A good deal of the apparent strangeness of some Maori melodies can be explained by the non-diatonicism described above. For the rest, whatever may have been the case in the past, intervals of less than a half tone are not prevalent today. Most waiata as at present sung, conform fairly closely to Western tempered intervals. In some 400 items analysed to date the writer has found only a few instances of genuine microtones and most of these were used incidentally rather than structurally. Form. Most waiata use as a formal principle, the varied repetition of a basic melody. The end of each repetition is marked by the ornamented leader solos and meaningless syllabifying referred to earlier. The end of a structural division—such as the end of a verse where there are several—the end of the song itself, and drop-outs by individuals in group performance are all marked by a device which the writer has called the ‘terminal glissando’. This takes the form of a characteristic expulsion of breath accompanied by a glissando drop of the voice over an interval of a 3rd or 4th. Recited items are through-composed and cannot be said to exhibit form in the usual sense. Polyphony. Maori chant is monophonic. This means that in a group performance everybody sings the same part. There is rhythmic unison in the case of the recited songs and both rhythmic and melodic unison in the sung items. Any appearance of added parts is either fortuitous (e.g. ‘riding in’) or is bad singing (rangi rua). Accompanying instruments are not used and with the exception of the koauau (open tube flute) appear not to have been used in the past. Informants are agreed that the koauau always played in unison with the voice part. Thus even with instrumental accompaniment, performance was still monophonic. Tempo, Metre and Rhythm. With few exceptions, tempo is invariable in Maori chant. Once a tempo is established it is kept up right to the end of a song. That this should be so is fairly clearly a consequence of the need in group performance for all the singers to be together. Much of the musical interest of Maori chant, in both its sung and recited forms, derives from the rhythms. Typically highly complex, the rhythms give to the Western ear the impression of constant syncopation over an unchanging beat. This impression arises from the fact that although the metre of Maori chant can be divisive, it is often modified in such a way as to become additive. Once this is realised, it becomes possible to notate the seeming syncopations as a series of time changes rather than by tying across from one rhythmic group to another. This also greatly simplifies the problem of reading the notation. It must be clearly understood however that the time changes, as notated, must be thought of in terms of the smallest metrical unit. To give an example, the rhythmic group is five units long and no attempt should be made to force it into the confines of the divisive system by lengthening the first two quavers as or– In other words, when the metre changes, the duration of the beat changes also. If the metre changes from 2/4 to 6/8, the beat changes from two units of length to three. Istesso tempo, whereby the dotted crochet of 6/8 becomes equal in duration to the crotchet of 2/4 does not apply.

CONCLUDING REMARKS The study of Maori chant from its musical point of view, is as yet still in its infancy. At the time of writing little more than a start has been made. It is hoped that when further material has been collected and analysed, it will be possible not only to find out something about the ways in which the music of one tribe may differ from that of another, but also to go some way further towards discovering principles which may be true of all Maori chant. Ed.—Mr McLean will be publishing in ‘Te Ao Hou’ a series of transcriptions of chants in musical notation. Most of the songs published will be ones which have already spread beyond their tribal boundaries, and all of them will have been fully released for publication by the performers. It is hoped to begin the series of transcriptions in the next issue, which appears in September.