2. THE PRINCIPAL MUSICAL STYLE

Although the songs of the Cheremis are not uniform in style, the great majority of them do have certain features in common. The present description deals with the style of the majority of the songs, treating, in the traditional way, the melody and scales, rhythm, ornamentation, and form. Although these elements of music are obviously interrelated, they form convenient units for description. A small segment of the songs, called the “minor style,” diverges from the main body. The minor style, found only in some of the songs in Četkarev, and probably of later origin than the rest of the material, is mentioned only occasionally in this section; a more detailed presentation of it is given separately in Sec. 3.

2.1. Melody and Scale. In this section, we deal with phenomena related to movement in pitch. It is customary to distinguish between melody and scale, melody indicating the movement of pitch in time, and scale only the variation of pitch without temporal considerations.

A scale is here defined as all of the tones occurring in a given song, and a mode as the specific arrangement of these tones. It is described by the number of tones it contains, the intervals between the tones, and the relative importance of the tones in their relationships in the song. Cheremis scales are remarkably uniform. Two-thirds of them are pentatonic (they have five tones, not counting octave duplications), 20% are tetratonic, 9% hexatonic, 4% tritonic, and 1% heptatonic. Pentatonic scales are, of course, the most frequent in folk and primitive music as a whole. Of all Cheremis scales, 58% are anhemitonic, i.e., they have no half-tones. Such scales are made up largely of minor thirds and major seconds, with occasional perfect fourths and major thirds. The rest of the scales do have half-tones, but it is rare for any one scale to have more than a single half-tone. Fig. 1 is characteristic of an anhemitonic pentatonic scale.

Figure 1

The intervals in the Cheremis scales are, in order of descending frequency of occurrence: major seconds, minor thirds, minor seconds, perfect fourths, and major thirds. These intervals roughly correspond to the Western equivalents of their names. Since no acoustic measurements are available, further statements about their pitches and the degree of variation cannot be made

The tonic of a mode in Cheremis music is usually the lowest tone. (These statements, of course, are the analyzer’s descriptions only.) It may be defined as a tone which has considerable frequency and duration, appears at the end of individual phrases or sections, and is the final tone of a song. If no single tone satisfies more than one of these criteria, the final tone is usually designated as the tonic. Tones of importance other than the tonic are also likely to appear in the lower part of the range, but it is difficult to identify tones of importance which stand out among the rest, as can be done with the “dominants” in Western cultivated music. Indeed, besides the tonic, most of the tones within a song are of approximately equal importance; generally, there is no hierarchy which distinguishes between important, average, and passing or grace notes.

In studying the melody of a musical style it is useful also to indicate the range or ambitus of the melodies. The range can be defined as the distance, in terms of intervals, between the lowest and highest tones in an individual song. The ranges and their relative frequencies in Cheremis songs are as follows: prime, very few; major second, 1%; major third, 1%; perfect fourth, 4%; perfect fifth, 13%; minor sixth, 3%; major sixth, 29%; minor seventh, 7%; perfect octave, 16%; major ninth, 13%; minor tenth, 2%; major tenth, 3%; perfect eleventh, 4%; perfect twelfth, 3%; minor thirteenth, 1%. The predominance of the ranges of a perfect fifth, major sixth, perfect octave, and major ninth indicates the importance of the anhemitonic pentatonic scales, since these ranges coincide with intervals in those scales. The large variety of ranges in Cheremis songs is remarkable. Most folk and primitive musical styles can be identified by the fact that the majority of their songs have ranges within a rather restricted group of intervals. For example, the melodic range of most Plains Indian songs in North America is between an octave and a minor tenth.

As a rather specialized phenomenon, a few songs connected with children’s games and lullabies should be mentioned. These differ in scale from the rest of the Cheremis corpus by the fact that they consist of only one or two tones, i.e., their scales are ditonic or monotonic (Fig. 2). Monotonic songs are exceedingly rare in the world, and where they do exist they are sometimes not regarded as songs and are usually associated with children’s games or in some other way with children (see George Herzog, “Special Song Types in North American Indian Music,” Zeitschrift für vergleichende Musikwissenschaft 3, 1935, pp. 23-33).

