English Folk-Song and Dance — Inside the Classic

in the childish listener, that we cannot but grant that the original makers of Cante-fable were quite alive to the dramatic force such recurring rhymes possess.

Other examples of the Cante-fable are to be found in Chambers’ _Popular Rhymes of Scotland_ and elsewhere. All, however, point to the verse being used as an ornamental and dramatic addition to the story, and certainly not as indicating a transitionary stage between a rhyming and a prose narrative.

The question of a Cante-fable origin of the folk-ballad is here somewhat fully dealt with, as it is a sufficiently romantic theory to lead people, who have not fully considered all the points involved, to accept it on trust.

IV. THE CONSTRUCTION OF FOLK-MUSIC

It will be quite evident to the average hearer that much folk-music is built upon scales different from those that form the foundation of the ordinary modern tune. This fact is accounted for by the circumstance that a large percentage of folk-melodies are “modal”; _i.e._ constructed upon the so-called “ecclesiastical modes” which, whether adopted from the Greek musical system or not, had Greek nomenclature, and were employed in the early church services.

The ecclesiastical scales may be realised by playing an octave scale on the white keys of the piano only. Thus—C to C is Ionian, D to D Dorian, E to E Phrygian, F to F Lydian (rarely used), G to G Mixolydian, A to A Æolian, and B to B Locrian (practically unused).

Progress in harmony and polyphony gradually revealed the cramping effect of many modal intervals, and already by the beginning of the seventeenth century our modern major and minor scales (the first, however, corresponding to the Ionian mode in structure) had supplanted the rest, so far as trained musicians were concerned. Not so with the folk-tune maker; he was conservative enough to preserve that which had become obsolete elsewhere. We find a large proportion of folk-airs are in the Dorian, Mixolydian, and Æolian modes, with much fewer in the Phrygian.

When folk-music began to be first studied scientifically a theory was held that because of its modal character it was necessarily a reflex of ecclesiastical music, and that secular melodies were either church chants set to songs, or in some other way derived from them. It is known that many of the early clerics established schools for the teaching of music, with intent to enrich the services. But while this theory is temptingly plausible, yet it is incapable of proof, and a reverse one might, with equal reason, be held to maintain that the church took its music directly from the people, or at any rate adapted its form from that mostly popular.

It has also been asserted that the modal character of folk-music is a clear proof of great age. It is certainly more than likely that most of the modal tunes that are found are of considerable antiquity, but it is scarcely safe to conclude that all are so. How old any particular folk-tune may be is a problem incapable of solution, and all attempts to fix its age and period can be but, at best, mere guesswork.

We may grant that folk-music has been handed down traditionally by many generations of singers, but if it has pleased these different generations we must also admit that any new composition of folk-music, to please the people, must conform to their common demand.

Folk-music seems to have held its own traditional ideals longer and more closely than music composed for that class which has so persistently ignored it. The cultured musician is always, consciously or unconsciously, influenced by the music of his day, and as a consequence adheres to its idioms, or is genius enough to found a school of his own. His music too is far more elaborate than that produced by the rustic, or untaught musician. It has harmony, and many more points of evidence that enable us definitely to fix its period of composition.

The composer of folk-music may be compared, in a sense, to the Indian, or Chinese art-worker who repeats the class of patterns that has come down to him from time immemorial. When European influence was brought to bear on his work his patterns became debased, lost their original beauty, and gained nothing from the new source of inspiration.

There is no space in this small manual to enter into a disquisition on the Modes. The reader is referred to such a work as the new edition of Grove’s _Dictionary of Music and Musicians_ (vol. iii., p. 222), to Carl Engel’s _Study of National Music_, and to a most valuable contribution to the subject by Miss A. G. Gilchrist, “Note on the Modal System of Gaelic Tunes,” in the _Journal of the Folk-Song Society_, vol. iv., No. 16.