I would like to begin, if I may be allowed, upon a personal note. It has been my privilege to be a member of the International Folk Music Council since its inception in 1947 – a founder member in fact. In those twenty-two years, fellow members have become dear friends. To meet them, in the various capitals of the world over the years, has added a savour and an extra dimension to life which I would have been very sorry to miss. I would like to say what a delight it is to me personally to welcome you now to my native city of Edinburgh.

The study of song texts by scholars in various fields has taken many directions. Some of those directions have been the result of particular disciplinary methodology such as literary history and criticism, history, folklore, anthropology, linguistics, and musicology. Others have been the result of peculiarities of a language, such as the problems of song in tone languages. This article is an introduction to and analysis and reinterpretation of some of the approaches to the study of song texts which seem at this time to present fruitful avenues for future research.

Les relations commerciales entre les habitants du Golfe Persique et ceux de Zanj ou Afrique orientale sont très anciennes: n'oublions pas non plus que Mascat et Zanzibar étaient liés par une union politique de 1690 environ jusqu'à 1861. On a souvent parlé de l'influence arabe sur les peuplades de la côte est d'Afrique; on a beaucoup moins parlé des conséquences de la présence de minorités importantes d'Africains dans les principautés arabes du Golfe.

La musique arabe de Kuwait, de Bahrain et de la Côte des Pirates n'est pas sensiblement influencée par les musiques africaines: la seule exception notable concerne les danses de guerres normalement appelées ardha à Bahrain, ayala sur la Côte des Pirates; les mélodies, les textes et les danses sont indiscutablement d'origine béouine mais l'influence africaine est sensible dans les rhythmes produits par le groupe de joueurs de tambour qui danse entre les deux rangs de chanteurs arabes.

During a mission sponsored by Unesco, I had the opportunity of becoming acquainted with some traditional types and styles of singing in Mongolia. The Mongols have an extraordinarily complex and developed musical tradition, and some of its types are of great interest for ethnomusicologists. I want to present to you two styles of singing which are closely associated with certain types of songs.

The first is called “long chant” and ranks with the most archaic and most developed types of the Mongols. It is a song in stanza form with a free, rubato performance having long sustained notes: just like repercussions, ornamented by fiorituri, and giving the impression of an instrumental style. They are produced by a particular setting of the larynx. But its most impressive feature is its wide range. Some singers extend the compass of songs by using the falsetto extremely vigorously. Thus a voice can range over as many as three octaves.

The idea of comparing Indian songs with those of Siberia and China as a means of discovering the origin of the former occurred to me only recently, that is since 1920, though abundance of materials has been at hand for years. Nearly 1,000 native songs of British Columbia and Alaska have been recorded for the National Museum of Canada since 1912, and many others are preserved in the collections of the United States and Germany. Many ancient Chinese and Japanese songs have been marketed by the phonograph companies. In addition, over 100 Siberian songs were collected by the Russian exile, Jochelson, for the Jesup Expedition more than sixty years ago and the records were stored at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. I had duplicates made of these for our National Museum, and I understand that the original Edison phonograph records are now preserved at Indiana University.

The Central Australian aborigines make remarkable use of slight pitch alterations in their singing. It was this feature of their music which prompted me to make a more accurate and detailed study of the scales used in the songs I have already transcribed from T. G. H. Strehlow's collection of recordings.

The method used to determine the accurate frequency of all notes was as follows. An audio oscillator type A57321 was warmed, then plugged through a speaker alongside which another speaker reproduced the required notes from the recording. (The speed of the turntable was checked before use.) Each note of the chosen verse was taken separately and repeated until the note produced by the oscillator corresponded to it. Here some error could occur, as it was impossible to have the two notes sounding together for any length of time. It was therefore necessary to sound one and immediately follow it by the other.

In Eastern Moravia and districts still further east, we find a special type of rhythmical accompaniment in folk dance-music, performed by second fiddle and bass in a string ensemble. Each bow-stroke (both down and up) regularly combines two rhythmic values with the accent on the second element. Two bow-strokes, first down, then up, correspond to a single two-four bar. Variant types of this accompaniment are also found in Hungarian and Rumanian folk music. In some districts in Slovakia, it is referred to as duvaj, perhaps an attempt to express its character onomatopoeically.

The duvaj-accompaniment has distinctive characteristics in each district. This is clearly shown by the optical recordings of changes in sound intensity (Fig. 1). The first example (upper tracing of five bars) comes from Eastern Slovakia (Vyšné Raslavice); the second (lower tracing of eight bars), is from Central Slovakia (Hrochot pod Polanou). In the second example, irregular sub-division within the bar is shown.

Twelve years ago during the IFMC conference at Copenhagen, Arnold Bake gave an excellent paper on Nepalese folk music, which unfortunately appeared in the Journal of the IFMC only as a short summary. But even this brief summary shows the very complicated situation arising from the fact that in Nepal two communities, the Nevari and the Nepali, have lived together for two hundred years, each preserving more or less intact its own language and separate musical tradition as well as its own hierarchy of castes. These castes, because of their social separation, continue to keep pure their separate traditions. Hence, one cannot understand the different styles of Nepalese music in their cultural context without taking into account the caste system and its effect on the music.

Zambia is, for administrative purposes, divided into eight provinces: the Northern, the Luapula, the Western, the Northwestern, the Eastern, the Central, the Southern, and the Barotse. Linguistically, it is divided into four main language groups: the Bemba, the Nyanja, the Tonga, and the Lozi. The language groupings coincide to a great extent with the provinces, with the Bemba-speaking people spread over the Northern, Luapula, Western, and parts of the Central provinces. The Nyanja speakers are in the Eastern Province, the Tonga speakers in the Southern and parts of the Central provinces, and the Lozi speakers in Barotse Province. The Northwestern Province is occupied by a group of tribes whose lingua franca is usually regarded as Luvale-Mbunda.

The scientific exploration of musical instruments of non-European peoples and of European folk music instruments began in the second half of the nineteenth century and was intensified in this century. The purpose of its initial phase was to make some kind of inventory in order to have the necessary scientific sources at hand, which would serve as a basis for further investigations of musical instruments. Field research among the world's most varied peoples has yielded even more data concerning a substantial number of new instruments, which hitherto have remained unknown.

As in all the countries of West Africa where Islam has left its mark, and where powerful chiefs held—or still hold—authority, many griots are to be found in Senegal. Whether they be historians, genealogists or musicians, they are in most cases professionals who together form a well-defined caste. The roles they play are manifold: as historians and genealogists they are the storehouses of the records of a country that has disdained the written language; as musicians, they are present at festive and solemn occasions alike. A griot may be attached to a prince's court, and be a member of his household; or he may be independent and able to charge for his services as he chooses.

Caught up in the life of African society, where intense rivalries excite tribes, clans and families, the griots have always aroused feelings of fear or contempt. More than one enmity, more than one dispute, has originated in the indiscretion of a griot. Their caste, like those of the blacksmiths, the ropemakers, the weavers, etc., is one of the lowest in the hierarchy.