Folk & Traditional Music of the Western Continents

The folk & traditional music of Europe, Africa & the Americas explored.

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	WESTERN FOLK MUSIC IN THE AMERICAS 193
	few tones, and small range. More likely they are songs composed by the Indians, who were still steeped in the Indian tradition but who had had some contact with Hispanic folk music m Mexico. The problem of the origin of Hispanic tunes in Latin American folk music is generally unsolved. But we can say with some certainty that the tunes sung in Latin America are for the most part not simp y imports from Spain and Portugal (while the words more frequently are). They are more usually songs either composed in Latin America in the styles brought from Europe, or they are indeed songs brought from Europe centuries ago but so changed by the process of oral tradition that the tunes in Europe that are related to them can no longer be recognized as relatives; or perhaps it is the European tunes that have undergone change. This situation is not completely paral­leled by the traditions of minority groups living in South America Germans, East Europeans, Italians-for these have preserved many of the songs that they brought from Europe, but they have not to a larae extent created new material in the traditional styles. Example 10-1, Mexican folk music, illustrates a few (but, of course, omitting a multitude) of the characteristics of Hispanic folk music in Latin America.
	EXAMPLE 10-1. Mexican polyphonic folk song, from Vicente T. Mendoza, La Cancton Mexicana (Mexico, D.F.: Instituto de Investigaciones Este-ticas, Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico, 1961), p. 239.