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Hottentot Melody.

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Next to their rhythmic snap, the most radically outlandish characteristic of the negro songs is their frequent variation from the diatonic scale. This most often takes the form of a raised (major) sixth in a minor key (while the seventh is not varied or is omitted altogether); the raised seventh in the minor scale, or the flattened seventh in the major. Besides these 'wild notes,' as Mr. Krehbiel calls them, there are omissions of certain notes of the scale that produce a decided exotic effect. Thus we have the major scale without the seventh or without the fourth, and the minor scale without the sixth. The major scale with both the fourth and the seventh omitted, in other words the pentatonic scale, familiar in all primitive and exotic music as well as in certain folk-tunes, notably the Celtic, is also present in negro song. There are, moreover, examples in the so-called whole-tone scale.

The effect produced by these aberrations constitutes the most beautiful quality of negro music. We cannot refrain from quoting here an example or two. The raised sixth in the minor scale is most exquisitely shown in the famous 'spiritual' 'You May Bury Me in de Eas',' which we quote in full, without harmonization:[67]

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You may bur-y me in the East, You may bur-y me in the West; But I'll
hear the trump-et sound In that morn-ing. In that morn-ing, my Lord,
How I long to go, For to hear the trump-et sound, In that morn-ing.

Another instance is seen in the second section of 'Come Tremble-ing Down,' the first part of which is in C major, turning into A minor with a striking disregard of harmonic convention, and proceeding as follows: