who asked the first question? - International Research Center For ...

109It represents an interesting mixture of elements of chromatic and diatonic scales (forexample: F, Gflat, and Adouble flat in some songs). The same type of scale is spreadamong the neighbouring Bosnia and Herzegovina polyphonic songs as well. Here is anexample of small-range dissonant two-part singing from Serbia:Ex. 50. West Serbia. (Kaufman, 1968:#263)As in many other parts of the Europe, there is a late polyphonic style in Serbia aswell, based on the use of parallel thirds, and finishing on a cadencial fifth at the end ofthe musical phrases. The bass makes a specific cadencial movement from the initial tonica fourth downwards. Interestingly, this late style sometimes also uses the drone in theaccompanying part:Both the more archaic style (with the use of dissonant seconds) and the recentstyle (based on parallel thirds) are based on two-part polyphony (Golemovich, 1983):Ex. 51. Serbia. Recent polyphonic style. (Golemovich, 1983:#58)MontenegroMontenegro, a small mountainous country, is a part of Serbia and Montenegrostate unity. The Montenegrins still mostly live in predominantly agricultural societies andretain many elements of their traditional culture. Unfortunately, although scholars of afew other countries did a series of fieldwork and publications, due to the lack of anational school of ethnomusicology, the traditional music of Montenegro is possibly theleast studied among the Balkan peoples. Ethnomusicologists note the existence of fourregional musical styles in Montenegro (Petrovich, 2000:957). Acording to the availableincomplete information from Montenegro, unlike most of the Balkan countries, theMontenegro singing tradition is mostly monophonic (solo). The tradition of vocalpolyphony has been documented only in the Southwestern part of Montenegro, on theborder with Herzegovina. Here on both sides of the border the same “Balkan” style ofpolyphony is documented, based on the wide use of drone and the coordination of parts inmajor seconds. This kind of polyphony, according to Petrovich, “occurs in shepherds’and wedding songs of the Southwest region of Montenegro” (Petrovich, 2000:958).Interestingly, Albanian migrants from the mountainous area of Malesi (the Montenegro-Albanian border), the so-called “Malisori”, also sing polyphonically in Montenegro. Hereis a rare published example of Montenegro two-part singing with almost constantsounding seconds: