“ NEGRO MELODIES. The music of the American negroes is essentially vocal. Their few musical instruments are of importance only for furnishing accompaniments to songs or for accenting the rhythm of the dance. During the last twenty years negro music has been steadily losing its distinctive features, owing to the tendency among the younger generation to discard everything which harks back to the days of slavery. The old plaintive melodies have been replaced largely by more modern comic and erotic songs which are cast in a nondescript Afric-European mode. ”