Meaningless syllabifying and leader solos. Part of the technique for getting on to the right note at the beginning of a musical phrase involves the extension of the previous line by the addition of meaningless syllables. This excursion takes the singer above the note to which he is going. These often highly melismatic sections of meaningless syllabifying usually occur at the end of each repetition of the basic melody (see later under Form) bridging the end of one repetition and the beginning of the next. The device is commonly known as the ‘drag’. In group performance, the ‘drag’ is usually performed solo by the leader while the rest of the group take opportunity to catch a breath. Frequently these leader solos are highly ornamented and are often responsible for much of the beauty of the song. ‘Riding in.’ When a singer, who for some reason has temporarily dropped out, wishes to sing again with the rest, he often ‘rides in’ to the note which the rest are singing by beginning a 3rd or 4th higher and filling in to the unison. This ‘riding in’ to a note seems always to take place from above a melody note rather than from below. The added notes—since they are incidental to the performance—are not generally thought of as forming part of the melody. Ambiguity of song beginnings. Very often, singers require a phrase or two to establish the melody. In both solo and group performances the beginning of a song may seem rhythmically vague and uncertain in comparison with the remainder. The tendency is, in fact, common enough to be considered a part of the style. Not infrequently the beginning differs from the basic melody, as later established, melodically as well as rhythmically. In such a case the tendency is usually for the beginning to be of narrower range. Singing faults. There is a highly developed terminology of singing faults associated with the traditional chant. Faults may be melodic, rhythmic, or textual in their nature. (a) Melodic. ‘Rangi-rua’ (literally two melodies) or parallelism. Here, one singer gets on to a note a 4th or 5th apart from the rest and sings throughout in parallel intervals. (b) Rhythmic. ‘Taupatupatu’ (literally, up and down) out of beat. (c) Textual. ‘Haua whakahua’, faulty pronunciation, ‘Haua kama’, faulty enunciation or articulation and ‘kunanunanu’, uncertainty as to words.

OTHER CHARACTERISTICS OF STYLE Scale. The melodic organisation of Maori waiata centres as a rule around a fixed intoning note or ‘oro’ as it has been called. If the notes used in a chant are written out consecutively in the form of a scale, the ‘oro’ will be found somewhere close to the middle. Since each departure from the ‘oro’ is ordinarily followed by a return to it, the ‘oro’ is invariably the most frequently occurring note of a melody. In most cases it is also the final and often it starts the song as well. In musical terms, the ‘oro’ can thus be thought of as the tonic, and the melody as a whole can be described as centric. Usually there are fewer notes in the scale than is generally the case with European song. It is not uncommon for songs to have only 3 or 4 notes. Range. In keeping with the small number of notes commonly employed in the scale of the traditional chant, the melodic range is correspondingly small. From the lowest note to the highest, the range of the Maori chant seldom exceeds the musical interval of a 4th. Melodic intervals. Maori melody for the most part employs melodic intervals no larger than a Minor 3rd and the bulk of the melodic movement is by Major and Minor 2nds. It might be expected that with so few notes, such limited range and such small melodic steps there might after all be something to the criticisms of ‘monotony’ which is often levelled at Maori chant. Such a view however would be altogether too facile and quite unjustified since it fails to take account of the frequently non-diatonic nature of the melodic intervals employed in waiata. Another way of saying this, is that the melodies of Maori chant need not conform to the major and minor modalities of the European scale system. Since at each step in a Maori melody the next note may be a Minor 2nd, Major 2nd, or Minor 3rd, either upward or downward, there are clearly more possibilities than would exist if the melody were limited by the demands of the major or minor modes. Melodic diversity is thus obtainable without need of increasing either melodic range or the size of the melodic interval. At this stage something might be said about the vexed question of quarter tones. Several early writers expressed the opinion that Maori music employed quarter tones and others today have uncritically followed suit.