Figure 2

Ditonic songs are more common throughout the world. (See Walter Wiora, “Älter als die Pentatonik,” in Studia Memoriae Belae Bartok Sacra, Budapest 1956, pp. 185-208.) They are also likely to be associated with special song types, such as children’s songs, but there are some styles in various parts of the world (e. g., the Vedda of Ceylon, the Modoc of Oregon, the inhabitants of Tierra del Fuego) where a substantial part of the regular repertory is ditonic. Among the Cheremis, however, only children’s songs are in this category. The interval between the two tones of a Cheremis ditonic song is usually a minor third. This interval is common also in ditonic songs elsewhere, so that the Cheremis ditonic songs may be considered perhaps as a part of an archaic layer, with almost worldwide distribution, of some of the simplest song types in existence today.

An interesting but rare phenomenon in the scales is the use of two different pitches in complementary distribution, arranged in such a way as to make their existence as different manifestations of the same tone of the scale or mode very convincing. Indeed, here one can draw on linguistic terminology and consider the two pitches as contextual variants of the same tone. The phenomenon occurs in Fig. 3, a song in the principal style of the Cheremis, with a 6/8 meter, and three note values. Transposition is the main formal principle. The form is A( 1) A(2)₄ [A (1) A (2)₄]₅ or A (1) A(2)₄ A (l)₅ A(2)₈. Here subscript numbers indicate the intervals of transposition. See Sec. 2.4. But while the first two sections use the note “e” an octave lower, the third and fourth, which might be expected to use “e” an octave lower, substitute “f,” which had not previously appeared. Thus “e” and “f” are in complementary distribution, “e” being used at the high pitch level, “f” at the lower.

Figure 3

Melody itself may be described by indicating and abstracting the generalized contour as well as by identifying melodic intervals in one composition or a body of compositions. In Cheremis music there is no predominating contour having a movement of a “specialized” kind) a movement which can be defined with a great deg ree of rigidity. Most of the songs have either undulating melodic movement, that is, movement in which ascent and descent are approximately balanced, and in which neither predominates to a great extent for any considerable period of time; or gradually descending movement, with some ascent interposed on occasion. In either type, the end of a song is likely to be lower than the beginning, and usually the ending is the lowest section of the entire song. A common type of contour is one in which the initial phrase descends rather decisively, but the subsequent phrases, which often consist of repeated material, are in arc-shaped contours, beginning with ascent and turning down again in the middle. This is found in Nos. 1 (Fig. 16, p. 37), 2, 7, 9, and 17, among others, of the Lach study. The contour may be symbolized by the following diagram.

Also very common is a type of contour which accompanies the songs that make use of transposition (see below). Here we find a tendency to present a section of music at increasingly low pitch levels. The melodic contour of the first section is not specialized. Once established, it is repeated several times, usually at increasingly low pitch levels (but sometimes higher). This kind of contour, illustrated by the following diagrams, or , is quite common in a number of areas throughout the world, especially among the American Indians and some Australians. Among the North American Plains Indians it is the standard type, and has been called “terrace-shaped” or “tile-shaped” (by Herzog, von Hornbostel, and others), and these designations are used in our study as well.

Another kind of contour in Cheremis music, found in only a few songs, is one in which there is a gradual rise of pitch. It is found in Nos. 168 and 217 of Lach’s study and is symbolized as follows: . Possibly it resulted from the upward transposition of sections ordinarily transposed downward, a practice perhaps caused by the “stage fright” of Lach’s informants. According to Vargyas, this is a common practice, although it does not reproduce the songs in the form most acceptable to the Cheremis.

