Vocal Folk-Polyphonies of the Western Orient in Jewish Tradition

Looking for a plain definition of what is generally called 'polyphony' and leaving aside all technicalities, we encounter the fateful question if this kind of music making is at all in the nature of man, and therefore given to produce natural laws, or at least some regularities that can be relied upon in the recognition of any deviation. Former generations would probably have denied the validity of such a sophisticated argument: Man is born with his voice alone and is therefore, by nature, a monophonic 'organon'. For this very reason, many primitive civilizations, and even more developed ones outside Europe had remained, apparently, in this original state of monophony while part singing and group playing were considered an art product and a late result of cultural processes. Recently, however, ethnomusicology has reversed much of this conventional thought. Man is gifted not only with his voice, but also with some strong bodily motor impulses like clapping, stepping, snapping which may assume, at a chosen moment, the suggestive force of sound instruments and may join the singing in some sort of sound combination. The singer may also accompany himself on some kind of stringed instrument by plucking or bowing, as do the bards wherever they are still to be found, or he may counterpoise his singing by beating the drums or an array of percussion instruments as does the band-man, again producing some simultaneous sounds of different pitch and tone colour and that is all that is needed to arrive at a plain definition of polyphony, in accordance with present day standards of music research.