu'isscnschaft I (1922), p no

BZ E
M von Hornbostel und R Lachmann Asiansche Parallelen zur Berbermusik,” in
Zeitschrtft fur Vcrgleichende Musiû'tssenschajt I (i 933 )» PP A~ 1
afl
Jaap Kunsi, Dc Toonhunst van Java, s Gravenhage, 1934 vol I| P 3*8 )
128 East Asia
That is to say, two disjunct tctrachords, each of which consists of a perfect

major third —
above and a semitone below the exact likeness of a Japanese
Kumoi scale
In similar 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-
34
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
m'
BBIJBl.i- iWHift'aa
by a standard pattern of Cent numbers Two conjunct tctrachords form a

heptad, each telrachord 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 sime 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 fourthlike third of
4S8 Cents The tctrachords arc larger, and often much larger, than a just
fourth
1 o 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-
" Ibid pp 197, 199, J88, 190, 309, 311, 31a, 318
The Scales 129
structed, 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 k,odo\

ngore\, have a restricted range of only one tetrachord of the pelog 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
1
we earnestly believe that at so late a time, more than a thousand years after
the era of pelog - like 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 tetr.ichords must have been preceded by a single tetrachord

is a bit too cheap Nor do 1 see any confirmation in other instances
Pelog is often misrepresented as a heptatomc 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 tor 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 ma|or
The question of mode is not quite easy Once there were three modes
ncm 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 EF 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-
East Asia
I
30
responds to Japanese Hirajoshi And lima would be a perfect K.umoijoshi,
with its disjunct tetrachords, if it had its B flattened From Dr Bukofzer s

material, 1 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
35
from conjunct to disjunct tetrachords The final loss of lima might be
due to a certain feeling against disjunct tetrachords
Sslfndro 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 beiween 185 and 275 Cents These extremes,

steps vary
however, arc 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 Dccca 20124 B
very slow and freq^
original Inapt
^
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 kepi a constant pitch While 110 modern metallophone includes
inv slip wider than 275 Cents, old specimens generally have one of 3 larger
8
size , bttsseen 300 and 310 Cents ’
and a smaller large step besides of
around 2S0 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 lit hears anyway
But the tr ices of ancient thirds also testify to a temperament tending to
cflace the chiTcrcnce between thirds and seconds Of the two thirds in each
BB Anuiinr DeUievrens, Etudes de Science music ale 2 • Etude Appendice IV, Pans, 1898,
p B
“ kunsi cn
\ C J A kunst-v Wely, De Toonûnst van Balt Weltevreden, 1925 [1 dd
476 477
.
'
1
The Scales 13
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 slendro 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 js
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)
There is less temperament in Bali, the distance of 697 Cents practically
coincides with the perfect fifth

Slendro has been believed, even in Java to he older lhan pelog 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
0 0
«
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 642
per cent of all nem melodies, the fourth note for sangd in 84 7 per cent, the
132 East Asia
fifth note for manjurd 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,
sangd is the right mode for the early morning between midnight and three
and for the afternoon between noon and seven, manjurd belongs to the
hours between 5 ooam and noon
This time table is unmistakably Indian
The name salendro points also to India
It probably stemmed from the
Sumatran Salendri Dynasty, which ruled Java almost to the end of the
first thousand years ad and had come from the Coromandel Coast in
South India Thus it might be wiser to connect slendro with ragas like
madhyamavati, mohana, or hamsadhvani 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
Cents 171.4
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 interval However much Carl Stumpf S7
— who himself had an
,T
y
Vrrglnr/lmJt
St m p(. Tonnilcm
Musics, cnic/lafl
und Musik der Siamejcn ^ • ind in Sammelb&nde fir
1 (1911), 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 Ellis meas-
J
38
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 ntornelh in
Siamese tuning
Ex 53 Siamese operatic solo transcribed by Curt Sachs from

Decca 20127 2
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 30 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 ntsu occurred, as we have seen, in
two distinct forms, 12-456 8 and U34578, say DE GAB D and D FGA CD
Thus the two purely pentatonic forms of ntsu 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
88 A J Ellu, m the latter publication, pp 36-41

K.ch, op nt , p 39
134 East Asia
Ex 54 Japanese song after Noel Pert
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
FG A" CD" F
Similarly, the Japanese cleave their major thirds into two seconds
d
A"FE CBA
Neither scale became strictly heptatomc The additional notes kept a
transitional, auxiliary character and had not even the privilege of individual
names the Chinese called them by thename of the note directly above with
the epithet pien, which means 'on the way to,’ ’becoming,’
« «
e
A story, recorded
in contemporary sources, shows how far
the Chinese
were from an actual heptatomc scale Between 560 and
578 a d a man from ,
Kutcha in Hast Turkistan astonished his Chinese listeners

by playing
Justly' a complete major scale on his lute p'i p'a
Its notes were called
fochtha, sad ah k, badah\, \ichi, shachi, shahukalam, shalap, panjam
dzihd-
:ap, huhdzap Some of these terms are obscure, some are 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
wrong 'Of course," he writes, “I cannot be sure in my suggestions, for the
corruptions of these words are too great ”
At 'bout the same time, another source
claims that the twenty-eight
foreignmodes’— whatever they might have been—could
not be fixed by
means ol the Chinese pitch pipes, but
only by the strings of the p'l p'a 4 "
In other words, the newly imported Western music followed the
divisive
noi the up i„d down principleStill, the cross flute t, also adopted
a West-
ern m,i|or scale \lu.geiher, heptatomc melodies have been more frequent
in the north than m the south of China.
Cubic, op cit
p
,
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 muju had or had not the major scale that
modern Japanese 41
the designate by this name
The evolution of East Asiatic scales now begins to stand out It starts
from strictly pentatonic scales with thirds of any size In a second stage,
heptatonics appear in the form of seven loci for strictly pentatonic scales
1
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 r aLher
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 equjl seven eighths of tones, five of
which arc actually used in melodies
41 Cf Noel Pen, op ctt and Paul Demieulle 'La Musiquc £ame au Japon, in Publica-
tions de l Ecole Franfaisc d'Exlreme-Onenl, Etudes dsiatiques 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 consequently 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 no
The no in us present form only reached its peak about 1500 ad 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 |ump to a level a fourth
lower, and even to another fourth a-e-B, or drop to the next whole tone
and then tump down by one or by two fourths 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 on the stage, is formed by one stick-beaten and
orchestra, sitting
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 register 42 In general, “only children and coachmen sing

43
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 cars 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 Nurnberg
The Chinese opera in its classical form was ruled by its texts It could
not be otheiwise 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 Ilss intelligible than
an interrogative sentence that drops at the end would be in some European
opera 44
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
42 Keh, op at p 20
4B O Abraham and E von Hornbostel, “Tonsystem und Musik dcr Japaner," loc at , p 212
44 Cf John Hazcdel Levis, Foundations of Chinese Musical Art, Peiping, 1936
—
East Asia
i
38
example a poem of the eighth century a j> ,
"The Drinker in the Spring,”
48
ii given the following aifected meter
But then, the period of the T'ang 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 (cA'j)
or else symmetrical (rAi) 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 lo foreign influences 48
Rhyihm 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 scones had other tasks The drums themselves were
struck with sticks and therefore served ume beating better than elaborate
rhythmic patterns
-B Heinz Trefzger, Djs Mmikleben der TaJig-Zcit, in Stnica XIII
M Hanz (1938), p 5B
Trefzgcr, 1 bid 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-Japancse 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
Bugaû 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 ad, 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,
47
and kept up in percussion even when the other parts are silent, are ob-
viously not Far Eastern, but deteriorated Indian patterns
a J J J J J J J
h n j nj /j /j
c jttz rrn iz j j* j j jz j
The elaborate polyrhythm of Balinese cymbal players that Mr Colin

McPhee has recently described is not Far Eastern cither "The cymbal
group may include as many as seven players each with a diflerent-sizcd
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
" 48
trough
** T Howard Somrrrrl, 'The Music n( Tibet, in The Musical Times LXIV (1923), p 108
»s Colin McFhcc, "The Technique o£ Ujlinese Music,' in Bulletin 0/ iht American Mustco-
logical Society no 6 (1943), 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 a d 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 dang, ding, dung, dbng,
dong were simply rendered by the little symbols for the vowels a, i, u, i, o,
48
without indicating rhythm
Wlule alphabets seem to have bad 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 tonal 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, m which conventional groups of notes were designated by call
syllables or nicknames
The I-ar 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 lu's Logically, the pitches
** J Kunii in C ] A Kunu-v Wcly, De Toonbunxl van Bali, op cit pp 47—6B
,
Notation 141
arc known by the first syllables of the lu names huang (

chung ), ymg
(chung), tint (i), 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.ung,
shang, chiao, chih, yu, 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 luting shall be tuned (exactly as
we do in the case of our clarinets “in A" or horns "in F”) (PI 4, p 142)
The same kind of notation is customary with the players of the lute p‘t p'a
and of all pipes Most of these instruments had a comparatively recent

Western origin, and at the beginn'ng 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 syllabic
of the text
» «
*
East Asia also had rudimentary neumes for those melodics in wh'ch the
curve mattered more than the individual pitches A dash, ascending from
left to right, indicated 'upward', a hor'ZonLal dash, 'level movement’,
a dash, descending from left to right, ‘downward '
A x between two of
these dashes allowed for cither 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 ping,
the level tone, the tip of the same finger, for shang, the rising tone, the tip
of the ring finger, for ch'u, the falling tone, and the third phalange of the
same finger, for ju, the (musically meaningless) dialectal shortening of any
60
of the foregoing three movements The similitude of Guido of Arezzo’s
famous hand is obvious
80
John Hazed el Levis, Foundations of Chinese Musical Art, op cit p 17
East Asia
4j
*&*+%*
'%**£*
*4£i K
ii
efi
* -^j- -
*#**&
*
4 ^ 4 - *&**&*
t S*«S *
Notation
Signs for rhythm were shared with the other forms of notation
But in
general it sufficed tomark 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 inprinciple— 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
produce the required notes, rather than
to
the notes themselves which were unchangeably fixed in making 01 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 light, 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 /(a (to quole the terms of Japa-
nese koto players), that is, sharpening a nole by pressing down the string
beyond the bridge, ntju oshi, sharpening by a whole tone, e, the subse-
quent sharpening of a note already plucked and heard, ki, sharpening it
for just a moment and releasing the string into its mitijl vibration, yu, the
same, but making the relapse very short bclore the following nole is played,
k a k1 ’ plucking two adjoining strings in rapid succession with the same

finger, utht, striking ihe strings beyond the bridges during long pauses,
nagashi, a slide with the forefinger over the strings, mil many others
This tablature includes two symbols that do not belong in the domain of
Plate 4 Chinese Notation After John Hazcdtl Levis The script runs down- —
ward, the vertical columns read from right 10 lift The four columns with large
symbols are the text, each symbol rt presenting one (monosyllabic) word The
small signs on eilhcr side ol a column indicate he melody The right side sym-
l
bols denote the exact pitches of every beat and word the first one, at the upper
right corner, a the second and third ones, c" The following group of three,
,
flanking ihe fourth word of the text, designates a ligature a'—c'—a' on one beat
The fifth group means the ligature g’-a 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
e
144 East Asia
graces is a frequent phrase of five notes, two of which arc 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-
S1
scription of Sanskrit symbols used in India Indeed, the graces of long
zithers, unparalleled in East Asiatic music, are nothing else than the ga-
makjn 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 op these scripts indicates time values Rhythm was often left to
B2
instinct and tradition, or else the composer added a special notation for
the beats Rut 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 heats of the bars, and often mark the first, second, and third
beats bv 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,
alternuelv with single and with double periphery (to facilitate reading),
vs hilt 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, cither halfway or, for those following a
dolled note, nearer to the subsequent circle
Some koto players have used mensural symbols a full circle for the
whole note, m upright semicircle for the half note (like a D), a quarter
circle (like ihe upper pari of a D) for the quarter note 53
Tempo is left unwritten It vanes, however, though not within the same
piece, different tempi are supposed to contrast, not to blend
81 Cf llrtn7 Trcl/ger Das Musikleben der Tang-Zeu, toe al p 52
81 "ang C.uung Ki kuang L lu Wang), Ueber die chincsiscllen Nuicnschnlten,
(
in Siruca
III ( lyaB ), pji 1 u>-a
88 Mueller tinigr Nntoen uber die lapamsche Musik, loc cjt
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 ihythm in whatever tonality he pre-
64
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 ajrpreciated
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 ihirty-two thirty-second note' 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
84 C A Wegelin, ‘Chinccschc Muzick,' 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 are 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 — the instrument
called shing in Chinese and sh 6 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 harmonics 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 FGA) or in oihtr combinations, as B C D E F A
These complicated harmonies are in modern China replaced by simple parallels
of fourths and fifths In both cases, the melody is below its accompaniment, as
,s
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 ad —
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
unncd in ihe so-called right music, with the cross flute kpma fuyc and the
hig 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 d te\i, the mouth organ sho, and the small cylinder
drum k^KK 0 AS die distinguishing instruments Beside these instruments,
both styles shared the oboe hichmki, the lute biwa, the zither sono koto, as
well as the hrger drum taifo and the small gong shoko
The essential distinction, however, was in the relations of the two leading
#i Curl Sachi, The History of Musical Instruments, op cit , p 1B3
Polyphony 147
instruments, 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-
50
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-
lined octave, and a cross flute doubles them an octave above All three of
these wind instruments play hcterophonically, 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 ajtcr Mueller
Hiiau Tanabc, Japanese Music, op cit , p 15

,
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 taifo 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-
57
tunity to test each individual player
07 Mueller, 'Einige Nulizcn uber die japamschc 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 s tone, and struck and swept the ch'tn 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
” 6H
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 (i 122-255
bc) 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
11 The Shoo King, transl by W H Mcdhum, op at p 46

, —
15° East Asia
The T'anc Dynasty (61S-907 ad), deeply interested in fostering the

arts, seems to have brought the court orchestras to their highest evolution
Si* 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 are 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 square, twenty
ya drums form the circle, while twenty-four performers with stamping
and drums are drawn up alternately in the square
tubes, clapper tubes,
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 ,B (PI 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
1,346men "°
The Korean court in Kang Setjo's time (1457-1468) entertained 572 play-
ers and choir singers and 195 apprentices, and as late as 1897 the emperor
had 772 musicians ®* (PI 6a, p 161)
•* Cf Heim
Trefzger, "Dai Muukleben der Tang Zen loc nl p 6 B ’
w Maurice Courani, Esiai hmorique sur la muuque hutonque dcs Chinois, ’

in Lavignac,
Enrydopddie dt la \lunque
11
C S Keh Die Koreanirche op nt p 17 ,
— 1
Orchestras 15
The Chinese court indulged also in the diversity, not only in the sizes, of
its orchestras The aristocracy, like all higher civilized groups, had a strong
taste for exotic timbres and experienced the unique stimulus that imagina-
from foreign music The emperors appreciated presents of
tion receives
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-
when "the
test, people of Ts‘e sent Loo a present of female musicians,
which Ke Huan received, and for three days no court was held" 82
— a pro-
test that reminds one of the pronouncement of the great Jewish philosopher
and physician, Maimonides ( 1 1 35—1204) ,
that secular music ought not to be
88
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 e\pansion 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 ad, 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 aji and
was so much in favor that the emperor tried to bar it Individual musicians
from Cambodia, Japan, Sill t, Samarkand, P.ukchei, 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 I11 Hoi 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 Annamcsc,
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-
64
nese, Sillan, and others
* *
.
02 The Original Chinese Texts of the Confucian Analecta , op
ni p 237 ,
68 Cf Eric Werner and Sonne The Philosophy and Theory of Muiic in Judieo
Isaiah
1
Arabic Literature, in Hebrew Union College Annual XVI (1941), p 281

84 Cf PauJ Demievdle, La Musique <!amc au Japon, in Publications de i'Ecole Franfat/e
1
d Extrime-Onent Etudes Anatiques I (1925), pp 199-226

,
East Asia
j^ 2
Orchestras, now almost extinct in China, Korea, and Japan (except the
Mikado's court orchestra), have survived in the southeast of Asia, particu-
larly in Java and Bali, and arc there the centers of
musical practice Their
’
common name, in the Malayan Islands, is gamelan, from gatnel, ‘to handle
A gamelan is utterly different from a modern orchestra Western orches-

tras are bodies of musicians, playing for almost all kinds of occasions, buy-
ing the latest models of instruments, using them when they have been
expressly prescribed, and changing even within the same work Malayan
orchestras, on the contrary, are bodies of instruments, mostly inherited
from times past and imposed on both players and composers Composite
as ihcy are, they form unalterable units with so personal a character that
they bear individual names with the title ^ jahi ‘sir ’
Most courts possess
quite a number of them, the Sultan of Soesoehoenan owns at least twenty-
nine full gamelans, each of which is assigned to special tasks
Large garnelans consist of three sizes of mctallophones 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 ihe smaller ones mark the end of shorter sec-
tions while the powerlul basses of the large gongs conclude the main parts
The two drums guide the changing tempo
• •
•
Cambodia, Siam, and Burma, the Indo-Chinese countries between the ar-
chipelago and China, complete the province of orchestral music, as opposed
to iht vast area where chamber music prevails in the Middle and Near East
1 he Siamese accompany their theatrical performances with orchestras
generallv 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 ofwomen during the T‘ang Dynasty just mentioned The domi-
nant metallic timbre, on the other hand, relates the Siamese orchestra to
the Milav gamcl in The comparatively large share of drums, however,
indicates the neighborhood of India
s
Orchestras
^53
Still further from Javanese ideals is the women's orchestra of Cambodia,
in which the three Malayan sets of ldiophones, the xylophone, the metallo-
phone, and the gong chime, are matched by stringed instruments a large
zither, a Chinese lute, and an Arabo-Persian 85

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 6 b, p 161)
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
unparalleled 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 wich his hare hands in swift, toccatalike melodies with
88
stupendous technique and delicacy
Antknow we turn to India proper
Illustration in Curl Sachs, Die Musif{tnstrumenie Indiens und Indoncstcns, and cd ,

Berlin,
1923, p 9
Îllustrations in Curt Sachs, Die Mun^mslrumente Rtrmas und Assam Munchcn, 1917,
Plate 2, D\e Must /{instrument e Indieni und Indonesiens, ibid , pp 4,5
Section Four
INDIA
he roots
T else The Vedda
we know, and
of music arc
in
more exposed
Ceylon possess the
in India than
earliest stage of
the subsequent strata of primitive music are repre-

sented by the numberless tribes that in valleys and jungles took shelter from
anywhere
singing that
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 Lhe gods themselves
were ardent musicians and Siva in his enthusiasm had exclaimed, "1 like
better the music of instruments and voices than I like a thousand baths and
"
prayers 1
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 a d 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 raga exactly 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
1 Bharaia, ch 36 27 (Grossei, m Encyclopedic de la Musique op at, , p 260)
[ 1 ]
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 he equally well described as reciting and chanting

Early recitation probably used only two notes The grammarian Pamni,
who lived in the fourth century Be, wrote unmistakably "A vowel pro-
nounced at a high pitch is called udatta, pronounced at a low pitch, it is
called anudatta, their combination is called svarila” 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 axys or acutus, barys or gravis, and perispdmcnos or rir-
curn fie xus
T he svarila, however, was |ust as uncertain in its meaning as the circum-

flex, contrary to P.lnim’s statement, and at least after his time, the svarila,
instead of being the combination of udatta and anudatta became an appog-

giatur.i falling from a higher tone or semitone to the udatta, so that the
later form of Vedic chant was a three-tone melody svith the stress on
udatta Occasionally the high note was given a syllable without being tied
to the middle note bv 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 Sima 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
Melodtcally, 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 Felbcr
The more recent type, indicated as early as about 400 bc, 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 Felber
J - 87
were theoretically seven notes But the first and highest was seldom if ever
used, words of the book Samavidhdnabrdhmana, "the gods live

for, in the
"
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 cither 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, indescending order, gave the names prathama, 'first,’ dvitlya, ’sec-
ond,’ trtiya, ‘third,’ laturtha, 'fourth,' mandra, ‘fifth,’ atisvdrya, ‘sixth,’
or similar terms If they used figures to write these notes, they arranged
them in the sequence 1 123456 or 11 123456, 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, J describes
1 A C Burnell, The Arsheyabrahmana Bangalore, 1876

160 India
this yama scale as (descending) F E D C B A G But in spite of 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 Burnell's indications and from one another
8
But they arc 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 hefore 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 ALTER ation of cither 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
* ^rwin F'lbef Bernhard Geiger, "Die induche Musik dcr vediichcn und der kiaaiuchen
Zen, in Sutungsbmchtc der Kan Akadrm u der Wuicnichahen
in Wien Phil -Hut K1
CLXX (191a), no 7
in girl
metallo-
scroll
a
rear
silk
the organs,
a
in
From
and mouth
ad)
clapper,
oboes,
a
flutes,
C713-756
agitates
Huang
transserse
lady
Ming
lutes,
conducting
Emperor
zithers,
The
before
long
Tretzger
pairs
harps,
—
performing
in
Heinz
played
instruments
After
orchestra are
other
Canton drums
women’s
the
hourglass
collection.
drum,
Chinese
big
and
5 Otto’s
a
phoncs
strikes
Plate
Dr
Pun 6p Burmese nnhtsir .1 Vftcr Sachs — In from gong chime, drum chime, barrel
drum, in the rear oboes, rvmbals, 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 ?
e •
•
As a notation in a narrower sense, North India uses figures, as we saw,

and the South, syllables taken from the ordinary alphabet, ka, \i, ô, \u, \ai,
kau, and many other consonant-vowel combinations Only a few of these

indicate single notes ta means the fourth note ot 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, \c
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 melodics,
once more it designates stereotyped groups of notes The only difference is
their place in the manuscripts here, they are set right within ihe 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 vi no i
To this form, discovered and discussed by A C Burnell, 4 Richard Simon

was able to add another, 5 in which each parvan of the text was followed by
the melody, for example
barha-lsa auhova T-A KHA §1 RI

