- 1. Twin-bar tunes (ex.1-11, №1-58)
- Twin-bar tunes based on the g,-c bichord
- Twin-bar tunes based on rotating motifs
- Twin-bar tunes with descending/hill-shaped lines
- Motifs with a downward leap at the end of the line
- Motivic processes
- 2. Tunes moving on Ionian scales (ex.12-24, №59-164))
- Laments and their relatives
- Two-lined tunes of Major character with higher main cadences and their four-lined relatives
- Four-lined tunes of Major character
- 3. Aeolian tunes (ex.25-36, №165-238)
- Laments and related tunes
- Aeolian tunes with higher main cadence
- Four-lined tunes of Minor character
- Valley-shaped, ascending or undulating first line
- 4. Caramazan religious tunes (ex.37-41, №239-326)
- 5. Tunes of domed structure (ex.42-43, №327-332)
Preceedings of the Kyrgyz Research
In this chapter first I am going to recall the figure of Béla Bartók, one of the most outstanding composers of the 20th century and a key figure of analytic and comparative folk music research. I am also to review the eastern connections of Hungarian folk music, indirectly suggesting certain tasks of Kyrgyz folk music research on the one hand, and pointing out possible Turkic, and within it Kyrgyz analogies of certain layers of Hungarian folk music.
Just a few months after the beginning of the regular collection and study of Hungarian folksongs in 1906, Bartók started exploring the folk music traditions of Slovaks, then Romanians also living in the Carpathian Basin. (Bartók 1923, 1935, 1959)
He was convinced that only a thorough knowledge of the folk music of neighbouring and related peoples could help clarify what was specifically Hungarian, what was common and what was different in the traditions of various ethnicities. He continued his folk music collection among Hungarians and neighbouring ethnics until the Trianon peace treaty which made field research in disannexed areas impossible. After 1918 he practically ceased collecting in areas populated by Hungarians.
He recorded some 6000 Hungarian tunes, transcribed them with their lyrics, wrote his fundamental book, The Hungarian Folk Song, created a system of Hungarian folksongs and used some of the tunes in his compositions, e.g. in For Children or Microcosmos.
He had an intense interest in the music of “related” and other ethnic groups: in 1913 he toured the oases of the Biskra region in North Africa to study the music of Arabs living there. In 1919 he collected Carpatho-Ukrainian folksongs. He published (1924) three Mari/Cheremiss folksongs whose fifth-shifting pentatonic style he compared to that of the Hungarian folksongs. He attributed such great importance to this discovery that he began learning Russian, ready to go on a field trip to the Mari people at the Volga. After World War I he was forced to give up this plan but the thought preoccupied him later, too, as the introduction to the Turkic collection reveals.
He writes about the appeal of the Turks as follows: “...when we started the work, we were overwhelmed by the impression that… the origin of the pentatonic style is in Asia, pointing at the Northern Turks… Obviously, all such tunes derive from a single common source, and this source is the central northern Turkic culture of yore.” (Bartók 1936)
Those interested in his Anatolian research can find information in three books (Bartók 1976, 1991 and Saygun 1976). Let me only mention the main facts and Bartók’s conclusions.