The Butterfly Dance Music.

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In Japan the ‘geishas’ perform their poetic dances, ‘The Leaf of Gold,’ ‘The Butterfly Dance,’ to the sound of a vague, discreetly agreeable accompaniment. The geishas’ music is that of the plucked string, and is generally vague in form. The koto and the samisen are the representative instruments, though sometimes the musicians sing a few measures. Harmony in our sense of the word is entirely lacking. In the Buddhist temples the entire service is intoned on one note, but the priests sing successively at a different pitch, and the chanting is punctuated by the occasional clang of cymbals and the deep, rich tones of the great gong, a strange and impressive combination. At the time of the various Japanese flower festivals, those of the azaleas, of the flowering plum and cherry, when the country is glad with pink and white blossoms, roving bands of musicians and dancers in grotesque costume add to the gaiety of the occasion.

Old Japanese Print: ‘Girl of the Old Kingdom Playing the Harp’.

In Hindustan dance music (vocal and instrumental combined) plays an important part in the religious ceremonies of the temples, both in the voluptuous dances of the devadhazis, or bayadères,[18] and in the chanting of the montranis, scriptural formulas set to a fixed musical rhythm. The size of a Hindoo orchestra varies, and the dance-music it plays is not always of a sensuous, erotic type, but often very animated and vigorous in character, such as accompanies the dancing at the courts of the rajahs. Music frequently accompanies dramatic representations as well, and there is a great deal of popular song. The Hindoos have dhourpad and kourka, warlike hymns, hoti, canticles in honor of Krishna, stouti, official odes, bichnoupoud, evening songs, kheal, love songs, sohla, nuptial songs, thoumries, patriotic songs, palma, cradle songs, and darda, love songs. In many cases Hindoo music shows signs of Mohammedan influence, especially in the variety and liveliness of its rhythm. It is curious to note that the use of certain types accompanying instruments is restricted to certain social classes, priests, mendicant holy men, dancing girls, and so forth.

Mohammedan music is associated with a wide variety of voluptuous secular dances, for the Mohammedan Orient possesses an art of dance equal to the most delicate inspirations of our poets. There is the dance of the Ouled Nail, the famous dancing girls of Biskra, the Tunisian ‘Dance of the Hair,’[19] the Algerian ‘Dance of the Pitchers,’ the dances of the Egyptian Ghaouazi or ‘Almees,’ exponents of what is known to us as the danse du ventre, of which one of the dance airs follows: