The main purpose of this paper is to draw attention to the need for a comprehensive theory of music and music-making, and for studies that seek to distinguish musical change analytically from other kinds of change, and radical change from variation and innovation within a flexible system.

In an earlier paper (McLean 1961)—presented at the IFMC Vienna Conference in 1960—I emphasized what seemed to me to be an extreme conservatism associated with the transmission of traditional Maori singing—or waiata—style. I outlined some of the evidence for this, and indicated ways in which accuracy of transmission was attained in practice. As a sequel, I should like now to examine Maori concepts of accuracy more closely, and go on to consider anomalies presented by such phenomena as traditionally approved reworkings of waiata texts, the undoubted existence of melodic variants of particular songs, and an evident current trend towards accelerated change in waiata singing style itself.

The process and act of artistic creation has engaged psychologists and philosophers in an attempt to explain its mystery in rational terms. If the meaning of art is to be found in significant form as maintained by aestheticians, Clive Bell (1914) and Roger Fry (1925), the investigator's approach must be made in terms of the media in which the artist is working. Painting, sculpture, architecture, and the plastic arts may be regarded as static, spatial arts. Even poetry, though written to be read aloud, exists in printed media, and it is generally communicated in that form. Music, on the other hand, is a temporal art and exists only in time. Music is what we hear. The music score is nothing more than a prescriptive record of the composer's intentions directed to the musicians who will realize the work in living form. Unlike the spatial arts which are composed of familiar symbols that have meaning within the culture which produces them, music exists in abstraction and is composed of tones that have no symbolic meaning or significance until they are organized horizontally or vertically into patterns in which time plays an important role.

Ethnologists now generally accept the idea that all cultures are dynamic and ever changing (Berreman, 1968:338). It is clear, however, that the rate of change varies not only from one culture to the next, but also with respect to the different elements within that culture. In some ways, a society is rather like an octopus with its tentacles periodically stretching in different directions—each motion causing at least a slight change in the alignment of forces within it. For analytical purposes, this continuous juggling of forces and pressures can often be comprehended more readily in a series of stop-action vignettes, exactly comparable to the individual frames of a motion picture film. With this technique, it becomes possible to predict that, for instance, a jumper in mid-air will return to earth and, if one knew his velocity and trajectory, just where he would land. However, the forces operating on and within a society are not nearly as well understood as is the force of gravity and thus predictions of change in society are generally much less reliable. Nevertheless, such an examination of the operative forces and their alignments in this kind of stop-action view will undoubtedly add to our understanding of the processes of change in society.

Musical perception is based on many complex psychic processes, of which, up to now, we have very little knowledge. We do not know as much as we should about the various roles of music in different cultures nor about the universal principles by which musical units are built into the human brain—stored, remembered, identified, recognized, handed down within traditions, etc.

From one point of view, poetry and music in song are two sides of the same coin—almost miraculously well wedded together. This generalization is especially true of folksong, which by definition has been transmitted orally by myriads of singers until an exceptional fusion has developed. The tune graciously accompanies the text in order to beautify it, to serve as a medium of its communication, and to render it more permanent. Other than their relationship, there is no more interesting aesthetic study.

With the appearance of Vols. XI and XII, Svend Grundtvig's monumental collection of Medieval Danish ballads has now, after over a century of sustained collaborative effort, been brought to completion. Its publication constitutes a major achievement of Scandinavian scholarship and signifies, as well, a crucially important contribution to comparative ballad research. First issued between 1853 and 1965, DgF was rarely to be found complete, in its original edition, even on the shelves of major university libraries. The new edition of Vols. I-X, including important supplementary material and brief English prefaces (by Erik Dal) explaining the history and composition of each volume, was published in 1966 and 1967. In 1976, this vast project was brought to a fruitful conclusion with the printing of the newly edited Vols. XI and XII, which had never before been published.