Transposition as a Composition Technique in Folk and Primitive Music

Abstract

Among the various composition devices found in folk and primitive music, transposing a section to various pitch levels is one of the most widespread. Used in many different ways and accomplishing a number of different effects, its degree of intensity in the cultures of the world varies considerably. The purpose of this paper is not to give the geographic distribution of the types of transposition, but to present the most important types encountered in folk and primitive music and to illustrate them with examples from a variety of cultures. Transposition is here defined, rather broadly, as any reappearance of the same musical material at different pitch. levels within a composition. Exact transposition is not required since, taken objectively, very little transposition is really exact, and since the criteria for exactness evidently vary with the culture and its tonal organization. Furthermore, the reappearance of a portion of the music at a different pitch may be immediate or occur after intervening material. The so-called melodic sequence is not the only phenomenon considered here.