542 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1941 



but I devised a different method. The tone C of a pitch pipe was 

 recorded on a wax cylinder. This is placed on the phonograph and 

 the speed screw adjusted until the tone produced by this record is 

 the same as that of the pitch pipe. The piano used when tran- 

 scribing is tuned to the same pitch (A-440). Thus the pitch of the 

 singer's voice and the original tempo are preserved, and the tran- 

 scription is made as nearly as possible from his actual performance. 

 The voices of some men extend down to E below the bass staff, though 

 a majority of the records made by men are within a compass of 10 

 or 12 tones above A, first space, bass staff. It is not unusual for the 

 voice of an Indian woman to go down to E, third space, bass staff, 

 and very few women have voices that extend above C on the treble 

 staff. The Sioux have voices with a particularly large compass and 

 a Sioux woman recorded a song extending to F, fifth line, treble staff. 



The outline of a melody is determined by comparing the tones of 

 the record with those of the piano, but the intervals are usually de- 

 termined by ear.' The intervals with simplest vibration ratios are 

 sung with best intonation, many singers showing an intonation that 

 would be creditable to a member of our own race. Indians differ 

 in this respect, and the personality of the singer is taken into con- 

 sideration when his songs are transcribed. Thus a peculiarity in a 

 record made by an expert singer is given more attention than a simi- 

 lar peculiarity in the work of a man whose performances are known 

 to vary. If several renditions of a song have been recorded they are 

 studied and compared, the transcription being made from the best 

 and clearest rendition. 



The presentation of anything as strange as Indian singing must be 

 in familiar terms if it is to be intelligible. Therefore I have used 

 ordinary musical notation with a few special signs and entrusted the 

 differences from that notation, as well as the mannerisms, to descrip- 

 tive analyses. In this, as in any study, a great deal depends upon the 

 standpoint of the investigator. Wliat sounds strange to our ears is a 

 song to the Indian, and my work has been from the standpoint of 

 a musician who is approaching the music of an alien race. Bytones 

 and various modes of attacking and releasing a tone are common in 

 Indian singing. Early in my work I made an experiment to deter- 

 mine the importance of these vocal sounds. Placing two phono- 

 graphs with the horns together I played a typical Sioux record, 

 transferring it from one machine to the other until it had been 

 copied six times. On comparing the seventh recording with the 

 orijrinal rendition it was found that the seventh was much softer 



•A certified test of tbe author's pitch discrimination was made in 1014 by Prof. Carl E. 

 Seashore, dean of the Graduate College, University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa. (See Dens- 

 more, Frances, Northern Ute Music. Bur. Amer. Ethnol. Bull. 75, p. 209, 1922.) 



