40 '' Whether Music is necessanj to the Orator, — 



equally affect our common chord"\vhether major or minor, and 

 must prove to every dispassionate person that our tonical relations 

 are in a considerable degree at the mercy of our forte and piano; 

 — for if, in our chord major for instance, consisting of C E G c, 

 we strike our 3d and 5th, viz. E and G, in the slightest degree 

 more forcibly than C, all is chaos— our genera are confused, and 

 C itself can with difficulty be acknowledged. This being an in- 

 disputable fact so constantly verified in our military bands, when 

 the 3ds and 5ths are executed by French horns, — are we not 

 warranted in supposing that first-rate ears, were they habituated 

 not only to the most delicate shades of forte, but to the cog- 

 ni.-ance of tonical relations, in defiance of voise, must feel dissa- 

 tisfaction even from the best possible execution of our common 

 chord ? They could not in all probability tolerate the over- 

 powering of the 3rd, or more particularly the oth, bv the com- 

 parative noise of the fundamental; neither could they satisfac- 

 torily acknowledge, even with equalilTj of forte, that funda- 

 mental as the PREDOMINANT. Guido himself was so sensible of 

 this imperfection, that he banished the 5th from his counterpoint. 

 — Has the Benedictine excelled us ? 



There is not perhaps any musical question which has excited 

 from time to time more strenuous contest than the harmonical 

 value of this very concord, all moderns insisting on its pre- 

 eminence. Let us therefore investigate the source of that au- 

 thority by which it is supported — the doctrine of vibration — 

 whose principle, if I conceive the matter rightly, attaches the 

 highest value to that string whose vibrations shall most fre- 

 quently coincide with those of the unison or base. 



That the periodical coalescence of any two or more given 

 sounds in their passage to the ear should produce a greater volume 

 or a greater degree of condensation, and consequently a greater 

 degree of Inudness, may be readily conceived. Ti7ne too, more 

 or less perfect, may be comprehended by the comparatively re- 

 gular or irregular movement of bodies : but time and forte are 

 as remote from tone, which is the origin of concord and discord, 

 as the most opposite things in nature. Experience indeed would 

 seemingly withhold altogether from vibration — or, in more per- 

 spicuous language, from undulatorv motion — the property of va- 

 ried intonation ; for undulation is but an ordinary effect, which 

 sound in its passage through the air must necessarily produce — 

 an effect too, whose circumstances every puft' of wind must ever- 

 lastingly confuse. 



Whatever the nature or manner of transmission of those par- 

 ticles may be, which after being thrown off by the vibrating body 

 arrive at the ear, has not been hitherto discovered ; — and yet, 

 that our organ of perception has been gifted by the Creator with 



the 



