BDB Bertsolaritzaren datu-basea

Eastern and Central Arctic of Canada. Unusual,because two of the principal parameters of traditional musical analysis are not adequate for its study: neither fixed pitches nor fixed intervals occur with significant regularity in the patterns of throat-game songs. Unusual also, because transcription of the micro-structure of this genre confronts the ethnomusicologist with new dichotomies of sound categories, among which are voiced pitch and voiceless pitch. "How people sing," according to Curt Sachs (1965:85), "is no less meaningful than what they sing." The present study is a small introduction to the consideration of two different aspects of "how they sing," namely: 1) a brief mention of the intonation contours and 2) an in-depth discussion of the contrasts of voiced vs. voiceless pitch. Before discussing these two elements of the musical object's microstructure, a short description of the musical