The intervals in the melodies are in general those also present in the scales, with approximately the same frequency of occurrence. There are some sixths and octaves used as leaps, but the most important intervals are smaller, with major seconds and minor thirds predominating. The final intervals in songs are likely to be fairly large, usually thirds or fourths. However, repeated tones at the ends of songs are also common, as in Fig. 4.

Figure 4

The melodic contours are molded in part by certain practices of melodic composition which are relatively specialized and are found with considerable frequency in Cheremis music. One of these is the practice, in many songs, of using a form which is strictly repetitive except at the beginning. This may, in many cases, be responsible for the type of contour described above, in which an initial phrase is followed by several with the same kind of arc-shaped contour. The first phrase differs from the rest, but all those after it are simply repetitions of the second one.

The practice of transposition is also a determiner of melodic traits, although it is equally relevant to a description of form. Thus some aspects of it are discussed here, others in Section 2.4. Transposition is common in Cheremis music; it usually consists of moving a whole phrase to a pitch level below the original, and a series of such transpositions may also occur. A song may consist entirely of transpositions of a single phrase. In many songs each of two sections appears in transposition, as in Fig. 5.

Figure 5

Fig. 6 shows a more complicated arrangement. Eight musical lines are devided into two groups, the first four being transposed down a perfect fifth for the second four lines. But within the first four, transposition with some modification also exists. Thus the structure could be symbolized as follows (the symbols are explained in Sec. 2.4.):

A(1) A(2)₄ A(3)₃ A(2)_3-4
[A(1) A(2)₄ A(3)₃ A)2)_3-4]₅

Figure 6

Fig. 19, p. 41, shows a series of transpositions. The first line is repeated (with some modifications, to be sure) three times, a perfect fourth, fifth, and octave below the original. Although other kinds of sequences appear, in songs which use series of transpositions the use of perfect intervals such as the fourth, fifth, and octave, in that order, is most common, making the scheme A A₄ A₅ A₈ a standard form-type. In most cases, however, the second two sections can also be interpreted as a simple downward transposition of the first two by a fifth.

It is of great interest to find that there are two distinct ways of accomplishing transposition in Cheremis music. These can be presented by comparison with imitation as it is found in 17th and 18th century fugues. Here we have two ways of imitating a given theme. In the so-called real method, each tone of a given theme is transposed the same distance, so that exactly the same interval sequence as in the original is found also in the transposition. In the so-called tonal method, the transposition is approximate, the original being changed somewhat to conform to other considerations, e. g., in the case of the fugues, to tonality and key relationships. In Cheremis music, transposition of both kinds is found. In Fig. 5, transposition corresponding to the real method is present; the transposed section has the same interval sequence as the original. Fig. 7, however, is of the other type. This tonal method has been already described by KodcCly (Sajátságos dallamszerkezet), whose explanation and terminology differ somewhat from those used here.

Figure 7

Figure 8

It is possible to analyze the transposition in Fig. 7 simply as inaccurate, or approximate. However, let us examine the mode of this song; it is given with scale-step numbers assigned to the individual tones:

The transposition, if viewed from the standpoint of intervals, substitutes, for example, a major second for a minor third at the beginning, and so forth. However, if we indicate the melody by giving only the scale-steps as shown by the numbers in the above scale, we find that both of the phrases, the initial and the transposed, have analogous number sequences:

5 5 4 4 5 3 2 2 4 4 3 3 4 2 l
7 7 6 6 7 5 4 4 6 6 5 5 6 4 3

Thus, if we regard simply the tones of the mode as it exists in the song, without inferring the existence of omitted tones which appear only if we compare the scale to that of our Western tempered system, we find that the transposition is accurate. Thus the scale can be considered a phenomenon emerging from the development of composition devices and not from a previously established tone system, since such relatively simple processes as transposition seem to abide by it, whether the intervals are the same size or not.

