Examines the overall musical coordination among the members of the orchestra, taking both melodic and rhythmic elements into account.
Read the Coding Guide for this Line. Listen to each example at least twice. Once you have listened to all the examples, take the Test which follows.
N.W. Europe, Ireland, N.E. Ireland. The famous 19th-century nationalist ballad about the 1798 uprising against the British, sung in the choral style popularized in Ireland by the Clancy Brothers. Four males. (Goldstein #1, B1) S. Asia, S. India. A Madras (Madras Tamil) religious song to Vishnu, with the second singer a respectful step behind the lead, as is common in rank- and caste-conscious cultures. Two males with tambura (long-necked plucked drone lute with four strings) and a reed drone. (Danielou #2, B13) N W. Europe, England, S. England, Sussex. The groupy, harmonizing style of complementary Central Europe appears in rural glee singing such as this. It is superbly described in Thomas Hardy’s Under the Greenwood Tree. (Kennedy and Lomax #3, A8) N. America, Southwest U.S. Pueblo Taos. Such tightly organized unison singing is often found in small, non-stratified, stable communities like the Pueblos. Mixed group with drum. (McAllester and Brown, A1) S.W. Asia, Nepal. These entrepreneurial Gurung farmers sing in a notably individualized fashion as they return from their potato fields. They belong to a stratified kingdom. (Pignède, B1) W. Asia, Dagestan. A trained folk chorus sings about their beloved mountains in the wide-voiced, overlapping, unified polyphony heard in the Caucasus. Mixed group. (Cowell #4, A3) S. America, Colombia, S.W. Colombia. Popayan Christmas music from the ruling seat of the Andean Inca Empire, where pre-Columbian music survives as peasant fiesta orchestras of flutes, panpipes, and drums. (Whiteford, A3) E. Asia, Korea. Keijo. The instruments trail one another carefully—a case of orchestral heterophony. (Masu, B31) C. Europe, Czech Republic. Moravia. Traditional shepherd polyphony from the heartland of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, where the symphonic tradition came to flower. (Czech Republic #3, B2) E. Africa, Tanzania, Lake Malawi. Hehe. A girls’ initiation song that sounds like a West Indian game song with leader/chorus overlap, cohesive vocal polyphony, unified clapped unison. (Tracey #2 (TR 157), B1) E. Asia, Sikkim. Music to accompany the dance of the God of Death, performed by Lamas from Tibet, a land of stratification in both the spiritual and secular realms. (Bourguignon, B5) S.E. Africa, Mozambique. Chopi composers create long compositions for massed xylophones and dancers. This one contains 15 movements. (Tracey #1, A7) C. Africa, Tanzania. Arusha. Sub-Saharan Africans usually handle instruments bilaterally at the central body line with left and right hands equally active. The mbira was also called the “thumb piano” because it can be held in two hands with thumbs playing countermelodies as the musician strolls through the countryside. (Tracey #1, A10) N. America, Southeast U.S. A Virginian mountaineer makes a dance orchestra out of his fiddle by regularly sounding chords. (Lomax #12, B4) S.E. Asia, Malaysia, Borneo, Dusun. The sompotan is one variation on the Southeast Asian mouth organ. It sounds when air is blown into a hollow gourd and escapes through a set of tubes, some of which can be stopped and others of which act as drones. (Polunin #2, B1b) Which form of Musical Organization of the Orchestra is recorded here?
For each example below, choose the feature that best fits from the following scale.
Unrelated
Monophony
Unison
Heterophony
Polyphony
Consult the Coding Guide as needed. Note your answers in order to check them against the answer key.
C. Europe, C. Europe. C. Hungarian Mountains. At midwinter the men would go from house to house, singing such colinde (carols) to bring their neighbors luck in the coming year. Mixed group with drums. (Alexandru, A2) Reveal AnswerS.E. Africa, Madagascar. Ambilube tribesmen harmonize, playing in and out of sync, singing with the vocal tension that is normal to praise songs such as this one addressed to their king. (Schaeffner & Rouget, B23) Reveal Answer S. America, S. Peru, Quechua. The heterophonic, diffuse coordination, irregular meter, and throaty delivery of this remote Andean village ensemble form a pattern found in Nuclear America. (Cohen, 19) Reveal Answer S.E. Europe, Romania, Wallachia. Oltenia. A dance tune on the bagpipe, played by shepherds to hold their flocks together and frighten off beasts of prey, from India westward to Scotland. (Alexandru, A10) Reveal Answer N. America, Southeast U.S. Many Virginia slaves were famed dance musicians in Colonial times. Their descendants contributed much to the development and arrangement of the spiritual, as exemplified in the melting harmonies of this rural folk choir from near Norfolk. Male solo with mixed group. (Lomax #15, B3) Reveal Answer Australia, N.E. Arnhem Land, Marajin. Four elderly men, religious leaders in this ritually ranked society, simultaneously sing variations on a devotional song with stick accompaniment. (West, B8) Reveal Answer W. Africa, Nigeria, Jos Plateau, Anaguta. The interlocked, hocketing style of this flute orchestra comes from a small tribe living in a zone once occupied by hunter-gatherers, indicating absorption of their musical style. (Diamond, A1b) Reveal Answer E. Asia, Tibet. A Tibetan Lama orchestra of two shawms (single-reed woodwinds), two long trumpets, a handbell, cymbals, and three drums plays an introduction to a prayer. (Crossley-Holland, B14) Reveal Answer Oceania, New Guinea, Melanesia, Papua New Guinea, Admiralty Islands. Evoking Bulgarian village choruses, Mantankor (Baluan) women sing in seconds, in a culture where women do more than half the work that produces staple food. (Schwartz, 20) Reveal Answer N.W. Europe, S.W. England. A reconstruction of a halyard (long-haul, or long-drag) sea chantey, a type of work song, in the rough, antiphonal-unison style of the North European sea song tradition. (Lomax & Kennedy #34, A1) Reveal AnswerLine 7 Test Answers: 1) Unison. 2) Polyphony. 3) Heterophony. 4) Polyphony. 5) Polyphony. 6) Heterophony. 7) Polyphony. 8) Heterophony. 9) Polyphony. 10) Unison.