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120bars). In both of these three-bar sections the melody moves on the notes of the simpletriad. But there is a crucial difference in these two three-bar sections: in the first threebars we have the simple triad-based melody, say, on the notes of the triad of A-major: (A-C#-E), (sometimes only two notes out of the triad are used, as in this example: C#-E).Then, in the next three bars the melody suddenly modulates a major second up, into B-major, and now there is the same kind of melodic movement on the triad notes of B-major: (B-D#-F#). Let us look at a typical sutartines melody:Fig. 7 Typical melody of secondal polytonal sutartines (from the previousexample)Now let us have a look what happens to this melody when it is performed in apolyphonic way. This kind of polyphony, when both parts sing the same melody, but thesecondpart starts singing a bit later, is called canon. “This looks like a round,” somereaders might say. That’s correct. Generally, the term “Round” is another, more popularEnglish name for the same kind of musical composition when performers sing the samem elody in two groups, the second group starting a bit later. There can be more than twogroups, of course, and they would all sing the same melody after each other. As the firstpart finishes the melody, it starts singing the melody over again (at the right point, ofcourse), and the other parts do the same. This goes on and on and on. Canons usuallyhave no “legitimate” ending, that’s why the cohesive ending of a canon (round) is oftenthe most difficult part of the performance. The starting moment for the second(following) group is different. Sometimes the second part joins in after just a couple ofnotes, more often a bar or two, but sometimes it comes even later.In sutartines the starting moment of the second part is crucial. The second partcomes in when the first half of the melody is finished and the melody is moving tothe modulated section. As a result, we have two parts, singing simultaneously the triadnotes of different triads ([A]-C#-E and B-D#-F#) all the time. As both phrases are of thesame length, exactly when the first part moves from (A)-C#-E into B-D#-F# triad, thesecond part moves from B-D#-F# into a (A)- C#-E triad, so constant sounding ofdissonant seconds is guaranteed.As we can see, two tonal centres (in our case, “A” and “B”), soundsimultaneously. This is a very interesting and clear case of polytonality in traditionalmusic, obviously used long before the revolutionary use of polytonality in 20 th centurymusic by Ives, Bartok, Stravinsky and other composers who revolutionized musicalharmoniclanguage. No wonder that at the beginning of the 20 th century the singing styleof sutartines, based on the constant use of sharp seconds, sounded “horrible” to someeducated musicians. Some educated Lithuanians even compared this singing style to “acrocodile, singing in parallel second accords…” (Rachiunaite, 2002:31).Although sutartines is actually always two-part polyphony, it can be traditionallyperformed by two, three or four performers. These forms of sutartines are appropriatelycalled dvejines (“dve” means “two”, “dvejines” means “twosome”), trejines (threesome),and “keturines” (foursome). There are plenty of different types and sub-types ofsutartines. Slaviunas, whose three-volume work in Lithuanian remains the most inclusive