The Fifth International Symposium on Traditional Polyphony ...

Some Considerations on the Interpretation of Multipart Music on Early Sound Documents
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2. Pöch’s Kalahari recordings 1908
Pöch’s Kalahari recordings show another kind of multipart singing. As G. Kubik discovered, it was
possible to find the specific polyphony after Pöch’s field work as well. Pöch’s recordings may well represent
the oldest sound documents of polyphony of the Khoisan-speaking peoples in the south-west of Africa, but
on several expeditions during the second half of the 20 th century, it was possible to document once more
these styles of music. In that case we could assume that the technique as such had not changed so that this
“tradition” might have survived.
<strong>The</strong> protocol of Ph 757 characterising the songs in Pöch’s words says the following: “Women’s singing
and handclapping accompanying men’s dance: All bushmen dances that I have so far witnessed in Oas and
Zachas on the western edge of the Kalahari, in the Gobabis district, are introduced and accompanied by such
or similar singing. <strong>The</strong> women form a quadrant, with the babies, whom they never put away, in the awa cloth
on their backs, clap their flat hands, and start singing. <strong>The</strong>n, gradually, the men appear, many with dance rattles
on their ankles, starting their dance rows, one after the other. <strong>The</strong> women, making up the orchestra, clap and
continue to sing, even if one or the other dances towards the men, which is part of the dance figure. In none of
the Bushmen songs do I hear any words (only syllables like hua-ho-he or hoe-hohe)” (Lechleitner, 2003: 37).
<strong>The</strong> recordings all comprise vocal polyphonies developing over one or two fundamentals in the harmonic
range. <strong>The</strong> example (Ph 758) which Kubik compared with his own recordings from 1965 and also 1992 is
sung in a style strongly reminiscent of that of female singers from Angola’s !Kung’ Bushmen. As Kubik
also mentioned the songs are accompanied by interlocking handclapping (cf. Kubik, 2003: 23) (fig. 4, 5;
audio ex. 1, 2).
3. Rudolf Trebitsch – recordings from Greenland 1906
In 1906 the Phonogrammarchiv sent out an expedition to West Greenland. <strong>The</strong> purpose of the expedition
was to record songs, stories and legends and to collect ethnographic and natural science objects for what is
today the Natural History Museum Vienna. <strong>The</strong> example chosen from that collection shows the influence of
missionary work but also the resistance of the proselytes. Only with the aid of local helpers was Trebitsch
able to document the drum-song tradition. <strong>The</strong> tradition says that women and men would sing and form a
circle around a dancer and drummer, most often a man. <strong>The</strong> performance is called suakattarneq and is known
from old drawings and descriptions dating back to the time of the first missionaries in the 18 th century. <strong>The</strong>
missionaries strongly opposed any kind of drum singing and would punish a drum singer by destroying his
drum and excluding him from Holy Communion. At the beginning of the 20 th century, as M. Hauser noted,
one could only find remnants of traditional singing in the most remote trading posts, and the population only
dared to perform and enjoy the old songs at night and in the catechist’s absence. <strong>The</strong> drum singing was thus
a kind of hidden tradition.
<strong>The</strong> recording comprises three songs; Trebitsch seemed to have been bent on getting as much out of his field
recordings as possible, namely a huge repertory. <strong>The</strong>refore he asked them only to sing one stance, and then he
switched off the machine and started again for the next item. <strong>The</strong>se stops cause a distinct acoustic signal which
can be explained as follows: When Trebitsch started recording again, the machine needed some time to reach the
right speed (because of the inertia of masses in movement and the stiffness of the wax). <strong>The</strong>refore the signal in the
first seconds was recorded too slow and was thus lower, but in the re-recording process such parts sound higher.
Such inadequacies can be corrected in the digital domain to some extent, but not completely.
In this example men and women are singing together. <strong>The</strong> lower voice is sung by men, they imitate the