Page "Music of Hungary" Paragraph 5

According to Broughton, traditional Hungarian music is " highly distinctive " like the " Hungarian language, which invariably is stressed on the first syllable, lending a strongly accented dactylic rhythm to the music ".

Nettl identifies two " essential features " of Hungarian folk music to be the use of " pentatonic scales composed of major seconds and minor thirds " ( or " gapped scales ") and " the practice of transposing a bit of melody several times to create the essence of a song ".

These transpositions are " usually up or down a fifth ", a fundamental interval in the series of overtones and an indication perhaps of the " influence of Chinese musical theory in which the fifth is significant ".