BIRDS. 



ILLUSTRATED BY COLOR PHOTOGRfVPfi Y. 



Vol.. III. 



MAY, 1898. 



No. 5. 



COLOR IN MUSIC 



*' No ladder needs the bird, but skies 

 To situate its wings, 

 Nor any leader's grim baton 



Arraigns it as it sings. 

 The implements of bliss are few — 



As Jesus says of Him, 

 ' Come unto me, ' the moiety 

 That wafts the cherubim." 



— Emii,y Dickinson. 



Music ! voice inspired of 

 all our joys and sorrows, of 

 all our hopes and disappoint- 

 ments, to thee we turn for 

 life, for strength and peace. 

 The choristers of Nature — the birds — 

 are our teachers. How free, how 

 vital, how unconstrained! The bird 

 drops into song and delicious tones as 

 easily as he drops from the bough 

 through the air to the twig or ground. 

 To learn of the bird has been found to 

 be a truthful means whereby children's 

 attention and interest may be held 

 long enough to absorb the sense of 

 intervals in pitch, notation on the 

 staff, and rythms. 



In teaching a child, it is obvious that 

 the desire to learn must be kept 

 widely awake, and heretofore black 

 notes on five lines and four spaces, 

 with heiroglyphics at the beginning 

 to denote clef, and figures to indicate 

 the rhythm of the notes, have never 

 interested children. But now, color 

 and the bird with its egg for a note, 

 telegraph wires for the staff, and 

 swinging the pulsing rhythm instead 

 of beating the time, has charmed 

 children into accomplishment of sight 

 singing and sweet purity of tone. 

 Formerly, and by the old method. 



this was a long and laborious task, 

 barely tolerated by the musical child 

 and disliked by the little soul unawak- 

 ened thereby to its own silent music. 



It may be questioned, what is the 

 new method, and what its value? The 

 method is this : In recognizing tone, 

 the finer and more sensitive musician 

 has realized that certain intervals of 

 scale suggested to their minds or 

 reminded them of certain colors. Thus 

 the Doh, the opening and closing tone 

 of the scale, the foundation and cap 

 stone, suggested Red, which is the 

 strong, firm color of colors, and on the 

 ethical side suggested Love, which is 

 the beginning and end, the Alpha and 

 Omega of L/ife. This firmness and 

 strength is easy to recognize in the 

 tune "America," where the tonic Doh 

 is so insistent, and colors the whole 

 melody "The Star-Spangled Banner" 

 and "Hail Columbia" are other strong 

 examples. 



The Dominant or fifth tone in the 

 scale is clear and pure, which the blue 

 of heaven represents, and so also the 

 quality of aspiration or exaltation is 

 sounded. This is joyously clear in 

 the Palestrina "Victory," set to the 

 Easter hymn, " The strife is o'er the 

 battle done." 



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