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An Analysis of 651 Maori Scales

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 February 2019

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Abstract

In the first part of this paper, three New Zealand Maori scales and a possible fourth were derived from interval associations, using strict criteria of melodic usage. An unexplained fact is the coincidence of these three scales with the plagal forms of the medieval phrygian, ionian, and aeolian modes. Historical connection with ancient Greece seems too unlikely a hypothesis to be entertained, and exposure of the Maoris to the medieval modes through early missionary activity can also be ruled out. An alternative explanation is that the ancient Greeks and the New Zealand Maoris shared common principles in their music which led to the evolution of similar scales, but such principles seem impossible to demonstrate. The conclusion must be that there is, as yet, no acceptable explanation for the parallels observed in this paper between Maori scales and those of medieval Europe and ancient Greece.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © 1971 By The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois 

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References

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4 Throughout this paper, scale notes are referred to not in music notation but in terms of intervallic distance from the tonic. This is diagrammed in Example 1. Thus a scale with the notes A B C Dߕ, where C is the tonic, would be m3 m2 T m2.Google Scholar

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6 Four songs were somehow omitted from the song type analysis and one or two counting errors were evidently also made. Interval counts by song type therefore show slight discrepancies from those by tribe. The errors are not enough, however, to affect results seriously.Google Scholar

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8 Pentatonic is here used in its newly accepted sense of “five note.” The anhemitonic pentatonic with its characteristic omission of the third or fourth and seventh is foreign to Maori chant.Google Scholar

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63 The same situation prevails in the Cook Islands today. On Aitutaki in the southern Cooks, for example, the older people sing hymns using a native polyphonic style called 'imene ('imene no te akamurianga, “hymns for worship”). The younger people sing so-called Sunday school hymns ('imene api'i Sabati) which have native texts but use European tunes. Some of the older girls are familiar with both styles and sing both with the Sunday school children and with the older people.Google Scholar

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