ABSTRACT
Singing is an act of communication and therefore can be studied as behavior. Since a folk song is transmitted orally by all or most members of a culture, generation after generation, it represents an extremely high consensus about patterns of meaning and behavior of cultural rather than individual significance. In this discussion of the good and the beautiful, the fit of song performance behavior and cultural norms will be examined transculturally, and the terms of the argument, therefore, must be extremely general. In order to begin on somewhat familiar ground, it will first be suggested that there is not only a fit between performance behavior and culture pattern, but between these two and the emotional set embedded in them.
