Listen to the following examples and code every Line using the Cantometrics Coding Sheet or the Abbreviated Coding Sheet, found in Appendix II, or download at www.culturalequity.org/research/cantometrics/coding-sheets. Double code if two or more different qualities are clearly enough present on the same line. Refer also to the Notes to Consensus, below.
N. America, Southeast U.S. Virginia. A well-rehearsed African American choir performs a traditional spiritual in pre-gospel style in liquid vocal tones. Male leader with mixed chorus. (Lomax #15, A1) N.W. Europe, Ireland, Dublin. A bawdy 18th-century ballad of a soldier’s encounter with a willing maid, sung by the great Irish folklorist and performer Seamus Ennis. (Kennedy & Lomax #3, B1) N. America, Northeast U.S. & Canada. N. E. Woodlands. Haudenosaunee (Huron/Seneca/Iroquois). A thanksgiving ritual Corn Dance song from the contemporary religious observances of the Haudenosaunee tribes of the Northeast, led by a member of the Cayuga tribe. (Barbeau #1, A4) Asia, S. India. Chennai (Madras) love song in which a lover compares his sweetheart to a flower, sung by a male with a bowed lute (israj) and plucked lute (sitar). (India #3, A1) N. America, Southeast U.S. Appalachia. A Virginia Mountain bluegrass band performs the Southern African American ballad about John Henry. Male solo with violin, two five-string banjos, guitar, mandolin, and bass. (Lomax #9, A7) S.E. Asia. Indonesia. Java. Here there were thousands of such gamelan orchestras composed of sets of metallophones and xylophones with chordophones, oboes, and drums as leads. This gamelan accompanies one of the accomplished virtuosos of Indonesia singing in a highly embellished, rhythmically free manner. (Kunst & Lomax, B30) S. E. Europe, Bulgaria, Sofia (Sofia District). The clashing seconds figuring so prominently in many Balkan field songs help to carry the sound far. One of the functions of such songs is to let the village know that all is well with their women in a distant field. Three women. (Lloyd #1, A7 S. W. U.S., Southwest Dené (Southwest Navajo). When the young people are initiated into the ceremonial life of the tribe, masked dancers representing the grandfathers of the gods perform this yeibichai chant with its high-pitched sound. Male singers with rattles. (Rhodes #3, B1) N. America, Mexico, San Luis Potosi. A Huastecan son (dancing song) typical of the many brilliant genres of Mexican semi-professional folk/popular music, where elements of Indigenous American, African, and Hispanic traditions mingle. Two males with violin, bass guitar, and tenor guitar. (Stanford & Warman, B 5) N. W. Africa, Senegal. A Casamance griot (bard and topical composer), accompanying himself on the kora (21-string harp-lute). Griots were the historians, genealogists, propagandists, social critics, and entertainers of West Africa. They could puncture reputations and bring down the great with their musical barbs; no public festivity was complete without them. Male solo with harp-lute. (Nikiprowetzky #1, A2 Melanesia, N. Britain. The Usiai are tropical gardeners living in the hills of the coastal Manus, whom Margaret Mead studied. The subdued vocalizing and the harmonies are typical. Four young men. (Schwartz, 1) N. America, Western U.S. California, Natinixwe (Hupa). Vocal polyphony is virtually unknown among N. American Indigenous peoples, except among the complementary acorn-gathering tribes of North California. Three Hupa men perform a song in polyphony. (California, 5) E. Africa, Zimbabwe, Shona Karanga (Shona). In a Shona folktale, a deer sings this song in the interactive fashion of many story songs in African traditions. Mixed group. (Tracey #2 (TR-174), B1) E. Asia, Japan, Kyushu. Geisha accompanied by zither, lute, flute, gong, and drum sing about the experiences of a girl during a trial marriage. (Masu, A3) Caribbean, Trinidad. Calypsonian star Neville Marcono, “The Growling Tiger,” improvises a satirical portrait of a local character—the stuff of the battles of wit and improvisation held between two calypsonians. (Lomax #36) N. America, Southwest U.S. Pueblo, A:shiwi (Zuni). The Rain Dance has a big and complex melodic and choreographic structure and is carefully rehearsed and performed to induce the clouds to gather and rains to come. Mixed group. (Rhodes #3, A4) S. America, Interior Amazonia, Jivaro. A woman sings about the loss of her lover, using the wide leaps, liquid notes, and wide range singing in this region. Female solo. (Luzuy, A7)) Oceania, Polynesia, New Zealand Maori. Puhiwahine, a Maori poetess, composed this waita (lament) in her youth when she was forcibly separated from her lover. They had grown old before they met again and wept as Puhiwahine sang her song. Mixed group. (New Zealand, A4) E. Africa, Madagascar. A crowded Cushitic healing ceremony, with thrilling cadences in the female lead, a responsorial women’s chorus, a male solo and chorus, all overlapping in contrapuntal relationships. A gun fires to drive away evil spirits. (Schaeffner & Rouget, B1) Central Asia, Tuvin. The singer constricts his throat and retracts his tongue, producing a low growling note, while shaping the higher pitched overtone notes as he would do in playing a mouth harp. This form is found as far west as the Bashkirs but