Abstract

The article is dedicated to the memory of the famous American ethnomusicologist Natalie Curtis Burlin (1875–1921), who made a significant contribution to the study of traditional music of North American Indians. This is the first experience in Russian musicology that addresses the theoretical issues of studying Native American vocal music. The main research problem of the article is the identification of the basic qualities of oligotonics and chasmatonics in traditional songs of North American Indians by the example of expeditionary records of Natalie Curtis. The author reveals that unichords, dichords and trichords, both in themselves and in their combinations, have semantic, symbolic and structure- forming significance for the formation of intonational structure of traditional Indian songs (lullaby, medicine, song-insert in mythological legend). The methodological base was formed by approaches of modern ethnomusicology (analysis of song genres of traditional ethnic music) and music theory (theory of mode and modal archetypes).

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