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175Easter Island] and the westernmost small islands laying deep within the Melanesianterritory (Luangiua, Bellona, Tikopia, Anuta. See Besnier et al., 1998:843, 850, 852,856). Community participation in choral singing is so intense that, for example, in a smallAnuta atoll with only 200 residents, when a member of society dies, the populationdivides itself into “small’ choirs of about twenty members (thus, each choir has 10% ofthe total population of the island!) and they all sing at the deceased’s house one afteranother” (Feinberg, see in Besnier, et al., 1998:857).MelanesiaAccording to the above-mentioned compilation works of Schneider and Lomax,drone polyphony has been the leading form of traditional polyphony not only inPolynesia, but in Melanesia as well. Interestingly, the dissonant nature of the indigenouspolyphonic tradition of Oceania has been better preserved in Melanesia, where thestylistic parallels between some European polyphonic traditions and some Melanesianregions reach astonishing precision. Parallels between the singing in dissonant seconds offaraway Balkan mountaineers and Admiralty islanders are among the best known andmost puzzling in ethnomusicology, involving polyphonic traditions of faraway regions ofthe world. Discussed at different times by Erich Moritz von Hornbostel, Jaap Kunst, andFlorian Messner, this issue will be discussed, together with other comparative issues, inthe next part of the book.Polyphonic singing from Guadalcanal Island makes good representation of theMelanesian polyphony. “The vocal music of Guadalcanal also uses a drone, above whichtwo solo parts interweave melodic lines. In the Nginia language, a person may say thatthe first voice opens (hihinda) the singing, the second follows (tumuri), and the dronegrowls (ngungulu). In women’s singing throughout the island, the growl is a continuousdrone, like that of the panpipe ensemble … In three-part instrumental or vocal polyphonyof Guadalcanal, the melodic parts at the end of stanzas and pieces join the tone of thedrone, so all parts cadence in unison or at the octave. Besides this type of polyphony, thesongs of Guadalcanal feature two solo vocal parts having wide ranges and frequent andrapid change of register, a kind of yodeling“ (Zemp, in Kaeppler et al 1998a:665). Asimilar tradition of drone three-part singing exists on the neighbouring small volcanicIsland Savo with 1500 residents, who have the same kind of drone polyphonic singingtradition (ibid, 1998:666). Good examples of Polynesian and Melanesian polyphony arepresented in the volume 9 of The Garland Encyclopedia of World Music, “Australia andPacific Islands”.New GuineaNew Guinea is the biggest land area of the Melanesia. It is also an importantregion for the polyphonic traditions. For example, the Indonesian province of WestPapua (formerly Irian Jaya) is home to several mountain peoples from the Central IrianJaya regions, who widely use vocal polyphony: the Moni, Dani, and Yali.The songs of another mountain people, the Moni ,“are famous for a thickharmonic texture, with melodies sung in parallel motion on chords using ninths andelevenths, transcribable as C-E-G-B-D-F, over a bass drone” (Chenoweth et al,