Reiteration Quotients: A Cross-Cultural Comparison
Mieczyslaw Kolinski · Ethnomusicology · 1982
A melody contains progressions between either two different or two identical pitches; the former constitute steps, the latter tone reiterations. A comprehensive intercultural investigation of the functions of tone reiterations and of their correlations with other facets of musical and textual organization is beyond the scope of a short paper. Faced with this situation, I decided, as a point of departure, to embark on an objective determination of the degree of impact exerted by tone reiterations on the musical styles of different cultures. The importance of tone reiterations in a certain musical style can be measured in terms of reiteration quotients, expressed in centigrades and indicating the proportion between the number of tone reiterations and the total number of progressions in a melody. For example, the tune, Mary had a little lamb, contains 26 tones or 25 progressions, 9 of them tone reiterations (ex. 1). The proportion 9:25 equals 36:100 and yields consequently the reiteration quotient (RQ) of 360. This paper compares the reiteration quotients of a sampling (see Sources) of ten musical styles, represented by about one thousand songs, from three distinct cultural areas: Europe, Africa and Afro-America, and Native America. Regarding the necessary endless arithmetic operations, I wish to express my sincere gratitude for the encouragement and efficient assistance I received from my recently acquired electronic pocket calculator.