4
A C Burnell, The Arsheyahrahmana op cst Intrisductinn ,
B
Richard himon, Molatinnen der vednehen Liedcrbuclier,' ld Wiener Zetttchr fur die
Kundc dei Morgenlandes XXVIf (1913J, p 346
162 India
Burnell calls 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
Society in New York 8
8 Curt Sachi, “The Mystery of the Babylonian Notation," id The Musical Quarterly XXVII
(1941), PP 61-9
[ 2 ]
PICTORIAL AND LITERARY EVIDENCES

PICTORIAL EVIDENCES of 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 >ears, 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
7
have recently been made accessible in an outstanding French publication
(PI 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 ihe classical rind, 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 B
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 a d 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 rind in the older of its two
modern forms only in the seventh century
• •
9
1 Claudic Marcel Dubou, Lei Initrumenii de Munquc de Vlnde annenne, Path, 1941
• Cf Narada, Sangita-mafâranda, ed Telang, Baroda, 1920
164 India
Literary evidences are fortunately more abundant than in most countries

8
Poetical works like the great national epos Rdmayana 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,” Sanglta Ratnaâra, 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
" 10
A.D 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 ln Bharata’s unique book on the theatri-
cal arts of India, the Natya-sditra, of which only the twenty-eighth has been
11
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 aj) ,
a recent bibliography, however, shifts it tentatively to the fourth
12
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
I
P C Dharma, ‘Mutual Culture in the Ramiyana, in Indian Culture IV (1937), pp
447-53
10
C R Day, The Mutic arid Musical Instruments of Southern India and the Deccan London,
I B91 . p 13
II Sanskrit lent,
French translation, and commentaries Jean Grosset, Contribution $ etude 1
de Musiqur hmduut, in Bihhotheque de la I atulte des Leases de Lyon (iKHB) v 6 English

la
translation (incomplete) T Clements, Introduction to the Study of Indian Music London,
1913 pp 49-51 Sanskrit text, German translation, and commentaries (incomplete) Bernhard
Breloer, Die Gfundelemente der altmdischen Musi\ Diss Bonn, 1922
12 M S Rama'wami Ai>ar, "Bibhographv of Indian Music,’
m Journal of the Royal Asiatic
Society of Great Britain and Ireland, 1941, p 237
[
3 ]
SCALES
INDIA’S SCALES arc numberless Still there has been a kind of standard
scale, referred to in the very earliest sources, the Rikjrrdtisa\hya and the
Ramdyana epos (both about 400 B c ) shadja, rsabha, gandhdra matihyama ,
(‘middle ), panchama (‘fifth'), dhaivata, and msada, generally abbrevi-

ated to sa rt ga ma pa dha m
The seven names indicate in the first place steps, not notes This unusual
conception probably has the same reason that Mr Coomaraswamy gives for
the frequent portamento of singers and players in India the interval counts
more than the note 13
As an inevitable expedient, the names of the steps were 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 symbol' 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
14
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
1B Anamia Coomaraswamy, ‘Indian Music," in The Musical Quarterly III (1917), p 167
14 N
Chengalavaray an, 'Music and Musical Instruments of the Anciem Tamils,” in Quarterly
Journal of the Mythic Society, n s XXVI (1915)1 P Bo
16 Franz Dornsciff Das Alphabet in Mystik und Magie Berlin,
1925 C E Ruelle, "Le Chant
gnostico-magique des sept voyellcs grecques, in Congres International d'Histoire de la Munque,
Pans, 1914
—
1 66 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
• 9
9
The ancient organization of this scale was startling All distances were
subdivided the semitones into two elements and the whole tones into
either three or four, in all twenty-two elements or srutis
DEFGABCD
3244324 ‘ v *
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 question means to be prejudiced by the modern idea of equal tem-
16
perament
Actually, the irutis 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 arc their shape and their trans-
position
India's standard scales depended on the divisive principle, they had
ma|or whole tones of 204, minor whole tones of 182, and semitones of 112
Cents
These ingredients appeared in several arrangements according to the
mode required, and the modal scales could be transposed to any pitch
The incessant readaptation of the octave required facilities for changing
semitones or major whole tones into minor whole tones, of adding and
cutting ofT adequate portions
All permutations in these ‘give-and-take’ operations were feasible with
only three elements (u) twenty-two Cents or a 'comma,' the difference
between the mj|ur and the minor whole tone (204-182 Cents) ,
(b) seventy
Cents, the difference between the minor whole tone and the semitone,
16 Cl E M wm Hornhosid und R Lachmann, Das lndischr Tormsiem bci Bharata und

scin Uriprung, id Zmschnji fur V crglnchcndc Must^ti'iuenscfiaf/ 1 (1933), PP 73—91
Scales 167
(r) 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
D
1 12 70
E
irutis
F G ABC
22 90 22 70 22 90 22 90 70 22 90 22 70 22 90 22 70 1
D
12
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 fundamental scales or gramas appear in Bharata's treatise sa-grama

and ma-grama And at once difficulties begin
Bharata at first (in slol(a 25) defines sa-grama as the scale of 324 4 324
irutis, but later (in the following slokas 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 look' like a later addition, it is this un-
expected, unnecessary, and contradictory restatement The theory of scales
and modes leaves no doubt that sa-grama started from the note sa and was
a D-mode
Ma-grama, the other fundamental scale, differed, according to Bharata’s
first definition, in nothing but the shift of one ‘standard’ (
pramana ) iruti
(of 22 Cents)
Sa-grama
DEFGABCD
from
32443
G-A to A-B
2 4
Ma-grama
How could so tiny a

32434 difference cause and
I
justify the existence of

4
two
fundamental, indeed opposite, scales'
1
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-
1 68 India
grama ever existed. This denial was indeed a poor move, and unnecessary,
too
The actual nature of ma-grdma 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 Jrutis
D E
3244324 D
Sa-grama F G A B C
Ma-grdma
(3 2
GABCDEFG
4)34 43 2 2 4
Within the range of the ma-grdma would indeed differ by

sa-sa octave,
that one sruti only The was apparently the major third
actual difference
and the minor seventh But this is not the whole truth
Sa-grama is the plagal, and ma-grdma the authentic form of Indian
scales.
Ma-grdma is said to have disappeared from practice in the sixteenth cen-

tury 17 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 thealapa— the improvised introduction of a raga— the singer begins
with the tonic and uses only three notes above and then descends to notes of
the octave below before developing the upper tetrachord
One should not dismiss the question of gramas without considering that
Bharata’s second statement (which 1 believe to be a later addition) mirrors
the more recent stage of Indian music sa-grama has become a C-mode and
ma-grdma an F-mode
This latter scale is described in the very earliest source in Tamil
language,
the Tivd{aram (third century ad) 18 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-grama 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
uN S Ramachandran, The Evolution of the Theory

_ n , of Music m the Viiavanatrar*
pire, in Dr S Krtshnaswarm Aiyangar Commemoration
Volume (1936) n 392
Herbert A Poplev, The Music of India, Calcutta, 1921,
p 31
, "
Scales 169
A third scale, gdndhdra-grama or ga-grama, has been an unsolved mystery.
It is not mentioned in Bharata’s book and had in the thirteenth century aj»
already "withdrawn to Indra’s heaven” when the great theoretician Sarnga-
deva wrote his Sangita Ratnakara
I say, "not mentioned," without adding "yet” It is inadmissible to con-
clude from Bharata's silence that the ga-grama 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 10 Second, there
is the story of Supnya
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
2U
avec mngt-et-un tons et derm-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 Flundred
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 21
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 22
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
19 Popley, ibid
, p 34
ao "Avadana-Qataka,"
transl by Leon Fccr, in Annales du Music GuimetXVin (iflgi ).P ^6
(17th tale)
21
J S Speyer, "Avadanagataka," in Btbhoteca Buddhica, St P^tersbourg, 1902, HI, 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
Grama*," loc cit 1936, pp 629—40
17 ° India
But, 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-
one standard sruti (22 Cents) from F-E to
fer, in a ‘divisive tetrachord,'
E-D, and you have two major whole tones and the minor semitone
the
required in the up-and-down system
D E F G
182 90 204
* 22
We certainly do not know whether the cyclic principle had anything to

do with the ga-grdma But at least we must suppose that this principle still
existed when the Iruti system was being formed
0 •
»
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
scalesBut 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 murchana 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 murchana must have had naturals
The murchanas were 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 jalts
will show that only seven were in actual use
Tanas were 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
scales, 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 murchana " In other words, the notes in
question
could be cither 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
Ml
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
stereotype reproduction, every performance means actual re-creation
The high civilizations of the Orient have to a great extent preserved the
flexibility 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 raga and varied only in so far as its laws remained intact
Raga means 'color' or ‘passion’ and denotes a pattern of melody with
a well-defined 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' amsa, originally identical with the starter, is neither
what we call a tonic nor a dominant It is not even conditioned by the
structure of the scale and sometimes differs in various melodies of the
same raga Modern Bilaval, for example, the counterpart of
our major
mode, has the tetrachordal skeleton C-F-G-C, but the predominant E Its
role becomes perfectly clear from our Examples 58 to 62 in Bihag, it is E,
in Bhatrava, A, in Bhairavi, C, in Mdlkps, C
Certain melodic characteristics often join the obligatory traits of a raga
Modern Bilahari, for instance, requires the copious use of the turn A C B A
The easiest way to make Westerners understand what melodic patterns
are is to compare them with the architectural orders of the Greeks Hellenic
architects 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 power of the ragas is mirrored in a legend from the Adbhuta
Ramayana
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 rdgmis, 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 28
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 —What Timotheos —
and others have manhandled me, oh, friend ?
The Redhead from Miletos —Timotheos, too, maltreated you? —He the is
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-
28 Herbert A Popley, The Music of India, op cit
p 8
vised 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
took Hanuman into the vicinity of the abode of 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

24
himself, hung his head and performed penance for his silly vanities
Exactness and skill were not only a question of art; careless performances
endangered the extramusical potentialities of the rdgas 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 rdga, 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 other hand, attempted to sing the raga Dipa\a was
to be destroyed by fire The Mohammedan Emperor Akbar [sixteenth century
ad] ordered Naik Gopaul, a celebrated musician, to sing that rdga he en
deavored 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 fumna
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 raga Naik Gopaul
renewed the fatal song flames burst with violence from his body, which,
though immersed in the waters of the Jumna, was consumed to ashes 21 I
The rdgas 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
24 Anya Begum Fvzce-Rahamin, The Music of India, London, 1925, p 87
20 Sir W
Ouheley “Anecdotes of Indian Music," in The Oriental Collections I and in
Sounndro Mohun Tagore, Hindu Music from Various Authors, 2nd ed Calcutta, 1882, I, r66
,
,
Ragas 175
night ragas at midday the powers of his music were such that it instantly
became night, and the darkness extended in a circle round the palace as far
26
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
” 27
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-
28
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 arc 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 arid relate it to
grandeur and the hours between noon and 300PM
This confusion frustrates any deeper insight into the relation of the
musical and the extramusical qualities of the ragas
20 Ibid
, pp 165 f
27 C R Da y, The Music and Musical Instruments of Southern India and the Deccan ,
op at p 45 ,
28 P C Dharma, “Musical Culture in the Ramayana," loc at pp 447—53
176 India
Evidence of ragas appears in the earliest sources of Indian music, though
under different names The Ramayana (c 400 b c ) as well as Bharata and
even 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 ragas logically starts from the

modern ragas 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-called 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 themselves 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 Mixolydun), 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
modes, it neglects the hexatonic versions, but includes the pentatonic forms
Bracketsmake 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
arc real-
ized in the seven simple and eleven complex scales as
they stand.
Ragas 177
The Seven Pure Jatis
Panlaml Ariabhl
ABCDEFGA
v >
EFGABCDE
k i
A B D E G~~A E F G ? B D~E
Modern Asavari Modern Bhairavi
Hypodorian Dorian
Madhyami Sadji
G A B C D EF G
v /
DEFG A B C D
G A B D ~E G D ? F G A~B 3
Modern Khamdj Modern Kdphi
Hypophrygian Phrygian
Gandhdri NAddi
F G A B C D E F C D E F G A BC
F G A c l) F C E F G Tt
Modern Yaman Modern Bilaval
Hypolydian Lydian
Dhaivati
B C DE F G A B
v
B C E F G
/
B
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 after Abraham and Hornbostel
“1
J* 136
— 1
t
1 i-m
iwr.iifl
mi
1
r
tv
n1
.m
Tlr &
# •
,
178 India
The number of ragas, already indicated as sixty in a Sanskrit-Tibetan dic-

29
tionary of the seventh century a d ,
increased, at least in theory, to several
hundreds, indeed, thousands, the ancient Tamils calculated the total as
n 991,
10
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 ragas have sprung from Siva Mahadeva’s five heads, and a sixth one,
from Parvatl, his wife, each of the six great ragas has five wives or
ragtnis 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 NV Bhatkande in Bombay 31
This
is its outline
All ragas are organized in ten groups according to the scale on which
they are built
1) Bildval 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, Bihag, and, from Udai
Shankar's repertoire, the pentatonic pattern of this group, Durga
Ex 59 AACA BIHAG after Abraham and H ornbostel

J-U6,
Ex 60 RAGA DURGA transcribed by Curt Sachs after Udai Shankar

•1 = 128
ZB Annnda Coomaraswamy, "Indian Music," loe at p 166

80 N Chengalavara) an, op cit, p 81
81 Poplcy, op cit p 55
,
Ragas 179
2) Yaman group the same scale with a sharpened fourth, Hypolydian.
3) Khamaj 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 Gvpsy scale Ex 58)
5) Purvi group the same, except for an augmented fourth, no Greek

analogy
6) Marva 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) Asavari group the upper fourth has the semitone below and the
lower tetrachord in the middle, Greek Hypodonan
9) Bhairavi group (‘ascetic’) both tetrachords have the semitone be-
low, Greek Dorian My two examples illustrate Bhairavi proper and its
pentatonic version Mdlôs
Ex 61 haga bhairavi after Eachmann
10)
Ex 62 R.AGA macros transcribed by Curt Sachs after Udai Shankar
insult
Todi 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, Bihag
jumps from C to E and from G to B, Durgd passes from D to F and from
A toC and thus is a pentatonic scale of the 124 type
From a Western standpoint, we should prefer a different arrangement

of the ten groups a first unit, comprising the six diatonic groups
(0 to ( 3)
and (7) to (9), and a second unit, comprising the scales with augmented
c ,
180 India
seconds (4) to (6) and (10) But Bhatkandc was right from an Indian
standpoint, as wc shall see in what follows.
• •
•
Bhatkande's classification takes into consideration the hours of the day at
which the ragas are supposed to be sung.

Most Hindus divide the day into six periods, (a) 4 00 to 7 00 a m and
p m ,
when day and night separate, (A) 7 00 to 10 00 a m and p m ,
after the
separation, and ( ) 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 (a) require those ragas that have the augmented second D\)-E.
(A) those that have D, 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. 32
There is no consistency, however, either in the division of the day or in
the association of certain ragas with certain hours Another system is based
on eight periods of three hours each and proceeds with the ragas in the fol-
33
lowing way
1) From 6 00 to 9 00 am one plays slow, dreamy, pure ragas, estab-
lished on the Gypsy scale, like Bhairava

2) From 900 AM to noon Asavari and Bhairavi ragas, with three and
four flats
3) From noon to 3 00 p m Kaphi ragas with two flats,
4) From 3 00 to 6 00 pm. Purvi and Marl'd 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 p m to midnight major ragas of the Bildval group
7) From midnight to 3 00 a m pentatonic ragas with three flats,
. like
Malkos
8) From 3 00 to 6 00 a m pentatonic ragas, like Hindolam, in which
all the notes of Mailtos, except the first and its octave, are sharpened
,J Popley, op ci ! pp 63 £ ,
11 Fyzee-Rahamin, op cit p 76
, 1
Ragas 1 8
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 majorhke
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 tambun, 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
34
has all fingerholes but one stopped with wax or no fingerholes 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
’ ”
88
he felt ‘like a ship without a rudder
• •
•
Gamaka or ornamentation has been "life and soul” of Indian music.

“Music without gamaka" Somanatha 1600) claims, "is like a moonless
(c
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
” 36
the accompaniment which it presupposes But I like particularly the way
” 87
Mr Stoll briefly puts it “Without gamakas a melody cannot smile
The English translation ‘‘ornament,” however, wrongs the gamaka
Indian graces are not glued on some melody like trills and mordents in re-
cent Western music. They arc 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, Dte Muitînstrumenig Jndieni und Indonesienst op at, pp

B
155, 15B, 159,
165-7
BB A H Fox Strangways, The Muuc
of Hindostan, op at p 46
10 Ananda Coomaraswamy, op at
p 167 ,
17 Dennis Stoll, "The 'Graces' of Indian Music," loc at,

p 169
182 India
them in one long dash of the pen that the writer’s mood and motor impulse
vivify 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 irutt nearest at hand, and frequently
such turns would require, in Dennis Stoll’s words, “an aural microscope
” 3B
for our uncultured Western ear in order to grasp them in detail
The ornaments for the vind, the sarod, and other plucked instruments
have been neatly classified and even written down in special symbols glis-
sando 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 relifting the finger, flattening a note by pressure of the nail and plucking
with extraordinary strength, and many other refinements 3B
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 ornamentation will often be at a loss to decide whether he hears
a Chinese performing on a ch'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-
nary type often overdo ornamentation They
appear to have an idea that the highest form of their art consists in introducing
as much grace as possible, whether it adds to the beauty of their songs or
not,
in fact, 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
the air or the words of a song, since the singer is only anxious to exhibit what
he fondly imagines 40
to be his skill
The strangest aspect of ancient gamaf{d appears in Narada’s surprising

classification of rdgas into three groups the first includes those sung with
a quivering voice throughout, the second, those with partial quivering, the
third, those without any quivering
88 Ibid
p 16B
,
18 Cf Richard
Simon "Die Notationen dcs Somanatha," in Kgl Baycnschc Akodcrme
der
Sitzungsbenchte der philolog Klasse, 1903, Heft III,
pp 452-60
1
40 r
C R Day, The Music and Musical Instruments of Southern India
and the Deccan • op
r at ,
p DO
, ,
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-
ldes 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

1
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 recommends him to eat sweet fruits and roots in small quanti-
It
ties, insistson his singing exactly as taught without any ingenious attempts
to improve the master’s composition or supplement it by flourishes, and
12
strictly forbids him to take money or any other remuneration
In later times, both northern and southern treatises on music dedicate
43
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 44
41 Cf Mongols des Urdus,"
,
for example, Joseph van Oost, "La Musiquc chez Ics in Anthropos
X/XI (1916/17) pp 363, 385
42 P C Dharma, ‘Musical Culture in the Ramayana," loc cit pp 447—53
44 C Tirumalayya Naidu, Gang Vtdya Sanjivim, 1896, p 12
44 Fyzcc-Rahamm, op at , p 71, Chcngalavarayan, op cit p 82
-
[5 ]
RHYTHM AND FORM

INDIAN RHYTHM in its marvelous wealth and importance shows bet-
ter than the system of the Western and the Eastern Orient the two basic
forms of rhythmic organization meter and time
The Roman orator Fabius Quintilianus has given the shortest definition
Metrum in verbis modo, 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 carnage, 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; means the same type of stress, while the tempo is double
Meter is 'quantitative', it organizes melody (like verse) in a rhythmical
senes of long and short notes Counting a long note as two shorts —which
is typical in all meters — the numeric symbol of meters is sums a dactyl
would appear as 2 + i + i and an iamb as 1 + 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, ikshara, faithfully respected the numberless
foot patterns in which the arrangement of long and short was classified
To help with this classification, the Hindus have

imposing fabricated the
word yamdtardjabhdnasalagdm Each three consecutive syllables, counting
from the first, the second, the third, etc syllable, indicate one meter,
yamdtd
mdtdrd
tdraja
rajabha
jabhana
44 Fabiui QuinnlianuE, IniUtutio oraiorta IX iv

Rhythm and Form 185
bhanasa —— w
nasala •w- w w
salagdm ^—
In addition, using the two last syllables only:
lala ^
laga ——
gala —^
gaga
Symbols for rests occur, but only — like the medieval punctus dtvtsioms
— 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 48
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, ekji, corresponds to our^, and the north has
some simple patterns, allegedly introduced by the Mohammedans dhlma —
f + T+t + T or 7> and ^ rfl

