DISSONANCE AND CONSONANCE 73 



The eye and ear are concerned in the following dis- 

 tinction. In a written series of single notes, as in 

 example a), you can see the notes, but you cannot see 

 the harmonies, because single notes present no visual 

 images of harmonic forms. Therefore in one voice 

 you are compelled to hear. With chords it is different. 

 In a series of written chords you not only see the notes, 

 but you can also see the chords, because each chord 

 presents a distinct visual image easily remembered. 

 This explains why in the study of chords or harmony, 

 as it is called, students so readily fall into the perni- 

 cious habit of guidance by sight in place of guidance 

 by hearing. It explains why most students recognize a 

 chord when they see it, while so few recognize a chord 

 when they hear it; why most students do their work 

 at the piano and cannot hear what they have written 

 unless they play it, while so few hear before they write 

 and hear what they write as they write. In original 

 harmony the forms are invisible; in chord-harmony 

 they are visible. In the former the exercise of har- 

 monic feeling, perception and conception is unavoid- 

 able and a necessity from the start; in the latter this 

 exercise is interfered with, and in most cases is ex- 

 cluded by the insidious visual habit just described, and 

 the necessity for this exercise is constantly urged upon 

 students. In the former you cannot move one step 

 without hearing; in the latter, owing to the visual 

 habit, it is possible to work through an entire treatise 

 without hearing. First the idea, then the sign; first 

 hear, then write ; this subordination of symbol to idea, 

 of sight to hearing, should be a matter of course. 



Original harmony and chord-harmony are con- 



