The Tuungafasi or Tongan music notation is a subset of the standard
music notation
Music is generally defined as the art of arranging sound to create some combination of form, harmony, melody, rhythm or otherwise expressive content. Exact definitions of music vary considerably around the world, though it is an aspect ...
, originally developed by the
missionary
A missionary is a member of a Religious denomination, religious group which is sent into an area in order to promote its faith or provide services to people, such as education, literacy, social justice, health care, and economic development.Tho ...
James Egan Moulton
James Egan Moulton (4 January 1841 – 9 May 1909) was an English-born Australian Methodist minister and headmaster and school president.
Early life
Moulton was born in North Shields, Northumberland. Many members of his family were Methodist ...
in the 19th century for singing church hymns in
Tonga
Tonga (, ; ), officially the Kingdom of Tonga ( to, Puleʻanga Fakatuʻi ʻo Tonga), is a Polynesian country and archipelago. The country has 171 islands – of which 45 are inhabited. Its total surface area is about , scattered over in ...
.
The notation
Tongan music from the pre-European times was not really music in the current sense but rather a non tonic recital (like the 'pater noster'), a style still known nowadays as the
tau fakaniua. Therefore, when the missionaries started to teach singing, they had also to start with music from scratch. They found the do-re-mi-fa-sol-la-si-do scale sufficient for their needs, avoiding the very complex and difficult to learn international music notation. But due to the limited number of
consonants
In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract. Examples are and pronounced with the lips; and pronounced with the front of the tongue; and pronounced wit ...
in the
Tongan language
Tongan (English pronunciation: or ; ') is an Austronesian language of the Polynesian branch native to the island nation of Tonga. It has around 187,000 speakers. It uses the word order verb–subject–object.
Related languages
Tongan is one ...
, the note names were localised into to-le-mi… Unfortunately the word 'tole' is a
vulgar expression for the
female genital area, and as such not to be used.
Moulton then developed a system where the main notes were indicated with the numbers 3 to 9, while a strike to the digits was used to sharpen them, for example:
7, being 7 or 8. At the end the full 12 notes of the octave became: 3-
3-4-
4-5-6-
6-7-
7-8-
8-9, which are pronounced as: to-lu-fa-ma-ni-o-no-tu-fi-va-a-hi, (variants of the Tongan numerals 3 to 9 being tolu, fā, nima, ono, fitu, valu, hiva). To extend the single
octave
In music, an octave ( la, octavus: eighth) or perfect octave (sometimes called the diapason) is the interval between one musical pitch and another with double its frequency. The octave relationship is a natural phenomenon that has been refer ...
(
MIDI
MIDI (; Musical Instrument Digital Interface) is a technical standard that describes a communications protocol, digital interface, and electrical connectors that connect a wide variety of electronic musical instruments, computers, and re ...
octave number 4) into the next higher, a dot can be put above the number. To reach the next lower, a dot or a little tail can be put under them. If needed 2 tails can be taken to arrive at even lower pitches, but that is rare. Since the notation is made for human singing, it does not need to have the extended range of musical instruments.
The Moulton notation, or Tongan notation was extremely popular and is still cherished by the Tongans. It is extremely common to see bandmasters writing out the music on the blackboards in the church halls during choir practices.
Pitch
Tongan singers recognise up to 4 voices, which results in the typical 4 lines of numbers in the notation. The leading voice is called 'fasi', a male voice. The next one is ''kānokano'' or alto, a female voice. The third is the ''tēnoa'' or tenor, and the last one the ''laulalo'' or bass. Occasionally the bass sings different lyrics from the rest. The middle octave (of the 3 octave range mentioned above) varies with the voice, the kānokano is usually one above the tēnoa, while the laulalo is one below. In addition the exact position of the middle C depends on the
key signature
In Western musical notation, a key signature is a set of sharp (), flat (), or rarely, natural () symbols placed on the staff at the beginning of a section of music. The initial key signature in a piece is placed immediately after the clef at ...
as in this schedule:
When 3 notes are shown, the fasi and alto are together on top, the tenor is in the middle, and the bass is on bottom. When 2 notes are shown, the tenor and bass are taken together, as otherwise the basses would come too low. Some musicians, however, take the bass octave always equal the tenor, causing for some signatures the bass coming too high. Then they need 2 tails under a number to reach a really low note.
Duration
The duration of a note is not indicated by a different symbols, as in the international music notation but by the number of notes in a beat. The more notes in a beat, the shorter each has to be. For example, in "
Ko e fasi ʻo e tuʻi ʻo e ʻOtu Tonga
"" () is the national anthem of Tonga. The title literally means "song of the king of the Tonga Islands" in the Tongan language
Tongan (English pronunciation: or ; ') is an Austronesian language of the Polynesian branch native to the islan ...
" (the national anthem), we find as first measure: , 3:-3/5:5, 6:4/5:-5,
Every vertical bar (, ) is a measure separator (often double at the begin and end of a stanza). As this music has a
time signature
The time signature (also known as meter signature, metre signature, or measure signature) is a notational convention used in Western musical notation to specify how many beats (pulses) are contained in each measure (bar), and which note value ...
, there appear 4 beats, every beat separated by a colon (:) or slash (/) (they are equal, but the slash is usually used in the middle and the colon elsewhere). The time signature also indicates that every beat is a quarter note. Therefore, every single digit in a beat is a quarter note. When 2 digits appear they are each eighth notes and so forth. No digit at all, or a zero, is used for a rest, while a dash is a tie. The first measure of the example above thus becomes: a C note for a dotted quarter duration, another C for an eighth, followed by two quarter Es.
, 3:-, -:-, is an example for a time signature; 2 beats in a measure, every beat a quarter note long. This results in a whole C. Note that the tie dashes can extend into following measures, unlike the international music notation where the note is to be repeated and then tie arcs are needed. Some Tonga musicians following that example, would also write a 3 in the second measure instead of a dash and also would then need tie arcs.
More time signatures
In (like , 3:4, ) and (like , 3:4:5, ) and (like , 3:4/5:6, ) time signature every beat is a quarter note. Two digits (…:34:…) makes each an eighth note; have four digits (…:3456:…) and each is a sixteenth. Three digits (…:345:…) are possible, the first one being a quarter and both others each an eighth, but might be confusing. Some musicians put a comma or dot inside the beat (…:3,45:…) to remind the singers of the unequal duration. But the real use is with a tie (…:3-4:…), to have a dotted quarter note followed by an eighth.
and signatures are rarer, but work the same as the quarter-based signatures except that all beats are twice as long. One digit in a beat being a half note and so forth.
Occasionally one finds (like , 3:4, ) and {{music, time, 12, 8 (like , 3:4:5:6, ) time signatures. Then every single digit is a dotted quarter note, while the most common occurrence is 3 digits in one beat, (…:345:…) each of them of course one eighth. Also here two digits are possible, the first one being a quarter and the second an eight, but again with all the pitfalls as the 3 digits in the quarter-note notation. It is mainly used for (…:3:-4:…) meaning a note worth five eighths (dotted quarter tied to quarter) followed by a single eighth.
References
* http://www.tau.olunga.to/fasi.html
*Hebert, D. G. (2008)
Music Transmission in an Auckland Tongan Community Youth Band ''International Journal of Community Music'', 2(1).
Tongan music
Musical notation