Traditional Hopi Songs - online book

Native American Songs With Sheet Music, Notation & Commentary

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	46                                           HOPI SONGS during which such a battery would in general be available; but this was a number of days after it had been charged. During the above tests the reproduction by stale batteries of an inscription (Cylinder B), giving with fresh batteries a note of the standard constancy, in one case (Bat­tery 4, after considerable use and three days' idleness) reached the standard excellence; in another case (Battery 3, charged a month) either reached it or approximatedto it; in a third case (Bat- tery 1, after much use and ten days' idleness) approximated to the standard, excepting for one or two marked deviations of pitch in each reproduction; and in a fourth case (Battery 2, charged a month) gave a note varying continuously in long waves covering minute fractions of a tone. Judging from these data, although the revolution of the cylin­der during the performances at the Pueblo may possibly have reached the standard constancy, more probably it exhibited a greater varia­tion, either a marked one, during one or two short passages only of inscriptions, or a gradual and inconsiderable one throughout entire records. The time required for noting these melodies by the method I em­ployed (comparison of each note with near semitones of the harmonium) I found in general about a hundred-fold that taken up by their repro­duction at approximately the same pitch. Nevertheless, so far as I was able to judge, the rate of the instrument either remained or was kept by adjustment of the electrical supply constant to within a ratio equiv­alent to an interval of about a tenth of a tone during the whole exam­ination of each song; and during that of the individual phrases of the melodies either exhibited no change or a change through a much smaller ratio. It is to be noted that the sharping shown by the method of beats to take place in the course of an individual reproduction of a fresh record involves and, as it seems likely, is due to the transfer of .the needle from one end of the cylinder to the other. We cannot therefore argue from this to a variation of a similar amount in every two or three minutes of a reproduction under examination, for during this time the needle has changed its position but little.