=T + Y or T
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 ywould give an idea of tala, since it combines
two three-beat groups in the metric relation of a spondee But the true tala
avoids equivalence of its members
41 Airer Erwin Felbcr and Bernhard Geiger, op at , p 109
1 86 India
The space occupied by a pattern is called vibagha, 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
angas 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
Ekji 3 4 5 7 9
Rupaâ 2 +3 2 +4 2+5 2+7 2 +9
Jhampa 3 + +21 4 + 1 + 2 5 + 1+2 7 + 1 +2 9+1+2
Tnputa 3 + 2 +2 4 + 2+ 2 5 +2+2 7 + 2+ 2 9 + 2 +2
Mathya 3 + 2 + 3 4 + 2+ 4 5 + +5
2 7 +2+7 9+2+9
Dhruva 3 +2 +3 +3 4 + 1 +4 + 4 5 +2+ 5+ 5 7+2+7+7 9 + 24-9 + 9
Ata 3 +3 + 2 +2 4 + 44-2 + 2 5 + 5+2 + 2 7 +7 +2 +2 9 + 9 +2+2
The underlined symbol indicates which of the five jdtis or varieties of each
tala 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 ., J , i_j;
The second row indicates two-member periods of two plus three, four,
five, seven, nine units
And so on
Permutation is admitted, Dhruva reads 2 + 4 + 4 + 4or 4 + 4+2 + 4 as
well Moreover, all members may be split and dissolved into units
Skillful drummers go as far beyond the regular patterns as they want, one
of them, Sirphanadana, 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 time 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,
d
Rhythm and Form 187

one has eight time units
J J /J.
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 jj.
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) a, palm upward and the fingers bent, (
b)
m, palm downward and the fingers stretched out; (r) vi, hand to the right,
palm upward and the fingers stretched out, (

d ) pra, palm downward and
the fingers bent
The audible beats were (a) dhru, snapping the fingers, (£) sa, slapping
(as the thigh) with the right hand, (c) ta, slapping with the left hand,
( )
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.
—
1 88 India
In performing these movements, the hands alternated from member to

member sa as the audible slap indicated that also the silent gestures of the
-
same member were made with the right hand; ti 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. J' J J J* J.
Silent gestures s s s s s s
Audible beats AA 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
stressed beats of our musical style
With the 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 ru
Sa sa, 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 of 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 :
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
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 + 2 + 2 + 3 or in any other sequence ?
1
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 m 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 raga a certain piece would be
headed Malsart raga and Sulpha\ala tala, or Bilaval raga and Tlntdl 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-
,
igo India
cians,
47
and Emperor Akbar’s hand consisted of
in the sixteenth century,
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 skin tuned in the tonic sa, and the ‘empty’ beats or hjialis with his left
hand on the other drum head in lower pa, as
Right -N .rj'j x
*
Left C
But skillful drummers do not rest satisfied with so easy a technique, in-
stead, they develop 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 \/>alis, while the left hand plays
it in ‘augmentation’ twice as slowly
.N j' j ;j j xj
1203 1203 or 1023010230
1203 10230
J J J J J J
Often, however, the two hands play different talas, one in ordinary time
and the other in augmentation, for instance
//J / -N /
203 203 203
1
1
02034
1 1
j j j j
The two patterns may even overlap •
/j mj j'U'j
1203 1203 1203 1203 1203
/ij-j /i/j /1
1023 0102 3010 2301 0230

j n
j x j j1 jy j / j 1 1
1
4T Fox So-angwayj, The Music of Hmdostan op ,

cil pp 79 f
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 124, and three shades in each of them Within these nine tempi,
certain forms of accelerando and rallcntando 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 Lhe 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 aldpa and rdga proper
The first part, aldpa, 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 still with more freedom than the
rdga proper would admit
The desire for freedom and virtuosoship has to a certain extent inverted
the roles of aldpa and rdga, performers occasionally would dwell an hour
on the aldpa and give the rdga not more than fifteen minutes The south,
more conservative than Hindustan, has not allowed the alapa 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 rondohke
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
jg2 India
” 48 Hindu's line In truth,
his friends Orchestras are not properly in the
modern theaters have built up some kind of orchestra, and a few contem-
porary musicians indulge— like Udai Shankar — in those delightful color-
isLic effects which 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 vlna, a violin, and
a drum
18 Coomaraswamy, op at p 163
,
Plate 7a Indian dancers, drummers, and harpists Relief lrom the temple at
Hli irliut, c 200 u After Cl. unite Martel Dubois
Plate 7H Indian dancer and players with drums,

transverse flute lute, and harp Relief lrom Pawaya,
hrst centuries a d After Ooomaras wuny
P laii. 8 1 Iil Skohon of Seikilos From a tomb stele at Tralles in Asia
Minor, c too b r —
The skohon begins on the sixth line The notes, pi teed
abo\t the eonesponding syllables ol the lext, are liken trom ihe current
alphabet and btlong to the so called \ ot il Notation The dashes ahoee
some ol tluse 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 settlers it penetrated
what today is called Indo-Cluna and the Malay Archipelago
There was a westbound exportation, too The fact, of little 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 idgas 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 titnbutu, the strange South Indian
stick 7ither kinnari shared its name with King David’s binnor, the Hebrew
lyre, vina, a foreign word, as its spelling implies, and in times bc indi-
cating the arched harp, had for at least three thousand years been ,he name
49
of the Egyptian harp
Direct reports give evidence of musical exchanges The diary of a navi-
gator at the beginning of the Erst century a d ,
the Penplus Mans Erythraet,
relates that India in his time imported mousi\d from Egypt, Eudoxios of
Cadiz ships “musical girls” ( mousilâ pauhskfiria ) to India, and the geogra-
50
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, the Acts of St Thomas, written
before 230 ad ,
tell how a piper came down to the place where the apostle
48 Curt Sachs, The History of Musical Instruments, op at p 153.

80 Strabo, Geography XV, i
p 55
194 India
landed in India, "stood over him and played at his head for a long time,
” al
now this piper-girl was by race a Hebrew
But 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
all, at a very late time, the long-necked lutes, such as tambun and sitdr,
which from time immemorial had existed in Mesopotamia and Iran The
name tambun, it is true, appears in a late Sanskrit masquerade as tumburu-
vina (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
Middle 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
certainly 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 combinations 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 Hellenistic times, essentially createdunder 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
fll
Ada Apostoiorum Apocrypha, cd Lipsius-Bcmnci, II u 108
Section Five
GREECE AND ROME

N O MORE
among them
was discovered,
than a
are
cination of any other period of music history

dozen Greek melodies are preserved, and several
mere fragments But long before the
the interest in Greek music outweighed the
Indeed, Greek music
first relic
fas-
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 theones 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, W'hich in a way has swerved from the
exaggerated idolatry of classical antiquely
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, refeired 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
9
THE SOURCES
THE RELICS of Greek music number eleven, some of which are fragmen-
tary
0 Pindar's First Pythian Ode, allegedly fifth century b c ,

was published
in 1650 in Father Athanasius Kircher’s Musurgta Universalis But no source
could be found, and the piece, obviously written in a style later than Pin-
1
dar's time, is probably fraudulent
1 The first stationary song of the chorus (
stasimon ) from Euripides’
2
tragedy Orestes (fifth century), written on papyrus and fragmentary
2 A fragment, possibly from a tragedy, written on a papyrus from about
250 b c in the Museum at Cairo 3
3-4 Two hymns in honor of Apollo, engraved in stone in the Athenian

treasury at Delphi about the middle of the second century bc‘
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

6
Minor
6 Paean on the older Ajax's suicide and two other fragments on a papy-
rus in Berlin, written down about 160 aj) but probably, indeed almost cer-
8
tainly, older
7 Hymn to Helios
8 Hymn to Nemesis
9 Hymn to the Muse, probably all three composed in the second cen-
tury a d by Mesomedes (or the last perhaps by Dionysios) and published,

1
Otto J Gombosi, “The Melody of Pindar's ‘Golden Lyre/ ” in The Musical Quarterly XXVI
(1 94 °)i PP 381-9
2
h. Wessely Der Papyrus Erzherzog Rainer, 1S92
8
Carlo del Grande, "Nuovo frammento di musica greca in un papiro del Museo del Cairo,”
in Aegyptus V (1936), p 369
4
Theodore Runach in Fondles de Delphes III 11 (1912), Otto Crusius, “Die delphischcn
Hymncn hrganz tings heft zum Phdologus LI 1 I (1894)
6
Bulletin de Corrcspondcince hellemque, 1883, Otto Crusius in Philologus,
1891, Philipp
Spitu, Einr nemufgcfundene akgnechischc Melodic/ in Vieriel/ahrsschnft fur Musi\wu-
senschaft X (1894), pp mj-ro
H W
Schubirt, 'Em gricLhischer Papyrus mit Notcn " in Sitzungsberichte de- Konigltch
PreussMSchcn 1{ade n.ie der W'is\enschaften XXXVI (1918), pp 763 — B Albert Thicrfeldcr, “Ein
neuaufgeTuncIcnef Papyrus in Zeitst/irtft fur Musif{wisscnsch<jft I (1919), pp 217-25 Her-
mann Abcrt Der neue gncchische Papjrus mu Mimknoten, in Archw fur Musik.u>isseiijchaft
I
( 1 PP 3M-i8 Rudolf Wagner,
1
9) * Der Berliner Notenpapyrus," in Philologus LXXVII
(1921), pp 256-310
The Sources 199
though without transcription, as early as 1581 in Vincenzo Galilei’s Dialogo
7
della Musica antica
io Hymn from Oxyrhynchos in Egypt, third century ad, on papyrus 8
n A small instrumental piece by an anonymous composer, of unknown

date, in an anonymous treatise on music 8
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 Shortly 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 cali-
brated string of the monochord

The theory of music reached another peak in the second century a d with
Nikomachos, Aiabian-born Neo-Pythagorean, and with the famous geog-
rapher Ptolemy, librarian of the great Library at Alexandria, who in his
Harmomka left the standard mathematical work on music The impor-
tance of Aristides Quintilianus’ Peri mousilês in three books has only re-
cently been fully realized Its ample information is supplemented in the
slightly later Harmontlî etsagoge of Gaudentios
Among the books of late antiquity, we are particularly indebted to the
7 Friedrich Bellermann, Die Hymnen des Dionysius und Mesoinedes, Berlin, 1640 Janus,
Smptores Musici, 1895, pp 462 ft Theodore Runach, La Musiquc gretqne 1926,
pp 196ft
8
Grenfell and Hunt, The Oxyi hynthos Papyri XV London, 1922 no 1768 Hermann
Abcrc, in Zeitsehnjt fur Must\ivuscnschajt IV (1922), pp 524-9 Theodore Reinach, in Rei/ue
musicale III 9, pp 8ft
B
Fridencus Bellermann, Anonymi Scriptto de Musica, Berol 1841,
p 98 ,
200 Greece and Rome
Alexandrian Alypios (c 360 ad), whose comprehensive survey of Greek
notation made possible the decipherment of Greek music, and to King
Theodoric's unfortunate chancellor Boethius, who concluded musical an-
tiquity with a presentation in five books De Mustca 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
Regiurn and Hcrakleides Pontikos laid its foundations in the fourth cen-
tury b c The golden age of the historical branch of musicology was the
second century a d The so-called Baedeker Pausanias inserted important
seetions on the music at the ancient Pythian games and on folksongs in his
description of Greek curiosities, the encyclopedist, Julius Pollux, gave, in
his Onomastilôn, important abstracts from authors since lost The out-
standing men were Alhenaios, in the discussions of his Dnpnnôphists, and
Plutarch, tn 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 this Greek section One point, however, might be
stressed at once the division of Greek music history into two main periods
The Ctrl ter pet tod, which we would call classical but which Plutarch de-
fined a s the era of beautiful music, was characterized by economy, sim-
plicity, and dignity It came to an end when the generation of about 430
11 c 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 fiisthand or just a repeti-
tion of contemporaneous opinions and a mirror of the universal unwilling-
ness to do justice to ‘modern’ art.
Music history is deeply indebted to these men for having transmitted to

posterity a mass of musical facts unique in their superabundance Unlike
Oriental authors, ihey have shown us ihe rough outlines of an evolution in
the fifteen hundred yeirs Owing to them, we distinguish
of ancient life
a primeval period in which blended the songs of Grecian
tribes and their
Asiatic, Thracian, and Cretan neighbors, a classic
il period of national
Greek music, inaugurated in the seventh century rc by the Lesbian Ter-
pander, and a postclassical, modern' period from about 450 b c on, when
subjectivism, characteristic of the time before the Peloponnesian war,
The Sources 201
led to the revolutionary art of Phryms 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 harmoma ,
etdos, tonos, tropos, systcma 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
’critical’ 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 tn and sub, when we learn that in a double
pipe one tube was mcentiva and the other succcntiva? 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 mcentiva and a succcntiva 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
they not know more about playing them than Europe, which did away
with the last remainders of the ancient lyre more than a thousand years
agoi Pentatonic melodies, with major and with minor thirds, have had no
1
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 proteges 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-
10
tionary reorientation in every sense of the word
1D Cf D B Mcinro, Modes
of Ancient Greeks Music Oxford, 1894 J F Mountford, “Creek
Music and Its Relations to Modern Times, in Journal of Hellenic Studies XL (1920) Cun
Sachs, “Die Gnechischc Instrumcntalnotenschnft, in Zeitschnft fur Musikwissenschaft VI
(1924), pp 289-301, and ‘Die Griechisehe GesangsnotensLluift in Zeitschnft fur Mustl^wts
renschaft VII (1925), pp 1-5 R P Winmngton Ingram, Mode in Ancient Greek, Music
Cambridge, 1936 Otto Johannes Gombosi, Tonartcn und SUmmungen der anti ken Munk ,
(Copenhagen, 1939
,
[
2 ]
NOTATION
THE CRITICAL ATTITUDE of the author of this book springs from

his own struggles with the tangle of a notation unique in the world
The Greeks 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 modern notation Their actual pitches, though, are 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 preserved between b’ and ejj On the other hand, it is practical,
since it allows us to transcribe the ancient melodies with as few sharps and
flats as possible
This international agreement was unfortunately endangered when, at the
beginning of this century, Hugo Riemann destroyed the consistency of the

Greek 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 mam scale of
the Greeks, 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 Riemaan’s reasoning was in all
11
points erroneous Thus we eliminate his and his followers’ impressive
tonalities and restore the old simple keys
9
»
The instrumental notation was used for the mesault\d, interludes for
pipes between vocal sections, and for the \roumata, pieces for stringed in-
12
struments without singing It consisted of letters belonging to archaic
11 Cun Sachs, "Die Gnechische Instrumencalnoienschrift,” loc at

11 Aristides Quinulianus, op cit 26
p
204 Greece and Rome
alphabets, but differed from any known letter notation the notes B and E
were given two symbols each, all other notes of 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 flattened and the reversed signs meant sharps
K /’ U' V **'/*/ U V < acuu.rt.l.u.cdu -4

>’t\ v / v >h 3 11 3 P 3 T
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
melody When these neighboring notes appeared together, the Greeks
wrote C with the flattened sign of B, that is, as Z?$, and F with the flattened
sign of E, that is, as Ejf Why? But when they needed either a sharp before
another sharp— say Gjff before —or a whole tone above a natural — say
CJf above B— they used the reversed signs of G or C Once more why ?
The author gave the answer many years ago “the lyre, chief instrument
of the Greeks,was pentatonic without semitones and preserved its archaic
tuning even when the number of its strings was increased beyond five T he
script devised for such an instrument, indicating fingering rather than
" 13
notes, was a tablature, not a pitch notation
With a pentatonic accordatura, the lyre had either a b or a <d string, but
never both together, and the same is true of the c and / When a lyre had
a string tuned to b, any c’ was artificially produced by pressing the b string
with one of the fingers This was indicated by the flattened symbol When
a melody contained both
g# and /#, the forefinger was engaged in stopping
one of the two strings, and the other had to be sharpened with the middle
finger This was indicated by the symbol In melodies with
third, reversed,
both b and c$, 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
above the open string (In symbol was abnormally de-
this case the third
rived from <f , though the note was actually produced by the b string, prob-
ably to avoid a chromatic interpretation
)
® *
9
The vocal notation of the Greeks on the same principle each note
is built
of the diatonic scale is given three symbols However, this second notation
18 Cun Sachs, ‘Die Gncchischc Instrumemalnotenschrift, ’
loc at, 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 — ABTi
— runs through the groups of three, A B T serving the note /, AEZ serving
the note e' and so on And it runs the other way around, descending from
A to n, as a vocal scale would be expected to do Consequently, 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
i/' r‘ z
1
r M’ O' e IT r Z M 0 c A 1 Y “ W t 3
I 4
B' r 0 '
A' A A B E © A p T * P F V M b —
A' A' H' K N' 1 * A A H K N n T * V P H n u —i
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-
14
tone fallowed Thus, Seikilos wrote his Skolion with the letters Z 1 O C
for the naturals, and with the two first row sharps K and X for c% (before
b) and /# (before e) In the Hymn to Helios, on the contrary, the com-

poser wrote b\) or rather a# with the second-row sign P because it was at the
distance of only a semitone from the following a (PI 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
14 Curt Sjchi, “Djl Griechiiche Gesanînotcnschnft,” jji Zcitschnft fur Musik^wtssenschafl
VII (1925), PP 1-5
[ 3 ]
THE GENERA
DIATONIC, CHROMATIC, ENHARMONIC, the three genera of
Greek music, provide the supreme evidence that both notations were
tablatures rather than pitch scripts
The Greeks called diatonic — as we do— a scale composed of five whole

tones and two semitones, that is, having two whole tones and a semitone
in each tetrachord
The chromatic genus in Aristides — Quintilianus’ words “as chrSma

[‘color’] is wedged between white and black” — was the “sweetest” genus
15
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
far 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 Seikilos wrote his famous little Skolion, had to leap from
the sixth to the ninth, tenth, fifteenth, eighteenth, and twenty-second letters
of the alphabet
Docs 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
BeJlermann s Second Anonynius

The Genera 207
(fifth century bc), 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 'normal' genus
Aristoxenos, more directly, asserts that while there arc 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
no direction given on the use of the
find
”
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 ad, “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 a d, that diatonic was the only
genus sung in his days
* ®
The original enharmonion, however, was pentatonic, its tetrachords had

a ma|or third with one unclcft 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
208 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 megahthic downward leaps of a major third, then
a semitone, and again a ma)or 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- j that he transferred it Lo the Dorian scale
This remark is certainly cryptic But Hugo Rieminn had a “plausible”
explanation ready Olympos, as a Phrygian, must needs have devised his

new genus in the Phrygian mode, only laLer, he bowed 10 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” vs as, must
rather have started from the onginal heptad of two conjunct tetrachords
which, as we shall see, was called Ionian, Iastian, 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 liter 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
and the south of 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 Roth 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-
harmomon in its archaic structure One of its modes, kjimoi, is the Lorm in
which it appears in the Delphic Hymn just mentioned
In a more recent form, zo\u-ga\u, the major third of the Japanese scale,
has been cleft in two seconds the tetrachord AFE has become A g F E.
This shows that in a natural evolution major-third pentatomcism turns into
the structurewe know as Dorian
The extraordinary significance of the enharmomon 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
given 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 bad not much space to spend But Ludwig
Deubncr was finally able to prove the existence of lyres with three or four
18
strings
We even know their tuning- Plutarch’s Per} 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 pyuria
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 ad),
c* b a c
Again, the four strings made possible both enharmonic and
chromatic, but not diatonic, melodies, although having the range of an
octave
ia Ludwig Deubner, "Die viemitige Leier," in Athenuchc Mirtalungcn LIV (inao)

pp 1 94-aoo
[
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
Greek musicians and the conscientiousness of the mathe-
the sensitivity of
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)
EnharmSmon 400 + 50 + 50
Chroma mala\ 6n 366+ 67+ 67
ChrSma heminlion 350+ 75+ 75
Chroma Comaion 300 a- 300 + 100
Diatonon malakon 250 + +

150 100
Diatonon syntonon 200 + 200 + 100
The didtonon malakjdn 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 salcndro 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, Anstoxenos
says, “one must understand that the number of hchanoi [notes second high-
est in the lower tetrachords] is unlimited, you can place a Itchanoid 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 hchanos, 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
Oriental tetrachord with the lessened minor third 7 6 (1 e, 267 Cents)

The so-called Aristoxemans, who like their master and his teacher
Aristotle relied on man’s senses rather than on mathematical subtleties,
took an astonishing step to evaluate their shades, instead of representing

intervals by ratios, they represented distances by dividing a fourth into
sixty units of 8 3 Cents Anticipating the latest achievement of modern

musicology —distance measure instead of interval ritio — 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
Ptoiemy and his partisans, however, were passionately opposed to tempera-

ment, mathematically 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 'cut,' which is the
difference between a perfect fourth and major third (4/3 5/4=16/15
a
or 112 Cents), and

(
b) the letmma 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
Enharmomon 386 + 74 + 38
Chrdma mala\ 6n 316 + 120 + 62

ChrSma syntonon 267 + 151 + 80
The Shades 213
Dtdtonon mala\an 233 + 182+ 83
Didtonon toniaion 204 + 233+ 62
Didtonon syntonon 182 + 204 + 112
Didtonon dttomaion 204 + 204 + 90
Diatonon homalon. 182 + 165 + 151
The didtonon dttomaion 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 Anstoxenos 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 Anstoxenos’ tetrachords were ‘weak,’
and Ptolemy’s ‘energetic.’
The two systems held by no means undivided sway Plato’s friend,
Archytas (fourth century bc), proposed an enharmonion of 386-50-62

Cents, while a century later Eratosthenes, librarian 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 ad), is credited with a didtonon of
204-182-112, in which — as in Ptolemy’s didtonon syntonon — 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, equal
temperament was generally adopted
In all, the Greeks had at least three major thirds, of 386, 400, and 411
Cents respectively, five minor ranging from 267 to 374 Cents, seven
thirds,
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, malakon, which was half didtonon toniaion and half chrSma
syntonon
)
Greece and Rome

214
d' C b a g f e
e'
231 63 204 204 231 63

Hard 204
231 63 204 267 151 81
Soft 204
deviation of as much as a third of a tone from our modern

In both there is
scale
players of the lyra Those who
These intonations were valid only for
performed on the kithara preferred the two forms called parhypdte, which
was half didtonon toniaion, half didtonon mala\ 6 n, and lydion (half
didtonon toniaion, half didtonon syntonon
Parhypdte 204 231 63 204 231 182 84

