NO. II MUSIC OF TULE INDIANS OF PANAMA DENSMORE 5 



his song. One disadvantage in improvisation is that the work is 

 affected more or less by the mood of the performer, Reah'zing this 

 necessity of ease when singing, an effort was made to have the TuJe 

 feel as much at home as possible in the writer's office and to avoid 

 close questioning, which made them restive. They understood the 

 desire to secure accurate information concerning their musical cus- 

 toms, and, assuming in part the responsibility of the research, they 

 volunteered a large amount of information which it would have been 

 difficult if not impossible to obtain under other circumstances. 



Nine Tule songs were recorded, with four performances on the 

 panpipes, and one on the flute, all being transcribed wholly or in 

 part. The record of one song was about 15 minutes in duration 

 while others were seven to nine minutes long. The first named re- 

 quired two dictaphone cylinders as the singer had been asked to 

 record the song at length, but he usually watched the indicator and 

 tried to condense the song into the space of one cylinder. An example 

 of this abbreviation is noted in the description of No. 8, page 33. The 

 songs which preceded the gathering of medicinal herbs and the song 

 for the relief of headache were transcribed in full, but in the other 

 songs it was not considered necessary to transcribe every tone. They 

 contained passages of varying lengths which were not of musical 

 interest, being either exceedingly monotonous or repetitions of single 

 tones, while in some instances the intonation was so wavering that 

 transcription was impossible. In these songs the interesting portions 

 were transcribed and the omitted passages indicated by wavy lines. 

 The transcription usually extended from the beginning to the end 

 of the record, thus showing the melody as a whole although scattered 

 passages were omitted. At frequent intervals the transcription was 

 marked with the numerals on the space bar of the dictaphone. (See 

 description of No. 6, page 29.) 



The compass of Tule songs is considerably smaller than that of 

 the songs of the North American Indians. Some Tule songs have a 

 compass of only three or four tones, while others have a range of 

 five tones with the occasional addition of a tone above or below the 

 compass, sung lightly and seldom accented. The transcription should 

 be understood as indicating the pitch of the tones as nearly as is possi- 

 ble in ordinary musical notation. The signature is used for con- 

 venience of observation and does not, in every instance, imply a 

 scale-relationship between the tones. In the two songs transcribed 

 in their entirety the intonation was fairly good throughout the per- 

 formance while in some other songs it was variable. The apparent 

 keynote is usually the lowest or next to the lowest tone, and the 



