The beginnings and development of a New Zealand music: The life ...

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the fifty above examples. All intervals have been counted except those
interjectory phrases bracketed in the examples, and those intervals used
in accompanying lines.
Table 2: Intervals used in melodies
..
reiterated note
semi tone ••
tone ••
minor third •• ..
major third ••
perfect fourth ••
augmented fourth/diminished
perfect fifth ••
minor sixth
major sixth
minor seventh
major seventh
octave.
• •
greater than an octave
24.22%
15.47%
38.98%
7.56%
4.59%
4.38%
fifth NIL
2.54%
.85%
NIL
.57%
NIL
.35%
.49%
Total sample of
intervals = 1416
This table reveals a number of salient points about Lilburn's
melodic construction: firstly, there is the high incidence of reiterated
notes. One might well expect to find one-quarter of the intervals used
in the syllabic settings of vocal music to be reiterated notes, but in
orchestral writing it is a surprisingly high proportion. Certainly this
figure is artificially boosted bec~use of Lilburn's predilection for
themes that prominently feature a single note, but no fewer than twentyseven
of the fifty examples contain one or more occasions on which a
particular note is sounded in succession at least three times.
Secondly, the extremely low incidence of intervals of more than
the perfect fifth is very surprising. It becomes even more significant
when considering that of the thirty-two occasions on which an interval
greater than a perfect fifth is used, twenty-nine of these appear in two
of the themes - examples 32 and 33 - and two of the remaining three occur
at points where a melody undergoes octave transposition. This leaves one
incidence of an interval greater than a perfect fifth - the octave leap
at the beginning of the main theme of·Song of the Antipodes (Ex.t3).
The fact that no augmented fourths or diminished fifths are used
is perhaps not surprising considering the strictly diatonic nature of
most of the themes. Likewise, it could be expected (in conventional
diatonic melody writing) that the majority of intervals used would be
of the second (tone and semitone). The 5:2 ratio of use of intervals
of the tone and semitone corresponds to the ratio of appearance of those
intervals within most diatonic scales.