36 



THE NATURE OF MUSIC 



pitch. Once generated in feeling we move at pleasure 

 up and down from tone to tone on this thread taking 

 the tones in the above order or making leaps, since in 

 doing this we but follow the line of least resistance 

 in obedience to the inherent shaping principle, equi- 

 librium. This first of music's harmonic threads 

 introduced a variety of intervals into experience, 

 namely, the pure octave, fifth and fourth, major and 

 minor thirds, sixths and tenths, as shown below : — 



i 



8ve 



5th 



4th 



maj. 3d 



min. 3d 



^ 



-«?- 



-&^ 



maj. 6th min. 6th maj. 10th min. 10th 



^2- 



^^m 



There is however something vastly more important 

 than these intervals or steps from tone to tone. It is 

 the tones themselves which give rise to all these inter- 

 vals and which resolve themselves into three harmonic 

 'perceptSy namely, a root, a major third, a pure fifth. 

 Briefly, each tone in the above intervals is one of these 

 three harmonic percepts. The harmonic percept is 

 therefore the thing of primary importance, the essen- 

 tial thing to understand and to know. As we proceed 

 it will be well to bear this distinction between an inter- 

 val and a harmonic percept in mind. 



23. Harmony in One Voice, Common Reports 



As we have seen, the major consonance is a complex 

 of three tones or harmonics. Like the root, each of 

 the other two tones generates in feeling the entire 