is most frequent among the Mongols, especially the Tuvin, a little-known group of hunters and pastoralists in the high country between the Altai and Sayan Mountains. Male solo. (Former U.S.S.R. #7, 1) C. Asia, Turkmen. Another tense-throated Asian virtuoso uses high register, glissandi, glottal sobs, and strong dynamics to enhance a bardic declamatory style, found all over the Middle East and Central Asia. Male solo with plucked lute (dutar) and bowed lute (gidchak). (Former U.S.S.R. #7, 1) S.E. Europe, Romania, Bucharest Prov. (Bucharest). The doina belongs to Western Asian art and court music traditions along with the raga, the maqam, and other ornamented, melodic forms. It attests to an old connection between Southern Romania and the high cultures of the Eastern Mediterranean and the Levant. Singer Maria Lataretu. (Alexandru #1, A19) S. Europe, Italy, N.W. Italy, Liguria. On moonlit nights men gather on the bridge over the little mountain river running through their village to sing ballads like this one of the ship captain’s daughter. Their particular polyphonic tradition is native to northwest Liguria, and (speculatively) may link this ancient colony of winemakers to Georgia in the Caucasus. Male group. (Lomax #39) E. Europe, Russia, South Russia. A wedding dance sung in the open air. It is said to have originated when the original Russian inhabitants returned from a northern refuge to reoccupy lands long held by the Tartars. Female chorus. (Former U.S.S.R. #4, A2) Australia, Northern Territory Aborigines. A song man beats two sticks together, and a didgeridoo player breathes rumbling notes from his hollowed tree branch to make music for the evening dance. Men dance in front of them by the campfire, while the women are off in the shadows. From time to time the leading dancer gives a cry. Two male solos with male chorus, horns, sticks. (Elkin #6) Melanesia, New Hebrides, Tanna Island. A throng of men, women, and children of Yokananon Village in the Kalbu dance a wheeling round, which celebrates the completion of yam planting, in a great stamping, clapping cluster. (Muller, A1) E. Africa, Ethiopia, Gomo-Gupe Province. Fifty men of the Cushitic-speaking Dorze tribe casually sing in four-part polyphony in the yodeling, interlocked style of the African gatherers. (Jenkins A1) N. Africa, Morocco. Ouarzazate. South of the Atlas Mountains at the edge of the Sahara, a Gran Houache performed in the courtyard of the pasha’s palace. Two rows of women weave a giant, stately circle around a cluster of seated male drummers who respond with thrilling calls. The ancient Berber pattern is democratic, egalitarian, and complementary. Female group and male group with drums. (Lomax #38, 2) W. Africa, Ivory Coast, Bedouin Region. The Baoulé (Baule) are famed for their art and music. Their style is one of the most often heard in West Indian traditional folk music. This is music for initiation, with overlapping choruses, four drums, rattles, and a sistra. (Duvelle #3, A8) Oceania, West Polynesian, Puka-Puka. In Polynesia, well-rehearsed and choreographed troupes of mixed dancers perform on feast days and often tour nearby islands. On moonlit nights young people perform similar dancing songs on the beach. These overlapping choruses, performed with energy, cohesion, and often in polyphony, come from expanding, well-fed, and cohesive societies. Male and female group. (Beckett)Song 4. Line 14. The drone instrument is rhythmically independent of the melody instrument, thus ‘non-patterned’ is coded. Both wordiness and coordination increase as the song proceeds.
Song 4. Line 19. Uncodable because last note cannot be heard or inferred.
Song 5. Line 24. While the tempo of the instruments is fast, focus here is on the voice alone, which is less active.
Song 8. Lines 16 & 18. A complex structure overall but each phrase ends on the same note, so litany is also coded.
Song 9. Lines 16 & 18. An irregular structure with elements of simple strophe and litany, closest to complex strophe, but not clearly in any one category.
Song 11. Line 22. The coding of harmony implies the presence of parallel chords, so that double coding is in this case not necessary.
Song 13. Lines 16 & 18. A strophic pattern in the solo part. However, all chorus phrases end in the same way, so the piece is double coded for strophe and litany.
Song 14. Line 18. Disregard the introduction.
Song 16. There is a low pitched drum on this recording which may not be audible on a small speaker.
Song 18. Line 17. Continuous breathing occurs so that the piece can be heard as one very long phrase or as a series of medium length phrases.
Song 20. A medley. Only the first song is coded.
Song 21. Line 37. Double code as both precise and elided much of the vocalizing is on vowels, but when consonants occur they are precisely articulated.
Song 24. Line 37. The situation is clearest in the opening solo fragment.
Song 25. Lines 4 & 22. A leader sings with occasional rhythmic interjections from a second vocal source, whose independence points to code polyphony. However, as this is not strictly speaking a form of polyphony (the interjections being shouted rather than sung) we code non-occurrence on Line 22.
[1] The Arabic numerals to the right of each variable represent the number assigned to each one.