The paper analyses ethnomusicological approaches to one of the Croatian specific musical expressions: the traditional music of Istria, the Kvarner Islands and the Croatian Littoral. An interesting and rich discussion on this music, especially on its tone relations, took place mainly in the first half of the twentieth century. The author offers a review of the more important thoughts, attitudes and work of the researchers and theoreticians and reveals two streams in the interpretation of this music: the first one starting from the accomplishments of the West European musical theory of the early twentieth century, and the other one approaching the anthropological features, still not clearly formulated at the time, but nevertheless anticipated. Since those researches have been conducted in Istria at the time of the struggle for the annexation of Istria to Croatia, a dubious adjective "Istrian" has been created and survived up until the present day. Since the interpretation from the aspect of the West European scales and modes has prevailed, the questionable term "scale" has also survived until today. The author advocates the introduction of the terms narrow intervals style of the Istrian-Littoral region and kanat (for singing) / sop (for playing) of the Istrian-Littoral region.