NEGRO MELODIES. The music of the American is essentially vocal. Their few musical instruments are of importance only for accompaniments to or for ac the rhythm of the dance. the last twenty years music has been steadily its distinctive feature-. to the ien dcnry the to discard which harks back to the days of slav ery. The old plaintive melodies have been re placed by more modern conic and cultic which are cast in a nondescript Afric Enropean mode.
may be divided into two those which show evidences of but which have been added to and until they arc Undeniably negro and nicese which are the splint a 1144MA I•X of the own The first may be subdivided into (a) those derived front Euro pean and dances, and (b) those adapted from Baptist and Methodist hymns. The whose most typical element is a weird recitative, have undoubtedly an affinity with the musical forms used in Africa, lint they have been expanded both rhythmically and it is possible to make souse such analysis of melodies. the
important feature. their interpretation, eannot be described. Impromptu chords. notes, and accents are introduced, the whole into unusual forms with inal melodie, and motives. to say, the time structure is excellent, and the is uni versally exact. Tilt times have as a rule -i of few notes, and, as in Africa, the major key pre.; 4444 dnates. In some both the major and minor key- are 11,0d. The weird effect produced by many of their cadences is as a rule doe to the lust- of nil' minor key so mulch as to the employment of the pentatonic scale, and the major scale with the (lit seventh. A distinctive character of melodies is the 'rhythmical snap' which beenine such an overworked feature In See suit : Bitter. 11 lisle in .1 m erien ( New ed.. New 0 York. 14O(1) ; Edwards, halo no sonipt ant/ Rlu (New York. Pot.1) ; Alar,11. The Hlory of thy; Jabilec Singers and Their (Boston. 1880): and Trotler. Music, and Sonic Bighly .11at.wal People fib.. I878).