DENSMORB] CHIPPEWA MUSIC 3 



Indian songs are not recorded in a definite system of notation and 

 a standard of absolute exactness is lacking. For that reason it seems 

 desirable that study be concentrated on the melody-trend and the 

 principal rhythm of the song, which show no variation in renditions 

 by different singers. A classified analysis of these unvarying phases 

 may supply data bearing on the natural laws which govern musical 

 expression. 



Indian music seems to belong to a period in which habit takes 

 the place of scale consciousness. Habit in the choice of musical 

 intervals is formed by following a line of least resistance or by a 

 definite act of the will; or may be the result of both, the voice at 

 first singing the intervals which it finds easiest and afterward 

 repeating those intervals voluntarily. It is in such ways as these 

 that the tone material comprising Indian songs is probably acquired. 



The study of Indian music deals with a free tonal expression, 

 yet this music is recorded at present in the notation of a conven- 

 tional system. It is acknowledged that ordinary musical notation 

 does not, in all instances, represent accurately the tones sung. 

 According to Ellis, "^ "all these [five-toned] scales are merely the 

 best representations in European notation of the sensations produced 

 by the scales on European listeners. They can not be received as cor- 

 rect representations of the notes actually played." If a new and 

 complete notation were used in recording fractional tones it should 

 be used in connection with delicately adjusted instruments which 

 would determine those fractional tones with mathematical accuracy. 

 The present study is not an analysis of fractional tones, but of 

 melodic trend and general musical character; therefore the ordinary 

 musical notation is used, with the addition of a few signs in special 

 cases. 



The songs are recorded on a phonograph provided with a specially 

 constructed recording horn and recorders. Care is taken in 

 selecting the singers and in explaining to them the nature of the 

 material desired, and effort is made to free them from constraint 

 or embarrassment, in order that the recorded song may be free and 

 natural. 



Before recording a song the name of the singer, the number of 

 the song, and the tone C of a pitch pipe are given into the record- 

 ing horn. These data serve to identify the cylinder record and also 

 to indicate the speed of the phonograph at the time the record is 

 made. 



Before transcribing a song the speed of the phonograph is adjusted 

 so that the tone C as registered on the record shall correspond to 



a In his translation of Hemholtz's The Sensations of Tone as the Physiological Basis of Music, part 3, 

 chapter 14 (footnote, p. 261). 



