The broad ax. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1895-19??, 1920-03-20
FOLK MUSIC.
Its Technical Features.

No attempt is made in this article to
indicate the pcculiarities of particular
national styles. but certain general re-
marks may be offered. Most charac-
teristies follow from necessary sim
plieity of all folk music. which is the
product not of special study, or formal
analysis, but of instinct and taste opcr
ating extempOre, and which depends for
ITS success upon the ease with which it
can be caught. remembered and re-
p,ated by the unstudious mind.
Folk songs are normally melodies OF
moderate length, laid out in more or
less Symetrical lines and strophes that
correspond with the plan of verse
text. Each line is usually somewhat
complete in itself. having specific
figure or pattern that ends with
cadence Or "faH.''
The lines usually tend to form coup
lets or other simple groups that are So
similar or eOntrasted that the mind
easily associates them together. In the
Oldest specimens there is a tendency TO
adhere throughout to a single kew or
tonality, though often with a clear per
eeptiOn of the Vault of dominant closes
in the middle eadenees.
Tho kind of tonality preferred varies
in different countries. The Kettle or
Scandinavian songs, for example show
a prediction for minor scales some
times of a pentatonie variety. The
older French and German songs are
often based upon medieval church |
modes, but as a rule drift towards the
minor or major. The evident appre-
citation of the major mode is more
notable because found at a time when |
scientific music was still unwilling to |
desert the arbitrary tone-system that
it inherited from antiquity. The pOpu-
lar mind seems to have had an instinct
for tone-relatiOn as we know /. TODAY.
Folk dances as such are properly
made up of steps and motions in brief
series Of equal Observation-Disclosures the
idea that phrases should be two or four
measures lcng. These figures are some.
times repeated over and over, some
times strung together in sets, making a
kind Of dance stanza. Each particular
sort Of dance is characterized by some
special step or similar device. The
'ongs or instrumental airs intended to I
and guide these motions are
itted to them at every point, indi-
;ating unsteady what the dancer exc
'utes Orehestieally.
In both songs and dances the fun
iamental rhythm is emphatic and regu-
ar, either in duple or triple, and the
Phrase structure is so built upon it that
he form is plain and easily kept in
memory.
All these features are of historic i'm
'ortanee, since they are traeeable at
periods when formal composition was
timidly cropping its way, and when the
value of the old modes and
If eOntraPuntal structure, with its lack
If form was keeping musicians from
hese more natural methods. All Of
hem were noted in the Troubadour and
dinnesinger periods, but their decided
influence belongs rather to the 18th and
9Th centuries. Even until 1900 some
'eatures of folk music seemed to edu-
ated musicians rather vulgar. Today
We can see that there was no more
element in the evolution Of
modern styles than this same despised
music Of the people 3 instinct.
A third installment Of Folk Music B
will appear in this column next week. eI