INDIAN MUSIC. Every public ceremony and every important act in an Indian's life was accompanied by song. For each ceremony there existed a special class or type of song and songs for individual celebrations were similarly classi fied. An Indian can determine at once the class of a strange song by the rhythm of the music. In structure, the Indian song follows the out line of the form which obtains in our own music— a short melodic phrase built on re lated tones which are denominate chord lines, repeated with more or less variation, grouped into clauses and correlated into periods. The compass of songs varies from one to three octaves. Some songs have no words, vocables being used instead and when once set to a melody they are never changed. Plural singing is generally in unison, on the plains and else where, the women using a high, reedy falsetto tone an octave above the male singers. Men and women having clear resonant voices and good musical intonation compose the choirs which lead the singing in ceremonies. Songs are the property of tribes, societies and indi viduals. Societies are most careful not to
change a word of a song. Indian songs show the development of music, and as such, a study of them is of great historic value. Moreover, they offer to the composer a wealth of melodic and rhythmic movements, and that peculiar in spiration which heretofore has been attained solely from the folk songs of Europe.
Drums vary in size and structure and cer tain ceremonies in some cases evolved a peculiar type. Whistles of bone, wood or pottery are employed in some ceremonies. Pipes are of recent introduction but are now favorites. The flageolet is widely distributed and is played by young men during courtship, it also accom panies the songs of certain ceremonies. Rat tles were universal and of many types. Con sult Baker, Weber die Musik des Nordamer ikanischen Wilde& (1882) ; Cringan, quois Folk-Songs' (Toronto 1902) ; Burton, F. R., (American Primitive Music' (New York 1909) • Tiersot, T., (La musique chez les peuples indigenes de l'Amerique du Nord' (Paris 1910).
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