An interesting example of tonal transposition is Fig. 9, in which the following order of tone numbers appears:

2 2 4 4 / 7 6 5 7 / 6 5 4 3 / 2 4 3 /
1 1 3 3 / 6 5 4 6 / 5 4 3 2 / 1 3 2 /
4 4 7 7 / 10 9 8 10 / 9 8 7 6 / 5 7 6 /
3 3 5 5 / 8 7 6 8 / 7 6 5 4 / 3 5 4 / .

Evidently a piece in which only the order of tones and not the intervals between them determines the relationship among the sections, this song goes beyond the usual practice of transposition of a fifth. The letter scheme could be A A_2-3 A⁵ A^3-2. The third section is inexact transposition, for its beginning is first two scale tones, then three, above the first section. The effect of tonal transposition is especially well seen through a comparison of the second and third measures in the various sections of Fig. 9, where seconds and thirds complement each other in scale-line movements which use the anhemitonic pentatonic scale without deviation.

Figure 9

At this point, it is relevant to make some critical remarks about the way transposition is ordinarily handled in Western theory. If transposition were made as it is in Fig. 10, it would be called accurate or “real,” the difference between the major and minor seconds ignored. However, in the type of transposition shown in Figs. 7, 8, and 19, the transposition would be called “tonal” or “un-real,” as it was by Kodály, because of the difference between major seconds and minor thirds. There is no logical reason for this distinction; it is made entirely on the basis of the supposed superiority and normality of the scale system of Western European theory. Actually, the amount of difference between the original and the transposition in the so-called “real” example (Fig. 10) is greater (50%) than in the Cheremis one (Fig. 7), where it is only 3370. The discrepancy here is due to the fact that both major and minor seconds bear the same name second, and that minor thirds, which are removed from major seconds by the same distance as the two types of seconds from each other, have a different name. Thus practically all transposition other than that based on chromatic or whole-tone scales is “tonal,” that is, based on the scale of the song itself, although the intervals of that scale may not be of the same size. The only truly “inaccurate” transpositions are those based on the omission of tones in the scale which would be present were transposition absolutely accurate in terms of the scale of the song itself. The above considerations show the need for revising Western theoretical concepts and the need for analyzing and describing musical styles in their own terms rather than by a comparison with the European norm.

Figure 10

2.2. Rhythm. A description of the rhythm of a musical style offers some difficulty because of the lack of theory concerning it. The rhythm of Cheremis music is described here in terms of the durational values used, the rhythmic design, and the meter.

It is useful to classify rhythm according to the number of durational values, i.e., note values, used in an individual song. Various musical styles are likely to use varying numbers of these, and the degree of importance occupied by the different note values is also a stylistic distinctive feature. Some styles, for example, use only two durational values in each song (half and quarter notes); others have six or seven distributed about equally in importance; others again are dominated by two or three values, but contain, in addition, some others which occur occasionally. Cheremis songs are most likely to have three durational values in the ratio of 1:2:4 (that is, eighth, quarter, and half notes). Many of the songs do, however, have some additional ones. Triplets juxtaposed to duplets are relatively rare, but are found, for example, in Lach, Nos. 2 and 111, and in Fig. 21, p. 48. Dotted rhythms are also rather rare, but they are found in Lach, Nos. 180, 223, and 225, among others. Syncopation is very rare, and the following type: . common in Hungarian folk music, for example, is hardly found at all in Cheremis music. There is a tendency for rhythmic units, including note values, metric units, and even phrases to increase in length towards the end of a song, as in Fig. 11, in which the second measure in each two-bar phrase is longer than the first, and each line ends in a half-note, which is longer than the other notes in the song. This is not, however, to be confused with simple retardation of the tempo.

Figure 11

Meter is classified as to its regularity. A song which keeps the same meter throughout is isometric, one which changes meter, heterometric. About 85% of the Cheremis songs are isometric. The following units are found, with their frequency expressed in percentages of the entire Cheremis material: 4/4, 77%; 3/4, 2%; 6/8, 2%; 5/4, 2%; 7/4, 1%; others, 1%. Fig. 12 illustrates quintuple meter; other meters can be found in various other examples in this study.

