CHAPTER IIEXOTIC MUSIC[12]
Significance of exotic music—Classification; Aztecs and Peruvians—The Orient: China and Hindustan, the Mohammedans—Exotic instruments—Music as religious rite; music and dancing—Music and customs; Orient and Occident.
Significance of exotic music—Classification; Aztecs and Peruvians—The Orient: China and Hindustan, the Mohammedans—Exotic instruments—Music as religious rite; music and dancing—Music and customs; Orient and Occident.
No history of music can pretend to completeness that does not give some account of the various musical systems that have developed before or outside of the influence of European civilization, though in truth music, in comparison with the other arts in Europe, has assimilated astonishingly little from the peoples of the Orient or from ancient civilization, for European music is based essentially upon harmony, and harmony, taking the word in its accepted meaning, was unknown to ancient nations, and is unknown to-day in countries of the Orient. We must admit that tricks of rhythm and melody came from the Orient into Spain at the time of the Moorish Conquest, were even brought back to Europe by the Crusaders returning from their distant wanderings. Furthermore the lute and perhaps the violin, both of which have held an important place in the development of European music, came from Arabia. But that the technique or structure of our music has been considerably influenced by the music of other races is quite out of the question. On the other hand, composers have, from time to time, enlivened their music by touches of Oriental color. They have experimented with Oriental melody and rhythm, theyhave sometimes used strange instruments foreign to Europe. We may cite, for instance, Goldmark’sSakuntala Overture; Bizet’sLes Pêcheurs de Perles; Félicien David’s symphonic ode,Le Désert; Rimsky-Korsakov’s glowing OrientalScheherezade; Balakirev’sIslamey, etc. These experiments cannot but call our attention to those elaborate exotic systems of music which were flourishing in India, in China, in Japan, in Siam and Java, in Arabia and Persia centuries before the age of Bach and Handel. While Europe was still slowly emerging from the barbarism of the Middle Ages music had reached a high state of development in these countries. Strange instruments of many kinds were in use; there was an art of composition, frequently some form of notation; there was a musical profession and ‘much discussion of musical acoustics and æsthetics.’ An authority[13]on musical ethnology says of the Arabs: ‘At this day, when the decadence of the Arab civilization has been entirely consummated it still retains enough traces of its former splendor to enable us to claim without fear that at the time of its greatest florescence it was certainly as rich, probably even richer, than European art at the same epoch.’
As a foundation for all understanding and estimation of the so-called exotic systems of music we must bear in mind that beneath the differences from our own music in scale structure often as a matter of practice more apparent than real, in lack of harmony and in predominance of rhythm, lies the fundamental difference that music has never been cultivated for itself alone in China, in Hindustan, or among ancient nationsto anything like the same extent as in the Occident. Though in the Mohammedan Orient, at the height of the Saracen civilization, it was highly esteemed as a social diversion, in general it figures, not as an independent art, but rather as an auxiliary one. This, of course, applies to art-music, not to popular or folk song, of which, just as in other lands, there is a rich literature in the East. On the rivers of China, in the bazaars of Hindoo cities, under the Bedouin tent-roof, the people sing their songs. But the art of music was developed by these peoples only in connection with dancing, sacred or secular, with ceremonial functions, plays or pantomimes. If this fact be borne in mind, it is perhaps easier to comprehend an art so strikingly different from our own.
Exotic music, or, broadly speaking, the music of the semi-civilized races, may be considered under four heads; that of the Aztecs and Peruvians (nations whose civilizations, though they have been destroyed, are of too recent date to be classed with those of the ancients, yet the scant musical record of which should not be overlooked); the music of India; the music of the Chinese, Japanese, and Indo-Chinese peoples, including the Siamese, Javabese, Cambodians, Annamites; and the music of the Mohammedan Orient.
There is but little known of the music of the Aztecs or Peruvians. The fact that the Aztec language was sweet and harmonious to the ear and had no sharp or nasal sounds justified the fondness with which both lyric and dramatic poetry were cultivated in ancient Mexico. But the music of the Aztecs seems to have been unworthy of so cultivated a people. It was the only art that remained in its infancy among them. Still, the mention of ballads sung by the people, court-odes and the chants of temple choirs, show that they must have cultivated a form of vocal music distinctly above that of drums and horns, pipes and whistles. Moreover,music played an important part in connection with religious and secular dancing, as it did also in India. It has been conjectured that the Aztec tonal system resembled that of the Arabs. Their songs generally began with deep sounds, rising in pitch and accelerating with the increase of pleasurable emotion on the part of the singer. De Solis speaks of the funeral processions in which the bodies of the dead were brought to the temples to be received by the priests swinging their censers of burning copal ‘to the hoarse sound of dissonant flutes and singing various hymns in a melancholy mode.’
