MUSIC 



4019 



MUSIC 



has passed almost before the ear has caught it, 

 and the performer cannot well be stopped and 

 asked to repeat it. It is necessary, therefore, 

 that the musical memory be trained, so that 

 one part may be retained in the mind until 

 what follows has been welded to it, and the 

 perfect form is grasped. Some knowledge of 

 various musical forms is necessary, too, that 

 the hearer may know what to expect when 

 listening to a certain composition. In this lat- 



ter phase of study these volumes will be of 

 assistance, for they discuss without technical 

 difficulties the musical forms the sonata, the 

 fugue, the concerto, the symphony, and others ; 

 while as for the actual drill in rudiments, there 

 is given below a complete, if brief, course of 

 study. Before this is taken up, however, some 

 knowledge of the history of music is most de- 

 sirable, as without that its purposes and its 

 achievements cannot be understood. 



The Story of Music 



In the Long Ago. Practically every tribe, no 

 matter how primitive, has its music of one 

 form or another, though to civilized ears it may 

 sound very unmusical ; and in the far-away 

 ages of the world every nation produced music 

 of some kind. But there were very decided 

 differences between even the best of this an- 

 cient music and what modern people know as 

 music. In the first place, the ancients had no 

 harmony; they knew nothing of the exquisite 

 effect to be gained by sounding together two or 

 more notes that "chord," and produced only 

 melodies or "tunes" of the very simplest sort. 

 Tin n, too, they knew nothing about key not 

 i the facts which the youngest beginner 

 18 to-day. 



Little is known of the music of the Egyp- 

 tians, beyond the fact that on their rude sculp- 

 i various instruments are shown, but it is 

 of importance because from it the music of the 

 Greeks was derived; and the Greeks, masters 

 of beauty in almost every stage, made decided 

 advances in music. To them, however, it was 

 not really an art in itself, but a means of 

 ng the effect of poetry. When a poet 

 had produced a number of beautiful lyrics or 

 ] rhaps such a wonderful epic as the Iliad, he 

 could not have them published as can a modem 

 ;t with his lyre or cithara he appeared 

 before some great assemblage and chanted In- 

 sounding lines; and if his hearers were pleased 

 with hi in he was crowned with a wreath of 

 I. Many \\< i tin legends which the Greeks 

 ' about music, and the very name is taken 

 from that of the Muses, the goddesses who ; 

 sided over its mysteries. Apollo was the god of 

 music, and the lyre was sacred to him; any 

 presumptuous mortal who dared to challenge 

 powers was most severely punished (see 

 APOLLO). 



The Romans borrowed their music from the 



ks, but found it not warlike enough to suit 



spirits. They introduced the 



trumpet and the tuba, and the all-conquering 

 legions responded to the different notes of the 

 trumpet as does the modern army to the bugle 

 calls. It is also said that the first organ, a 

 crude affair, was invented by the Romans. 



Sacred Music. Meantime, far to the East, 

 across the sea from Greece and Rome, had 

 grown up music of a different sort. This con- 

 sisted of the sacred songs of the Hebrews, of 

 which the words, but no hint of the music, 

 came down to later times as the Psalms. When 

 Christianity spread to the Roman Empire and 

 became in time the accepted religion, the old 

 psalms were used, and new songs and chants 

 were introduced. Indeed, for several centuries 

 the art of music was preserved by the Church 

 alone. Nobody can tell to-day what sort of 

 "tunes" these early Christians used for their 

 songs, but they probably had little connection 

 with the old Roman and Greek music. In the 

 sixth century there lived a pope, Gregory the 

 Great, who did much to advance music, writing 

 hymns, and above all else producing the Gre- 

 gorian chant which is to this day used in the 

 Roman Catholic Church. 



Still there was no such thing as harmony, the 

 chants all being sung in unison; nor had the 

 staff or a satisfactory system of notation been 

 invented. And until these fundamentals had 

 been agreed upon there could be no real prog- 

 ress. The seventh, eighth and ninth centuries 

 passed with little change, but at the close of 

 the ninth century a monk of Flanders wrote a 

 treatise in which he set forth many of the 

 principles of harmony, and about a century 

 later the staff, almost as it exists to-day, was 

 invented. 



Folk Songs. The solemn chants did not com- 

 pletely satisfy that love for music which seems 

 inborn in human nature, and in every country 

 folk songs grew up. The Celts made decided 

 progress in such music, and their bards, who 

 sang or chanted to their rude, stringed instru- 



