4 THE NATURE OF MUSIC 



chord is rooted in and evolved from antecedent sim- 

 pler forms of harmony, that the development of har- 

 mony is a progressive evolution from simple to com- 

 plex which began with the genesis of music in one 

 voice. This explains the subtitle of this book, " Ori- 

 ginal Harmony in One Voice." Everything hinges 

 on the question of the origin and nature of music's 

 specific forms of harmony, that is, of consonance and 

 dissonance. All harmonists know that this ques- 

 tion still remains unanswered. A single obstacle has 

 stood in the way of its scientific solution, namely, the 

 prevailing chord-idea and chord-view of harmony 

 based on physical acoustics. The age of the chord 

 reaches back a few centuries. The age of harmony 

 reaches back through all the ages to the genesis of 

 music in one voice. The development of original 

 harmony in one voice occupies the entire period of 

 homophony, the first and longest evolutional chapter 

 in music and the most important chapter for scientific 

 research- 



2. Homophony or Music in One Voice 



The term homophony is used in these pages strictly 

 in the sense of music in one voice or part as distin- 

 guished from polyphony and chorded music in several 

 voices or parts. The material for the evolutional 

 study of homophony is complete. We find it in the 

 simple songs of birds and primitive man, in ancient and 

 mediaeval melodies, in folksongs and dances, in modern 

 music down to our own time, for the works of all the 

 great composers contain countless motives, phrases 

 and passages in one voice. Thus homophony, the 



