as a precedent and will lead to the frequent interchange of views between the two societies.

The analysis of Folk-music seems to me to be a peculiarly valuable branch of Folk-lore work. For, apart from the intrinsic interest of the subject to the musician, the results that are obtained must inevitably throw a flood of light upon the vexed question of origins, not only of folk-music in particular, but of all folk-products as well.

With regard to the origin of the Folk-tune there are two distinct schools of thought, more or less opposed to one another.

On the one hand, there are many who believe that the folk-tune has been composed by the individual, just like any other tune; that there is no distinct line of cleavage between folk-music and art-music; that anonymity of authorship is a mere accident and of no scientific consequence; and that the popular song is popular not in origin but in destination.

On the other hand, there are those who affirm that folkmusic can be sharply distinguished from art-music; that the former is music sui generis. They contend that the folk-tune is not the output of the single individual, but the evolved product of a community of makers; that the process of evolution is continuous, lasting as long as the life of the song itself; that the anonymity of the folk-song, so far from being a mere accident, is the necessary consequence of the peculiar method of its creation; and that, finally, it is a popular song in its origin, that is to say, it has proceeded from the common people themselves, and has not simply been addressed to them from the outside.

Neither side can produce any direct evidence in support of their contention, simply because no one has ever witnessed the actual creation of a folk-song, and now, of course, no one ever will. All arguments must therefore be

by the observation of the folk-song collector when in close contact with the folk-singers, or upon the analysis of the folk-tunes themselves.

If, for example, the musical analyst can show that folkmusic possesses technical musical peculiarities which are not to be found in art-music, then surely he raises a powerful presumption in favour of the communal origin of the folk-song, ie. the second of the two theories just now enunciated.

I hope to be able to convince you this evening that this is so, by calling your attention to certain characteristics of folk-music which I believe are peculiar to the musical creations of the folk, and are absent from the composed music of the skilled and educated musician. I can, of course, in a single evening place before you only a few of the salient and most clearly defined characteristics of folkmusic.

The first and most important point about English folkmusic is that a great deal of it is cast in the modes, i.e. in scales which have been obsolete, so far as art-music is concerned, for fully three centuries. Anterior to the year 1600, skilled musicians were not, strictly speaking, tune-makers at all; they were, for the most part, engaged in learning how to manipulate themes, not in originating them. In their eyes the tune was simply the groundwork upon which their inventions were built. Very frequently they drew upon the store of folk-tunes for their themes, and in many cases acknowledged the fact upon the title-pages of their compositions. Later on, no doubt, musicians invented their themes as they do at the present day, but that was not until long after the modern scales had supplanted the modes. So that the fact of a tune being cast in one or other of the ancient modes is prima facie a very strong argument in favour of its folk-origin.

I am afraid I must explain to you something of the

construction of melody. This will necessitate a preliminary investigation into the technical nature of tunes.

All the seven natural notes are represented in the following air:—

EXAMPLE I.

SEEDS OF LOVE.

Major.

The same seven natural notes occur in this tune also:—

With very few exceptions all English folk-tunes are alike in this respect; i.e., so far as their note-material is concerned they are identical. The natural notes, i.e. the white notes of the pianoforte, form what is called the diatonic scale, which may be defined as a series of notes arranged in

group being separated from its neighbours by the interval of a semi-tone.

English folk-airs are therefore, as a general rule, diatonic tunes. This, however, is a very wide classification. If we are to subdivide any further we must discover another principle in tune-construction.

The seven notes of a tune are not all equal in value and importance. There is always one note which exercises a dominating and controlling influence over the remaining six; ie., every tune has a centre of gravity; or, to put it in another way, the seven notes of a tune may be likened to a solar system, six of them-planets-revolving round and owning allegiance to the seventh-the sun.

In The Seeds of Love, the central sun is clearly C; in The Princess Royal it is as clearly A.

This note is called the Key note or Tonic, and is usually the final note.

It is this principle which, more than anything else perhaps, gives unity to a tune and makes it intelligible. That the primitive musician has always felt the need of a constant reference to the predominant tonic-note is shown by the large number of folk-airs which may be classed as drone-tunes, i.e. tunes that either are or might be accompanied throughout by a single sound. The drone-note is, of course, actually sounded in bag-pipe airs, and more than suggested in tom-tom and pipe-andtabor tunes; whilst in many folk-song airs the reference to the tonic, though only implied, is very strong. In the following tunes-Green Bushes, an English folk-song, and The Sherborne Jig, a pipe-and-tabor dance-air-the note G may be sounded throughout without producing any unpleasant sound-combinations.

Diatonic tunes may thus be divided into seven groups or species, viz., those which have respectively A, B, C, D, E, F, or G, for their tonics. These groups are called modes.

Obviously they differ very materially from one another. For the relationships between the six notes of a tune and its tonic will vary with every change of tonic. Thus each mode represents a different species of solar system, in