Lydion 182 204 112 204 204 231 63
And so with all these unwonted experiences, one more surprising fact
must be taken in the Greeks did not rest satisfied with scores of genera,
modes, scales, shades, and keys, they even disregarded the symmetry of
equal tctrachords 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

keyboards, could hardly be blamed for sneering at an nverrefinement that
to them meant decadence and snobbishness Still, the Greeks would have
stopped their cars had they heard our piano scales, just as, vice versa,
modern music lovers unfamiliar with the different principles of Oriental

scales 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 arc actually
'mixed '
Two of the most popular Oriental scales, Baydti and Iyfahdn, are
composed of a syntonon tetrachord and a dttoniaion pentachord, and
Higdz, 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,
both the Arabs and the Turks were young and unspoiled at the time their
melodies were being classified
The Oriental warning suggests a reconsideration of what norm and
exception are 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 hinds of tetrachords
and pentachords in order to legalize by a combination of ratios what tn
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 Nahawand 17

We print
their distances under A and B and add the normal distances as indicated
1B
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
17 Alfred Berner, imdicn zur arabuchcn Mustk., Leipzig, 1937, p 15

18 Raouf Yekta Bey, "La Musiquc Turque,' m Lavignac, Encydopidie dt It Miwqv* I
1 v, pp 2993, 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, etdos,
hcumoma, schema, tasis should have been carefully distinguished They
spoke of Iastian, or Aeolian, or Locrian, without saying whether they had
keys, modal octaves, or structures in mind, and Iastian, 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 running to and fro, forward and back anticipating and reverting
At least, we shall try to separate the classical times from the postclassical
period in which the so-called perfect system unified and leveled the old
modes
The word mode, applied to Greek music, evokes the familiar terms
Dorian, 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 |ust a mode, it was the standard form
of the diatonic genus |ust 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 seven notes, d' o' b\> a/a g f e The linking note a was called the ‘middle’
note or mere, and a true center it was, equidistant from either end of the
heptachord
The second composite system was the octochord or octave, in which a
tetrachord and a pentachord were linked Such conjunction could be made
Early Modes 217
in two ways (a) the pentachord was placed above the tetrachord (fijth-
on-top), as in the ‘plagal’ 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 boLh 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 Lhe 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 tew 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
Nikomachos' Enc/w idion (second century ad) that in pre-
assertions in
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 sc, has
been credited with both the completion of the octave and the c eation of
the Mixolydian scale This evolution, too, is mirrored in a feature of
Japanese music in the different arrangements of the zoku-gakû scale
(which we write in the pitch of the Greek scales)
Htra|oshi e' d’ E b a g /# e
Kumoi . e' d' c' b a g j e
Iwato e' d' E b\) a g f e

Greece and Rome
2I g
appeared in Greece and were later
Exactly the same three arangements
Dorian, and Hyperdonan or Mixolydian The Greeks,
called Hypodorian,
like the Japanese, developed three different modes out of the Dorian tetra-
chord
In the light of these simple statements, we at last understand the cryptic
invective, ascribed to Herakleides Pontikos (fourth century bc), against

the current triad Dorian, Phrygian, and Lydian The two latter, he angrily
says, must not be called harmontai, the only harmomai are Dorian, Aeolian,
and Ionian
Why Were ? not harmontai 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 ever 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 Iastian, to Mixolydian or Hyperdonan All three of Hera-
kleides' harmontai were Dorian
A puzzling limitation of the term harmoma 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 us pentatonic and heptatonic forms Consequently the
title hat mama seems to have belonged to this scale exclusively, in any
stage and arrangement, before was indiscriminately given to all kinds
it
of modes, and if so, Herakleides, as one of the earliest writers, followed the
older usage
« *
»
The first development visible in Greek music is the construction of lvrcs

with more than tour strings five strings appear on vases of the eighth
centurv bc, and seven strings on vases of the seventh century Such in
strumenis were rather antienharmomc, since they forced the performers to
skip strings Instead, they were perfectly convenient for melodies in minor
third penlatomcs and even for diatonic melodies In other words, the ap
pearance of five strings in the eighth century certifies the arrival of minor-
third scales with or without their heptatonic offshoots This substitution
Early Modes
219
is possibly, indeed probably, connected with a well-known substitution
of names the Homeric terms phortninx and fyitharts yielded to the classical
terms { ithara 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 Iamblicus 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 reasons indicate that Dorian, on the one hand, and
both Phrygian and Lydian, on the other, had rome from very different
rootstocks before they seemingly converged
It may hint at a pentatonic past of Greek 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 pentatonic past diffeient from the Dorian pedigree

Another symptom is, in Plutarch's words, "ihe custom among the ancients
of omitting the note trite in the Spondaean mode, ’
that is, in the archaic
melody sung on drink offerings before dinner This omission of c' definitely
created a pentatonic tetrachord (

1
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 Thus, the tropos spondeiaf(6s was cer-
tainly not pentatonic, but hexatonic — either as a direct remnant of older

pcntatonics, or as an indirect remnant suggested by the pentatonic tuning of
the lyre
Once more, our attention lotuses on the clear picture of Japanese music,
which has in actual life preserved the three things we are looking for
(a) stringed instruments tuned in minor-third pentatomes, (b) scales in

minor-third pentatomes, (c) diatonic stales derived from minor -third penta-
tonics
The Far East uses two entirely different forms of minor-third penta-
tontes, which, as slated in the Last Asiatic section, go back to different
roots and have existed side by side
The first form, in Japanese ntsu, is tetrachordic with a fourth and a
minor third E GAB Dh 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 /If GAB cj DEf
This is the Phrygian scale of the Greeks

The second form of minor-third pentatonics of the Far East, in Japanese
ryo, is a pen/achordic scale without a fourth EGA CD F It appears in
East Asia both in its original pentatonic form and in the heptatonic version
FGA b CD eF
This is the Hypolydian scale of the Greeks
These parallels 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 Fven 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 tctrachords, like original
zoku-ga!{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, piobably called
Lydian at the beginning, and later Hypolydian This would confirm the
statement of Aristides Quintihanus ‘'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 sometimes combines with an
it
ascending minor-third scale That Dorian, too, was descending is indicated

by the epithets arche or "starter,” and teleute 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 Dorian, 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 4 3 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 -third pentatonics

Older Enharmonion
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 of modes,
each of which is referred to by one or more tribal names Aeolian, Boeotian,
Dorian, Iastian, Ionian, Locrian, Lydian, Phrygian, with or without dis-
tinguishing epithets, aneimene , chalard, hyper, hypd, mixo, syntono, in

an ever 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 systema tcleian As early as about 400, the kithara
111
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
perfect 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, paranete, trite above,
lichanos, parhypate, hypate below Only the lowest note was given a name
of own the 'added to’ note, proslambandmenos
its
The organization of the two octaves was rather strange Subdivisions

were neither octaves nor pentachords, but tetrachords throughout This
implied two kinds of junctions conjunction at either end of the inner
octave and disjunction or diazeuxis in the middle Read downward, the
arrangements resulted in the tetrachord hyperbolaion 'of the exceeding'
notes, conjunct with the tetrachord diezeugmenon, which, as the name said,
was ‘disjunct’ from the tetrachord meson, 'of the middle' notes, this, in
19 Oito Gombosi, op cit , p 77
The Perfect System 223
turn, was conjunct with the tetrachord hypaton, 'of 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, inwhich 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
paranete
hyperbolatdn
trite
nete
paranete
diezcugmenon
trite
b paramese
a mese
g hchanis meson
/ parhypate
e hypate
d Uchanos
hypaton
c parhypate
B hypate
A proslambanAmenos
Similarly, the Greeks constructed a lesser perfect system or sy sterna teleion

Hatton on the basis of the old heptad of two conjunct tetrachords It com-
prised only an eleventh, from d' to A The top tetrachord did not exist,
and the disjunct tetrachord diezcugmenon was replaced by a conjunct tetra-
chord synemminon
d‘ nete
c paranete
synemmenon
b\j tnte
a mese
g lichands meson
f parhypate
e hypate
d lichands
hypaton
c parhypate
B hypate
A proslambanAmenos
»
224 Greece and Rome
Sets of kevs appear in the fourth century b c Anstoxenos 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 hy one semi-
tone The resulting five Dorian keys were given well-known tribal names
Mixolydian d'
Lydian r#'
Phrygian b
Dorian a
Hypodorian g#
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
limes it was used in the meaning of ‘approximue’ rather than ‘under’

Herakleides Pontikos (fourth century b c ) explicitly states that Hypo-
dorian is "not entirely [me party] Dorian”—"just as we say what resembles
white is rather white [hypoleuJôn]," 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 Aristoxcman and Ptolemean
Ptolemy, who lived in the second century a d ,
admitted seven keys, the
centers of which ascended diatomcally 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) All eight Dorian double octaves were
given tribal names, the term Dorian itself was left to the nontransposed
scale with a as the center (See page 225 )
The reader must be warned against authors who call the Dorian key A
minor because the section from the mese downward resembles a modern
rf-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
Hypermmolydian
Mixolydian
Lydian
Phrygian
Dorian
Hypolydian
Hypophrygnn
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 tripartition 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 conjunct tetrachords, with an additional
note above are likewise plagal
3) The hypo scales, based on conjunct 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\j A G F E
Dorian E D C B Av_ G F E - J
Hypodorian E D CB A G V
Fjf E >
But the perfect system ignored the authentic structure, obviously in order
to keep a as the common center ot 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 fof Hermione, c
500 b c ]
calls the harmoma 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
Aeolian e' d’ id b a g /J e
Hypodorian e' d' t' 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 Aeolian “Hypodorian,” and Ptolemy, five hundred years
later, calls “Dorian conjunct ” Hypodorian indeed
it is 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
“low sounding," barybromos No scale, indeed, had a lower center of gravity
than Hypodorian
T he earlier Mixolydian, too, can probably be restored

Plutarch, in Peri mousikis, 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 octave between b and B ”
Many explanations of this passage have been presented, but none of them
19 convincing
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 eailier Mixolydian in the so-
called lesser perfect system, which was based on a mobile scale made of
conjunct Dorian tetrachoids (cf p 223) (1) The earlier Mixolydian must
be expected to derive from a conjunct hept.id 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\j D C B\j A G F E\j
(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
* *
*
Otheji scales, too, were excluded from the perfect system, though they had
been highly respected in earlier days Boeotian, Iastian or Ionian, Locnan,
Syntonolydian Shall we once more attempt to determine their nature
from the unsatisfactory descriptions the Greeks have left ? I confess that
after somuch unconvincing guesswork in earlier books 1 feel little inclined
to add new conjectures Our hopes for solving the puzzles of ancient scales
decline somewhat when we learn that not only Aeolian but also Locnan
were similar Hypodorian The tetrachords within an octave can only
to
be regrouped once, what, then, was the difference between Locnan 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' 1
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

Hypodorian-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 Huseim ‘astran and Aradbar have the 'divisive' structure

these,
with two sizes of whole tones and the major semitone (Greek syntonos )
and three, ‘Ulsdq, Bayatl, and Isfahan have both sizes of whole tones and
both sizes of semitones (Greek syntonon mixed with ditontaion) The
scales of these three maqamat, and again those of the two preceding
maqamdt, arc 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 Ans-
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 / abb' A S e''
Dorian g a a' b\) d’ e' c' f

Phrygian g a a' b\) d’ e' r t
Iastian e c f a c’ d'
Mixolydian c c' 1 g a a' b\) c’
Syntonolydian c c f a c'
All tetrachords in these six scales are enharmonic Dorian, either conjunct
or disjunct, with open or filled major The seemingly abnormal
thirds
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,
Iastian, of a seventh, Syntonolydian, of a sixth And the two latter scales
do not differ from each other save by the addition of d ' m Iastian Phrygian
and Dorian are identical except for the highest note, which is g' in Phrygian
and a' in Dorian Iastian 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 keys— even within the simplification that

network of
the perfect system implied With its pentatonic accordatura, 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 permutaLion 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 c
by a fourth and back to b by a fifth, and, in the same way, upward to d'
by a fourth and back to g by a fifth, he obtained.
dr
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 b string would not have been possible the semitone -
b[)-a
'
230 Greece and Rome

was against the anhemitomc principle Thus the b string must have been
replaced by a c' string (cf page 204) even before the Dorian octave was
created
Censonnus (c 230ad) alludes to the introduction of this alternative
EDC accordatura when he credits the Cretan Chrysothemis with adding
the sixth string or synevimenos Since d' and a, of the tetrachord synem-
menon, had their strings already in the EDB accoi datura, and bjj, as we
saw, could not be given a separate string, the note in question must indeed
have been E Only, it was not a sixth string, because c' 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 Tcrpander, according to
tradition, added the high E in order to transform the original heptad into
an octave
The seventh string, on d beyond low c, 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 c 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 Scihilos' Skolion
Second Hymn to Apollo

Berlin Papyrus
Oxyrhynchos Papyrus
EDC AG E Hymn to the Muse
Hymn to the Sun
Hymn to Nemesis
Bellcrmann's instrumental piece
A third 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 AGF 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-

plant the E senes, but was alternately used when musical reasons made it
preferable The result (restricted to the central octave) was
Hypermixolydian /' eb' dV c bb ab g i
Mixolydian /' cV dV cV bb ab gb f
Lydian f e' d‘ bb a I g I
Phrygian f eb' d' I

c bb ab g /
Dorian
Hypolydian
Hypophrygian
Hypodorian
Recent music historians who have tried to explain the F series failed to
This is what happened Owing to developments unknown,
see the point
the Dorian mode was driven from its once privileged position Whatever
the date of this change may have been, Bellumann 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 Bcllermann’s
Anonymus speaks of the Lydian trope, he says that it has the Hyperlydtan
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 presently But the way it acted on the general system of keys
can easily be seen
1) At whatever time the change took place, it met with the accorda-
turas EDC AG E and ED BAG E
7
232 Greece and Rome

2) Keeping the 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 sLrings 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 E$
5) This first step toward an F-F octave had grave consequences It
shattered the ingenious consistency of Greek scales with Lheir 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 Consequently, another

tuning became imperative, with F as an open string
8) Even then, Lydian and Hypolydian kept to Lhe 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, just as the clarinettists of the nineteenth century
carried instruments in Bjj and in A
The two series of harmomai 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’
«

composer of the fourth century b c , Phrynis, gave the lyre a turning device
in order to play no less than twelve harmomai 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, Ulnci outdid his guess by printing “nine”, and Theodore
”
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 either 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, Iastian (Ionian) and Aeolian
/' cV d' C bb a s t Hypcrlydian
c d' cV b' a /» e Hypcratolian
0 eb' d\> c bb ab g /
Hypermixolydian or Hyperphrygian
0 d' c b a g ft c High Mixolydian or Hyperiastian
f HD dV cV bb a\> f Low Mixolydian or Hyperdonan
r c 0 c bb a g f High Lydian or Lydian
e dr HD b a g* It c Low Lydian or Aeolian
f cV d' bb ab High Phrygian or Phrygian

ED g f
c d' cf 0 a g ft c Low Phrygian or Iastian

r cb‘ dV c \bb 1
ab gb 1 Dorian
r c d’ c b g f
High Hypolydian or Hypolydian
eV
dr
<r
cV
c
b
bb
at
a
0 /*
< Low Hypolydian or Hypoacohan
High Hypophrygian or Hypophrygian
r [g] f
e d' cV b a gt Low Hypophrygian or Hypoiastian

H]
f cV dV c bb ab g 0 Hypodorian
234 Greece and Rome
Were we mistaken, after when we thought that Dorian, Phrygian,
all,
Lydian, and the rest of them \tere modes' Or had alJ the tribal names
1
two meanings 11
But if so, how was such confusing ambiguity possible with
a nation eminent in grammar, mathematics, and philosophy ?
In trying to answer this question, 1 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 ocLaves 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 Quintilunus expressly stated that voices

did not span more than two octaves For dns 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 a' (as indicated in our diagram on page 225) In-
deed, far more restricted than even Aristides held, four out of the do?en
melodies preserved are confined to the central octave the Skolion runs
from e' to e, and three other pieces, the Oxyrhynchos Papyrus, Beller
mann’s short instrumental piece, and the Hymn 10 the Sun, from f to /
Lyre players were no more able than singers to change through three
octaves, no set of strings could at one blow be tuned now a hlth higher,
lor Hypermixolyduln, now an octave lower, for Hypodorian 1 lie 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 ceniei 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 lowird the center of the immovable perfect system The first
hearing was called dynami< or 'mobile force,' and the second, thesis or
'stationary force A note changed us dynamis according to the key, its
thesis was immovable The note e\ for example, was in all melodics niti
\al& tliesm or highest stationary note, whatever the key, but in Mtxolydian,
it was also mesc kâta dinamin or ‘mobile center,' and in Lydian triti \atd
dynamm or 'mobile third’ from above The mobile and the stationary
functions coincided only in Dorian
b
The Perfect System

235
Greek melody from the dynamic
Whoever looks at a
center — 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) hypate Things look different from the stationary
center The player, adjusting his a and tuning the outer strings to e' and
e (the usual range of melodies), realized thaL 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, c' and /, thus the two central
d'
tetrachords became c$' b and a g /$ e the semitone moved to the middle
e’
of the tetrachord,and the originally Dorian octave changed to the Phrygian

species In the same way, the Lydian key sharpened d' <d g j and shifted , ,
the semitones to the upper ends of the tetrachords that formed the central
octave. Dorian as a key (
Dortos tSnos) created a Dotian mode ( Dortsti
harmonta ) in the perfect system, a Dorian mode in the perfect system
could only originate if the meloelv followed die Doran key And the same
was true for Phrygian, Lydian, and the Key and mode conditioned
rest
each other and rightly were given the same tribal names
This explains the hopeless confusion of turns in Greek theory, which
allowed Plutarch to speak, in De amma, 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 specnl words for sharps or flats They arrually con-
tented themselves with a ti uc and an approximate form of solmization

The true solmizaliun, designed for singers, symbolized 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 te ta, |ust as our own solmization would call it mi re do si or la sol ja mi,
so that te-ta — just as our fa-nu— indicated the semitone wherever it stood
The standard attribution was
o' g" f e’ d' id b a g f e d c BA

te to te ta to te ta te to te ta to te ta tc
(te) O)
236 Greece and Rome
But with sharps or flats, the syllables had to be shifted accordingly
b' o' / /#' etc f f eV d’ etc
te to te ta te to te ta
in order to have the indicative pairnf-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/lo te ta/to, and every octave of Lydian
structure, having the semitone above, te ta to/te ta to/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 solmization

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, paranete, trite, paramese, mete, lichanAs, par-
hypate, 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 solmization the tone words were made independent
of absolute pitch and, without changing their sequence, moved up and
down to bring the words tnte-paramese and parhvpate-hypate 10 wherever
the semitones stood While the Dorian tetrachord read nete, paranete, trite,
paramese, the Phrygian tetrachord ran paranete, trite, parameter, mete,

and the Lydian tetrachord, trite, paramese, mete, lichanos
The following 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 all 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
f
Hypermixolydian (n pn t pm M L PH H) L PH H
Mixolydian ( n pn t PM M L PH H) L PH H
Lydnn (n pn T PM M L PH H) L PH h
Phrygian (» PH T PM M L PH H L ) ph h
Dornn N PN PM M T L PH H l ph h
Hypolydian T (N PN T PM M L PH h) l ph h
Hypophrygian PN T N PN T ( PM M L ph h) l ph h
Hypodorian N PN T (N PN T PM M l ph h) l ph h
Following the table downward along the vertical line that marks the
upper limit of the modal scale, the reader seems to ascend the Dorian scale,
,
The Perfect System

237
though he actually never leaves the note <r' He starts from mese and
proceeds to paramesi, trite, paranete, nete going on, he would find
trite, paranete, and nete of 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 DCB A GFED
Lydian CBAGFEDC
Mixolydian BAGFEDCB
The only exception to this confusion of absolute and relative pitches is an
English thesis, written almost two hunched years ago, Explanation of the
20
Modes or T ones in the ancient Graccian Music by Fr Haskin Eyles Stiles
Dr 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 tute to the lower parhypate,” c'-c, but care-
’ 21
fully intercalated the words hoion to, ‘quasi
Indeed, since the Greeks had no terms to denote black keys, so to speak,
they were forced to shift thur set of seven terms from nete to parhypate
until it fitted the particular tonc-und-stmilone organization of the mode
to be described
Skeptics may look at the instruments Alhcnaios 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 fur playing in rapid change in
the Dorian, Lhe Phrygian, and the Lydian mode, each bung given one of
the three sides With a white-kcv 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 harmomai The same is true with Athenaios’ statement
that “there were pipes peculiaily 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
20 Philosophical Transactions LI ( 1 v6'J ) a, PP 771 Gs

21 Otto
J
Gombosi, "Siuclicn zur I onarttnichre tics truhen Mittelaltcrs," in Acta Musico-
logist XI (1939), P 85
238 Greece and Rome
same pipes,” that is, he obviously devised fingerholes in turnable rings
to change the mobile notes between the immovable hestotes Had the modes
had white-key scales differently cut, two additional fingerholes would have
sufficed
The confusion outlined above also explains why the medieval monks mis
understood the system of the Greeks and transmitted to posterity (includ-
ing our own counterpoint studies) a pseudo-Dorian between D and D, a

pseudo-Phrygian between E and E, a pseudo-Lydian between F and F, and
so on Lost in the tangle of Greek terminology, they mixed two opposite
facts (a) that, defined in ‘white key’ terms, Hvpodonan was an A-mode,
(i) that in the perfect system Hypodorun was the lowest hey As a con-
sequence, they established the following well-known system of eight church
22
tones on Hypodorian as the lowest modal scale between A and A
Seventh tone or Mixolydian GABCDEFG
Fifth tone or Lydian FGABCDEF
Third tone or Phrygian EFGABCDE
First and eighth tones or Dorian and Hypomixolydian DEFGABCD
Sixth tone or Hypolydian CDEFGABC