Among the Peruvians the beautiful Quichua dialect, like the melodious language of the Aztecs, encouraged theharavecsor poets to compose the verses which were sung at religious festivals and at the table of the Inca. And, as in Mexico, music was intimately associated with religious dancing and ceremony. It played its part in the elaborate ritual of the Incas’ sun worship. However, little information is available concerning the development of the Inca music or that of the Aztecs before the Conquest. The Quichua and Aimara Indians of the present day are still passionately fond of music, singing and dancing to the accompaniment of thequena(Peruvian flute) and guitar; and phrases of the traditional minstrelsy of the Inca haravecs may ‘have been borne down the tide of rustic melody to these later generations.’ Their songs are in the ancient five-tone scale known as the pentatonic, which they have probably inherited from their proud ancestors, together with a fondness for triple rhythm, sole traces of the music of that brilliant state which sank before the power of Spain.
Concerning the music of China, of Hindustan, and of the Mohammedan Orient we have definite information. The people of these countries have not been, like the Aztecs of Mexico or the Incas of Peru, either sweptfrom the face of the earth or thrown back into a drowsy barbarism. Their own civilizations live on beneath a surface decay. They have ideals of tradition, of permanence, of racial habit, quite different from those accepted by our standards of progress and original development, which have fenced in their music from all Occidental influences. Only a few hardly noticeable variations in instrumentation and choreography mark the touch of time. Notation, rhythm, and design have remained for ages immutably the same.
It is supposed in China that Ling-Lenu, minister of the Emperor Honang-Ty, chosen to fix the laws of musical sound, retired to a bamboo-grove, near the source of the Yellow River, and there cut twelve bamboo tubes whose varying lengths yielded the sounds of our present-day chromatic scale. In reality, however, the pentatonic scalep46sis used. The tones b and e (omitted in this scale as we have written it), the fourth and seventh tones in our scale, which are not found in the normal pentatonic scale, are given a special name,pien; and the union of the five tones and the twopienconstitute what the Chinese call the ‘Seven Principles’ in music. But the five-tone scale is the one commonly employed in practice and constitutes the basis of all music in the Indo-Chinese countries.[14]In Java, Siam, Burmah, and Cambodia, both five-tone and seven-tone (heptatonic) scales are in use;but the musical system of Japan, which was originally borrowed from China, is built up wholly on a five-tone scale, with the important difference from the Chinese that it has a minor third, and not a major:p47s. This difference gives Japanese music a certain individual character of its own.
The Hindoos have a system of seven-toned scales differentiated from each other by variable quarter-tone steps. But the theory of music is developed in India with an over-elaboration of subtleties, as it is in China, and of almost a thousand varieties of scale theoretically possible in the Hindoo system no more than twenty are in actual use. Many of these resemble our own.
What may be called Mohammedan music is a complex type. It has resulted from the spread of Mohammedanism along the Mediterranean coast and Northern Africa, and in Central Africa and Southern Asia. It includes features from many sources—Persian, Byzantine Greek, Mediæval Christian, and purely local—and is historically a puzzle. Like the Hindoo scales, the scales which are used in distinctly Mohammedan countries are heptatonic; but the theoretical division of the octave is into seventeen steps (each equal to about one-third of a whole step) instead of the twenty-twosrutisof the Hindoos. There are some eighteen of these seven-tone scales in use, varying from each other in the location of their shorter steps.