Figure 12

Somewhat less than 15% of the Cheremis songs are heterometric. Most of these are dominated by one type of meter, while other metric units are introduced only occasionally. The following list breaks down the heterometric songs by dominant meter and gives the frequency of each type in the entire Cheremis material: 5/4, 2%; 6/8, 2%; 4/4, 5%; 3/4, 2%; no dominant meter, 4%.

Most of the songs begin with accented notes, so that anacrusis (pick-up) is rare, being found in only about 13% of the songs. Isorhythmic patterns, the repetition of a series of rhythmic values with a different melody, are relatively common. However, they are usually associated with transposition of a section to various pitch levels, and can be found in the examples which illustrate transposition. Rhythmically, the singing style of the Cheremis is similar to the older style of Hungarian folk song, as described by Bartók, and other old styles of European folk singing (Hungarian Folk Music, pp. 8-39). It is of the parlando-rubato variety, with deliberate tempo, some changes in tempo, and a good deal of ornamentation.

A rather different picture is presented by the rhythm in the songs of the minor style (Sec. 3), which seems to be of more recent origin, since most of them have Soviet texts as well as a divergent musical style.

2.3. Ornamentation. The study of ornamentation is related to that of both melody and rhythm, since ornaments may be either melodic or rhythmic. A description of Cheremis ornamentation is handicapped by the fact that transcribers are prone to neglect especially this aspect of music, and the sources have great variety which can presumably be traced to the differences in transcription methods. Also, ornamentation is exceedingly difficult to define and identify in music. While certain musical phenomena in European cultivated music have been labeled ornaments by musicologists as well as by composers, it is hardly possible to elicit distinctions between ornaments and other material from an informant in a folk or primitive culture. An ornament, presumably, is an unessential note, or group of notes, which is intended to beautify, or add interest to, the composition. In Cheremis music, it seems impossible for an outsider to distinguish between essential and nonessential materials. Nevertheless, the published transcriptions of Cheremis music do include material which the transcribers evidently considered ornamental, because they notated it in smaller script; and the recordings of Cheremis songs yield passages which are similar in structure to the legitimate ornaments of Western cultivated music. Thus the discussion of ornamentation here is concerned with those phenomena in Cheremis music which resemble ornaments in Western cultivated music, and with those which the transcribers, for various reasons unstated by them, considered ornaments.

Ornamentation is fairly common in Cheremis music, but evidently somewhat less common than in Hungarian music, for example, to which it is otherwise relatively similar. The ornaments have a rather organic role in Cheremis music, since they are usually based on the material already present in a song. Thus the tones of the ornaments are those found also in the rest of the melody, and are not usually introduced separately in the scale. Trills, usually very short, and mordents are found in a few songs, eg., Lach Nos. 117 to 120, 126, and 136. Short, unstressed notes, which usually appear as grace notes in the notations, are rarer, but are found in Lach No. 131, for example. Turns consisting of four notes, the first and third on the same pitch, the second and fourth higher and lower, respectively, are found in a few songs, as shown in Fig. 13.

Figure 13

Ornamentation does not ordinarily conflict in any way with the rhythmic organization of the songs; the meters remain stable, for the ornaments occupy places within the metric units rather than being interpolated between them. There is some variation in the ornaments as they recur within a song (Fig. 64, p. 101).

The vocal technique of the Cheremis songs must be determined from the recordings of only one singer, since only those made by Iwan Jewskij at Indiana University were available to the writer, and since the published transcriptions do not accurately indicate this feature of a musical style. If we may judge from these few recorded examples, however, we may say that the vocal technique corresponds roughly to that of folk singers in Central and Eastern Europe. There are little vocal tension and few ornaments resulting from it; the singing is relatively relaxed, non-pulsating, and soft. However, the delivery is not as smooth-flowing as that in the performance of most trained Western singers of art song. Much more complex ornamentation, hinging on elaborate rhythmic structure, is found in many of the songs in Četkarev, the so-called minor style of Cheremis folk music. Whether these songs are all of more recent origin, whether their style was neglected by earlier collectors, or whether they are simply transcribed with more accuracy, cannot be ascertained. The third possibility seems unlikely in view of the good reputations of the transcribers in some of the other collections, especially Lach. Since many of these songs are associated with Soviet texts, it is possible that they are of recent origin and that elaborate ornamentation was introduced to the Cheremis in recent times, along with complex metric structure and variety.