Second tone or Hypophrygian BCDEFGAB
Second tone or Hypodorian ABCDEFGA
22
Cf also Otto J
Gombosi, ibid , pp 12B-35
[ 7 ]
THE RELICS
THE INSEPARABLENESS, indeed oneness, of key and mode fully ex-

cludes twofold interpretation do assert, as Hermann Abert did/ 1 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, c' /b and f/e, are a fifth apart,
e is simultaneously the lower end of the octave, while the third between F
and j 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 ocijvl 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 m 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 d' , 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 Lvchan 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
2fl
Hermann Abert, “Ein neu entdeckter Iruhchristlicher Hymnus mit antiken Musiknotcn,"
in Zcitschnft fur Musikwissemchaft IV (1922), p 52B
-
240 Greece and Rome

it is somewhat difficult to keep E Dorian from F Hypo-
In a similar way,
which have scales without a signature Here, too, the center
lydian, both of
decides Dorian needs a, and Hypolydian, c' or b\) (cf 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 (
metabole ) , (£)
the awkward passage to a key higher or lower by some irregular, non-
diatonic interval (
pathos ), as upward by three quarter tones (
spondei
asmds), or downward by three quarter tones (efyysis), or upward by five
quarter tones (e\bole) 24

The relics of Greek music show only metabole, 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’ tetrachortls is lowered by a Lone to
form conjunction with the lower tetrachord, in olhei words, the melodies
are built on both Dorian and Hypodonan structures This might be a
relapse into earlier heptadic organization rather than sophistication
The archaic Second Delphic Hymn even has a triple modulation in its
Section C
from pentatonic Mtxolydian 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-
ses of the musical relics
* *
*
The First Delphic Hymn, Section B, is written in FDC tuning with four
flats in the range ajj'-ajy Dynamic mese is /', and the key and mode
Hypermixolydian with modulation into the conjunct parallel

' ,
The Relics 241

The First Berlin Fragment is written in EDB tuning in the range a'-g
with one sharp Dynamic mese is e' 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
The Second Berlin Fragment, instrumental postlude, is written in EDB

tuning with one sharp in the range b'-c' Dynamic mese is e' and the key
and mode Hypermixolydian Hermann Ahert s rhythmic interpretation as
4/4 is unsatisfactory, I tentatively propose the 5/4 time that the Gieek
musicians called pawn cpibatos
Ex 66 SECOND BERLIN FRAGMENT

,,
242 Greece and Rome

The Second Delphic Hymn, Section C, is written in EDC tuning with
one flat in the range a'-e It modulates from pentatonic Mixolydian dis-
junct (with d' as the dynamic mese) to conjunct, to disjunct with an en-
harmonic lower tetrachord; to Dorian with a pentatonic lower tetrachord
Ex 68 SECOND DELPHIC HYMN
The Second Delphic Hymn, Section F, is written in EDC tuning with

oneflat in the range e'-g Dynamic mese is d’ and the key and mode
Mixolydian enharmonic, modulating to the conjunct parallel
The Second Delphic Hymn, Section G, is written in EDC tuning with

oneflat in the range b\)'-e Dynamic mese is d' and ihe 1 ey and mode
Mixolydian
The Second Delphic Hymn, Section H, is written in EDC tuning with

one flat in the range g'-g Dynamic mese is d' ,md the key and mode
Mixolydian
The Hymn to Nemesis is written in EDC tuning with one flat in the
, ,
The Relics 143

range g'-f Dynamic mese is d', and the key and mode Mixolydian. The
third e'-td 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
f'-f Dynamic mese isand the key and mode Mixolydian Strong
d'
accents fall upon the three highest notes e'-c', the thetic mese, however, is
used fourteen times as the starter, final, or repercussion, while the dynamic
mese serves only three times m these qualities
The Hymn to the Muse is written in EDC tuning with one flat in the
range j'-e Dynamic mese is d’ and the key and mode Mixolydian Here,
<d 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 f'-g Dynamic mese is d' and the key and mode Mixolydian enhar-
monic
,
244 Greece and Rome
Rellermann’s instrumental piece is written in EDC tuning with one flat
in the range /'-/ Dynamic mese is d' 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 bellermann's instrumental piece

*1
£ icfTT-
^r B
J — -
•
11 1
U—’CLd
l l
1^)4-
-f
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 a \>-e\) Dynamic mese is F, and the key and
mode Phrygian
,
The Relics 245

Seikilos’ Skolion is written in EDB tuning with two sharps in the range
e'-e The dynamic mese, b, is neglected — the melody is distinctly Phrygian
without any dynamic bearings
Ex 79 seikilos' skolion
r\
The Second Berlin Fragment is written in EDB tuning with two sharps
in the range /Jf'-a The key and mode are Phrygian, the dynamic mese, b
is stronger than the thetic mese
Ex 80 SECOND BERLIN FRAGMENT

246 Greece and Rome
The Oxyrhynchos Papyrus is written in EDC tuning without signature
in the range f-f The hey and mode are Hypolydian Notice the two con-
junct tetrachords and the thetic mese on c' instead of b\), in accordance
with the authentic structure that Hypolydian needs
Ex 82 OXYRHYNCHOS PAPYRUS
M
jgj
The First Berlin Fragment, instrumental postlude, is written in EDB
tuning with one sharp in the range a'-e The hey and mode are Hypodorian,
and the accent falls on the thetic mese a rather than on the dynamic mese e
Ex 83 FIRST BERLIN FRAGMENT, POSTLUDE
» *
»
These analyses leave no doubt that key and mode were merely two differ-
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 Hymn, Seikilos'
Skolion, on the contrary, avoids the dynamic center and is purely thetic
Modal structure more pregnant in melodies
is that gravitate toward the
thetic center, it is nowhere more evident than in the Skohon, 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 hat’ eidos or, literally, “according to the pattern”

—"but
simply attend to the highness or lowness of tones and assume a Hyper-
” 26
mixolydian harmoma 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 paramixolydtazein — a word that we must more clumsily circum-
”
scribe as “not togo 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

aB Deipnosophisls 14 625
[
8 ]
ETHOS
"A HARMONIA should have a shaped ethos or pathos," eidos ethous £

pathous Thus Athenaios ends the passage quoted on page 247
The famous term ethos denoted the emotional power 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
[
aneimenas ] 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, Hvpophrygian, 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 Aristotle’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 19 49 expressly calls a low note “soft and calm, and
Problem
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
" 26
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”
(melopoiia ) 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 Schafke, 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
Our analyses of the pieces preserved make this perfectly clear Of the
three hymns by Mesomedes, which are all Mi'olydian, two have their stress
on the notes between c' and e' since e' is the thetic nete, they are doubtless
netoid The Hymn to the Muse, on the contrary has the emphasis on ed
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 hymns Further netoid
examples are the Hypermixolydian Paean and Btllermann’s Lydian piece,
mesoid examples Seikilos’ Phrygian Skolion and Euripides’ Mixolvdian
Stasimon There arc 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, [inch regions are not the only ethical qual-
ities of Oriental melody patterns There are also (a) Lhe steps used
quarter tones, semitones, etc b their arrangement and sequence, (c)
( ) ,
whether the scale appears in a medium altitude or transposed up or

downward by a fourth or a fifth or an octave, (t/) cerLain melodic turns,
and tempo and mobility As to the list trait, the maqarn Rdst is
(e) the
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
20 Ptolemy, Harm 2 7 58 and 3 7 99
' )
250 Greece and Rome

This is remarkably reminiscent of the pette'ia or ‘draughts’ or ‘check-
ers’ of the Greeks, a branch of their Art of Composition which taught how
to avoid 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 ,
27
adds “1 his aids the ethos
Here, al last, we gain a firm footing The ethos of a melody depended on

the co-operation of quite a number of qualities that Oriental musicians
know as the characteristic traits of their maqamdt and rdgas No single
feature makes up an ethos, neither modal structure nor pitch nor astrologi-
cal connotation !S
The problem of the Gieek ethos is considerably more
complex than previous authors realized We ma) 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 all Greek scales, in spite of their theoretical ranges,
were cut off at both ends to fit in the best register of voices and instruments
three of the pieces preserved run from /' to
/ the Oxyrhynchos Papyrus,
Bellermann’s short instrumental melody, and the Hymn to the Sun, and
yet one of them is Hvpolydian, one Lydian, and the third Mixolydian
’High’ and ‘low,’ perceptible in the theoretical sc lies but imperceptible in
actual melodies, must have meant something different from range, and
probably something that the Greeks themselves found hard to grasp and
descnbe — 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 (
b the keys follow
one another at equal distances without being organized in a consistent
body In Greece, on the contrary, the Dorian ineie 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
111 a perspective that made their characteristic dislances 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 all pieces preserved gravitate toward two centers the Oxyrhyn-
chos Papyrus has no thetic, and the Seikilos Skolion no dynamic, center
27 Aristides Quintilianus
M p 2g, Sch p 207
28 Erich
M von Hurnbostel, Tonart und Ethos,” in Festschrift fur fohannes Wolf, Berlin,
I9 2 9. PP 73-B
,
Ethos 251
Still, this is rather a confirmation than a contradiction The ethos theory
belongs in the classical period, it did not exist in predasstcal 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,

wis certainly not "dissolute and voluptuous,’ in spite of its Hypolydian key
and mode, and Scikilos’ Skc lion 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 Lhat 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 ragas and maqamdt?

In view of the perfect analogy of the Greek ethos and the specific qualities
of both the Indian idgas and the Arabian maqatndt, the lack of any cor-
responding Hellenic teim is extraoidinary 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 m the Indian and Arabian sense, it must he harmonia since
this word, and never tonos or tiopos, is connected with ethical qualities
Athenatos insists on the ethos and pathos that a true harmonia has, and
Plutarch speaks of a “tearful,” thrcnodil{e, harmony
This possibly sheds light on Plutaich’s dark description of Olympos’
composition Notnos Athends, in which the first movement is called arche
or anapuia and the main movement, harmonia To Rudolph Wcstphal,

this title 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, aldpa, is an improvised
introduction in which the singer rehearses the essential traits of the raga
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 anapetra means ‘practice, test ’
And the part
following the aldpa is simply called rdga, exactly as the part following the
andpara is simply called harmonia
,
[91
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 illiberals, he adds that one should not judge
their value from preconceived standpoints, music ought to be studied with
a view to (a) education, ( b
)
purification, and (cj 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 iht Greeks called katharns 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 arc hi ought back to themselves again,
so that their cathjrsts tikes place exactly like a medical treatment” Werner
” 2B
and Sonne are right in calling this a “treatment b isically 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-
” 10
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 ihe pipe in
the Phrygian harmonia over the part affected” 11 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
aB Enc Werner and Isaiah Sonne, "The Philosophy and Theory ol Music in Judaeo-Arabic
Literature,” loc at p 374
30 Ibid
81 Athcn. 14 624
254 Greece and Rome
of music, both to soothe and to stir the mind, was in the classical stage of
Hellenic civilization understood to affect the moral qualities 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, ihey had existed in China and
Egypt liefore they came to Greece But it was a Greek trut (though
Egyptian in its beginnings) to organize them in a pedagogical system To
Plato, the practice of music was simply education, patdaa Thus, musical
training, both vocal and instrumental, should be obligatory And it actu-
ally was obligatory to a great extent every citizen of Aicadia 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 Hr, 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 same order of thought, Greek boys
the
started from the oldest hymns and eventually arrived at contemporary

music, melodies of bad tonility were avoided, while tliost particularly
appropriate to steeling the character took precedence Aristotle 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 difference made in the character by the actual practice
of the art It is difficult, it who do not perform to be
not impossible, for those
good ludges performance of others Besides, children should have some-
of the
thing to do, and the rattle of Archytas, which people give to their children in
order to amuse them and prevent them from breaking anything in the house,
was a capitil inscntion, tor a young thing cannot be quiet The ratLlc is a toy
suited to the infani 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 waybecome not only critics but performers
as to
The question what is or is not suitable for different ages may be easily
answered, nor is there any difficulty in meeting the objection of those who say
Health and Education 255
that the study of music is vulgar We reply (i) in 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 are older they may be spared the execution, they
must have learned to appreciate 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
melodics 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 difference The answer to the objeclion 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 tor 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 proftssionjl 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 education Let the young pursue their studies until
they arc able to feel delight in noble melodies 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 bmvl 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 boy
from nine to twelve years old, a contrapuntal accompaniment would be
too sophisticated
But —did counterpoint exist in ancient Greece 11
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
32
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 ancienL Orient One cannot answer this difficult 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 83
Things were different in accompanied vocal pieces and purely instru-

mental music
Preclassical accompaniment was simple, and all attempts to find evidence
34
of harmony for that period in a certain passage of Anstoxenos were
failures The only conclusion possible is that Olympos and Terpander,
the legendary patriarchs of Greek music, plajed 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 |ust restriking the main note, to adding a short ostinato motif, or
to placing 'heterophomcally,' that is, in our own words, to interpreting
the same melody according to the personal tastes and abilities of the players
Bz Tile earliest
monographs Fr -Jos Fctls "Les Grrcs et les Romains oni-lls connu ‘harmo- 1
nie Mimilunrr des sons ? in Memoires de lAcademic Royalc dc Belgique, 1B59 A -J -H

Vincent Repont rill Pens, Lille, 1859 A Wigencr, Mimotre sur la symphonic dee Anneni,
1863 ( 5 )
BB Ct
Aristotle’s Prohlrmata 19 18
84 Plutarch, Pen rnouri{es S] lB
Counterpoint ? 257
and to the special conditions of their instruments without caring “for the
”
consonant, or at least pregnant, character of their collisions
The term heterophony has been borrowed from the Greeks themselves
But it unfortunately seems Lo have had a quite different meaning in Greece
Plato uses it in the Laws a music teacher, he says, who trains boys from
nine to twelve years old, should simply double on his own lyre the melody
that the pupil’s lyie 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 heterophonic paraphrase (in the meaning

that modern terminology gives to this v\ord) I do not share their belief
Whoever practices heteiophony takes the two melodic lines for similar
"without caring for the consonant or at least piegnint, character of their

collisions ” Plato, on the contrary, insists cn their difference, the accompini-
ment he has in mind is willfully dissimilar m intervals, pitches, rhythms,
and number ol notes, and various intervds, ‘symphonic’ and ‘antiphonic’
11
(whatever these terms mean) are expiesdv indie ued Sevei ll hundred
sears later, probably in the first centmy s», the pseudo-Aristotelian book
Peri \ 6 smou still clings to the same differences “Music mixes high and
low, short and long notes in difjeient voice port* \p/ionci!s\ to achieve one
"
harmony It would be scarcely possible to find a clearer description of
what isc call a mixed two-part counterpoint

These counterpoints had not always the proper transparence Athenaios
14 618 warns a piper "Where lort you and this girl shall go on with this
piece where you are to play logethei, or where you again play sepa-
rately, there’ll be no do together — no riddles — to make each part clear” J7
* *
*
The author Pseudo-Longinus asserts at about the same time that melody
— the hpyrios phtonpos or 'regal voice’ — is usually “sweetened” by the two
18
’paraphomc’ intervals, the fifth and the fourth This is an unmistakable
testimony to the frequent use, not of functional chords in a modern sense,
aB Plato Laws 7812 D-E

30 Handschin, Musikahsche Miszelkn, in Phticlogus 86 (1930), p 57
’
J
ov re kolvov ov X°P^ S naXip, ffvvvevp.a.T\ ov oT? trefialverai i-KaffTa
38 Ilinclschin, op at p 52
J
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 ad, is a
comparatively late witness But we know from Plutarch that even those
whom he called "the ancients” played c' in consonance with /, the higher
r and
e , both in dissonance with d' and in consonance with a, d', in dis-
sonance with c' and b and

consonance with a and g in
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
Thco of Smyrna, an author of the second century ad, called the octave
and the double octave antiphomet, and the fourth and the fifth, paraphomes,
maybe half a hundred yeirs later, Gaudentios understood paraphonv to
be an interval neither consonant nor dissonant such as the tritone and the
major third, 1 " while Aristides Quintihanus defined the octave as homoph-
ony
The ancient definition of consonance had a remarkably modern flavor "If
symphonic notes sound togcthei on stringed or wind liistiuments,” Gau-

denlios 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
sectns 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 s iv — to quote Grove's nice definition of the term discord —
dissonance is “a combination of notes which produces a certain restless
”
ct lving in the mind for some further combination
Conson tilccs, Boethius says, are “pleasant,” and the pseudo-Anstoteh in
Problem 19 1:5 states that “any consonance is swteter than a single note”
And arc we supposed to believe that the Greeks did not use them^
nn ( 1 ui< lent 1 os CiNJcogc, in Carolus Janus, Musici Scnpioret Citicu, 1895, p 17
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 pat er a-oAs

Metric _w - -ww
This verse of the Hvmn to ihe Sun clearly shows the dualism of
initial
accents two acutes and the circumflex, inseparable from the words
the
themselves, and the loilgae, stressed by the specific metLr 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 tustice 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, Eor 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 agalldmenos is lower, in-
stead of higher, because the composer wished to assimilate this portion of
the melody into the previous ichnessi didkeis
Ex 84 HYMN TO HELIOS
® pla-DOLs bypfli-Des-6i di - o - keLs,chry-
-.srfai - sm a - gal - 16 - me - nos k6-mais

, —
260 Greece and Rome

In the Skolion of Seikilos, the circumflex accent is— with one exception
— answered by the ligature of a falling third, which recalls the svarita in
the Veclic chant

T here art pieces, however, in which the melic accent of speech is more or
less neglected Greek music, too, knew the eternal difference of logogenic
and melogemc 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 on an upbeat or the short

downbeat But it often falls
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 tomplicd with both the melic and the metric accents
Tiie metric 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 brevis — th it we render by an eighth note in modern

notation — was the time unit or ihiono\ ptutoi The Greeks defined this
‘first lime’ ns an ultimate atom, which could not he divided by enher a
syll iblc or a note or a gesture The Ivnipi measured two breves, or a quarter
note, except at the end of a verse, where it required the length of an entire
loot
The feet were considered to have two (equal or uncejual) phases each
not time units — and were classified in four groups aeeouling to whether the
t ttio of length of the two phases was i r, 2 1, } 2, or 4 ^
The Gretks
realized very well that the rh)thmic ratios coincided with the harmonic
ratios of the unison, octave, fifth, and fourth, indeed, Dionysios of Hali-
karnassos (first century bc) expressly stated that rliuhm and harmony
were issenu illy one
1 he four gioups were
A hn 'cquils or dactylic feet —our even-beat measures
1) Pralytlcu <matif[os or Pyrrhichios

n 2^8
2) F’l olyeleiiMnutilfps double r. n 4,8
3) Anapaisloi (our dactyl) j n 2 4

Accents and Rhythm 261
4) Anapaistos
n j V4
5) Spondcios j 2/4
j
6) Spondeios, double j j 2/2
B Dtplasta, 'doubles’ or iambic feet, in which one part of the measure

was double the other, that is, 2 + 1 or 1+2, corresponding to our three-
beat measures
lambos
x)
.u 3/8
2) Trochatos j / 3/8
3) Orthios J . 3 /2
Trochatos Semantos J 3 /2
4) *
C Hemtoha, 'by one and a half’ or paeonic feet, in which the: two beats
were as three to two, corresponding to our five-beat measures
1) Pawn dtdgyros or ‘bent paion’ = j J 5/8
2) Paion epibatos or "climbing paion’ 11

J - 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 dactvls 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
dipodtes, as, for example,
J m.
or the ba\chios, which consisted either of an iamb and a trochee or, vice
versa, of a trochee and an iamb
n J t cn
262 Greece and Rome
or
N |s I
3 +3
J
Such dipody was assigned two beats as well arsis-thesis in the two first
examples, and thesis-arsis in the last
Trtpodies were combinations of three different feet, as a pyrric plus an
iamb plus a trochee
n n j /
tetrapodics were combinations of four feet, as iamb plus pyrric plus iamb
plus trochee
/ j nn j
The tripody and tetrapody just described were prosodtal(oi or march-

ing rhythms for solemn processions, which in our civilization are reduced
to poor 4/4 belts — left, right, left, right Nothing could better illustrate
the richness of Greek rhythm

Such wealth was possible only in a country where moustl(c included
poetry md the dance and took its inspiration, not from lifeless beats but
from the spirited word and the expressive gesture of well-trained limbs
Dsrnuc, iambic, paeonic rhythms are represented among the relics of

Greek music
The anapaests of the Hymns to Helios and to Nemesis and both the
Cano 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 nine
The stringe paeonic rhythm is recorded in the two Delphic hymns
Kc-{I\th' Hc-li-k&-na ba-thy-den-dron hat la-chc-te
Unfortunately, most students have known the two hymns in the un-
forgivable transcription of Hugo Ricmann, who was foolish enough to
,

'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 rc establish 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 trochaios, and
another, nomos orthios And as a rule, meter was not changed during a
piece It is expressly said Sikadas' Pythian nomos had an iambic, a
dactylic, a spondaic, and a cretic, thit is, paeomc, movement, and that
the nomos Athenas had a strong effect on the audience because from the
initial paion epibatos it modulated into the trochaic meter So these must
have been exceptions
Over against quantitative meter stood ‘qualitative’ time with the rhythmic
alternation of strong and weak belts and their fite 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 mousikê, cannot have forbidtkn 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, k, roiipalon
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 poelic
meters, by simply following those ratios that man's ear accepted as rhyih
mical
A series 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 hcmioha 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 exactly the
tala 7 nputa
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
• S
*
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 zSs phainou
— the metrically short syllabic phai- is given three units, and the metrically
long syllable ho- only one. The Hindus would call such a rhythm tala, m
fact, tala Riipahâ
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 me'ers a horizontal dash
above the note indicated two units, that is, an ordinary longa, an angle
l_, three, lj , four, and lli ,
five units
A small upright angle denoted a rest It corresponded, when single, to
the unit of time, longer rests needed the proper symbols among those
just named The angular rest /\ stood for the Greek letter lambda, the
initial of leimma, ‘left over ’
It was sometimes replaced by an arc f) (PI 8,
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 ametnc, indeed, antimetnc 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.
• 9
9
The rEMFO 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 chtona piotos was expectedt 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
40
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 the
quantity of the same sound, as long or short, and a third, by the syllable
41
or letter enunciated”
One other means of expression, so essential in our modern music, is not
mentioned either by Plutarch or by any other authority the contrast of
loud and soft In all probability, the Greeks did not consciously use the
various degrees of loudness beyond the physiological implications of high
and low, of vigor and fatigue
40 Cf Aristides Quumlianus, M 42, Sch 126 ,

