MUSHROOM MUSIC. 



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MUSHROOM. See Fungi. 

 MUSIC. The Greeks understood by music 

 (ftivtrixv), the (so called) arts of the Muses, particu- 

 larly music in the modern sense of the word, and 

 poetry and eloquence. Plato contradistinguishes it 

 from gymtiastics. The iyunf ftaufixn (musical con- 

 tests) took place in all the above arts. At a later 

 period, the words music and musical were restricted 

 to that art alone which strives to affect the soul by 

 tones. We shall form a more just idea of this art 

 if we search for its origin in our nature. We see it, 

 as it were, daily originating, or, at least, we daily 

 perceive in common fife the germs from which it 

 grew up. Nature seems to have established an 

 intimate connexion between the emotions and the 

 sense of hearing. Of the two nobler senses, sight 

 and hearing, the first seems to belong more particu- 

 larly to the understanding ; we owe to the eye, and 

 to abstractions from the images which it presents, 

 most of our general notions and ideas, while the ear 

 appears to be more intimately connected with the 

 feelings. Feeling expresses itself most readily in 

 tones. Fear, joy, desire, anger, have each a pecu- 

 liar tone, understood by all human beings. Man 

 soon perceives this, and often prolongs these tones, 

 in order to continue or heighten a certain feeling or 

 excitement; hence the repetition of the war-cry, in 

 the combats of rude tribes, or of the tones of mirth 

 at their festivities. The love of excitement, more- 

 over, soon leads to the production of these tones, 

 even on occasions when the feeling from which they 

 first originated does not exist : thus we find the 

 natural tones of joy repeated, in order to effect that 

 of which they were originally the effect, a pleasant 

 feeling, a contented state of the soul. This, it is 

 true, is not yet music or song, but the first germ of 

 it. Another element- of music, springing from a 

 feeling deeply planted in the human heart, and per- 

 ceptible in children and savages, as well as in the 

 most refined and accomplished, soon associates itself 

 with tones ; we mean rhythm. Whatever may be 

 its origin, whether it was first used to relieve the 

 fatigue of a march, or to give connexion to a series 

 of tones, or to enable numbers to join in the utter- 

 ance of the same tones, or whether it is to be referred 

 mainly to the spirit of classification and love of 

 order, which is so universally operative, certain it 

 is that the love of rhythm is one of the most 

 general principles of the human soul : it pervades 

 all tribes, all ages, all classes. It alleviates labour, 

 and cheers the heart. A simple division of tones 

 soon gave rise to a more artificial one, and man soon 

 perceived that he might utter two short tones, and 

 make two short steps, in the same time as one long 

 tone or one long step. Man does this long before 

 he reflects on it: witness the regular strokes of the 

 smith's hammer, or the thresher's flail, and the 

 dances of the rudest nations: thus we have the 

 two essential elements of song tones and rhythm. 

 As precise divisions in sciences or arts, or any of the 

 departments of human action, grow up slowly, and 

 kindred branches are at first usually mingled, it is 

 highly probable that dancing and music two arts 

 founded on measured time were at first intimately 

 connected, as we find still to be the case among 

 most, perhaps all, tribes, in a state of infancy. By 

 degrees, the song was separated from the dance, 

 and instruments which originally only served to 

 accompany the song, became also the object of a 

 separate art. Tones by themselves, apart from 

 dance or words, were cultivated ; the laws according 

 to which they must be connected, so as best to 

 express the language of feeling, were more and 

 more investigated, the application of Uiese laws 

 further and further extended, until music was deve- 



loped to that degree of perfection which we admire 

 in the works of the greatest masters. Every musical 

 production, to deserve the name, must be expressive 

 of feelings, and, through them, of ideas ; but though 

 music exists wherever the human species is found, it 

 does not follow that every good piece of music must 

 please all men alike, or be understood by all alike, 

 because music is an art requiring cultivation of the 

 mind and heart, to appreciate it fully; still, however, 

 music, even of the most elevated kind, retains so 

 much of its character of universality, that the pro- 

 ductions of the greatest masters delight much more 

 generally than the best performances in other arts. 

 Witness, for instance, certain tunes of Mozart, or 

 other great composers, which are repeated on all 

 occasions, so that they not unfrequently become 

 tedious from this cause. The Hunter's Chorus in 

 the Freischutz may be heard throughout Europe and 

 America. The reason is, that music addresses the 

 feelings, and feeling is alike all over the world. In 

 this point of universality, music and mathematics 

 (incongruous as the association may seem) agree, the 

 relations of numbers and magnitudes, with which 

 mathematics has to deal, being everywhere the 

 same, and the simple feelings of the heart which- 

 music addresses being common to every region. 

 Insensibility to music may generally be referred to 

 a defective organization in the sense of hearing ; 

 but the whole conformation of some men is probably 

 much better fitted than that of others to enable them 

 to receive pleasure from it. In this respect, too, 

 music and mathematics seem to have a resemblance, 

 that great excellence in either seems to require a 

 marked peculiarity in the nature of the individual. 

 The effects of music are sometimes said to be merely 

 sensual. It is addressed to the ear, indeed ; but ali 

 the influences which we receive from without are 

 conveyed through the medium of the senses, and the 

 tones of music often speak a language to the soul 

 richer in meaning than any words. It will hardly 

 be pretended that feelings which cannot be ex- 

 pressed in words, are necessarily of a lower char- 

 acter than those which may be so expressed. The 

 most elevated feelings are beyond the power of even 

 metaphorical language. Nothing is merely sensual 

 which makes a lasting spiritual impression upon the 

 soul ; and he who denies to music such a power, has 

 not heard its sublimest strains, or has not the capa- 

 city to appreciate them. In music, we have to dis- 

 tinguish the invention called composition and the 

 execution. As to the latter, it may be vocal or 

 instrumental ; and as to the purposes for which 

 music is intended, we have church or sacred music, 

 theatrical music, concert, dancing^ &c., music. 

 Music, considered on its technical side, rests on 

 mathematics and acoustics. Since Euler, it has 

 been understood that music ought to be treated 

 under a mathematical point of view. It operates, 

 in space and time, in such a way as to be susceptible 

 of mathematical measurement. Tones, considered 

 simply as to their duration, are magnitudes of time, 

 which stand in a descending geometrical progression, 

 the exponent of which is 2 : 1, i* A 1 ft &c. 

 The time is expressible in fractions (;' J 1 J' ', 

 time), which indicates in numbers how many parts 

 of the unit of time ("5") are contained in each bar. 

 In space, tones can be considered as magnitudes of 

 sound, and their distances from each other in the 

 scale are expressed in numbers, which have reference 

 to a mathematical division of the space between two 

 sounds, adopted as limits (the octave, the third, 

 seventh, &c.) Similar proportions exist between 

 the various voices, the treble, bass, &c.,and between 

 the various keys. In instrumental music, the depth 

 and height of the tones depend upon the proportions 

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