IMPERFECTIONS OF MODERN HARMONY. 509 



ed with these natural products, and misapplying certain mathematical 

 laws, failed to obtain concords sufficiently true to satisfy their refined 

 artistic perceptions, and therefore rejected them. The modern pagan 

 nations, even those competent to produce perfect concords, refuse to 

 adopt them ; and therefore our modern harmony still remains either 

 unknown or unappreciated outside Christendom. It may be that we 

 are generally regarded in the East as Western barbarians. The Chi- 

 nese, for instance, smile at the piano-forte as an ingeniously contrived 

 arrangement for enabling the performer to produce many different 

 sounds at once as required by Western harmony ; but as a mere me- 

 chanical instrument, in which hammers are thrown against strings in 

 an inartistic manner, illustrative of our insensibility. They formulate 

 thirty-three ways of plucking a string with the finger, and therefore are 

 more fastidious than ourselves respecting " touch " and the correspond- 

 ing delicate variations of tone due to different modes of vibration. 



It is quite evident that Eastern peoples have cultivated their per- 

 ceptions in departments of musical art of which we are comparatively 

 regardless, and it is fair to assume that they reject our harmony be- 

 cause of its inherent imperfections. The extremely sensitive ear of the 

 ancient Hindoos, observed by all students of Sanskrit poetry, led them 

 to make, in common with the Persians and modern Arabians, finer dis- 

 tinctions than we recognize in the musical scale. And it is certainly 

 true that even our natural perceptions of perfect consonance are ren- 

 dered less acute by habitually listening to and accepting as true har- 

 monies that are systematically rendered untrue, and so far rough and 

 discordant in conformity with our adopted scheme of slight deviations 

 from strict accuracy. 



Helmholtz directs us to remain satisfied no longer with this con- 

 dition of things, and demands that our music be rendered in tune. 

 Those writers who follow the lead of this great physicist take up this 

 cry in common with others, and assume to teach musicians their art. 

 Instrumentalists are advised to construct instruments having twenty- 

 four, twenty-eight, thirty, forty, or more sounds within the octave, 

 instead of allowing the ordinary twelve — the seven white and five 

 black keys of the manual — to do duty for the whole. It is deliberately 

 proposed that three rows of keys be provided, that a simple hymn-tune 

 may be correctly rendered. Mr. Ellis thinks that a fourth or fifth 

 organ or harmonium should be at hand to be used for exceptionally 

 brilliant and novel combinations. Similar recommendations have 

 often been made before. They are useless. For such instruments 

 would be found too complicated for general artistic purposes, and yet 

 would not be elaborate enough to obtain the desired perfection, be- 

 cause this is unattainable. It is unattainable, not on account of the 

 incapacity of the musician, but from the nature of the case. It is im- 

 possible to unite melody and modern harmony, and retain for either 

 its just proportions ; nor can we set one or the other aside. No such 