2nd M 100, Sch 294
11 Plutarch 35
FORM
THE FORMS of Greek music elude defining and description The relics,
to a gtcat 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 tasLc and circumstances from the Dorian migration to the decay of the
Roman Empire Otherwise Plato would not have lamented in the Laws
that in the good old days when musical forms were classified and fixed
"it wis 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 i ust and 1 iwful 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 exery 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, oi Beethoven's quartets And the hymns and paeans that Plato, the
incurable leacLionary, wished to protect from contamination would not

have existed either
Choru singing, the most striking trait in Greek music, was not aboriginal
in Hell as 1 he 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, die H yjwi chcmala, at the least, were pieces in which, according
to Athenaiox definition, “the singing chorus danced But we do not know
the exact range ol tins itrm, and in any case the definition implies Lhat there
were also chut uses ihn did not dance
The democratic esteem tor 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 parthemai 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 “Lysikrales, son of Lysitheiedes of Kikyuna, was the dance

leader when the boys’ chorus of the Ph\ le Akamantis won the prize Theon
was the piper, Lysiades of Athens had trained the chorus Lnauietos was
"
archon [mavor 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 chotal
melody they performed, but we know that at least one of the wedding forms
was Lhe paean
Paean meant ‘healer’, it originally was a medicine dance and later, more
genu ally, a chorus dance in honor of Apollo, the healing Cod As early
a source as the Iliad describes a p.u 111 to ban the plague, and stveial
centuries later, when the plague rjged in bp irta, the governing board
appointed the Cretan musician, Th iltias, to organize paeans
The only example preserved, from the second century A d ,
is the first
fragment on the Berlin Papyrus, Paidn 6 pawn It is Hypermixolydian in

the range g-a' the meter cannot be stated beyond doubt
* «
*
The dithyramb os, 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 piper
This kind of dithyramb underwent a bifurcation at the end of the sixth
3
268 Greece and Rome

century tc Asa 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 rhetic center a right in the middle of the musical space
The dithyrambs seem to have been dramatic from the very first, as I
my World History of the Dance the dance leader in the
pointed out in
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
bc the Greek drama originated, which, leaving the worship of Dionysos,
look 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 name from the disguised satyrs and silenes
its
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
*2
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 Greek stage had only one actor the former leader of the
first the —
Dionysian dance choir Aischylos introduced a second, and Sophocles, a
1 Edith Hamilton, The Greek Chorus, Fifteen or Fifty?' in Theatre Arts Monthly XVII
(1933). P 359
1 ,
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 parodos 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 anti\trophe it turned in the opposite direction The

songs between these two marchhke movements, sung in place, were called
stdstma 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 choius, which by nature was better able to
play a part in stylized tragedies of a meditative lynco-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 nornos
The skolion 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
” 43
those that were more musical than the rest sang to the lyre Everybody
in Greece was expected toknow 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-
4
Clemens Alexajidrinus, Opera, cd Otto Stahlin, Leipzig, 1905, I, p 1B4 "Clement of
Alexandria,” eds Roberts and Donaldson, Edinburgh, 1867, l, 11 B ( Paedagogus 2 4)
D ,
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 harmoma, 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
44
(hetic netc e' 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 ad) that two well-known nomoi, Nomos Trochaios
and Nojnos Orthios, were high in pitch and euphonious But the pseudo-
Aristotelian Problems (the date of which we do not know) stigmatize
these two nomot as particularly difficult 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 45
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, much closer parallel, Robert Lach
as a
matin found a very similar nomos among the Cabyles of Tunisia 46 The
oboe had become a flute, Apollo, a Bedouin, and the dragon a lion But
even the division into movements had been kept The Bedouin Dr
five
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
e «
Sportive competition, not entirely unknown in modern music history,

so dominated Greek musical life that even mythology saw music in the
44 Aristides
4
Quimilianus, M 30, Sch , p 207
Geographna g
Strabo, io, Julius Pollux, Onomastiôn 4 B4, E Hiller, “Sakadas der
Aulct,” m
Rhnnsthcs Museum fur Phtlologir N F XLIV (1876)
4B Robert Lachmann
I)ic Weisc vom Lowcn und dcr pythischc Nomos," in Festschrift
fur Johannes Wolf Berlin, 1929, pp 97-106
Form 271
form of challenge and duel The Thracian Thnmyris 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 shin while King Midas,
who had acted as the umpire, was given ass’s ears
With gods and muses, with blinding and shinning, myth mirrored the
Greek conception of musical performance Music was an essential part of
the great tournaments that played so important a role in Greeh 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 acte
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 kjtharodds, 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 \itharodu* performed in the arena
Later, especially in Rome, the singer lost Ins hieratic dignity and became
a virtuoso, who in his caprices, profession d jealousy, phantastic fees, and
hired claque was the equal of his brethren in ihc 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 afpetonados
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
4T
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 ol 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 Giaecia, '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 ad, complains Lhat 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
4f Cf R Paribeni, “Cantnrcs graeci ncll’ ultimo secoio della reppubhea in Roma," in Aegyp-
tuj, Sene icientifica III (1925), pp 2B7-92
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
HE HERITAGE
T of
heritage of Greek music theory
Greek music was enormous Or,
Rome, Byzantium, and Alexander’s
conquests from North Africa to India boasted of being heirs
great Hellenic tradition, medieval music in Europe appealed to
rather, the
to the
Boethius as
the supreme iudge, and the Persians, Arabs, and Turks underpinned their
musical systems with the solid structure of Grecian scales, modes, and
genera
Its influence on Islamic music is more fascinating than any other the
Greeks exerted, since, in opposition to the Westerners, the Arabs under-
stood and applied classical theory without committing the mistakes of the
West Thus, any research in Greek music is incomplete without a glance
at the practice and theory of Islamic music
Arabian music in its proper sense is the music of the Bedouins in the
desert and the oases —emotional songs of a limited range in free rhythm,
thoroughly heptatome and mostly what I have called 'positive,’ starting
from a low note, curving upward, and returning
Ex 85 SOUTH ARABIAN bedouins after Heljntz
1!
The musical style we colloquially call Arabian comprises much more

than the music of Arabia proper, or even of the Arabic-speaking nations
Its province reaches from Morocco in the west along the African border-
land of the Mediterranean through Syria, Iraq, and Turkey, to Persia and
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 charactei of Islamic, and even of pre-Isiamic, 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 -1 habit, a visitor to the court of an Arabian
monarch two hundred years later, “saw ten singing girls, five of them
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 Iyas 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
siman 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
1
to be traced to the slaves in Lhe 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 Islamic
style
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 t d ,
however, the Orient
underwent a second, decisive Hellcnization of its scientific life, and its
music, together with mathematics, medicine, and philosophy, took posses-

sion of Greek theory The masters of Islamic musicology, the Arab Al-
Kindi (d c 874), the Turk Al-Farabl (c 870-950), and the Bukharan
Ibn-STna (9S0-1057), better known under his latinized name Avicenna,
sh iped their doctrines to a great extent upon Greek patterns
Huiry GcorgL Farmer, A History oj Arabian Music, London, 1929, ch I ^

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 motley mass of Mohammedan
tribes had brought into the common stock of music The irrefiagable rule
was that a scale had seven steps in the oct ive, no less, no more, as Al-FaribT
expressly states (tenth century ad), pentatonism or hexatonism existed
just as little as microtome scales The stand jid shade was what Ptolemy
had called diatonon ditonuuon the sc tie bised on the up-aml-down prin-
ciple and consisting of ma|or whole tones of 204 Cents and minor semi-
tones of go Cents, that is, leimmas
Symbol of this scale built on the cycle of fourths was the short-necked
Persian lute ‘iid, 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 note r were expteted
not to disagree with the open strings
This principle led to an ariangement that has haunted so many books
on music like a tioublesome hobgoblin the llleged Ai ilnan scale of seven
teen Lhirds of tones The number seventeen is correct, but [here are no
thirds of tones, nor do the seventeen steps eonsiituie a scale Hie earhest
discussion, in Al-Farabi’s neilise, is unmistak ible It occurs in the dcscrip
tion of a long-necked lute with onh two strings (ol which but one was
used tor the melody) called the tanbw 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 oeliee, 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 sct]uence of one leimma of go Cents (1), another of the same size (1)
and a Pythagorean comma of 24 Cents (c), repeated five times and sup-
plemented by two lemmas (Ik lie 11c 11c lie 11) This arrangement allowed
the player to perform in all three tetrachordal structures, by placing the

mobile frets accordingly
11c lie 1
Semitone above
204 204 90
11c 1 lcl
Semitone in the middle
204 90 204
1 lei lcl
Semitone below
90 204 204
It is obvious, then, that the seventeen steps formed a set of elements, not
a scale
The divisive principle, of outstanding importance in 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 hdtonon syntonon and
i to the Hindu ma-giama 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, letmmas of 90
Cents, apotomes of 114 Cents, minor whole tones of 204 Cents Like their
counterparts, the Indian srucis, 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 ‘All al-Isfahanl’s tenth-century collection of
poems, the Kitab al-aghani 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 Journal Asiatique published
an acceptable interpretation by the Reverend Father Collangettes in 1906
But the scales in which his ingenious deduction resulted were hardly quite
correct, in either material or orthography, particularly since they had dif-
ferent thirds on the upper string, which was neither musically convincing
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 (1) and (2) starting on the open string of
—
Scales and Modes 281

the 'iid and having respectively the minor and 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 (1) 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.
0 DE F G A B\, C or Phrygian conjunct
2) DE Ft G AB C or Lydian conjunct
3) E F G A B[) C D or Dorian conjunct
4) E Ft G A B CD or Phrygian conjunct
5) F G A B\, C DEF or Lydian disjunct
6) Ft G A B C D E or Dorian conjunct
7) G A Bb C D h F G or Phrygian disjunct
8) GAB C DE Ft G or Lydian disjunct
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 ofiener 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 '
Agam, 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
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 ‘asirdn — a true Lydian on F— and Nahawand— a 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
Yakd, a Hypophrygian Mtale on D
Huscini ‘asirdn, a Hyperphrygian scale on E
'Atad, a Hyperphrvgian scale on A
Awag, a Mixolychan scale on F
A third group combines both principles in the same octave ‘UHdq,
Baydti, and Isfahan have a divisive tetrnchord below and an up-and-down
pentachord above, the structure of Busllq is the other way around
A fourth group includes the typically "Oriental” interval 7 6 or 267 Cents,
that is, the augmented second, like, for instance, the most popular of all
Arabian scales
Higdz 1
19 267 1 12 204 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 (1) 204-204-90 Cents, (2)
204-182-112 Cents, 119-267-112 Cents, (4) 151-267-K0 Cents
(4)
We
know three of them the first is Eratosthenes’ didtonon, the second,
Ptolerny s divisive didtonon syntonon, the fourth, Ptolemy's “Gypsy scale”
chrSma syntonon The two chromatic scales (3) and (4) are again as in —
Greece —combined with diatonic tetrachords in urder 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 Rast, "though gener-
ally known in musical circles, yet lives as a Persian art maqdm only, the
[Arabian] people does not sing it” 2
just In the same way, the Do-modes
Mahur, Mahurani, Sasgar, and Giharkji are Persian The case of the Sol-
mode Nawd is doubtful
Theory and practice have seldom agreed, despite all attempts of the for-
mer to catch and legalise the vagaries of singers and players Performers
have never been able or willing to reproduce the rigid noim even ol simple
systems with the faithfulness of acoustical devices How cm tliL Persian,
Turkish, Egyptian singers he expected to have stood the dish of two
opposed systems and to have carefully distinguished between two different
whole tones and two different semitones with all their combinations J 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
[ust as the Greeks generally violated the law in playing the hchanos,
second-highest note in the teirichord, Mohammedan players had their own
ways with this very note both “the Persians” and Zalzal, famous lutamst
of Bagdad (d 791), tried to enlarge the semitone at the cost of the neigh-
boring whole lone and assimdated them by taking a tjuarter lone from the
whole tone and adding it to the semitone 2114-1)1-2(14 became 204-147-
147 Cents
The Reverend Father Dechevrcns thought that this temperament was a
compromise Lo facilitate the tiansiLion from conjunct to disjunct tetra-
chords This may be coircct (cl page 130) UuL no 1

all three-quar'er 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
2 A Z Idelsohn, "Die Maqamen der arabischen Musik," in Sammelbande dcr Interna -
Uonalen Musi^gcsellschaft XV (1913), p 17
The three-quarter tone has since conquered large parts of the Moham-
medan world, but only as far as scales of the divisive type are concerned
The two scales Agam and Nahawand, 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 of the stage on which the singers performed
before the caliph, is the exact counterpart of the Indian raga a pattern of
melody, based (though with a certain freedom) on one of the modal scales,
and characterized bv stereotype turns, by its mood, and even by its pitch
middle, high, low — which is reminiscent of the Greek classification of me-
sold, netoid, and hypatoid melodies The initial note, too, is important
maqam Rdst starts from the tonic and Mahtu from the fifth, Rdst is digni-
fied in carnage and Lempo and avoids grace notes, while Mahur is faster,
Bayat stresses the fourth, and Si/^dh die third below the tonic
Again, the classification of these patterns has at least one trait common
with the classification of ragas the twelve main and inter-Islamic maqa-
mat are called ‘fathers,’ and the thirteen secondary, rather local, maqamat,
‘sons’ Ran, for example, is a father, and Mahur, starting on its fifth, his
son
Maqam is, like raga 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 cliwan, or collec-
tion of poems, is arranged according maqam it in which they arc to
to the
be composed and sung, fii st, the Rtht poems, then those in Mahur, and after
1
them the others in various arrangements
* #
*
Ethos was among the qualities of maqamat as it pertained to ragas and

harmontat, though perhaps to a lesser degree The maqamat evoked, said
Al-FarabI, “such emotions as satisl iction, ire, clemency, cruelty, fear, sad-
”
ness, regret, and other passions
It should be remembered that i he 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
B
Cf ibid , pp 14, 15
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 healing force, though in a less
refined spirit than they had had in Greece Rdst healed the eyes, ‘Iraq, pal-
pitation of the heart and dementia, Isfahan, colds, Rahdwi, headache, Bu-
zur/{, colic, Zangiila, heart diseases
On the other hand, the Arabs — like the Hindus — have connected certain
maqamat 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
( Zir-cf\cnd ) Crab
Buzurl^ Lion
Hifcdz Virgin midnight
Balance afternoon
'Ussaq Scorpion sunset
Huscmi Archer night end
Zangiila Capricorn
Nawa Water carrier before night prayer
Rahdwi Fishes morning
As early a theoretician as Ibn-Slna (qBo-ioy si)) 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 direcllv or indirectly 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 : j
I am not going to bother the reader with the involved Arabian classifica-
tion of meters light, light-heavy, heavy-light, htavy, conjunct, disjunct,
equal and unequal, fast and slow, first and second Only a few details are
wonh mentioning in this context
The two main divis.ons of this classification are 'conjunct' and ‘disjunct
1
Conjunct meters, called /uizag, are uninterrupted series of equal beats with-
out accents or any other grou|iing 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 -jjtime, 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 meteis instrumental rhythms that had broken loose
from the despotism of poetry
The antipoetic patterns, which the Arabs call Iqaat, arc said to have been
introduced into Arabian music in the seventh century ad hy 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
4
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
# *
*
4 Cl Huart, "La Musique pcrsanc,’ in Ijmgnac, Encyclopedic dc la Musiquc 1 v 5, p 3065
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, When two little kettledrums 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 knet, 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 Lhat 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 are 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 Lhc 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-
cems, indeed, he would with two or three independent drums act agaanst
the melody in the intricate openwork of an actual polyrhythm
m
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 taqsnu, the improvised prelude of solo
instruments before the ensemble sets in The zither qdnun frequently sup
ports the taqsim of the lluie or the fiddle with the rapid, mandohnhhe to
and fro of the plectron on one string In bands, 'he larger oboe plays a pedal
while the smaller oboe perloims its improvisation, or the player of the
double clarinet arghul accompanies himself on its dronepipe
Ostmato basses spring up when the persistent drone dissolves into the
so-called wahda a series of eight quarter belts which, to mark the begin-
ning of a period, start with a silent eighth and subsequently syncopate
Lute and zither players often plav such a wahda on several notes instead
5
of one drone note and thus perform obslinite ground basses
Consonances have a definite, though modest, place in the classical theory
Ibn-Slna (980-1037) defines a certun Arabic lerm, tarkjb, 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 appe irs in the section on ornamen s to Ibn-
Slna, and probably to the Islamic world in general, consonance was not a
harmonic function in the Western sense, but a simultaneous appoggiatura.
“Alfred Berner, Studicn zut arabischen Munk 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-heat 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 taqslm in Egypt This is a ficc introduction, without a
definite rhythm and, when sung, without words, in which the performers
after one another improvise on the melodic pattern of the maqain and dis-
play to the best of their ability the peculiarities of thur instruments and of
their personal skill and inspiration, while ihe /nhei or the lute unobtru-
sively accompany with a drone or a short ost’nato Then the other instru-
ments join in to start the strict movemc.it 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, the
Turkish pc$rev, which is also preceded by a taqslm 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 taqslm 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 sei up, and whoso falleth not down and worshippeth shall the same
"
hour be cast into the midst of a burning fiery furnace u
# *
*
fl
Daft 3 5, 7, io, 15 Curt Sachs, The History of Musical Instalments, op cit pp 83-5
Form 291
The nuba is the largest cyclic form in Oriental music The name appears
for the first time in the tenth century a d to denote a company of musi-
cians '
and later is transferred to the particular form of composition de-

veloped in medieval Granada while it was under Mohammedan rule There,
it was abandoned after the Christian reconquesr, but it has been preserved
in Morocco and Algeria
The nuba may best be described as a cantata in nine parts of the same
tonality The first, ddira or “circle,” presents a singer's prelude without
percussion instruments, comparable to the taqiim and the Indian dldp, it is
vocalized on a text now incompiehensible The movement is an in-

second
strumental prelude, the third, an instrumental symphony, the movements
four, five, and six are tlnee 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 nubas still performed
in Morocco, the author once wrote
I still see on the floor in a long row with one or two players seated
them silting
at end the ten or twelve men, slender, thoroughbred,

right angles at either
with aquiline noses and short black beards, in while burnuscs and white turbans
and before them, taken off, the yellow slippers I still heir the cracking sound
of lute strings undtr the beat of the quill plectron, llie trenchant includy that
the short bows drew from and the boyish falsetto of the rapt old
tiny fiddles,
singer in the corner How
was the incorporeal limpidity of this en-
different
semble from the viscid sound of Western orchestras 1
Why does this music captivate us 50 much more than any other Oriental
style? Things foreign can touch us only it under the unwonted surface we
Do we recognize the mclodv, the powcrlu! impetus of ihe
sense familiar traits
Magnificat which over and over again appcjrs throughout the endless work?
There is more than that The longer we listen, the more distinctly wc feel that
this is the last living witness of that great music which half a nnlltnn um ago
was played in Andalusia The seven or eight hundred years of Moorrh domina-
tion in Spain do not only mean the acme of Islamic civilization, which could
not on the medieval culture of Europe The fateful war and
fail to set its seal
interbreeding of the races also shaped the Mohammedan world, and not least
itsmusic 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
8
unlost tradition
7 Henry George Farmer, A History of Arabian Mustc, np at p 153 ,
8 Free translation from Curt Sachs 'Dir Marokkaner,’ in Zcilschnft fur Verglnchtndc
Musik.unssrnschilft [ (1933), pp 17-1!
Section Seven
EUROPE AND THE ROAD