The five and seven-tone scales on which these musical systems are based are analogous to our own. It is the manner in which they are employed and modified by other factors that makes their music strikingly different from ours. The Chinese, in the first place, have many melodies similar to old Scotch songs, but they areprimarily interested, not in the flow of the melody, but intimbre, in the quality and character of sound. Whereas we, as soon as we have defined a sound, pass to the consideration of intonation, duration, etc., the Chinese theoreticians, with rare keenness of perception, have worked out an elaborate division of the quality of sound, according to the phenomena governing its production, classifying it according to eight sound-producing materials provided by Nature—skin, tone, metal, baked clay, silk, wood, bamboo, and gourd. Harmony means to the Chinese what it meant to the ancient Greeks, a purely æsthetic combination of sound and dance. Duple rhythm predominates. Both Chinese melodies and the melodies of the Indo-Chinese are continuous, admitting neither interruption nor repetition. The refrain is very rare, and occurs only in popular songs. Noisy, shrill, and harsh effects abound, disagreeable to our ears. Berlioz said: ‘The Chinese sing like dogs howling, like a cat screeching when it has swallowed a toad.’ But Berlioz could not listen with an understanding ear. No more can we. Such wholesale condemnation must be tempered with respect before the feeling of the illustrious Chinese musician, Konai, who said, ‘When I strike the sonorous stones, either softly or with force, savage beasts leap up with joy and concord reigns between high dignitaries.’
In ancient China music was a privileged amusement of the higher classes, and it has always been under imperial supervision. With the passing of the centuries it has been largely turned over to the vulgar, in street and theatre; and the ancient rules governing its production and performance (there are sixty volumes of classic works alone on the subject) have fallen into disuse. A letter notation is still employed.
The music of Indo-China hardly differs in essentials from that of China, and presents much the same peculiarity in comparison with our own. On the otherhand, the music of India is quite distinct, and presents only a few surface similarities to the Mongolian. Hindoo music, according to Captain Day,[15]has lost the primitive purity of Aryan times. The theoretical division of the octave into twenty-two quarter-tones, recorded in Sanscrit books, finds no practical application in modern usage. As in Chinese music, harmony is non-existent; for Hindoo music is purely melodic, and theVina, the seven-stringed lute used as an accompanying instrument, merely doubles the voice part. But Hindoo music is built, as we have said, upon a system of seven-tone or heptatonic scales which offers far greater opportunity for effect than the pentatonic system of the Chinese. It has, moreover, infinitely more rhythmic variety and its rhythms are triple rather than duple, as is the case with the Chinese. They are capricious and elastic (this due, in part no doubt, to Mohammedan influences), and are usually strongly marked. One of the most characteristic features in Hindoo music, which has no counterpart in Chinese, is theRaga,[16]or traditional type-melody to which texts of varying character are sung. Some of theragasare especially consecrated to gods and heroes. In general Hindoo airs are marked by long melodic passages, often of no definite design. There are three general divisions:gana(vocal music),vadya(instrumental music), andnytria(dance music). The Hindoos divide all instruments into four classes: quite unlike the Chinese classification: stringed instruments; those with membranes sounded by percussion; those struck in pairs; and those which sound when blown. A Sanscrit notation (characters for notes and signs or words for other details) indicates pitch and duration.
Music in Mohammedan countries has peculiarities which differentiate it quite distinctly from music in China and in India. In India music has always been largely associated with religion, especially in connection with the dance. Mohammedanism has never encouraged religious music. It is true that the chanting of the muezzin calls the faithful to prayer from the minarets; but except this the music which accompanies the dances of the whirling dervishes of Cairo, Bagdad, and Constantinople offers practically the only example of Mohammedan religious music.[17]Nevertheless in the brilliant days of the Abbaside caliphs and the Moorish kings of Spain music was a passion with the Saracens. Haroun-al-Raschid lavished rewards of gold and lands on his musicians and the ‘Thousand and One Nights’ proves in what esteem music was held throughout the Mohammedan Orient at the time of the Caliphate. There was a rich and elaborate musical literature, but the decadence of the Arab civilization brought with it entire oblivion of the many treatises and writings of these glorious days. The old science is forgotten, just as in China the musical wisdom of ancient times has fallen into neglect. Yet throughout the wide territories in which Mohammedanism established itself, that peculiar and distinctive type which more than any other represents Oriental music to us, a type resulting from a mixture of Persian and Arabian styles, complicated with Christian and other influences, has been traditionally handed down to the present day. As in the other systems we have discussed, harmony is practically non-existent. The scales are seven-toned and there are some eighteen theoretical modes. Both duple and triple rhythms are employed with greatest variety. In fact, one of the most striking characteristics of Mohammedan musical art is the variety and complexity of its sharp rhythms. The melodies are excessively adorned with every sort of flourish and ornament, slides, turns, grace-notes, shakes, and arabesques of every description not pleasing to our ears. Popular songs and professional musicians are to be found throughout all the Mohammedan Orient. The love song in particular is held in high esteem in all Mohammedan countries, and the following example may illustrate its charm:
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Villoteau mentions his regret at not having been able to note down ‘the accent of yielding abandonment with which the singers express the voluptuous melancholy which fills the majority of these songs.’ Some of the present-day Persian love-songs are said to be sung to poems of Hafiz. The occupational popular song is also found everywhere. In general, the standpoint taken by the Arab proverb, ‘Who does not hunt, does not love, is not moved by the sound of music nor raptured by the fragrance of blossoms is no man,’ is that of the Mohammedan Orient as regards the art of sound.
