DISSONANCE AND CONSONANCE 67 



rhythm and tone met, merged and became one, then 

 rhythm-cadence and rhythm-repose became tone- 

 cadence (dissonance) and tone-repose (consonance), 

 and forever after there was music. 



The foregoing analyses and examples conclusively 

 prove, first, that original harmony is harmony in ane 

 voice, that tones are heard, felt and expressed in ca- 

 dence or repose as roots or thirds or fifths or sevenths 

 or ninths, that tone and tone-relation connote har- 

 mony and harmonic relation, that harmonic form and 

 harmonic relation in one voice are self-asserted, fixed 

 and immutable, and by implication that the reports 

 of original harmony are common reports ; second, that 

 dissonance like consonance had its genesis in one 

 voice, that the genus dissonance and the genus con- 

 sonance are respectively the harmonies of the Major 

 Dominant and Major Tonic, and by implication that 

 tonality is fundamentally and wholly a question of 

 harmony, and that original harmony in one voice is 

 its basis; third, that the Major Tonic was the first 

 regnant harmony, and this implies the priority of 

 Major tonality ; fourth, that melody instead of being 

 an element, as generally supposed, turns out to be a 

 composite of rhythm and harmony, and by implica- 

 tion that melody is the original vehicle of dissonance, 

 consonance and tonality, in short, of music per se ; 

 in fine, that dissonance is neither more nor less a har- 

 mony than consonance, the former being unstable and 

 relative equilibrium, the latter, stable and perfect 

 equilibrium. ^ 



