Except for a few casual remarks in the specialized works of historians, linguists, travelers, and ethnographers, the musical folklore of Kirghizia received virtually no attention in pre-Revolutionary publications. But, even though the scattered observations of pre-Revolutionary nonmusician scholars failed to convey a comprehensive idea of this folklore, they continue to provide valuable source material in terms of vivid first impressions of the people's musical life. All of the reports refer to improvisational song-creation as the most typical characteristic. And all remark upon its popular nature, traditionalism, and ties with the soil.

One of the most pressing demands of current Hungarian folk music research is to single out those precise elements in the traditions of Hungarian folk music which can be proved to be archaic residues of an early culture of Finno-Ugric origin. Under the inspiration of the labours of Bartók and Kodály this goal was attacked with enthusiasm as much as with methodical reflection. The methods of investigation which have been applied and also the results of the research attained thus far could arouse objection at many points. On the other hand, there can be no doubt about the justification of formulating the question as such.

Following the model of linguistic science, Hungarian folk music research has used above all comparative as well as historical methods. Through close study of recent collections of melodies recorded from Finno-Ugric peoples living far apart from each other, pains have been taken to establish stylistic coincidence or relationships which justify the tracing back of certain melodic structures and style complexes to Finno-Ugric roots.

Frequent use of supplementary syllables distinguishes the singing from the speech of many Irish folk singers. These syllables are formed in the meaningful text by recourse to various procedures which have their basis in the spoken language; but the lengthening of speech in song greatly enlarges their scope. It is true that the extra syllables are weakly stressed ones; nevertheless, their number can be so great that their presence becomes quite obtrusive. They obtruded forcefully on the ear of an Anglo-Irish poet of the nineteenth century, William Allingham, as he listened to a fair-day ballad-seller singing a long Anglo-Irish song; and he took the opportunity to amuse his Victorian public by printing one of its stanzas in mock phonetic spelling:

after which he gave the orthographical text as follows:

The survival of any type of music in Ghana is dependent upon the extent to which the music is able to satisfy the values the people look for in such music. The values, which may be aesthetic or structural, social or religious, may operate individually or in a simultaneous complexity. In other words the factors that shape and maintain the folk music in Ghana may be found in the music per se, in the artist or in the context of performance.

There are musical norms which the community expect in a musical performance. One such norm is the sound quality. The Ghanaian concept of music (and this may go for other African peoples too) does not unduly discriminate between sounds of definite pitches and sounds of indefinite pitches. It is true that in some situations the emphasis may be on one or the other. However, examples abound in which musical ensembles employ both pitched and unpitched instruments. And both categories of sound are given relatively equal roles in a performance.

A recent article by Jairazbhoy in Ethnomusicology is perhaps the first cogent account of the oboe in India. Here I wish to offer a few comments on his paper and give some supplementary material and ideas.

Musical history research and ethnomusicology have hitherto usually been treated as separate fields. One of the reasons for this is doubtless the search for a way in which the material to be dealt with should be presented. Historical research has, as we know, to do with a body of musical fact which has been handed down through the medium of notation and therefore exists in a more or less concrete form. Non-European music and European folk music, on the other hand, are exclusively dependent upon oral tradition. To begin with, the latter does not, as Robert Lachmann once very aptly expressed it, exist for us at all. Materials must first be made indirectly tangible for us through special means, that is to say, they must be translated through recording and transcription out of the sphere of oral tradition into that of written notation. This is certainly one of the chief reasons why musical history research and ethnomusicology have hitherto gone different ways, each with its own independent aims, complexes of problems and methods.

Die ungarische Volkstanzforschung unserer Tage ist die organische Fortsetzung jener am Anfang des Jahrhunderts begonnenen Forschungsarbeit, deren erste bedeutende Zusammenfassung das Werk Marian Réthei Prikkels: A magyarság táncai (Die Tänze des Ungartums), Budapest, 1924, ist. Sein unvergängliches Verdienst ist die Erschliessung des äusserst bedeutsamen historischen Quellenmaterials und der Entwurf der Konturen eines umfassenden Bildes. Seine Mängel zeigen sich in erster Linie darin, dass das neuere Tanz- und Tanzmusikmaterial unerschlossen blieb. Um die Beseitigung dieser Mangelhaftigkeit machte sich Sándor Gönyey als erster verdient; er machte die ersten Schritte zur zeitgemässen Fixierung des lebendigen Volkstanzes, als er sich in seiner Sammelarbeit ab 1926 eines Kinoapparates bediente. Die Ergebnisse der Sammlungen Sándor Gönyey und die Tanz- und Tanzmusikforschungen von László Lajtha werden in ihrem gemeinsamen Aufsatz, im Tanzkapitel des IV. Bandes A magyarság Néprajza (Ungarische Ethnographie), 1937, zusammengefasst.