Viewing page 31 of 37

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

but based on a different principle & derived from a different [[?]]. It was a piece of undoubted bad fortune that the systems which Professor Fillmore compared with the North American should all, with one exception, have belonged to the pentatonic group. The inclusion of the Ancient Arabic was probably a slip, since it (like the Persian, the Jewish, the [[?]] & almost all the diverse scales of Europe) belongs to the heptatonic family. Further our [[modern?]] diatonic scale is derived from one of the heptatonic forms, & every step in its development is historically traceable.

(2) That 'this natural perception (s.c. of the harmonic relations of diatonic tones) is the same for all races of men': that 'folk music is always & everywhere harmonic music' & that 'in every stage of its development the harmonic sum is the shaping & determining factor in the production of folk melody.'

I answer that there are known to be several melodic systems—the Javanese & Siamese for example—which between the extremes of their scale contain no single diatonic interval & no sound which can be represented in our notation. They are so far from exhibiting any feeling for the tonic [[?]] that they are incompatible with its very existence. They are so far from being based on what we understand by harmonic relations that they contain no [[?]] within which these relations could subsist. As against Professor Fillmore's proposition I venture to maintain that these instances are crucial, and I could cite others if others were needed.

May I say in conclusion that this is not a mere matter of system & [[instrumentation?]]. I no more attribute to Professor Fillmore a

Transcription Notes:
The topic is John Comfort Fillmore's paper 'The Harmonic Structure of Indian Music.'