The Tinguian: Social, Religious, and Economic Life of a Philippine TribeCole, Fay-Cooper
Religion
The Tinguian: Social, Religious, and Economic Life of a Philippine Tribe
Cole, Fay-Cooper
Tinguian (Philippine people)
The song is like a mournful chant. Throughout there is a peculiar
wailing which leaves a strange, haunting impression. The music
admirably suits the hour when it is used. It would be decidedly
incongruous given in broad daylight. These untutored savages could
hardly have conjured up a more typical tone-picture of the "shadowy
valley" than the song heard on this record.
The peculiarly weird character is due in large part to the swelling out
and dying away of the tones on certain syllables. (For comparison to
effects found in Igorot music, see "Swelled Tones" under _Definition
of Qualities_, p. 479).
_Sang-Sangit_
Record C. Sung during the evening following a funeral.
In this record we hear but one voice--a man's. The song is cast in
the minor scale of G, but whether the natural minor or the harmonic,
cannot be determined, as the singer does not use the 7th of the
scale. It is not pentatonic in character.
The song is given in the recitative style. There are several verses
which vary but little in the music, except for the changes in the
reiterated staccato tones which are made greater or less in number to
accommodate the difference in number of syllables. With the exception
of those starting the glissandos or trills, the repeated tones were
given with a very decided staccato punch.
Much of the intonation is vague. In taking the glissandos shown near
the middle of the top line, the upper tone is sung about half way
between B-flat and B-natural. There is some abandon in the rhythm also.
The group of six notes marked with an asterisk are trilled on the
semitone interval.
_Dawak_
Record D. The song of a medium when calling spirits into her (his)
body.
This song is doubtless the invention of the singer. It has that abandon
which usually characterizes the songs of workers in the occult among
primitive folk.
The song is cast mostly in the relative minor (G-sharp) of the
pentatonic scale of B-natural major. A-sharp does not belong to this
scale. There are five measures, where this note appears, but in each
instance the tonality of the phrase momentarily rests in D-sharp minor,
the relative of the pentatonic major of F-sharp. A-sharp belongs to
this scale, but B-natural does not. The singer, with his instinct for
the five-note scale, avoids the B-natural until the tonality shifts
back to the original key. The song is therefore classed as pentatonic
in character.
The melody is distinctly harmonic in structure, as nearly all of the
successions are made up of triad intervals.
Though the song runs but a minute and a half, the tempo changes eight
times. The performer takes nearly every new tempo with a well-defined
rhythm. There is considerable freedom shown in the first movement
when the tremolos between B-natural and the G-sharp below are taken.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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