26o ORIGIN OF RHYTHM 



The faculty or invention of speech but served to 

 develop the original animal music to our higher 

 music. Rhythm, which is rare in animal and is 

 essential in human music, is an outcome of emotional 

 speech — it comes, we may say, instinctively or auto- 

 matically; it is a relief, a rest, which the impas- 

 sioned speaker falls into naturally, which saves him 

 from exhaustion, and has moreover an arresting 

 effect on the hearers, thus adding to the power of the 

 performance. Nor is it an aid in emotional speaking 

 only; it extends into all sustained vocal expression; 

 it is, as I have heard, in the crooning and murmuring 

 sounds with which the Indian mother puts her babe 

 to sleep; in groaning, moaning and the sobbings 

 of poignant grief, pain and misery, and more pro- 

 nounced still in the lamentations for the dead. Thus, 

 among savages of the pampas, it is the custom when 

 a man dies for the women of the village to mourn his 

 loss for the space of a whole night, moving in pro- 

 cession round and round the hut where the corpse 

 lies, with endless ululations; and the sounds grow 

 rhythmical, and because of the rhythm the mourner's 

 dreary task is lightened — if it does not become a 

 positive pleasure. 



To one who has listened to savages in their ordinary 

 and impassioned speech and in their singing, it is 

 interesting to note the survival of their tones in 

 civilised speech and song. You recall the savage in 

 listening to the impassioned speaking of a man any- 

 where in England; at the same time I find that in 

 most instances when the resemblance has seemed 