Though, strange to say, Arab music at the time of its greatest florescence possessed no system of notation, an elementary alphabetical notation has since been invented and is now in use.
In the main, the differences between Oriental music and our own may be summed up in the words of Saint-Saëns: ‘Oriental musical art is another art. The musical art of antiquity is founded on the combination of melody and rhythm. To these our art adds a thirdelement—harmony.’ And, however much they differ from our own, it should always be borne in mind that ‘the subtly ingenious mathematical subdivisions of the Persians and Arabs, the excessive modal elaboration of the Hindoos, the narrow and constrained stiffness of the Chinese, the ambiguous elasticity of the Japanese, and the truly marvellous artificiality of the Javanese and Siamese systems are all the products of human artistic ingenuity working instinctively for artistic ends.’
An account of the uses of such music and the rôle it plays in customs far different from our own calls for some description of the instruments employed. Every nation had its own peculiar instruments. Those of percussion seem to us particularly characteristic. Such Oriental coloration as has been applied to our modern music has been usually in the way of rhythm emphasized by strange instruments of percussion. Drums, tam-tams, gongs, etc., do not fail to suggest at once the spirit of barbarous or outlandish peoples. The Peruvians and Aztecs had a variety of drums. The Aztecs used thehuehuetland theteponastle; the one, a drum struck by the fingers, a wooden cylinder three feet high, with a deer-skin head which could be loosened or tightened at will; the other a hollow closed cylinder of wood, having two longitudinal parallel slits close together, the strip of wood between which was struck with two drumsticks whose ends were covered with rubber. This instrument is still used by the Mexican Indians. It sounds a melancholy note, and one audible at a great distance. The Aztecs also used an enormous rattle, theaxacaxtli, in place of castanets. It was a gourd pierced with holes and filled with small stones.
The most characteristic Chinese instrument of percussion is theking, a set of graduated plates, stones,or bells, hung in a frame and played with a mallet. The tone produced is smooth and sonorous. In addition, the Chinese, Japanese, and Indo-Chinese have a quantity of metal gongs and cymbals, bells, tambourines, castanets, and drums of all kinds. In Siam and Burmah there is theranat, a set of wooden or metal bars played with a mallet, in reality a xylophone; and in Java theanklong, of the same family, the bars of which are of bamboo. The Hindoos and Mohammedan Orientals also have a great number of drums, tam-tams, gongs, etc., which is not surprising in view of the predominant part rhythm was given in their music.
The stringed instruments are not less numerous. They appear to have been unknown to the Aztecs, and the Peruvians used only thetinya, a guitar with six strings. But the Chinese had a great number of them, among which thekin, a small lute with seven strings, held a peculiar place. It was long an object of veneration. Sages alone might venture to touch its strings; ordinary mortals should be content merely to regard it in silence with the most profound respect. An elaborate psaltery or zither calledche, with twenty-five strings, was much in use, and there were several bowed instruments in the viol family, of uncertain ancient descent. The Cambodians, too, have instruments of the viol family, notably thetro-khmer, a three-stringed viol held like the 'cello when played. The Siamese, Coreans, and Annamites all use instruments of the guitar and mandolin family with a varying number of strings. In Burmah the favorite instrument is a queer harp with thirteen strings called thesoung. In Japan there are thekoto, which is a pleasing-toned zither with thirteen strings; thesamisen, a small guitar associated with the Geisha girls, thebuva, a type of lute, and thekokin, a primitive violin. One finds in India thesarindasorsarungis, viols with sympathetic wire strings; thevina, most generally popular of Hindoo stringedinstruments, a sort of lute with two gourd resonators; and thetambura, a long slender guitar with three or more strings. But of all the stringed instruments of the Orientel’udof Arabia is most famous. It is no other in name or fact than the lute, with broad, pear-shaped body, short neck bent back at the head, and four or more strings. Introduced by the Moors into Spain about 800 A. D., it became the favorite instrument of all Europe, was developed and improved with every care, was beautified with finest art and workmanship. From Arabia, too, may have come to Europe the first primitive violins. The Arabianrebaband the Persiankemangehare almost identical in principle with our violin. The Arabiansantirsandkanoons, zithers with many strings, played with plectra adjusted like thimbles on the finger-tips, have remained Oriental.
