Pentatonicism in the Slovak Folk Songs of Stará Pazova, Serbia
Pentatonicism in the Slovak Folk Songs of Stará Pazova, Serbia

Summary/Abstract: This study deals with pentatonicism in the Slovak folk songs of Stará Pazova in Vojvodina, the Republic of Serbia, which is one of the largest Slovak localities in this region today. Compared to Slovak folk songs in other localities in Vojvodina and Slovakia, the folk songs of the Slovaks of Stará Pazova differ in terms of several specificities. One of these is pentatonicism, which is uncharacteristic of Slovak folk songs today. The author has arrived at the relatively ample occurrence of pentatonic songs in this locality thanks to the classification method of Zoltán Kodály, who researched the presence of pentatonicism in Hungarian folk songs. In his classification method, Kodály considers not only the so-called pure pentatonicism, but also pentatonicism blended with major/minor tonality. This study analyses the musical structure of the Slovak pentatonic songs of Stará Pazova drawing on the results of Kodály’s research. Based on the analysis, the author presents her own elucidation of the possible origin of pentatonicism in the Slovak folk songs of this locality.

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