Songs in the highly ornamented style abound with grace notes close in pitch to their neighboring notes. Groups of ornamental tones, runs, and rapid passages are rare, however. Četkarev believes that the highly ornamented style is an old Cheremis institution, and that it is particularly associated with laments. Indeed, he asserts that the simple style is newer than the ornamented one. This theory has some basis, since a similar picture is found in other European folk cultures, including Hungarian. But Četkarev’s explanation that the older Cheremis songs are ornamented because they are sad, while the newer ones are simple because they reflect the happiness of the people in the Soviet era, is unacceptable — for a number of obvious reasons.

Figs. 20, 22, 24, and 25, pp. 47, 49, 51, and 52, illustrate ornamentation.

2.4. Form. Under the classification of form we include the study of the interrelationships of the various sections within a song, their lengths, their material, and their variants. Essential for this is a method for designating the individual sections in a scheme which represents a song. For this, it is customary to use capital letters with superscripts or subscripts. The length of the section designated by a single letter varies in these analyses; sometimes it is a phrase, at other times a line determined by the text, and occasionally a shorter unit such as a measure, depending on the purpose of the analysis. The main criterion is repetition; a section which reappears in the song as a unit is designated by a letter, and its length determines the length of the unit of analysis. But, for each song, several letter schemes are possible. Numbers in parentheses indicate small degrees of variation; for example, A(1) is slightly different from A(2). More distant relationship is indicated by letter superscripts: for example, A and B^a are related in some specific way, such as melodic contour, rhythm, etc., but are otherwise relatively independent. Transposition is indicated by subscript and superscript numerals: A₅, for example, is A transposed down a fifth, and A⁵ is transposed up a fifth. Inexact or tonal transposition, in which the interval of transposition changes within the line, is indicated by hyphenated superscripts or subscripts: A^2-3, or A_{6_7}.

As was mentioned in Sec. 2.1., practically all of the Cheremis songs are strophic. This means that a tune is repeated in its entirety a number of times. There is some variation among the different strophes, variation which is not great enough, however, to make the entire song simply a series of variations on a theme rather than a repeated strophe. This type of variation can be seen in those transcriptions in Sec. 8 which have variants marked and indicated below the song proper. They are also illustrated in Fig. 14.

Figure 14

The variants are usually divergent only by substitutions of different kinds of ornaments. New tones, or new rhythmic features, are rarely, if ever, introduced in strophes subsequent to the first. The meter of a11 strophes in a song, and in the scales, is likely to remain the same.

In connection with variants, it is interesting to examine some of the variants of the same melody presented in Lach’s and Vasil’ev’s studies as separate songs. In Lach’s study, for example, songs Nos. 1-10 are obviously, at least for the Western observer, variants of the same melody. Yet, evidently, the informants considered them as separate songs, probably because of the textual considerations. This type of patterning has been found not only among the Cheremis, but also among other Finno-Ugric peoples of Russia as well as some Turkic ones. In Lach’s Cheremis study, although there are 233 songs according to native classification, there are probably not more than 5 0 separate, independent melodies. The conclusion to be drawn from this is that there are many more song texts in the culture than there are melodies and that the melodies are thus used repeatedly, for several texts, as the latter enter the repertory. This multiplicity of texts on the same melody was found also in the material sung by Jewskij. The rhythm of the melody is altered to conform with changes in the number of syllables when a substitution occurs, but the meter is not changed. For example, the first measures of Nos. 1 and 9 in Lach employ the same pitch and meter, but have different numbers of syllables and thus differ in durational values, as indicated in Fig. 15.

