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At first the bass note makes a fifth with the principal melodic note. Later the third is added, making the complete major triad. It is also worth noting that these harmonic bass tones are in a slightly different rhythm from the melody and preserve an independent character as an accompaniment to the melody. Perhaps the most striking instance, however, of the conscious use by savages of concordant musical intervals is afforded by the following little song noted by the traveller Forster as having been sung by the original inhabitants of New Zealand:

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To have sung this melody in thirds, to have ended it in unison, and then to have gone back to the thirds again was certainly a most remarkable feat for the savage mind to accomplish, and decidedly points to conscious intention rather than mere accident.

While the knowledge and the development of the science of harmony is one of the fruits of European civilization, and as a science is well-nigh confined to Europe exclusively, we still must admit that whereas primitive man had no knowledge of harmony he had a feeling for it, and that this feeling led him, though somewhat blindly, to the attainment of certain fundamental harmonic intervals. These intervals he evidently valued and used consciously. It is certainly of interest to note that a germ or suggestion of harmony existed in the primitive mind; that this element, as well as the other elements of music, has a natural basis.

V

We have seen how naturally the percussion instruments were developed; how they sprang into being, as it were, in response to an innate necessity for rhythmic expression, an inevitable accompaniment of the dance and the dance-song. Almost at the same time wind instruments of a simple and rude kind were fashioned. Whistles were made from the bones of animals with the marrow removed. Pipes were made from hollow reeds, while conch shells and the horns of deer-like animals furnished the first trumpets. These primitive whistles, pipes, and deer-horn trumpets[5] when blown were capable of giving forth but one tone. However, it is highly probable that, as their makers grew more familiar with the effect of the varying pressure of the lips, certain partials of the fundamental tone were produced, such as the octave, the fifth, and even the third. Eventually a series of holes were pierced in them, thus making it possible by means of stopping and unstopping these holes with the fingers to produce a rude scale of tones. But the first whistles were evidently of the one tone variety. An interesting relic of this description has recently been exhumed by N. Lartet in the department of Dordogne, France. It consists of a small bone, probably of the reindeer, about two inches in length. Through this bone near one end a small hole has been bored, probably by a sharp piece of hard stone, like flint. By applying the lips to this hole and blowing strongly a shrill whistling sound is produced. This was no doubt used in hunting, or as a call. In a cave at Lombrive in the department of Ariège several dog-teeth with similar holes for whistling have likewise been discovered.

To construct an instrument of the whistle variety which should produce more than one tone was the next step. On whistles or pipes of different lengths tones of different pitches can be produced, low tones from long pipes, higher tones from shorter pipes. So different lengths of whistles were rudely bound together, the longest at one end, the shortest at the other end, and the intermediate ones arranged in a sequence according to their relative lengths. Thus an instrument was made from which it was possible to obtain a succession of rising tones, a primitive scale. As with the drum among percussion instruments, so this instrument among wind instruments occupies a place of honor. The invention of the drum sums up for us all previously existing rhythmic musical impulses, and this collection of whistles gives us an instrument on which the production of a sequence of different tones or musical scale is possible. It has been given the poetical name of ‘Pan’s Pipes.’ These ‘Pan’s Pipes,’ of more or less primitive construction, are found quite generally among the savage tribes of the world. Specimens have been found in South America consisting of but two flutes or pipes, a kind of double flute, as it were; while specimens with a variable number of pipes, from six or seven up to fifteen, have been found among the inhabitants of the various islands of Polynesia. Stumpf, in Die Anfänge der Musik, reproduces a photograph taken in southwest Africa, showing an orchestra of Pan’s Pipes. There are eleven performers, each holding a set of pipes. The instruments are of several sizes; the smallest being about six inches and the largest five or six feet in length. Archæological discoveries in the ancient tombs or burial places of barbarous or semi-civilized peoples bring many curious specimens to light.