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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.
It is made up mostly of the tones A, C, D, and E. These tones belong to the pentatonic scales of C major and its relative minor A. In tonality, the song cannot be considered as belonging to either of these keys, as there is a very distinct feeling of B-flat in it, notwithstanding that the tone is seldom dwelt upon, but passed over quickly, almost glissando, in nearly every place where it occurs.
"The human voice," Wallaschek<1> tells us, "equally admits of any pentatonic or heptatonic intervals, and very likely we should never have got regular scales if we had depended upon the ear and voice only. The first unique cause to settle the type of a regular scale is the instrument."
Referring again to the Da-eng ceremony, it is interesting to observe that the three different parts of this ceremony are in distinct scales, and that the part sung by the girls alone, is diatonic in character while the other two parts are pentatonic. Conclusion.
Notwithstanding that this measure contains two A-flats and also the passing tone B-natural, both of which tones are foreign to this particular five-note scale, the song is not robbed of its pentatonic character. The rhythm of this song is interesting. It alternates throughout between 4/4 and 5/4. It might have been notated in 9/4 time instead, in which case it would have but five measures.
Sometimes, however, the full gorgeousness of Byzantine art shines through this music, and the gold-dusty modes, the metallic flatness of the pentatonic scale, the mystic twilit chants and brazen trumpet-calls make us see the mosaics of Ravenna, the black and gold ikons of Russian churches, the aureoled saints upon bricked walls, the minarets of the Kremlin.
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