INTRODUCING FIRST PRINCIPLES S 



culiar interest. We all share in this common feelings 

 yet do not succeed in translating it into common 

 thought, do not succeed in expressing it in so many 

 words. Unless this can be done it will be impossible 

 to answer any of the above questions. If it really be 

 true that melody is the essence of music, the original 

 and all-inclusive composite of music's elements and 

 principles, then it is also true that melody is the 

 raison d'etre of harmony, in other words, that har- 

 mony is and from the beginning always has been an 

 element of melody. I shall endeavor to demonstrate 

 in the following pages that this is true. But how 

 can it be true ? It is flatly contradicted by the entire 

 history, theory and practice of music. All the books 

 teach us that melody antedates harmony by unknown 

 ages and that harmony was discovered and introduced 

 only a few centuries ago. Is not this evidence con- 

 clusive, final, insuperable.^ Here let us ask a plain 

 question. What do the books or authorities mean by 

 harmony ? Without exception they mean chords, that 

 is, combinations or concords of several tones. No 

 other form or conception of musical harmony has 

 thus far appeared. To speak of harmony is to speak 

 of chords. To study harmony is to study chords. 

 Every treatise on harmony is a treatise on chords. It 

 is the common belief and teaching over the whole musi- 

 cal world that the chord is the one and only, therefore 

 by implication, the original form of musical harmony. 

 The evolutionist has the hardihood to question the 

 truth of this common belief and teaching, he does 

 not regard the complex chord as a spontaneous gen- 

 eration, he reasons that so complex a form as the 