Figure 15

The relatively great independence of words and music is illustrated by the fact that new texts can be and often are superimposed on old melodies. An exchange of texts is common in folk and primitive music. Among the Cheremis, however, it may be an even more strongly observed custom than in some other cultures because of the large number of separate texts which accompany some of the individual melodies. The appearance of musical variants with unrelated texts is a phenomenon remarkable for its frequency in Cheremis song. No doubt the “Soviet Songs” which were arranged with new texts and old melodies became rooted in Cheremis culture largely because the practice of substituting song texts was already established.

The typical strophe of Cheremis music consists of several rather distinct sections; these can be identified because of their recurrence. Their cadential points are usually marked in one of two ways: final lengthening and repeated pitches. There are from four to eight sections to a strophe, five or six being average (counting all the repetitions of an individual phrase). Each phrase is likely to last about five seconds and to consist, on the average, of two measures. There is a tendency in some songs for the final phrases to be longer than the rest, following the principle of final length; however, this is not true in all songs. Indeed, the phrases in many Cheremis songs are at least of approximately the same length, a condition relatively rare in primitive music, but common in much of European folk music (except in the Balkan countries). The strophes are of medium length in Eastern European folk music, averaging about twenty seconds.

The musical material in the Cheremis songs is organized, as has been indicated, in sections or phrases. There is no evident difference between a section and a phrase. It is useful to indicate the number of different sections which appear in a song, this time not counting the repetitions of an individual phrase. Only the number of phrases having different melodic material concerns us here. In some songs a single phrase is repeated, others have two or more distinctive sections. The following list indicates the number of different sections in a song with the percentage of the total material in which it occurs: one section (including transpositions), 20%; two sections, 37%; three sections, 30%; more than three, 13%.

One way of classifying the relationship among the various sections of a song (see George Herzog, “Song,” in the Funk and Wagnalls Standard Dictionary of Folklore, Mythology, and Legend, New York, 1949, vol. 2, p. 1004) is based on the type of relationship between a given section and the succeeding one. Given one section, one may repeat it, causing an iterative relationship; go on to new material not previously encountered, causing a progrèssive relationship; and return to material previously given, causing a reverting relationship. These three types of relationship, iterative, progressive, and reverting, form the basis of contrast and lack of contrast in musical form. It is possible to classify a musical item in one of these categories, and it is even possible to characterize an entire musical style by them. Of course, it is hardly possible to have any one of them dominate an entire style exclusively. In practically all musical styles all three principles appear. Progressive tendencies, especially, are present in all songs to a degree, since some kind of new material must be introduced unless the entire song consists of repetitions of one note.

Cheremis music includes a great many different form types. The majority can be classified as either mainly reverting or mainly iterative. Purely progressive forms are very rare. Thus two principles can be said to characterize the entire style.

One of the most common form types is that in which a single section is followed by several repetitions of the second, as in the following schemes: A B B B B B B B (Lach, No. 2); A B B B B (Lach, No. 4); and A B B B (Lach, No. 77). A slightly more complex version of the same type of form is one in which two contrasting phrases are followed by the repetition of a third: A B C C (Lach, No. 37); A B C C C C (Lach, No. 77). These two types make up the largest single body of form types; the first occupies about 15% of the songs, the second 7%. A third type, also iterative, and probably the simplest of all, consists of a single phrase repeated several times. It is called the litany-type (after a prominent Western medieval song type), it is found in about 5% of all Cheremis songs, and it is represented as follows: A A A A A A A A, etc. A rarer iterative type reverses the above order in which progression preceded repetition. Here the repetitive elements precede the progressive ones: A(1) A(2) B(1) B(2) C D A F (Četkarev, p. 55). Slight variation among the various repetitions of one section does occur. Other iterative types of form are those in which each section is repeated only once; this can be called the paired-phrase type of form: A ? B B (Lach, No. 17); and A(1) A(2) B B (Lach, No. 206). A somewhat more complex version of the iterative type, combined with some reversion, is represented by the scheme: A B B A B B. It is found in about 4% of the songs.