TO MAJOR AND MINOR
OMAN EAR WITNESSES were not exactly appreciative of the
R
thing
“
musical achievements in barbarian countries
who for pedagogical reasons liked to stress the bright
German His book Germania did not mention music at
—not even Tacitus,
side of every-
all, excepting
the bamtus or battle song, in which, he said, the raucous sound was in-
creased by singing against the shields and Lhe harmony of gallant hearts
mattered more than the harmony of voices
Three hundred years after Tacitus, Ammianus Marcellinus (d c 400 ad)
described the same bamtus 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 Lhe Franconians who with an artless, barbaric voice
crushed the melodies in their throats ( naturali voce barbarica frangentes in
1
gutture voces)
A deep gulf separated Greco-Roman and Oriental from extraclassical
music in Europe
* ®
How deep this gulf was has been brought out in the author's recent paper
on The Road to Ma/or ,
2
of which — with the ednor’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 Magm per Monachum Egolismensem," in Du Chesne, SS Hut Franc FI, 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 m glonam 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 tvisungvar and Corsican vocen, Provencal 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 entm
"
per tonum cognoscimus cuntum 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, asdo 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 Spam, they consist of single
thirds, but mostly they jump to another third and yet another, there arc
melodics 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
Rumania
P
g-n-r :
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 Landing the blind organist at the cathe-
dral in Florence
« •
Gregorian chant, the traditional music of the Roman Catholic Church,
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
arc 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' 1
1 he question should be re-examined in the light of our new knowledge

of the European thirds
After all, the composers of so-called Gregorian melodics 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 English, French, German boys before they
entered Catholic monasteries, and even cloistering did not separate them
from the musical world outside A
strict borderline between ecclesiastic
and secular music 15 where an old, traditional stock of melo-
possible only
dies is kept alive without contemporary additions, and this was not the case
with Gregorian chant
The Orient doubtless contributed the melodics It imposed the gen-
first
eralmood and also the performing style But melodic invention itself has
been free — and Western
The ‘Oriental style,' supposed to be at the basis of Gregorian
chant, is
the style of Orient il-Jcwish, of Syrian-Christian, of
Coptic-Egypttan cantil-
lation Definitely diatonic, it has almost exclusively the fourth as its struc-
tural interval, it is tctrachordal Two examples might suffice, one from
the Babylonian Synagogue and one from the Coptic Church
Ex 91
^Babylonian Jewa (*f hh-

fj
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 Babylonian Jew* (Acludi'l
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 melodics 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 F.FG 4 B/BCDE
Fourth BCDE/EFG 'IB
Fifth FG 1 BC/CDEF
Sixth CDEF/FC 4 BC
Seventh GABCD/DEFG
Eighth DEFG/G -iBCU
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 h.df of the melodies ascribed to
the Second Mode do not even reach the finahs D Many attributions to one
of the eight modes are so hard to comprehend that a real connection via
naturae seems more than doubtful Why, fur instance, is the hymn lrn
mense Cach 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
—

Other systems of a different cast contradicted and partly antedated the
array of eight church modes Monks had, as early as the ninth century,
devised a notation in which the letters of the alphabet from A to G repre-
sented a C-major scale 8

It was only later that it was shifted in order to
from the modern note A, which was the lowest note of the lowest
start
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 T T — that
s is, tone, tone, semitone, tone, tone — and
Guido adopted the same set of names for the six notes of the hexachord,
regardless of the particular hexachord — ut re mi fa sol la These three basic
scales were definitely majorlikc 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 consecutive 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
vou 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 olher 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 D FgA
e b C or FgA b
CdE or A b CdEfG
Is this not a true mirror of the medieval conception of music p
A sincie ciuin as the exclusive element of structure is tolerable in the

Huent, 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, from phrase
but also to phrase
Cf Guiuvc Rccie, op n/,p 135 f
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 chuich, 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
C £ (/
Ex 95
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, Lhat 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, ihe Dane, Angul
Hammerich, emphasized that Icelandic folksongs represented the urtypus
of that primeval major scale "which has been stated to be the natio tal scale
Gcrmano-Gothic peoples ” His particular example is poor and far

of the
from being major The other Icelandic songs printed in Hammerich’s paper
arc 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 Lhe
slogan and let it pass without examination — and without proof

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
Melodics with most of the features of major first occur in the tenth cen-
tury The earliest evidence, an Italian (probably) love song in Latin, needs
only the subsemitone and the octave to be a perfect major melody
Ex 9t>
Latin, 10»c
But official theory rejected the subsemitone, and although it praised the
sulifinal as emnietts 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 subscmitonal
inflection C-B
Ex 97
a <3reg*oriAD
Ihmi fai tdju - ta - Kun vita k»- Un - 4e
Correspondingly, secular and semisecular melodies show the subscmi-

tone as early as the eleventh century
Ex 98
France, 11“ c rPVtfur~)
This and similar melodics were created m the same century in which
Guido d Arezzo so violently opposed the subsemitonc, it must have be-
come dangerous.
—

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 ancienL 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 arc 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 DFAD, with B and C$

in ascending, and B\j 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-
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 of 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 Grigorian chant substituted a leap of a minor third for progressions of
a whole or semitone in the Roman original

'1
he logical development from all-European principles makes the hy-
poilicsis of an Asiatic descent for major and minor almost superfluous It
is nevertheless imjiortant to state that Asia, too, shows evolution toward

major and majorhke scales
It may he useful in this connection to give some attention to the so-called
Ugro-limush peoples Anthropologically, they are Mongolian, linguisti-

cally, they are related to Hungarians and Finns Scattered in small rem-
n ints over parts of Eastern Russia and Western Siberia, they live in a rather
primitive st ilc 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-Finmsh music
Hit sc two peoples, about twenty-five thousand individuals, live in North-
wcsiein 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 mvthologieal 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-
dic s
Otlur Ugro-Finmsh peoples show similar tendencies The five thousand

Votyaks in die northeast of European Russia ohen sing in single and
double thirds, hut never use the leading note The Syrianes, their northern
ntnzhhoi s (not the Syrians), start from single thirds and achieve major
pent (chords and even full major octaves The Mordwms have pentatonic
scales til Inc, st\, or seven notes, but in a lower stratum, in “old-pagan”
melodics ot only three or four notes, they use the leading note’
Ex 100
Mordwineo («n— Cccsai

Some non-Ugro-Fmnish peoples deserve special mention also The
Turko-Tataric Kirghwes, 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 T here are man) thousands of

square miles that have not yet been musically explotLd Eul it is important
to have found in West and Centril 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 nor necessarily depended upon struc-
tures of thirds The pentatonic so-called Chinese scale CDE GA was given
iwo pietn /-if anilB that actually were double leading notes in the sense of
European music in the fourteenth century — two thousand years later And
in the sixth centuty ad, a true mj|or scale without the intone C-F# was
very much admired and to a certatn extent introduced Though hy no
means generally accepted, it represented the latest development in China
Of the three Indian gramat only sa-grama has survived, which from an
original D-naodc has been converted into a C-mode and practically coin-
cides with the major sc tie
In ancient Greece, the Dorian mode, outstanding in earlier antiqc,ity,
later yielded to the Lydian mode, which in tLs scale arrangement coincided
with major
A similar process is running its com sc in modern Morocco The Lntonic
maqam S:/(a which uses a I! sc lie without signature, is more and more
frequently given a pei fed fifth bv sharpening the note F, and Lhe F maqam
Maya, tritonic as well, is, by imore and more general flattening of its sug-
gested fourth B, well on its vs ay to /' ma|or
The common development toward maiorlike and minorlihe melodies
from systems as different as Last Asiatic pentjtomcism, Indo-Islamic and
Greco-Roman modes, and l uiopean and Ugro-Finnish thirds, suggests
that there may be some imminent force at work, a force embiacing 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
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 lo the whole Such evolution has
led to the sophisticated balance that the Greeks achieved in the dualism of
thelic and dynamic centers, and the Hindus in the intricate relationship of
starters, finals, tonics, dominants, and prevalent’ notes that characterize
their rigar In systems established on the third and the fifth, the classical
st igr of integration and perfect balance between static and dynamic forces
is the ma|or-minor tonality with its dominant function and the significance
of the ionic 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 mirlh and
affliction, hope and longing burst into melody Such melody organizes
mostly in descending fourths, the singer, under an irresistible stress, begins
at the top of Ins 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) composition for three large mouth organs from
Laos
Ex 101
The theories of Chinese and Indian music acknowledge ihe 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 does
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, ihe 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 melodics, 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
Smgmg, in contrast, has had aminor position It has, in the main, been
a vehicle for words, and wherever melismatic effusions have been attempted
—as in the Gregorian Alleluia and in the organa — native 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 cantat, 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
Tin- roNtRAST between vocal and instrumental styles may well have been
decisive in the fundamental contrast between the melodic and harmonic
concepts A survev of the music of ancient Greece and the Orient shows
very distinctly that the need for harmony develops with instruments moic
cisily thin with voices Everywhere, in China, Japan, India, the Middle
F isl, anil Hellas, attempts at chordal formations are bound up with instru-
ments, whether in accompaniment or in purely instrumental music Paral-
lel singing in intei v tls of various kinds seems to be an exception Actually,
it ioniums the rule, since it has never oceunetl in the singing of mature,
truly voc d melodies The delicate ragas of the Hindus as well as the
mtitjamat of the Middle Tast pulse with lift in their sensitive and untram-
mt ltd lines lncl do not stand harmony any more than a perfect engraving
would stand coloring And |ust as, inversely, good painting is incompatible
with sell sufficient drawing, polyphony subordinates the line of melody to
11s h u mumc net els
In I uropc, which lncl no self-sufficient singing in the sense of Indian
mil Ar tin in melody, the chances for the development
of harmony were
good C onditions were similar to the situation in the Far
East There, too,
vocal nulodv w is merely a vehicle for conveying words and never became
ilUonomous inversely, instiumcntal music has been to the fore and, just as
in [ mope, his resulted in colorful orchestras that have never played in
unison
Thcic ccrinnh more than one reason, nevertheless,
is
why the Far East
did not mcl Lurnpc did,
achieve acrual harmony and counterpoint There
is the esse no i[ contr ist
of their musical genera The stitic
character of Far
Eastern pent uonicism is definitely
aiuiharmomc, though it favors con-
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 minimum 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 th it,
at exactly the same time as Europe attained the third dimension in music
that harmonv represents, its painters conquered the third dimension in
space by means of perspective
* *
#
European polyphony and harmony in their earlier phases 1 shall not de-
scribe or discuss A voluminous monograph on this subject was recently
published by Dr Marius Schneider, and any rcdiscussion would tndangei

4
the balance of this book
Instead, we end this section with a short discussion of European rhythm
The problem is hard Neither the ncumes nor the plain-song notation of
the Middle Ages indicates time values, and even Lhc 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 Emjnrc) 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 wriLten down, Thoinot
Arbeau's treatise on the dance (Oi chcsograp/ue, 1588), has the slightest
trace of metrical conception beyond the simple dactyls in which a drummer
likes to subdivide his quarter notes
4
Manus Schneider, Gcschichtc dci Wthi 3 vols , Berlin, 1934
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 Melopotae 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 Academic de
Poisie et de Musique, show how artificial, indeed un-European, these ex-
periments were
One might ob|ecr 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
meter 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 complication 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
fil main meters of poetry into an antimeirical principle
the
Modern music historians have unduly exaggerated the binding lorce of

thest modi and extended it to practically all secular compositions (which
in the Middle Ages were written down m
plain-song notation without lime
values), whether the melodies had been composed
in the fourteenth cen
lliry or in the
tenth— three hundred years before the modi made their first
appear inte, whalur 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
1

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 mustca 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 translmon we give the term mensura, there is hardly a
doubt left that the medieval performer of secular melodies was rhythmically
free Rhythm was accessory just as the accompaniment was accessory
Played for a marching dance, a piece .vould assume duple time, for a fast-
leaping dance, triple time Its singer, independent from the dancers' needs,
was no more interested in any consistent lime 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
1 he 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 ol 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 he insignificant On the other hand, we have found
Japanese scales in Java, Egypt, and Greece, Hellenic theory in Arabian

councils and medieval Europe, Indian conceptions in Egypt and Morocco
Music il provinces stand out wiLh 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 subtle
art of melody, on conjunct or disjunct tetrachords and pentachords, on

modjl inversions, and on cosmological connotations
Non-Mediterranean Europe, on the contrary, had no connection with the
cultivated musical styles of the East Until far inLo the Middle Ages, it re-
in lined in a primitive musical layer that we can tract to the northern parts
of both Asia and America and, in the south, to Melanesia and Africa
lhe European ch tins of thirds brought our Western music into other
wavs thin 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
I Visual 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 haimony and, as a conse-
quence, to cejual temperament

d he global trend of Western civilization has not spired music European
uul American compositions have been exjiorted wholesale, the Imperial
\cadtmy of Music in Tokyo teaches Beethoven and Chopin, Egyptian
colleges hive jazz bands, and even native music, in Turkey, China, Japan,
h is rccemlv been influenced by Europe
But the West, too, is questioning the validity of its latest heritage The
itgulir tension and relaxation in harmonic functions have been aban-
doned, consnniiicc and dissonance are no longer what they were a genera-
tion auo, iiul most rules of harmonv have been consigned to the rubbish
pile Ibis iivulutiun implies a renovation of our musical
language, which
has been modeled u> fR [J 1L needs of harmony
Some composers write solo pieces without any accompaniment, and

Epilogue 313
others, tired of the ceaseless one-tvvo-three-four that we take for rhythm,
are developing a new sense of periodicity Indeed, there is opposition
against the very limitation to twelve semiLoncs 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 Floientine Camerata and Richard

Wagner’s Must^drama
Yet this acknowledgment is one of many symptoms that the orbit of
Western music has passed beyond the point fuithest 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 rhvthm that thur ancestois fought for
the rise of music in Asia and Europe, in the E isi and the West
, '
INDEX
Aalst, 123 Archytas, 199, 213

Abcrt, 198, 199, 239, 241 atghul, argul, 99, 289
Abraham, O , 27, 36, 125, 137, 177, 178 Anon, 267
Abyssinia, cf Ethiopia Aristides Quintibanus, 199, 203, 207, 220,
accelerando 106, 191 228, 234, 240, 249, 258, 265, 270
accents, 84, 101, 259 Aristotle, 212, 221, 248, 253, 254, 257
Admiralty Islands, 49 Aristoxcnos, 82, 199, 207, 208, 21 1, 212,
Aeolian, 126, 233 224, 228, 256, 261
affix, 37 Armenia, 87, 96
agam 282, 284 Arsabhi, 127, 177
agon, 267, 271 arsis, 261, 263
Aiyar, r6 4, i6g Asaph, 60
akjhara, 184 Asavarl, 177, 179, 180
Al-Firabi, 278, 279, 285 ascent, 32, 119, 220, 306-7
AI-Kindi, 278 Assyria, 32, 92, 95, loo, 101, 197
aldpa 191 astrology, cf cosmology
'All al-l$faham, 280 a(a 1H6
Alkman, 267 AthenaiDs, 200, 224, 226, 237, 247, 248,
Alleluia, 308 251, 253, 257, 266, 267
Alypros, 200, 216, 231 atnvarya, 159
Ambros, 101 Australia, 41, 46
Amiot 1 14 authentic, 63, 217, 225, 299
Ammlanus, 295 Avicenna, 278
nmsa, 172 Ah og, 282
anapaest, 260-1, 262, 264
arwpcira, 251 babble songs, 43
Andaman, 30, 48 Babylonia, 77, 85-6, 101, no
ancimene, 222, 248 Bacchius, 258
<inga 186 backfall, 182
Anglo-Saxons, 307 ba\chios 261

Annam, 50, 151 Bakongo, 38
antiphomc intervals, 257, 258 Bali, 43, 48, 128-32, 140, 152
antiphony, 50, 39, 92-5, 101 bamm, 70
antutrophe, 269 Bar Hebraeus, 87
anudatta 69, 158 baran g, 129
anudruta, 159 barbat, 277
Apollo, 57, 270 barritus, 295
apatomb, 212, 279, 280 Bartok, 296, 297

appoggtatura, 182, 289 Bashkirs, 138
Arabia, qs, 201, 214, 277-91 basis, 261
'arad, 2B2 basso oslinato, 33

Aradbdr 228 Bayati, 214, 228, 2B2, 283
Arbeau, 309 Bedouins, 270, 277
archi, 220, 251 BclLacula, 3B
\ 2 1 1 , ,
316 Index
1
Bellermann, 199, 206, 230, 231, 262 Censorinus, 230
Bells, 106, 109, iio, 117, nH, 13H, 140, 149, Cents, 27-9
150 chain, 39, 297, 300 1
bem, 129 chalara, 222
Berbers, 127 Champa, 135

Berner, 215, 2R9 Chenamah, 60
Chengalavarayan, 165, 178, 183
IJesseler, 297
Bhairava 17 ch‘i, 13B
, 177 . 79 *
chiao, 107, 12
Bhuiravi, i6g 177, 1 79* *8°
chth, 107, 121
BluratJ, 157, 164, 167, ! 76 .
186-7, 189
Ilhaikanile, 1 7H-H0 children, 40, 43, 49, 61, 81, 137
bifocal mcludits 251 chin, 108, 122, 149, 182

lii hair 172, 178, 179 China, 77, 105-52, (cf also Table of Con-
Hiluhan 172 tents)
Fiu'at aI 17 z 177, 178, 179, 180, 189 chords, 101

h'Uti 146 choruses, 145, 150, 256, 26645, 272
Mind musicians, 58 97, 149 c hr oat, 21
I'Uh, Ro chroma hemiohon 211

Butmun, 227 chroma malakpn, 211, 212
Boethius, 200, 219, 231, 247, 258, 277 chroma syntonon, 212, 213, 282
boomerang, 46 chroma tomaion, 211
Boh, y) chromatic genus, 206-10, 221
Bolouidos, 32 chronos protos 260, 263, 265
III doer, 164 Chrysothemis, 230
Brow n 30 chucn, 122
Bin lull 151 Chukchi, 23
Bucher, 19 eiaconna, 33
bmia\u 105, 139 Cicero, 263
link 1 38 clapper, 46, 150, 153
Itiik.nl/cr, 1
17, 129, 303 claque 271
Borate 201 Clemens Alexandnnus, 82, 269
Burgunduns, 295 Clements, 164
Bumts, 127 ColJangcttes, 280
Bunn 1 1 32 3, 151, 152-3 comma, Pythagorean, 28, 279, Didymian,
Biimt.ll, 150 i<» 1 , 162 76, 213
flush/] 2K2 2K6 “comparative musicology,” 29
Buzin 2H6 confijialis, 65, 281
Bv/uilmin, 277 Confucius 106-7, 108
contests, 267, 268, 270
l lilt IKC 34, 83 Coomaraswamy, 165, 178, 181, 192
C imlnulu 1323. 135. 251, 152-3 Copts, 96-7
unnn si 52 cosmology 77, 109-11, 149, 174, 250, 269
unios fa Tlh^tlS 2f)() countei chain, 301
mull It wish Couriut 150
79 H9 East Asiatic,
c iti< hi.
1
3
h .
1
IS Indian, 158-62, cf also Ore- crcucndo 106
gon in eh ini Crete, 200, 266
Carolina, 49 31 , cretic, 263
Carra tie \ iu\, 75 cruit.307
iaturtha iso Crusius T98
Celebes, 31 crying, 80-1
Cclies, Conrad, 310 Cummmg, 33, 92, 95
, ,
Index 3r7
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, ioi, 145, 180, 192, 289
163 drum, primitive, 23, 46, West Oriental,
62, 63, 90, 91, 95, East Asiaric, 106, no,
dactyl, 16a, 162 12B, 136, 138, 146, 148, 149, 150, 152,
dddra, 185 153, Indian, 163, 189-90, 192, 194, Is-
Daghda, 307 lamic, 288, 289, European, 309
daira, 291 Dubois, 163
dang, I40 dulcimer, 278
Darwin, 19 dum, 288
David, the king, 59, 82 dung, 140
Davies, 41, 46 Durgd, 17B, 179
Day, 126, 164, 175 dvitiya 159
Dechcvrcns, 130, 283 dynamis 234, 250
decrescendo, 106
Dcm, 32 Edison, 26
Dcmicville, 135, 151 education, 254-5
d£ng, 140 Egypt, 62-3, 72-4, 78, 95, 99, 100, 101, hi,
Densmore, 27 if>5. '97
dervishes, 286 ados 201, 216, 247

descent, 41, 43, 52, 119, 205, 220, 306-7 ifl5, 1R6
Dcubncr, 210 f\boU, 240
Dhaivata, 165 ckhsis, 240
Dhaivati, 12 y, 1 77 Elam, 99-100, xoi
Dharma, 164, 183 Ellis, 27, 133
dhima, 185 rmm rlrr, 302
dhruva, 186, 264 enharmonic genus, in Fgypt, 71, in
diatonic gender, 206 and passim Greece, 206-13, 211

diatonon ditoniaion 213, 279 epttnton, 261
didtonon homalon, 75, 213, 283 equidistance and equipartition, 72-5
diatonon mala\on, 21 1, 213 F.r itouhenes, 213, 282
didtonon syntonon, 21 1, 213, 280, 282 Eskimos, 23, 40, 124
didtonon tomaion, 213 Ethiopia, 72, Hi, 86, 97-8, 201, 277-H
diazcaxis, 222 ethos, 248-32, 233, 285-6
Didymos, 76, 213 Etruria, 272-3
ditzeuymendn, 222, 223 Euclid, 199, 222
dim, 2B8 eunuchs, 157
ding, 140 Euripides, 198, 206, 243-4, 249, 269
Dionysios, composer, 198 exodos, 269
Dionysios of Haliknrnassos, 260
Dionvsius Iamblicus, 219 Fabius Qumtilianus, 184, 264
Dipafâ 174 Farmer, II 0,278,291
diplasion, 261 Fccr, 169
dipody, 261 r elber, 160, 185
distances, 42, 212 •female,' 114, 1 15, 1 16, 118, 123, 130, 137
dithyramb, 266, 267-8 Eerand, 5D
divisive principle, 75-7, 122, 166, 169, 280, Fctis, 236
282, 283 Fewkcs, 26
dong, 140 fiddle, 128, 152, 153, 192, 289
Dorian, 209, 216, and passim finahs, 35, 65
318 Index
Hrgerholcs, 72, 73 Gulik, Bo, 105, 106, 109, 134
T leischer, 301 Gypsy scale, 176, 177, 179, 180, 282
Horcs, 51
flute, West Oriental, 62, 71, 72, Far East- Halcvy, Yehuda, 112
ern, 106, 108, 1 2n, 128, 134 136, Ul. Hamilton, 268
145, 146, 147, 149, 150, 152, Islamic, Hammench, 301
270, 289
hamsadhvam , 132
foreigners, 62, 1*5 1 , 193 hanchilot, 83
four-tone melodies, 39, 42 hand of Guido, 141, 161

