Traditional Hopi Songs - online book

Native American Songs With Sheet Music, Notation & Commentary

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	THE PHONOGRAPHIC METHOD                           41 5" from the beginning and lasting perhaps 3", the second about halfway through the reproduction and lasting perhaps 5". The first time I estimated the rate of beating at about 50 in ten seconds; the second time they became a whir, and to the ear the note was flatted perhapstone. With the excep- tion of these two irregularities the reproductions were, as the figures show, extremely correct, their average variation being aboutof a tone. But at this faster rate of revolution (record 184, reproduction 175 + ) the progressive sharping of pitch which had been so regular a phenomenon, at least at first in Cylinder B (record 176, reproduction 170 + ),had disappeared. In one repro­duction the phonograph note had ended (as far as this method of examination enables us to judge) on precisely the same pitch on which it had begun, and in the other three on a pitch not differing by more thanof a tone. I concluded to make another trial with Cylinder B, the tone of which, though almost lost to the ear, might still be strong enough to make beats that could be counted. The point of interest was to discover whether, with a comparatively fresh battery, the sharping persisted. A quadruple reproduction gave the fol­lowing figures, the beats being perfectly distinct: —
	The variations of the individual reproductions were almost identical with those of Series I-III, viz., not below 5c nor over 7c (the fourth of Series I was but 3c, and the first of I and the fifth of II were 4c) ; and the total variation of the whole ten minutes was for the third timetone (Series III, 6c). Moreover, in each reproduction the note was at its lowest at first and its high­est at last. But in the last two reproductions there was a decided lapse just before the end in the continuity of the rise. Within the ten second spaces the rate of the beats varied slightly, as before, from these figures, now hurrying and now slackening.