Traditional Hopi Songs - online book

Native American Songs With Sheet Music, Notation & Commentary

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	124                                        HOPI SONGS melody, after a long rehearsal as a major; and its reappearance in D3 is its final reassertion after reduction to a tonedescent of a semi- tonereappearance as a tone, and restoration to the original pitch The villain of the piece is not far to seek. The tritonus familiar in previous songs presents itself at the moment of both these changes; in the first descent of y preceding the semitone subsidence in B2 of the initial minor third, and in the first descent of y preceding its reappear­ance bringing the triad up with it. The quarter tone yield and reac­tion of the axial note, de + , to and from de—, is nearly synchronous with the subsidence and reappearance of the third, and may be con­ceived as sympathetic in origin. In general character the melody is a lusty minor, the prominence of the minor third adding zest to its vigorous and peculiar rhythm. The unaided ear recognized that the motives of B were adiatonic in struc­ture (outlining a fourth between two minor thirds), and the fact is expressed in the staff notation. But by neglecting in the C's and major D's, D1 and D3, the semitone rise of the tetrad while remarking that of the triad, the ear brought these segments within diatonic limits. The alteration of the first and last trichord of B1 (ab-ga-f, de—c-AB) to forms more familiar to the diatonic consciousness (f being heard as fg, c as d) further evidences the power of musical thought to nullify in rapid observation the plain and even repeated evidence of sensation. As in Malo-katcina, numerous homologous notes judged at the same pitch bear testimony to extraordinary virtuosity in the performer. In the D's he three times reaches the identical de+ by movements twice spanning a minor sixth and once a fifth, as one might vary one's steps down a familiar trail to the same rock.