MUSIC 



thriving as a saprophyte upon 

 organic waste. At certain points 

 upon the mycelium swellings are 

 produced, which develop into 

 small sporophores enclosed in a 

 universal wrapper (volva). 



The old idea that mushroon? J are 

 formed in a night has no founda- 

 tion, for the process may take 

 many months. Under favourable 

 conditions of warmth and moisture 

 a rapid expansion of the cell struc- 

 ture takes place, similar to what 

 occurs when a dry bath sponge is 

 dipped into water. The sporophore 

 bursts through the earth, ruptures 

 the volva, and the upper part (cap 

 or pileus) expands in umbrella 

 form. Under the cap thin plates 

 set edgewise radiate from the stalk, 

 and on these the microscopical 

 spores are produced in sets of four, 

 aggregating millions. The com- 

 moner horse-mushroom (P. arven- 

 sis) agrees with P. campestris in 

 most points, but is much larger and 

 more strongly flavoured than the 

 latter variety. 



The cap of the common mush- 

 room is white and silky, at first 

 hemispheric, then flat, from 3 to 5 

 ins. across. The plates or gills, which 

 are at first salmon-pink, become 

 dark umber as the spores ripen. It 

 appears in nature from May to De- 

 cember, but, cultivated in specially 

 prepared beds, where the proper 

 temperature and humidity are 

 .maintained, it may be obtained at 

 all seasons. For this purpose caves, 

 cellars, railway arches, and disused 

 tunnels have been utilised ; more 

 commonly they are grown in 

 special houses, or in covered beds 

 outside. These are prepared from 

 fresh stable manure, turned and 

 loosened daily until the fiercest 

 heat of fermentation has escaped ; 

 then it is packed firmly to a depth 

 of about a foot on a firm dry base, 

 and boards on edge are fixed along 

 each side to prevent loss of heat 

 and moisture. 



When the temperature has 

 dropped to 80 or so, the bed may 

 be impregnated by pressing in 

 pieces of an old mushroom-bed or 

 of the so-called mushroom-spawn 

 sold by nurserymen. These bricks 

 are permeated by the mycelium in a 

 dry and therefore resting condition ; 

 they should be broken into pieces 

 about 1 in. square, and dotted all 

 over the bed about 4 ins. apart. The 

 bed should then be evenly coated 

 with finely sifted loam to a depth 

 of an inch, and beaten firm. A 

 covering of Utter will help to re- 

 tain moisture and an equable tem- 

 perature, which ought not to fall 

 much below 50. Slight waterings 

 will be necessary occasionally to 

 maintain moisture, but only tepid 

 water should be used. 



56OO 



When the mushrooms appear 

 they should be gathered in the un- 

 expanded or " button " stage, as 

 the flesh is quickly attacked by the 

 larvae of flies, which render them 

 unwholesome. Poisoning by eating 

 mushrooms is due either to these 

 being in a decaying condition, or to 

 the appearance of definitely poison- 



MUSC 



ous species in the bed whose spores 

 were introduced with the manure. 

 Numerous allied species of fungi are 

 equally good as food, but cannot 

 be grown artificially with tVie same 

 certainty. See Agaric ; Blewits ; 

 Fungus ; Hedgehog Mushroom ; 

 consult also Toadstools and Mush- 

 rooms, E Step, 1913. Edward Step 



MUSIC: A FORM OF EXPRESSION 



J. E. Borland, Mus.D., Musical Adviser to the L.C.C. 



This Encyclopedia contains articles on all the important musical 

 instruments, e.g. Clarionet ; Organ ; Violin, and on the musical 

 tetms, e.g. Counterpoint; Fugue. See also Harmony ; Opera, and 

 articles on Beethoven ; Mendelssohn, and other great musicians 



Music has been called at once 

 the oldest and the youngest of the 

 arts oldest, because a time is un- 

 imaginable when men did not use 

 vocal inflexions for the expression 

 of emotion, or rhythmic noises for 

 the accompaniment of bodily 

 movements ; youngest, because 

 poetry, painting, sculpture, and 

 architecture reached maturity cen- 

 turies before music began to 

 emerge from its crude elementary 

 stages and to become a real art of 

 expression. Inarticulate song allied 

 itself with articulate language ; 

 rhythmic noises became coordinate 

 with vocal inflexions, and with 

 their imitations upon instruments 

 the art of music was slowly and 

 laboriously evolved. 



Its history shows the innumer- 

 able stages by which man reduced 

 certain natural phenomena to 

 obedience, and brought aimless 

 noises into orderly control. Apart 

 from the human voice and its 

 emotional rise and fall of pitch, 

 with or without definite language, 

 apart from the ordering of percus- 

 sive sounds to satisfy man's time- 

 sense, the laws of acoustics had to 

 be discovered empirically, and the 

 distinctions between various types 

 of vibrating bodies had to be learnt, 

 before instrumental music could be 

 developed a kind of music that, 

 while founded upon human vocal 

 effects, should transcend them in 

 compass, intensity, and variety. 



Essentials Applied to Instruments 



Records of the early develop- 

 ments are wanting, but something 

 of the story can be reconstructed 

 by examining the music of existing 

 primitive races and the relics of 

 early instruments. In all instru- 

 ments we find three essentials : 

 (1) a force to cause (2) the_ vibra- 

 tion of an elastic body, and (3) a 

 resonator by means of which the 

 vibrations are amplified and carried 

 to the ear. These three essentials 

 may be called briefly the originator, 

 the vibrator, and the resonator. In 

 flutes, these are the player's 

 breath, the air reed at the mouth- 

 hole, and the column of air in the 



tube ; in reed instruments, the 

 player's breath, the reed, and the 

 tube ; in trumpets and horns, the 

 breath, the vibrating lips, and the 

 tube ; in bowed instruments, the 

 friction of the bow, the string, and 

 the body of the instrument ; in 

 harps and lyres, the plucking by 

 finger or plectrum, the string, and 

 the body. 



The history of instrumental de- 

 velopment is the story of the 

 gradual improvement of materials 

 and proportions, and the acquire- 

 ment of skill in control, aided by 

 mechanical means for securing 

 variation of pitch. It was a long 

 journey from the lyre to the piano- 

 forte, from the river-reed to the 

 organ, from the conch -shell to the 

 chromatic trumpet ; but the stages 

 are clear. 



Early History 



The story of music itself is 

 equally long. Vocal music offered 

 comparatively little difficulty to 

 the pioneer as long as melody only 

 was considered. It was a develop- 

 ment of speech inflexion, as natural 

 as speech itself, but with more 

 sustained tone. Harmony was the 

 real problem. Simple chords on the 

 lyre had to suffice at first for ac- 

 companiment, merely maintaining 

 pitch and confirming the key- 

 centre. They would serve also to 

 emphasise rhythm and mark off 

 the phrases. Music is a social art, 

 and many voices can be employed 

 simultaneously. But continuous 

 unison is tiresome, while voices are 

 obviously not best suited in pro- 

 viding mere chords of accompani- 

 ment such as the lyre, harp, or lute 

 can do better. From this impasse 

 grew polyphony, voices used inde- 

 pendently but in agreement, after 

 many centuries of painful ex- 

 periment. 



From the 13th to the 16th cen- 

 tury musicians were employed in 

 finding effective ways of combining 

 voices. The " organum " and 

 " faux bourdon " of the school- 

 men of England, France, and the 

 Netherlands was less pleasing than 

 the simple rhythmic strains of the 

 people and of the troubadours and 