Wind instruments are common to all races. Flutes and fifes were known both to the Aztecs and Peruvians, and flutes, flageolets, oboes, horns, bagpipes, and trumpets are in constant use among the others. With the Aztecs conch-shells took the place of trumpets of metal. Deserving of special mention are the Chinesecheng, a set of small bamboo pipes with free reeds, precursor of the modern organ; the Hindootubri, a popular form of bagpipe used by the snake charmers of India; and the Arabzamr, a particularly shrill variety of oboe.
Thus we find in use among ancient semi-civilized peoples and among the Oriental races of the past and present the three great families of musical instruments; instruments of percussion, string instruments, and wind instruments, from which we have chosen and developed our orchestra. We are recalled to the remark of Saint-Saëns, already quoted, that all the musical systems of these peoples were products of human artistic ingenuity, working instinctively for artistic ends. The instinct for expression in music works so far in allraces alike. But whereas those races whose music we are discussing were content with the harsh or dry sounds of the primitive instruments we have mentioned, the races of Europe have been impelled by the desire for ever richer and more flexible tone to develop and improve these instruments. Of the clumsy, hoarse viol they have made the perfect violin; of the hunting horn the mellow French horn of the orchestra; of the tremulous clavichord and spinet the powerful pianoforte. Music has become an art of sound. Those people whom, for the sake of convenience, we group together in this chapter as exotic never dissociated music from the dance or from elaborate ceremonies of one sort or another. The art of music hardly attained independence. Therefore we are almost at a loss to appreciate it outside the highly ceremonious societies in which it played its part and a discussion of some of the uses to which it was put is necessary in our chapter.
With the exception of the Mohammedans, the first and foremost use of music among the exotic races has been in religious rites of one sort or another. And in this connection it is in most cases an accompaniment to religious dancing and pantomime. Music is rarely looked upon in the Orient as a means of social diversion or artistic enjoyment in itself alone, such as we consider music of the orchestra or the string quartet. Only in the form of poetic song or of orchestral accompaniment to the religious or secular ballet is it highly appreciated.
The hymns chanted in a sing-song manner, the monotonous tunes accompanying the temple services and sacred dances of the ancient Mexicans would, no doubt, prove intolerably wearisome to our ears, but the Aztecs took such pleasure in them that they oftensang during entire days. And, quite in the eighteenth century manner, the wealthy Aztec nobles maintained choirs of singers and bands of professional musicians. At the great Sun-feast of the ancient Peruvians, ‘the long revelry of the day was closed at night by music and dancing.’ Some sort of song flourished among this people. There was a class of minstrels. Aside from the traditional melodies which have already been mentioned, the music of some of the distinctively Inca (not Spanish) dances, thehuaino, thecachua, thecachaspare, has come down to our own day.
In China music is for the most part confined to sacred ceremonies and dancing. Père Amiot, a French missionary who spent some time in China in the second half of the eighteenth century, wrote down the following celebrated chorus; a hymn in honor of the ancestors, sung in the emperor’s presence to the accompaniment of sacred dances, and the typical Chinese orchestra:
p56s1Part one.
Part one.
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See hoang sıen TsouYo lıng yu Tıen.Yuen yen tsıng heou.Yeou kao tay hıuen.Hıuen sun cheou mıng.Tchouı yuen kı sıenMıng yu ché tsoung.Y-ouan see inen.
See hoang sıen TsouYo lıng yu Tıen.Yuen yen tsıng heou.Yeou kao tay hıuen.Hıuen sun cheou mıng.Tchouı yuen kı sıenMıng yu ché tsoung.Y-ouan see inen.
See hoang sıen TsouYo lıng yu Tıen.Yuen yen tsıng heou.Yeou kao tay hıuen.
Hıuen sun cheou mıng.Tchouı yuen kı sıenMıng yu ché tsoung.Y-ouan see inen.
p56s2Part two.
Part two.
