INTRODUCING FIRST PRINCIPLES 25 



maintaining accent of music. Under the name 

 rhythmo-harmonic accent or point, I presented this 

 subject fourteen years ago in the book above alluded to. 



In one-voice music, not only is each tone in a 

 melody a harmonic, that is, a root or third or fifth or 

 seventh or ninth, but every moment in a melody 

 is ruled by a particular harmony which I call the 

 regnant harmony.^ 



In one voice the regnant harmony arises on the 

 line of least resistance, it elects and asserts itself, 

 it is generated in feeling by the efficient accent, it 

 determines and reports the exact harmonic form 

 and relation of each tone; these forms and rela- 

 tions are immutable, since in every given case we 

 all of us hear and perceive the same form and same 

 relation. 



We shall see that the original harmonies entered 

 into being one by one as integral and correlated 

 threads of an ever increasing web of forms and 

 relations in an orderly sequence of regnant har- 

 monies, a sequence which nolens volens repeats itself 

 in the development of every musical mind, thus 

 establishing a traceable psychological connection be- 

 tween music's present and past. We cannot study 

 and trace this evolutionary sequence and psycho- 

 logical development in multi-voice music for the 

 simple and obvious reason that in such music the 

 regnant harmonies are due to personal election, fancy 

 and taste. In one voice the regnant harmony elects 

 itself, while in more than one voice the choice of har- 

 monies is personal. In one voice we perforce agree, 

 while in several voices we are at liberty to disagree. 



