La danse populaire est une variété folklorique des plus persistantes. Les descriptions des rondes et des danses qu'on exécutait il y a 100-160 ans, correspondent entièrement aux rondes et aux danses qu'on exécute encore de nos jours dans les mémes localités. Malgré leur stabilité, les danses popularires subissent une évolution et une rénovation graduelles. La rénovation de la ronde s'effectue de trois manières: (1) Une ronde locale déterminée commence à se danser sur une nouvelle mélodie, ce qui amène un changement de rythme et une tendance à accentuer certains mouvements et certains gestes. (2) Sans que la mélodie change—celle-ci étant intimement liée à l'exécution d'une ronde locale déterminée—les danseurs y apportent des changements dans les pas, les mouvements et les gestes. (3) Par l'introduction simultanée de modifications dans la mélodie et dans la composition choréographique.

In Eastern Moravia and districts still further east, we find a special type of rhythmical accompaniment in folk dance-music, performed by second fiddle and bass in a string ensemble. Each bow-stroke (both down and up) regularly combines two rhythmic values with the accent on the second element. Two bow-strokes, first down, then up, correspond to a single two-four bar. Variant types of this accompaniment are also found in Hungarian and Rumanian folk music. In some districts in Slovakia, it is referred to as duvaj, perhaps an attempt to express its character onomatopoeically.

The duvaj-accompaniment has distinctive characteristics in each district. This is clearly shown by the optical recordings of changes in sound intensity (Fig. 1). The first example (upper tracing of five bars) comes from Eastern Slovakia (Vyšné Raslavice); the second (lower tracing of eight bars), is from Central Slovakia (Hrochot pod Polanou). In the second example, irregular sub-division within the bar is shown.

In a form that has changed but slightly in recent times, the bagpipe is still used in several European countries, and in Czechoslovak folk music it has played a very important role—perhaps a more important role than that played anywhere else in the world (Markl, 1962).

In Czechoslovak territory, bagpipes, called by various names, are mentioned in chronicles from the Middle Ages, and it may be assumed that they have been one of the most popular of folk instruments since the thirteenth, or at the latest the fourteenth century. Usually played solo, but also together with drum, pipe, and later fiddle, they accompanied folk songs and dances. Unlike bagpipes in France, for example, they never took root in composed music in Czechoslovakia. Only at a very late date, in the thirties of the nineteenth century, and then to a limited extent, were they technically improved by the addition of a second, auxiliary bag. The use of several drones, though known, has never become popular in Czechoslovakia. In the course of six centuries a type of bagpipe with one frontal (melody) pipe and one drone has become predominant.

In der Musikfolklore erscheinen die Melodien entweder vokal oder instrumental. Diese beiden Stile setzen selbst bei derselben Melodie zweierlei Vortragsarten voraus. Beide Arten werden von den technischen Gegebenheiten der Interpretationsmittel, der menschlichen Stimme bzw. des betreffenden Instruments determiniert.

Im gesungenen Vortrag sind die Töne länger ausgehalten, enger miteinander verbunden. Ihr Rhythmus wird in den meisten Fällen durch die Prosodie der Sprache beeinflusst, im Parlando-Vortrzg sogar bestimmt. Die Prosodie des Textes hat selbst im Falle eines festen Tempo giusto-Vortrages ihre Einwirkung auf den musikalischen Rhythmus. Die vorkommenden Verzierungen sind von zweierlei Art. Erstens findet man mit der Melodie eng verbundene, ihren integralen Teil bildende Melismen, die die Melodielinie verzieren, ohne das Wesen der Melodie besonders zu beeinflussen.

As in all the countries of West Africa where Islam has left its mark, and where powerful chiefs held—or still hold—authority, many griots are to be found in Senegal. Whether they be historians, genealogists or musicians, they are in most cases professionals who together form a well-defined caste. The roles they play are manifold: as historians and genealogists they are the storehouses of the records of a country that has disdained the written language; as musicians, they are present at festive and solemn occasions alike. A griot may be attached to a prince's court, and be a member of his household; or he may be independent and able to charge for his services as he chooses.

Caught up in the life of African society, where intense rivalries excite tribes, clans and families, the griots have always aroused feelings of fear or contempt. More than one enmity, more than one dispute, has originated in the indiscretion of a griot. Their caste, like those of the blacksmiths, the ropemakers, the weavers, etc., is one of the lowest in the hierarchy.

The dvotelnik is a widespread instrument in Macedonia (Yugoslavia), to be found in the west (Prilepsko, Gostivarsko, Kičevsko), in the east (Berovsko, Kratovsko, Kumanovsko), and in Tikveško and Skopsko. Dvotelnik is the Slav name; to the Turkish minority it is ikitetti, meaning ‘with two strings,’ and the Slav name is a part translation of the Turkish. The instrument is a hemi-pyriform long-lute with metal frets and two metal strings, played with a plectrum. Formerly strings were made of sheep gut, and frets of gut or string. Both carvel-built and carved monoxylic resonators are to be found, but the latter are commoner and preferred (as in Turkey) because of their superior resonance and resistance to damp. For monoxylic bodies a number of woods are in use: sycamore (Acer pseudo-platanus), pear, sweet-chestnut and, above all, mulberry. Figs. A, B, Plate II, show the roughly shaped belly (meše) and the subsequent hollowing with a hand-adze; the carver is Pesho Bakalov. This is also the method of making the monoxylic type of belly practised in Turkey today. In Macedonia (as in Turkey) half of a pear-shaped gourd may also be used as a resonator, with the Slav name of leika. In general, body and neck are made of different woods, so as to reduce the effects of warping.