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sacred music. In their most primitive form these chants are still 
sung inthe synagogues, and it is worthy of note that the Mahometans 
read the Koran to fixed intonations which strongly resemble some 
of the ancient Hebrew melodies. Yet, however, the Semitic 
nations had not discovered harmony, and could not use the 
resources they had, any more than the Greeks could. 
It is very unfortunate that almost nothing is known of what 
Greek music really was. The modern Greeks use no harmony, 
and their music is allied to the Oriental. 
That was the state of the Art of music 1,000 years ago. In 
Africa and Asia it has remained the same to this day, a simple 
delight in hearing and producing sound. But a change took 
place in North-Western Europe, which was destined to raise music 
to a height at least equal with the other Arts. The invention of 
harmony was the special dividing-line, but it was only one of three 
great means by which existing resources were applied to the con- 
struction of pieces of music, making it possible to include 
intellectual and psychological features. Besides harmony, and 
afterwards imitation, there were the faint beginnings of design, 
which consists of contrasting entire sections of a piece of music. 
This necessitated increased musical memory in the auditor. Its 
origin is unmistakeable. It was a new element in poetry that 
brought this new element into music. The northern nations 
invented rhyming poetry, through which their ballads acquired a 
parallelism of line quite unlike the ancient verse. This naturally 
suggested a parallelism of music ; if the first and third lines of a 
stanza rhymed, it was natural to sing the first and third lines to 
the same or at any rate similar music ; thus the idea of contrasting 
sections no doubt took its origin. 
A lament on the death of Charlemagne (814 a.D.), and a 
tune composed by the King of Navarre (13th century) were sung 
to show the difference between music at the beginning of the 
period of development of rhyme and musical rhythm, and the 
state of the Art 400 years later. The latter song was analysed, 
and shown to consist of repeated sections, which were used to 
construct a tune. The Rota from Reading Abbey is some- 
thing still higher, a tune being used for the construction of the 
piece. 
It was next shown how it became possible to introduce 
intellectual and psychological features into music. The pure 
vocal music of this period was often disfigured by the trick of 
making each voice sing different words, and it seems to have been 
thought a particularly clever thing to contrast the most sacred and 
the most vulgar words. Thus there appeared a new feature, for 
the treatment of both words and music had a share in the 
humorous effect. It was originally simply irreverent wit, and 
was forbidden by the Council of Trent; but the “associative 