Reverting form types are slightly less common than those with mainly iterative tendencies, but they appear in more different manifestations. The most common, appearing in about 9% of the songs, consists of only two sections: A B A B (Lach, No. 20). Other, somewhat less common reverting forms follow: A B A B C (Lach, No. 29); A B A B A B (Palantaj, No. 12); A B C D A B (Lach, No. 32); A B C A (Lach, No. 43); A B A A (Lach, No. 54); A B A B C C (Lach, No. 60); A B C A D C (Lach, No. 80); A B C B C B (Lach, No. 93); A B C C B C C C B C (Lach, No. 102); A B C B C (Lach, No. 130); A B C B C (Lach, No. 160); and A B A C D A D F (Lach, No. 202). The different sections of a song are sometimes interrelated in subtle ways. Thus, in Fig. 16, the end of the first section is identical with the beginning of the second. The third section is a transposition of the first, but the fourth is simply a duplication of the second. Fig. 40 is similarly subtle in its reproduction of the material of the first line in the fourth, beginning at a different point in the measure, so that a metric dislocation results, and in the identity of Measure 1 of the first and third lines.

Figure 16

From this sampling one can see the relatively large number and the varying degrees of complexity in reverting forms. Few of the form types appear in more than one song, but most of them share certain underlying principles, such as the combination of reversion with iteration, and the non-reversion of at least one section in a song.

Purely progressive forms are rare but they do occur occasionally, as in the following examples: A B C D (Lach, No. 66; Palantaj, No. 36); and ABC (Lach, No. 48).

We have so far not included any detailed discussion of forms in which transposition take s place. Those forms usually would fall in the category of iteration or reversion, although there is some reason for calling the relationship between a section and its transposition progressive because of the change in tonal material. However, thus far we have considered transposition merely as a repetition, with some variation, of the original section; in the above tabulations transposition has been considered iteration.

Many of the songs with transposition have the following form: A B A₅ B₅. This means that the form consists of the transposition of the entire first half to a higher pitch, so that the strophe itself could perhaps be considered as consisting of only two sections, and that this strophe is transposed at every second repetition. However, this interpretation does not fit in with the strophic organization of the texts, and consequently it is not useful. According to Kadály (Die ungarische Volksmusik), approximately 25% of all Cheremis songs include transposition at some point, and about half of these have the form indicated above. Occasionally the transposition is to a point a fourth above the original rather than a fifth, as in Lach, No. 208: A B A⁴ B⁴. According to the writer’s findings, however, about 45% of the Cheremis songs use transposition. Transposition to intervals other than fourths and fifths is relatively rare, but seconds, thirds, and even sevenths are found occasionally. We also find forms in which only some of the sections are transposed, as in Fig. 57, p. 98: A A₄ B C^b C^b; and Fig. 16: A | |: B^a A₅ : | | B^a. The other important form type which uses transposition employs one section presented at various levels, for example, A A₄ A₅ A₈ (Fig. 19). This form often combines the two main types of transposition, lines 3 and 4 being an exact, real transposition of lines 1 and 2, but line 2 being a tonal or inexact transposition of line 1 (as in Fig. 11, p. 24).

A few songs use transposition in less rigidly defined patterns: for example, A A₃ A² A₂ (Fig. 17); and A(1) B B₄ C(1) A (2)₄ B₄ B (2)₄ C(2) (Fig. 18, using each measure as a unit).

Transposition of a section of music to various levels is not limited to Cheremis music. It occurs in many parts of the world, notably in other parts of Eastern Europe and Asia, in North American Indian music, and in some styles of Western European folk music. (See Section 6.2.)

Figure 17

Figure 18

Figure 19