As to melodic trend within the body of the tune, I shall speak only briefly. It is a broad subject, too broad to be discussed adequately in this connection. A survey of my tune-thematic card catalog reveals, however, a few characteristics of this melodic trend. The first is that the tunes assume usually an initial upward trend. Another is that the steps or intervals employed are small, predominantly seconds, thirds, fourths, and fifths. Greater intervals are found however at the juncture of two phrases. From these observations we may assume that the American folk-singer does not like big intervals.[11] This assumption, based on recorded tunes, is strengthened when one listens to folk singing and notices their anticipatory slides or scoops in approaching a tone that is only a little higher or lower than the one just sung, a practice which may be interpreted as an anticipation of, and an attempt to master, that which is vocally difficult. But while the individual jumps from note to note are not as a rule great, the pitch compass of the entire tune is often surprisingly wide. The melodies usually end in a descending cadence to the tonic.
Along with the great variety in form which we meet among American folk-tunes, there are certain melodic formulas which seem to be favorites and reappear with unimportant variations as the tonal vestment of many different songs, so many indeed that they might well be looked on as wandering tunes (reminding one of the familiar wandering stanzas in folk texts) or, since they are not identical from song to song, tune families.
In the present collection I have come upon six tune families of different sizes and have named them in each instance after the song which seems to be the most representative member of the family. They are the ‘Lord Lovel’ family, cast in the ionian mode; ‘[I Will Arise]’, aeolian and ionian; ‘[Hallelujah]’, mixolydian; ‘[Kedron]’, aeolian; ‘[Babe of Bethlehem]’, dorian; and ‘[Roll Jordan]’, ionian. The tunes in this collection and elsewhere belonging to the ‘Lord Lovel’ family are listed under the song ‘[Dulcimer]’. Those belonging to the other families are listed under the songs for which the family is named.
Metrical Patterns
In the matter of metrical patterns we find also a variety, and favorites. We have noted the almost universal use of the up-beat. The up-beat initiates two different rhythmic trends, one of which is the iambic, the prevalent one in American folk-tunes: ²/₄ ♩ | ♩′. This two-part type of accent unit (of notes or syllables, whichever way we approach the matter), while occurring in series of four and three, as we have seen, may be found occasionally also in twos, fives, and sixes. Indeed the folk-tunes not infrequently show a refreshing independence of the demands of perfect quadraticality. The other rhythmic trend initiated by the up-beat is the less often used one made up of three-part units, which appear either in three-four time, ¾ ♩ | ♩′ ♩ or slow six-eight time, ⁶/₈ ♪ | ♪′ ♪. With more notes (syllables) in this single amphibrachic unit, the series of such units grows naturally in syllabic length. It often outgrows thus its function as a mere melodic phrase and tends to assume that of the melodic sentence. A fine example of this is in Sharp’s recording of the ‘Cherry-Tree Carol’.
But while the vast majority of folk-tunes follow one or the other of the above described patterns, we must remember that metrical precision or mechanical adherence to any formula is the least of the folk’s concerns. Indeed, we should be justified in assuming such exactness, as seen in text lines of carefully measured lengths and in perfection of rhyme, to be sure signs of individual creative participation; whereas greater freedom and variability in tune and text aspects are obviously characteristic of the folk’s vocalism.
Scales, Modes
The folk-tunes of America are not, in the main, built up on scales of the diatonic major and minor systems which, as is well known, have assumed their present form under the demands of harmony; but on a modal system which grew out of melodic exigences long before harmony made its conquest of the music of western civilisation. Nor do the folk-tunes of this country make use of all the tones of even these modal scales. They often employ but five or six of the seven available tones, leaving characteristic gaps in such scales.
American folk-tune collectors have had their troubles in the interpretation of modal melodies. I have had mine. Even such a life-long student of these things as Cecil Sharp met many a knotty problem in classifying his Appalachian tunes. In view of this difficulty I called on Hilton Rufty, a thorough musician and a reliable authority in the folk-music field, to lend a hand in the modal classification of these tunes. He generously acceded to my request; and by the time my requests had ceased and before his generosity had been exhausted he had checked or corrected all my modal classifications of the tunes in this collection. In making clear Mr. Rufty’s effective and practical method of identifying the character of tunes I shall reproduce his Classification Chart and quote here his explanation of it.