Fox Sirangways, 22, 35, 47, 69. i ®i j
Handschin, 257
190 Hanuman, 173, 1B5
Franconnns, 295 harmoma, 201, 207, 216, 218, 233, 237,
frets, 73 247, 251, 253
Friz/i, 38 harmony of the spheres, 110-n
Fuegians, 23, 37, 4® harp, West Oriental, 5g, 60, 61, 62, 63, 71,
Fuller, 1 16 Bo, 93, 99-100, ioi. East Asiatic, 150,
Fyzee Rahamin, 174, 175, 180, 1B3 Indian, 163, Islamic, 27B
Haug, 69
ga-grdma, 169-70 hazag, 287
Galilei,199 healing songs, 22, 253-4, 267, 286
Galpin, 86 hearp, 307
gamaâ, 144, 181-3 Hclfntz, 277
garneljn, 152 Heman, 60
gandhiira, 165, 169-70 hemiolian, 261
Candhari, 177 heptad, 64
Garstang, 72 Herakleidcs, 200, 218, 224, 226
Gaudenrios, 75, 199, 207, 231, 258 Hcrodotos, 63
Gautier, 29 Hcrschcr-Clemcnt, 98
Geiger, 160, 185 Herzog, 23, 26, 31, 33, 49
geishas, 137 hestotes, 2 38
Ghurkas, 151 hctcrophony, 48, 146, 147, 256-7, 289
gihiirâ 223 hichm\\, 146
Gilman, 26, 27, 39 Higdz , 214, 282, 286
git tit 8 3
'high,’ 69, 223
Gljukos, 200 Hiller, F , 270
ghssando 136, 1 37, 143, 160, 182 Hindolam, 180
Gombosi, 198, 202, 222, 237, 238 hirajoshi, 125, 217
gong 19 1 131, 14ft, 148, 130, 152, 153 Hoeg, 87
t.opaul, 174 Hommel, E , 70
graces, h'i 143, 144, 181-3 homophomc intervals, 25B
gnima 1(17 -d Hopi, 27, 39
Grande 198 horn, 77
Greenland, cf Eskimos Hornbnstcl, on primitive music, 22, 23,
Gregomn clunt, 84, 90, 92, 182, 298-9, 27, 28, 36, >50, on Egyptian music, 74,
304, 30H on Far Eastern music, 124, 125, 127,
Grenfell, 199 137 on Indian music, 166, 177, 178, on
Grocheo 21/1 311 Greek music, 250
Grosser, 137, 1(14 hsiang, 107
Grove, 28, 258 huang chung, 1
1 4, 115, 117, u8
Guarani 20 Huarr, 287
Guido d Arezzo, 141 if, It
400, 302 Humbert-Lavcrgne, 306
, , 1
Index 3*9
Hunt, igg Khamaj, 177, 179
Husemt, 228, 282, 286 King fang, 117
Huycn, 50 \innor 193 t
Hygros ben Levi, 61 Kirchcr, 198

hypate, 69, 222, 223, 236 Kirghizes, 138, 305
hypatoid, 249 kjthara, 214, 219
hypaton, 223 hit hans 219
hyperbolaion, 222 kitharodos 271
hyporchema, 266 kpdo\ ngore}{, 129
Kolinski, 51
iamb, 261, 263 kpma juye, 146
Iastian, 227, 228-9, 233 koto, 58, 120, 125, 143, 144, 145, 148
Ibn-Sina, 278, 286, 289 Krohn, 127
Idelsohn, 79, 81, 90, 96, 283 \roumata, 203
mcentwa, 201 \ro14palon, 263
infix, 37 brush {a, 159
infrafix, 37 Kuba, L, 50
intervals, 42, 212 Kubu, 41, 50
Ionian, 227, 233 \utcb, 286
iqaat, 287 burnoi 125, 217
Iraq (country), 277 {ung, 107, 1 21
Iraq (maqam), 286 Kunst, J, 35, 39, 51, 127, 128, 129, 150,
jffl ison 260-1 131, 140
Isaacs, 89, 90 Kutcha, 151
Isfahan, 214, 228, 282, 286 Kwei, 1 12, 149
Istna, 49 byrtos phtongos 257

Iwato, 125, 217 kyun, 1 22
| an (us) , 199, 258 Lach, 33, 304

taits 176 Lachmann, 40, 47, 91, 127, 166, 270
fava, 26, 48, 127-32, 152 lahbaloc, 98
Jeduthun, 60 Lamprocles, 226
Jews, organization, 59-62, style, 59-95, Landino sixth, 297, 303
harmony of spheres, 110-n, kabbala, Langdon, 59, Ro
116, in India, 194, psalms, 269 Lasos, 199, 226, 268
ham pa, 1H6 launeddas 99
/
Josephus, 71 left music, 146

Jubal, 57 Icimma, 212, 265, 279, 280
Julian the Apostate, 295 Lejeune, 310
Levis, 157, 14
Kabbala, 116 Libya, 95

Kachgar, 151 hchanos, 212, 222, 223, 236
Kadar, 69 Lied, 35
bak.k.°> 146, 148 Lifou, 50

Kamel el-Kholcy, 284 hmd, 129, 131
Kanika, 22 Lindblad, 297
Kdpki 177, 179, I Bo Linos, 63
Daihatsu, 253 Livius, 272
Keh, 126, 133, 150 Locnan, 227
keys, 224-5, 235, 239 logogenic, 41, 52, ioi, 137, 260, 307
\hah, 190 Lombardy, 50
a , ,
320 Index
Longinus, 257 me sc, 216 and passim in the Greek sec
‘low,’ 69, 123 lion
lu, 114-20, 121, 140-1 Meshaqa, 284
Lucian, 254 mesoid, 249
Lu Pu-ivc, 57, 106, 107, 109, 112, 114 Mesomcdes, 198, 249
luie, West Oriental, 62, 63, 74, 101, East meson 222, 223
,
Asiatic, 134, 14 1, 146, 147, 150, 153, metaboU, 240

Indian, 163, 182, 194, Islamic, 278,279, mctallophonc, 109, 130, 150, 152, 153
2B3, 2B9, 290 meter, primitive, 45-6, Jewish, 8B-90,
Lyall, 278 Chinese, 137, Indian, 160, 184-5, I s-
lydion (accordatura), 214, 228 Jamie, 287, European, 309-11

lyra, 214, 119 Midas, 271
lyre, West Oriental, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, mirhton, 23
71-2, 80, 101, Indian, itij, Greek, 201, Mixolydian, 226-7 and passim in the
204, 205, 209-10, 213-14, 217, 218, 229, Greek section
234 . 2J7, 247, 254, 257, 268, 269, Ro- mode, general, 66 8, East Asiatic, 122-5,
man, 272 131-2, Indian, 169-83, Greek, 216-52,
Lysiades, 267 Islamic, 280-6
Lysikrates, 267 modi (metric), 310
modulation, 126, 240, 241, 242, 244, 263
ma-grdtna, 65, 167-8, 280 Aiohana, 132
Macusi, 40 Mondon-Vidailhet, 98
Madagascar, 49 Mongolia, 43, 127, 141, 151, 183
madhyama, 165, 177 Mom, 51
Madh\arnavati, 132 monochord, 199
Mahttr 249, 282, 285
, Monro, 202
Maimonulcs, 151 mordent, 182
major, 283, 300-11 Mordwms, 304
Mala hart, 126 Morocco, 277, 291
Malayan, 213 Moses, 59
male,' 1 14, 115, u6, 1 1 8, 123, 130, 137 motor impulse, 36, 46, 69
Millions, 172, 179, 180 Mountford, 202
Maisari, 189 mousi\e, 262, 263
Manchuria, 105, 146 mouth organ, 145, 146, 147, 149, 150, 306
mandra 159 Mueller, 5B, 144, 147, 148
manjurd 132 muezzin, 277
maqam, maqamdt, 83, 249, 250, 285-6 munggang, 129
Martunus Cappella, 272 murchand 169, 170-1
Marsus, 197, 271 musica falsa or ficta, 303
Marta 179, 180 mutation, 300
masanqo 98
masora b(j Mahawand, 228, 282, 283
ma(h\a 186 Naidu, 183
mats 46 Narada 57, 163, 176
305 nasalization, 23, 78, 97, 137, 183
McPhrr T39 Nau>d 282, 283, 286
megaphone, 23 negative melody, 32
melogtnn, 42 52, nem, 129, 131, 132
mclopona 249 ncte 69, 222, 223, 236
men sut 311 netoid, 249
mcsaalik* 203 neumes, ioi, 300
Index 321
Newlandsmith, 97 Passamaquoddy, 26
nginot, 83 pathogenic, 41, 52
Nikomachos, 199, 210, 117 pathos, 240
msada, 165 Pausanias, 200
no, 20, 136 ptlog, 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, 85-8, 101, East Asiatic, log, Peri, N , 123, 125, 126, 134, 135
140-4, Indian, 161-2, 165-6, Greek, period, 35
203-5, medieval, 300 Prnplus, 193
nuba, 291 Persia, 59, 193, 277-91
Nubia, 72, 95, 201 petrev, 290
petteia, 250
d tc\i, 146 Pherekrates, 173, 232
oboe, West Oriental, 59, 61, 62, 63, 73, Philippe de Van, 303
East Asiatic, 146, 150, 153, Indian, 163, Philo, 93 94, 110
1B1, Greek, 270, Islamic, 289, cf also Phoenicia, 63, 95, 101, 197
pipe phoenix, 114
Olympos, 197, 208, 251, 256 phonograph, 26
one-tone melodies, 31 phornnnx, 219
ontogeny, 43 Phrvms, 201, 233
Oost, 183 P'i p'a, 134, 141
orchestras, West Oriental, rot, East Asi- pirn, 134, 220
atic, 129, 146-53, Indian, 192, Roman, Plggott, 120
272, European, 307 Pindar, 198, 199

organum, 308 pipe, West Oriental, 71, 77, East Asiatic,
orthios, 261, 265 106, 141, 149, Greek, 2or, 208, 237 8,
ostwalo, 148, 256, 289, 290 255, 268, 272, Islamic, 278, cf also oboe
Ostyaks, 23, 304 pitch, 120, 203, 248-50, 285, cf also lu
Ousclcy, 174 pitch pipes, 114, 118, 120, 134
overtones, 77 plagal, 65, 217, 225, 299
Plato, 216, 254, 255, 257, 266
paean, 198, 253, 266, 267 Plutarch, 77, 200, 201, 207, 208, 210, 212,
Paikchei, 151 219, 226, 232, 235, 247, 251, 256, 264
paion 241, 261
,
Pollux, 200, 270
Panan, 47 Polynesia, 31
panchama, 165 polyphony, primitive, 48-51, West Ori
Panini, 158 ental, 98-100, East Asiatic, 145-8, In
panpipes, 109, 118, 306 dian, 180-1, Greek, 256-8, Islamic, 28B.
Papuas, 33, 39 European, 308-9
parallelumus membrorum, 92, 96 polyrhylhmy, 47, 139, 288
parallels, 4B-50, too, 145, 146, 256 Poplcy, 64, 168, 169, 173, 178, 180
paramesf, 223, 236 portamento, 34, 165, 181, 182, 207, cf also
paranele, 222, 223, 236 glissando
paraphonic intervals, 258 positive melody, 32, 277
parhypate, 214, 222, 223, 236 pramana, 167
Paribeni, 272 prathama, 159
parados, 269 pressus, 182
parthema, 267 program music, 270
partials,77 prol{clcusmati\6s, 260
passacagha, 33 Pronomos, 237
, 1 , 1
Index
proslambanomenos 222, 223 sa-grdma, 65, 167-8
prosodiaôs, 262 Sad ft 177
,
psalmody, 31, cf also cantillation sdd]odisy avail, 127

Pscllos, 269 Safi al-Din, 75
Ptolemy, 75, 199, 207, 212-14, 226, 247, Sakadas, 263, 270
248, 279, 2B0, 282, 283 Sakai, 30
punctus divisioms, 185 sale n dr 0, 130-2
Puri'S j 179, 180 sdman, cf Veda

pwc, 153 Samarkand, 151
pyhjion, 206, 210 Samoa, 46, 51
pyrnc, 260, 262 sangd, 1 3 1, 132
Pythagoras, 75, 199, 278 Semang, 51
Pythagoras of Zakynthos, 237 semicadencc, 34, 83
Seneca, 273
sequence, 52
qanun, 289 sex, 40, 46, cf also women
quadnvium, 57 shadja, 165
quarter tones, 313, cf also Enharmonic shadow plays, 153
genus shahjihachi , 120

quihsma, 183 shamans, 22, 23, 286
shang, 107, hi
Shankar, 178, 192
raga (flj), 172-83. '9 1 . ( 2 49. 2 5o) she, 108, J49
Rahawi, 2R6 sheng, 146
rallentando igi shi 138
Ramachandran, 78, 168 shn, 146
Ramimatya, 77 shofô, 146
Rdst, 249, 282, 283, 285, 286 Siam, 119, 132-3, 152
rattle, 46, 138 Si^dh, 285, 305
recitative, 136 Si 1 la, 151
Reese, 81, 94, 95, 96, 300 Sirphanadana, 1B6

Reinach, 198, 199, 201 Simon, i6r, 182
repetition, 43, 48, 50, 52 sistrum, 59, 97

responsorial singing, cf antiphony sitdr, 194
rhythm, primitive, 45-6, Hebrew, 88-91, skplioti , 269
East Asiatic, 1369, Indian, 184-91, Is- slendro, 130-2
lamic, 287-8, European, 309-1 solmization, 23^-6
nee stamping, 139 Solomon Archipelago, 38, 124
Richard, 1
Somanatha, 18
19
Ricmann, 203, 208, 218, 262 Somervel, 139
right music, 146 sane kplo, 146
ntsu wo, 122 3, 133, 219 Sonne, 112, 151, 253
Rome 272 ?l (i 77 ) speech melody, 19, 23, 137
rondo 191 Spencer, 19-20
Rousseau, 19, 20 Speyer, 169
Roussel, 1
14 sphirot, 116
rsab ha i6«) Spitta, 198
rubai 0 136 spondciaf(ps 219
Ruelle, 165 spondeiasmos, 240
rupafâ, 186 sport deios, 261
ryo. 122-3, 134 Sn, 175
, ,
Index 3 23
iruti, 1 66-7, 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
slereon, 213 Thalelas, 254, 267
Stiles, 237 Thamyns, 271
Stoll, 181, 182 Theo of Smyrna, 258
stones, 106, 107, 109, 117, 118, 138, 140, Therapeuts, 94
thesis, 234, 250, 26 263
149, 150 1,
Strabo, 193, 270 Thierfelder, 198

Strelnikov, 32 Thompson Indians, 36
strophe, 269 Thorstcinsson, 297
Stumpf, 19, 26, 38, 39, ng, 132 Thot, 57
succcntwa, 201 Thrace, 200
Siilphatâta, 189 three-tone melodies, 37-8, 43
Sumeria, 58-9, 63, 72, 73, 78, 80, 99 134
suprafix, 37 Tibet, 38, 138, 145, I5I
Supriya, 169 ugcr, 149

svara, 169 ti{, 2H8
svanta, 6g, 158, 260 timbrel, 59, 93, cf also drum

syllabic, 101 Umbutu, 193
symmetry, 40, 50, 52, rfio, 290, 300 1 time primitive, 45, Hebrew, 101 Fast
symphonic intervals, 257, 258 Asiatic, 138, Indian, 184-6, Greek, 263
syncopation, 47 5, Turopean, 309
synemmenan 223 time beating, 78, 187-8
synemmenos, 230 time of the day 132, 174, 179-80, 286

syntono, 222 Timotheos, 173, 201
Syntonolydian, 227, 228-9 tintal 189
syntonon, 214, 228 Tochars, 114
Syria, 63, 95. 96, 277 Todi, 179
Synanes, 304 tonos 201, 216
system a 201 loptail inversion, 67, 124, 169, 237
sy sterna teleton, 222-38
Torres Straus 41
Torrhehos, 219
tablaturc, 143, 204, 206
"transposition scales, 234
Tacitus, 295 Trefzgcr, 138, 144, 150
tai!{o, 146, 148 tremolo, 182-3

ta\, 288 triangle, 47
264 trill, 182
tala 139, 185-90,
tambaltam, 193 tnpody, 261
tarn bun, 18 r, 192, 194
Tnp ufa, 1 8b, 264
Tamils, 165, 178 trite, 219, 221, 223, 236
tana, 170 Invium, 57

Tanabe, 120, 147 trochee, 26 r
taqsim, 289, 290 tropes 84, 201, 216
tarktb, 289
trough, 149
216 trtiya 159

fasts,
Tatars, 138 trumpet, 23, 6o, 6l, 93

Taulipang, 22 Tsai yu. Bo
leleute 220 tuba (Gregorian), 302
temperament, 212, 213, 283 lumburu v'ma, 194
3*4 Index
Tungus, 23, 151
wahda, 289
Turko-Tatars, 138, 305 Wang, 144
Turks, 138, 151. 193, 214, 227. 277-9, 3 12 wedding songs, 90, 267
fuwais, 287 Wegelin, 145
tviscngvar, 296 Wcllcsz, 96
two tone melodies, 32, 43

Wen, 107
Werner, E, 112, 151, 253
'ud, 279, 281
Werner, H 43 ,
Udai Shankar, 178, 1

92
Wertheimer, 34
udatta, 69, 158 Wessely, 198
Ugro-Finns, 304 Wesrphal, 251
Ultoto, 37 Wilhelm, 57, 106
Ulrici, 201 Winmngton-Ingram, 202
up and down principle, 72, 77, 109, 116, women, primitive, 40, 50, 51, West Ori-
122, 169, 279, 281, 282, 283 ental, 58, 59, 81, 90, 91, 93, 94, 98,
‘Uisaq. 228, 282, 286 East Asiatic, 150, 151, 153, Indian, 157,
163. >74
Vaisanen, 24, 40, 124, 304
variation, 191 lylophone, 46, 152, 153
Vedas, 69, 86-7, 158-62, 183
Veddas, 32-4, 40
Vega, 19 y a, 150
Ya\a, 2B2
Venantius Fortunatus, 295
ventriloquism, 23, X37
Yaman, 177, 179, 180
vibagha, 1 86
Yamana, 37
vibration, 199
Yccuana, 39
Yekto, 215
vibrato, 108
yodel, 23
Villoteau, 86, 95
yu, 107, 121
vinii 163, 174, 182, 192, 193
Vincent, 256
yue fu, 1 13
violin, 192
Virgil, 272 zafan, qB
virtuosi, 271, 272 Zalzal, 130, 2B3
Vitri,303 zangula, 286
voien, 296 Zir-rflênd, 286
Voguls, 40, 124, 304 zither. West Oriental, 59, East Asiatic,
voice mask, 23 108, 120, 122, 125, 143,
145, 146, 144,
Votyaks, 304 148, 149, 150, 153, Indian, 163, Islamic,
vowels, 165 289, 290
Zodiac, 286
Wagencr, 256 zo![u-gattu, 217, 220
Wagner, Peter, 87, 302 Zotenberg, 86
Wagner, Richard, 19, 313 Zuni, 26, 39
Wagner, Rudolf, 198 Zunz, 80

Curt Sachs - The Rise of Music in The Ancient World - East and West-W W Norton & Company (1943)

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DELHI UNIVERSITY LIBRARY SYSTEM

book should be rammed on or before trie dantflla|* stamped below

W W NORTON & COMPANY INC New York

ISDN 0 193 09718 8

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY

Section One THE ORIGINS OF MUSIC

2 COMPARATIVE MUSICOLOGY AND ITS METHODS 25

4 RHYTHM AND INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC 45

Section Two THE WESTERN ORIENT

2 MUSICAL SYSTEMS IN GENERAL 64

3 MUSIC IN THE ANCIENT WESTERN ORIENT 71

Egyptian scenes The up-and-down principle Systems read from

Section Three EAST ASIA

2 THE LU’S 114

3 THE SCALES 121

The Chinese scales Modes The Japanese scale Major-third penta-

4 MELODY AND RHYTHM 136

Section Four INDIA

2 PICTORIAL AND LITERARY EVIDENCES 163

5 RHYTHM AND FORM 184

Section Five GREECE AND ROME

1 THE SOURCES 198

3 THE GENERA 206

4. THE SHADES 211

5 EARLY MODES 216

6 THE PERFECT SYSTEM 222

9 HEALTH AND EDUCATION 253

Section Six THE GREEK HERITAGE IN THE MUSIC OF

1 SCALES AND MODES 279

Section Seven EUROPE AND THE ROAD TO MAJOR AND

plate 1a 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 r6o

plate 6 a Korean Orchestra 161

plate 6 b Burmese Orchestra 161

plate 7 a Indian Dancers, Drummers, and Harpists 192

and Harp 192

plate B The Skolion of Seikilos 193

struggle to rid music of the limitation that it has in primitive society, to

vibration of matter ruled by mathematical ratios and that, on the other

greater fascination is it to see in how many different ways the two

of incompetent, and a less imposing number of competent, descnbers

as they throw light on antiquity Nor should he forget at what disad-

difi memone Nous ne percevons, memory We perceive nothing, ac-

henhi bergson, Matiire et Memoire

THE ORIGINS OF MUSIC

S uncertain shadows of gods or heroes who

tradicted by those who knew how insignificant a role mating played in

A third suggestion has been more widespread and tenacious music, it

reads, descended from spoken language, it was intensified speech Philoso-

would be sterile to repeat and analyze these hundreds of opinions pro

it neglected what they considered the fundamental contrast that music

finitely closer to the beginnings of music than Beethoven’s symphonies

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

tempts To be sure, travelers relate that certain peoples of low civilization,

cultural level — Polynesians and Micronesians, for example — and many

concerned, such peoples sing but have no instrument of their own

22 The Origins of Music

Ex I TAULIPANG after Hornbostel

A H Fox Srrangways, The Music of HmdosUtn Oxford, 1914, pp 44-5