It has been said that music usually excites the listener to movement or action. This is probably because, originally, music was always associated with miming and dance, and the effect is still felt after the cause has disappeared. However that may be, music has always inspired to high deeds, whether by acting as an intellectual stimulant to the listener whose brain dwarfs his muscles, or as a physical stimulant to the listener in whom matter dominates mind. Music inspired Dante to some of his greatest poems and John Stuart Mill to some of his profoundest and most original philosophical speculations.
One explanation of the fact that song is the first artistic manifestation of primitive man is the probability that his first articulate utterances were either cries or actually sung. Even to-day a child which is completely isolated from birth will be able to sing but will never learn to talk. All mothers know that a child's first cries are attempts to sing. Only after the lapse of a year does it accustom itself to employ the speaking voice. It does not seem altogether presumptuous, therefore, to believe that in the infancy of man Music was the æsthetic imitation of his first vocal utterances.
Later, man realized that it was possible to add volume and variation by accompanying the sounds with rhythmical beats produced by some object within reach. Of such objects are the familiar stick, with which the aborigines of Australia mark time, and the heel of the Moï dancer which sets the measure for a warlike march with its regular taps on the ground.
Soon other embellishments follow. The gourd finds itself the rustic tom-tom, a popular instrument among the Moï as among the native races of Africa. The hollow bamboo stalk appears in all the glory of a flute. Finally, the orchestra makes its bow with the invention of stringed instruments and gradually supersedes the human voice, which it was originally only designed to accompany.
The evolution I have outlined was brilliantly illustrated in Greece, where we can easily follow the successive stages by which Music liberated itself from the trammels of Dance and Pantomime and emerged as a self-contained art of its own.
There is little to be said about the Moï dancing, which shows lack of imagination and invention. The funeral and war-dances are characterized by conventional steps with few features of distinction, a fact which corroborates the view expressed above that artistic development follows in the path of civilization.
The orchestra comprises various instruments which can be used both for purposes of solo and accompaniment. The lower parts are entrusted to a wooden box measuring a yard across, with a series of holes over which a buffalo skin is tightly stretched. The volume of sound is augmented by metal buttons secured to nails distributed over the surface of the instrument, as also by bells of different sizes. This discordant and formidable sound-box is vigorously thumped with a mallet and accompanied by brass or copper gongs, which are frequently hung from the roof and played like bells. The "Radé" and "Djarai" groups also use wooden or metal discs joined in pairs, which are clashed together after the manner of cymbals.
The instruments to accompany the voice are various species of fifes and flutes, of which the most popular consists of five or six bamboo tubes of different lengths soldered with clay to a large gourd.
Each district has its favourite tunes which gradually become recognizable to the European ear and, though at first they seem devoid of all musical qualities, it is surprising how soon a particular rhythm or melody fixes itself on the mind and tickles the fancy.