Traditional Hopi Songs - online book

Native American Songs With Sheet Music, Notation & Commentary

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	156                                         HOPI SONGS Wayward and simple as this little melody seems at first sight, its performance by Polakka proves on closer examination to exhibit, like Shiashtasha, an elaborate rhythm of two slightly different readings of the two segments. The attention is first attracted by the recurrent narrow portamento (omitted in A2) suggesting a symmetrical division of the opening salient fourth. This slide then proves to follow an initial division of the interval, approximating b in the three earlier A's and c in the three later; and finally to precede alternate choices of c and b as the upper limit of the movement in B, the lower limit tend­ing to vary inversely.
	The course of the melody may thus be described: In A a movement in a salient trichord (a-b (or c')-d') becoming a tetrachord (a-b-c'-d') is repeated a major third below, expanded to a major triad (f-a-c': in A5 beginning from g) tending likewise to become a tetrad (f-a-ab-c'); and followed by another occupying the fifth below the opening note. In B a third movement, alternately filling the field of the transition triad of A (f-a-c') and retracted from both extremes to a trichord (fg (B4f)-a-b), is repeated as a triad at the pitch of the final triad of A. The song is throughout unusually irregular in intonation, the only pitch often reproduced being d, the lowest note. The opening note of