the phylogenetic analogy to the ontogenetic fact that our boys also have at first high voices which acquire the deeper tones of a man after the mutation. But with this the tenor voice of a few primitive people obviously has nothing to do, for if the higher voices of savages should be analogous to boys' voices they ought to have female voices, for in this consist the characteristics of the mutation in falling directly from the female "timbre" into the male one, from the soprano or alto to bass or tenor, instead of gradually sinking from soprano to alto and then to tenor or bass. This hypothesis, however, that savage races had female voices, would be entirely unfounded, although some singular exceptions speak in favour of it at first sight. Thus the Australians frequently sing in falsetto and use a sort of tremolo;1 the Chinese sing and speak in descant 2 during theatrical performances; those who play women's parts must therefore pitch their voices considerably higher. The women of the Kamchadales have an astonishingly hollow and thin voice "in speaking". According to Mr. Erman this is due to their small stunted snub noses. The Kafirs sing in falsetto,* as do the natives of Tierra del Fuego, and, moreover, as Wilkes says the latter "sing continually when speaking," I imagine they must also speak in falsetto. But Mr. Bridge, who lived many years among them, makes no mention of this; although it is well known that when conversing with each other they do so in whispers (possibly this points to a falsetto voice), Mr. Foster simply mentions their "soft melodious voice ".5 This example is therefore not certain enough to warrant an acceptance of the idea that the male of primitive people have female voices; in all other mentioned cases this particular tone-colour, so to speak, is only used when singing, or, as in China, at 1 Curr, l. c., iii. p. 170. 3 3 Erman, l. c., vol. i. 3, p. 209. 5 Foster, l. c., i. p. 180. 2 Görtz, l. C., iii. p. 59. the play; they have, then, male voices and screw them up to a high pitch only on special occasions. As they become much more excited over singing than we, so they are able to pitch their voices with more ease in the higher registers, in which also they can continue singing freely in spite of the great exertion, because they have neither to preserve nor train their voices. Even the ordinary conversations of primitive people are carried on with the greatest excitement, a fact which led so many travellers falsely to believe they were discussing very important intelligence, the natural consequence of this too being high-pitched voices. Taking this into consideration I would neither share Mr. Stumpf's more reasonable presumption that the male voice in general was higher originally than now, in its entirety.2 When he alleged that the old-time tenor parts, e.g., those in the St. Matthew-Passion, were written so high, that therefore the tenors of Bach's day were better than those we have now as far as compass of voice is concerned, it must not be forgotten that Bach wrote for a lower pitch than that now in use, as Ellis has shown. Moreover, the space of time which has elapsed since Bach's death is much too short to have effected so important a difference in the human voice. It can rather be said that we have a natural tendency to constantly raise the pitch. In favour of this is the fact that theatre and concert pitch is always being lowered artificially and forcibly at many of the congresses; 3 1 Thomson, Heart of Africa, p. 43. 2 Stumpf, Tonpsych., i. p. 340. 3 Ellis, Hist. of Mus.-pitch, p. 305. This low pitch of Bach's explains to me why he always wrote the trumpet part so high that our players are scarcely able to play it. Consequently it has unnecessarily been supposed that the art of trumpet-playing has decreased in quality in course of time. High tones, however, can more easily be played on trumpets of lower than of higher pitch, and as the pitch called B flat was actually lower at Bach's time than to-day, our players are naturally at a disadvantage compared with their colleagues in the seventeenth century. also, that in tuning several strings each higher than the preceding, and not each according to the first, we invariably err towards raising the pitch.1 Nevertheless Ellis's historically arranged tables of comparison of different pitches show a certain fluctuation both upwards and downwards. For my part I venture to say that in consequence of the constant training and selecting of good voices, in course of time high tenors and sopranos as well as deep basses and altos are more frequently found; at any rate the demands of modern composers have become much greater, and the number of both male and female singers incomparably so. The number of choral societies and theatres will corroborate this; what is not required of these to-day, and what has not been overcome in course of the past fifty years! So it appears to me that progress and development in this particular line are in every way remarkable. It is with the vocal organs as with those of hearing; there has been practically no change in historic times at any rate, although to-day we may perhaps be better able to realise their capabilities than heretofore. 1 Stumpf, Tonpsych., i. p. 303. CHAPTER III. INSTRUMENTS. (a) GENERAL REMARKS. THE use of instruments in the first development of music (phylogenetically and ontogenetically) furnished the necessary hold and the equally necessary definiteness for the melodic frame-work. Further than this, however, the use of instruments does not seem to go, all subsequent development proceeding from vocal music. But in earliest times it required whole centuries before all the capabilities of even the most simple and primitive instruments were completely understood and made use of. Possibly this may in some degree account for the surprising antiquity of many comparatively complicated instruments, the full appropriate use of which would otherwise be quite incomprehensible.1 Concerning this antiquity the following archæological discoveries furnish the desired explanation: At a meeting of the Archæological Institute (3rd June, 1864) the Earl of Dunraven exhibited the bone of an animal of which the original use was at that time unknown. The report of the Archæological Journal states 2 that it was thought to have formed part of a musical instrument or a 1 In the following chapter I wish to call attention to the names of instruments (primitive and modern), the sound of which sometimes imitates the sound of the instruments; compare flute, pipe (the German Pfiff), tube, tam-tam, gong, rattle, drum. Only later such names were given to other objects of similar form but different use, e.g., chibouk, originally a herdman's pipe or flute in Central Asia. Compare the rich collection of examples in Tylor's Primit. Cult., i. p. 188 seq. 2 Archæolog. Fourn., 1864, p. 190. crossbow. It was found in Ireland in a moat at Desmond Castle. Professor Owen pronounced the material to be a bone of the Irish elk (cervus alces); from this others drew further conclusions and declared the bone to be the remains of an "Irish lyra ". This last hypothesis is somewhat hazardous, but not at all because of the improbability that at the time of the Irish elk there were instruments which could be used for musical purposes. On the contrary, this latter presumption has been made more probable through further discoveries of a less hypothetical nature. Among the relics of the Troglodytes of the Dordogne valley was a reindeer bone pierced at one end by an oblique hole, reaching to the medullary canal. It was possible to produce a shrill sound from it by blowing as one would a hollow key.1 Paul Broca called this instrument a "rallying whistle," but it is questionable if this is a correct definition; 2 still other and more complicated instruments have been found which give more definite evidence of their being used for a musical purpose. M. E. Pietto in 1871 found in the cavern at Gourdan (HauteGaronne), in a layer of charcoal and cinders mixed with flint implements, an instrument which he called a neolithic flute made of a bone and pierced with holes (it is not stated how many) at the side. Wilson considers this discovery to be an undoubted example of the very earliest musical practice.3 Mr. Fétis, too, mentions and gives a diagram of a flute of stag-horn (found near Poitiers), which, 1 The first of these reindeer whistles was found, according to Christy and Lartet (l. c., p. 48), in 1860 in a grave in Aurignac. Since then so many similar whistles have been found that they are by no means rare specimens in our ethnological collections. 2 Lartet is of opinion that this is a hunting whistle. Besides there are other similar pieces of bone which also emit a shrill tone, but which, according to Ch. Lyell (l. c., p. 128), were pierced with holes for the mere purpose of being strung over the arm and so used as ornaments. Comp. C. Engel, Descript. Catal., South Kens. Mus., l. c., p. 10. 3 D. Wilson, l. c., i. p. 41. 4 Fétis, Hist. Gen., i. p. 26. |