OCTOBEB 15, 1909] 



SCIENCE 



533 



a generation attained the standing of a branch 

 of science. 



The closer study of instrumental forms un- 

 dertaken in England by the late A. J. Ellis in 

 1885 and carried on by J. P. N. Land in Hol- 

 land laid the foundation for the new research. 

 Five years later, in 1890, Dr. J. Walter 

 Eewkes, of the Hemenway Southwestern Ex- 

 pedition, first used the phonograph in the 

 study of aboriginal folk lore, and collected 

 the records of American Indian singing which 

 in the following year formed the basis of the 

 writer's study of Zuii melodies. The nota- 

 tions of singing in Miss Alice Fletcher's mono- 

 graph on the " Music of the Omaha Indians," 

 published in 1893 with a report by the late 

 J. C. Fillmore on the structure of the music, 

 although made by ear, were based upon years 

 of experience in the field. In later extended 

 studies of Indian life and art by Miss Fletcher, 

 Dr. Boas and Dr. Dorsey the phonograph has 

 aided. The investigation of exotic music had 

 already occupied Professor Carl Stumpf, now 

 of Berlin and lately rector of the university. 

 Professor Stumpf in 1886 made an accurate 

 study by ear (" gleichsame phonographische 

 Nachbildungen ") of the singing of Bellakula 

 Indians from British Columbia, in 1892 gave 

 an incisive discussion of the Zuni melodies, 

 and in 1901 published an extended investiga- 

 tion of Siamese music, based on phonographic 

 records and the examination of instruments. 

 Apart from the writer's volume on " Hopi 

 Songs " (1908) all the other contributions to 

 the phonographic study of the non-European 

 art have come from the Psychologisches In- 

 stitut of Berlin University, of which Professor 

 Stumpf is director, and are the work of his 

 assistants. Dr. E. M. von Hornbostel and Dr. 

 O. Abraham. Meanwhile collections of phono- 

 graphic records of exotic music have been 

 founded in Berlin, St. Petersburg, Vienna, 

 Paris, Washington, Chicago, Cambridge and 

 elsewhere. 



A body of material has thus been gathered 

 and in part investigated, from which already 

 a rich yield of new views of the art of music 

 and its foundations in the mind of its makers 

 either has been reaped or plainly stands ready 

 for the harvest. 



First: Anharmonic structure. As far 

 as is known, true harmony does not exist 

 outside of European music. Harmonic feel- 

 ing has been attributed to the North Amer- 

 ican Indians; but it does not express itself 

 in part singing and its existence is not 

 yet satisfactorily established. It now seems 

 altogether probable that in spite of the great 

 development of music elsewhere no peoples but 

 the European have ever based an art of tone 

 upon the disturbance and readjustment of con- 

 sonant combinations of notes. 



Second: the isotonic scale. The initial in- 

 vestigations of Asiatic instruments by Ellis 

 and Land pointed to a new formal principle 

 deeply differentiating the music of east and 

 west. There are neither semi-tones nor whole 

 tones in certain scales of Siam and Java. 

 Instead the octave is divided into equal parts, 

 either five % tones or seven % tones. Pro- 

 fessor Stumpf's later phonographic study con- 

 firmed these conclusions. A principle of tone- 

 distance supplants the principle of consonance 

 on which the European musical system is 

 based. Music becomes isotonic instead of dia- 

 tonic as Europeans have hitherto known it. 

 We seem at last out of hearing of Greek tetra- 

 chords, as Stevenson, dropping anchor in the 

 harbor of Apia, felt at last beyond the shadow 

 of the Roman law. 



Third: heterophony. A Siamese orchestra 

 plays neither in unison nor in parts, for each 

 of the various instruments takes its own liber- 

 ties with a melody approximately followed by 

 all. To this musical method Professor Stumpf 

 applies the Platonic term " heterophony," and 

 wonders whether the Siamese do not give us a 

 glimpse of what Greek music actually was — 

 which, as Moritz Hauptmann once remarked, 

 " We now know only from the writings of the- 

 orists, i. e., do not know at all." Such a struc- 

 ture results sometimes in unisons, sometimes 

 in parallel intei-vals, but as often in disson- 

 ances either transient or unresolved. 



Fourth: neo-tonality. As in European 

 music so in many exotic melodies, though not 

 in all, one note is distinguishable as the prin- 

 cipal one. But whatever the European feel- 

 ing of tonality may be, and the point is not 

 yet clear, the regard for a principal note which 