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Touı yué tché tsıng.Yen jan jou cheng.Kı kı tchao ming.Kan ko tsaı ting.Jou kıen kı hıng.Jou ouen kı cheng.Ngaı eulb kıng tché.Fa hou tchoung tsıng.
Touı yué tché tsıng.Yen jan jou cheng.Kı kı tchao ming.Kan ko tsaı ting.Jou kıen kı hıng.Jou ouen kı cheng.Ngaı eulb kıng tché.Fa hou tchoung tsıng.
Touı yué tché tsıng.Yen jan jou cheng.Kı kı tchao ming.Kan ko tsaı ting.
Jou kıen kı hıng.Jou ouen kı cheng.Ngaı eulb kıng tché.Fa hou tchoung tsıng.
p35s3Part Three.
Part Three.
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Duei tsıen jin koung.Tê tchao yng Tıen.Lu yuen kı yu.Sıao-tsee.Yuen cheou sang koue.Yu pao kı tê,Hao Tıen ouang kı.Yu tsin san hıen.Duo sin yué y.
Duei tsıen jin koung.Tê tchao yng Tıen.Lu yuen kı yu.Sıao-tsee.Yuen cheou sang koue.Yu pao kı tê,Hao Tıen ouang kı.Yu tsin san hıen.Duo sin yué y.
Duei tsıen jin koung.Tê tchao yng Tıen.Lu yuen kı yu.Sıao-tsee.
Yuen cheou sang koue.Yu pao kı tê,Hao Tıen ouang kı.Yu tsin san hıen.Duo sin yué y.
At private and ceremonial banquets, also, dancing to orchestral accompaniment is usual.Solo, in the province of Yunnan, the most southwestern division of China, supplies the musicians and dancers for the private orchestras and entertainments of mandarins throughout the Celestial empire. Then, too, the Chinese orchestra finds a place in theatrical representations. The songs to be heard in every Chinese city at eventide to the crude accompaniment of mandolins and guitars may attest a popular fondness for music, but the gongs continually sounding in the temples and innumerable tinkling bells upon the towers and pagodas can hardly be said to constitute music.
In Siam, Burmah, Cambodia, and Java the arts of music and dancing have always been held in high esteem. In Java the native dances are marked by gravity and harmony of movement. The average ambulant band in that country consists of six players, while thegamelagsof native sovereigns like the sultan of Djokka or the emperor of Solo usually comprise a dozen. The Siamese have ballet performances of posturing and slow, deliberate dancing, most of which are pantomime plays with orchestral accompaniment, the story chanted by a kind of Greek chorus behind the scenes. The king of Cambodia maintains a large troupe of dancers, chosen among the most beautiful women in his realm, who preserve the tradition of the ancient dances of the land. The following air is a prelude to one of these Cambodian dances, sung by a female chorus with orchestral accompaniment:
p57scoreCambodian Dance.
Cambodian Dance.
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In both these countries, as in Annam and Burmah, it is not the orchestra that leads the dancers, but the dancers who are followed by the orchestra. And in nearly all cases these pantomimes are of an allegorical or mythological character. Similar performances, notably ‘devil dances,’ are given in lamaseries of Tibet, Mongolia, and Siberia in which the Buddhist monks, in costume and mask, represent gods, devils, mythological kings, and other traditional characters.
The airs of the sampan-men of the Hue River in Annam are often beautiful. In alternation with their wives they sing simple ballads full of poetry and grace as they float down stream at night. Peculiar are the orchestras of the blind, made up of poor families, some one member of which is sightless, who sing love-songs before the village tea-houses for a pittance.
p58scoreThe Butterfly Dance Music.
The Butterfly Dance Music.
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In Japan the ‘geishas’ perform their poetic dances, ‘The Leaf of Gold,’ ‘The Butterfly Dance,’ to the sound of a vague, discreetly agreeable accompaniment. The geishas’ music is that of the plucked string, and is generally vague in form. Thekotoand thesamisenare the representative instruments, though sometimes the musicians sing a few measures. Harmony in our sense of the word is entirely lacking. In the Buddhist temples the entire service is intoned on one note, but the priests sing successively at a different pitch, and the chanting is punctuated by the occasional clang of cymbals and the deep, rich tones of the great gong, a strange and impressive combination. At the time of the various Japanese flower festivals, those of the azaleas, of the flowering plum and cherry, when the country is glad with pink and white blossoms, roving bands of musicians and dancers in grotesque costume add to the gaiety of the occasion.