MUSIC 



4021 



MUSIC 



Coleridge-Taylor and Elgar. Poland has pro- 

 duced the great Chopin; Russia, Tschaikowskv, 

 Rubinstein and Rachmaninov; Bohemia, Sme- 

 tana and Dvorak; and Scandinavia, Gade, 

 Grieg and Sinding. 



North America had until comparatively re- 

 cent times no independent musical history, and 

 the work of its early composers, among whom 

 John Howard Paine is perhaps best known, 

 showed no originality. Later attempts were 

 made to develop in the United States a na- 

 tional music by making use of negro folk songs 

 or Indian chants as basic themes, but it cannot 

 be said that the resultant music is characteris- 

 tically American, for neither the negroes nor 

 the Indians are typical of American life to-day. 



Chadwick, Nevin, Foote, Shelley, Cadman, 

 Parker these are some of the most important 

 names in the history of music in America; but 

 the name which far outshines them all is that 

 of MacDowell, a composer of world fame, who 

 died before he came to the zenith of his 

 powers. 



For a detailed account of the contributions 

 which all of these composers In the various coun- 

 tries have made to music, see the articles on 

 their names. 



The most recent tendency in music, as in 

 painting, has been toward impressionism, and 

 the adoption of this tendency by composers 

 everywhere has done much to obliterate na- 

 tional lines in music. 



A Course of Lessons 



The lessons which follow will not teach any- 

 one to play the piano or to sing, but they are 

 of such a general, basic character that they 

 will form an excellent foundation for any other 

 lessons. They intend to make clear the ter- 

 minology and notation of music, and some of 

 the simpler facts about musical theory ; indeed, 

 they cover just about the ground covered in a 

 public school course in music, save that they 

 make less provision for practice. Practice is 

 necessary, however, and skill in recognizing the 

 various symbols can be gained only from fre- 

 quent sight of them. Any music book, even if 

 it be but a hymn book, will furnish ample illus- 

 trative material to supplement the discussion 

 here. For instance, when the various kinds of 

 notes are treated, as whole notes, half notes, 

 iirhths and sixteenths, an excellent drill may 

 be had by picking out each of these many times 

 in some pinging book. 



Common Musical Terms. As HHIMC i> the art 

 or science of tones, it is necessary first of all 

 to understand clearly what a tone is. All 

 sounds are caused by the vibration of some 

 body, and when this body is of a certain char- 

 acter and the vibrations are even and rapid 

 enough to blend together into a pleasing and 

 musical sound, this sound is kngwn as a ' 



Experiment. Stretch a strong string or a fine 

 wire between two nails about three feet apart, 

 letting It remain rather sla< it |. plucked 



does a musical sound result? Draw It tighter and 

 tighter, touching It occasionally. Can you notice 

 Jn*t th- moMi.-nt when the *mm<l loses Its un- 

 :<<al character and becomes a real tone? 



have found out that if a sounding 

 body makes fewer than sixteen, or 



8,192 vibrations in. a second, the human ear is 

 incapable of receiving the result as a musical 

 sound. 



The musical sounds called tones differ from 

 each other in four n -]. rts in intensity, or 

 loudness; in quality, or timbre; in pitch, and in 

 length, or duration; and an understanding of 

 these terms is necessary*. 



Intensity or loudness is a simple matter. 

 Touch your tightly-stretched wire so that its 

 vibrations are but small. Now luck it hard, 

 so that it may vibrate through a wide arc. 

 Which operation produces the louder tone? 

 This will show you that intensity, or loudness, 

 h is to do, not with the length of the vibrating 

 body, but with the size of the vibrations, wide 

 vibrations giving the louder tone. Now, no 

 matter what the instrument used, whether it 

 be the piano, the flute or the delicate voice of 

 a child, loudness can be merely a relative mat- 

 t< i. and composers and performers have agreed 

 upon a number of terms which shall be used to 

 indicate varying degrees of intensity. The fol- 

 lowing list gives the most common of these, 

 with the ordinary abbreviation and the mean- 

 HILT of each. They are all Italian words, as are, 

 in NCI. most musical terms, and there is a cer- 

 tain justice in this, not only because modern 

 music owed much of its early developmen 

 Italy, but because Italian is the most musical 

 of tongues: 



Fortissimo (ff.) very loud 



Forte ( f . ) loud 



Mezzo (m.i . medium 



soft 



Pianissimo i-j- ' v ry soft 



Mezzo Forte < mf. > medium loud 



Mezzo Piano ( mp. ) medium soft 



