78 THE NATURE OF MUSIC 



The reader with a trained ear will not stumble or 

 hesitate over the numbers which mark the harmonic 

 relation of each of the above tones; without pause or 

 effort he at once recognizes E as mi and major third 

 of Tonic, F as /a and minor seventh of Dominant, G 

 as sol and pure fifth of Tonic, and so on. Through 

 practice he has developed and transmuted common 

 harmonic feeling into common harmonic perception, 

 that is, true feeling of harmonic relations into true 

 perception of harmonic relations, something that he 

 once only felt into something that he now positively 

 knows. The result is that he recognizes these rela- 

 tions automatically ; he not only perceives them in the 

 concrete as in the above melody, but he can think of 

 them in the abstract since in his mind they have taken 

 shape as ideas and concepts. 



On the other hand, the reader whose ear is not 

 trained has all this to learn. He may well ask : How 

 am I to know that the first tone in this melody is a 

 major third, that the second is a minor seventh, and 

 so on ? This analysis will at once answer this ques- 

 tion and explain harmonic relations in one voice. In 

 the succeeding questions and answers we will start 

 at the bottom. 



What proof is there that I share in common music- 

 feeling, in a word, that I am musical ? It lies in the 

 fact that you take pleasure in music, which in the 

 absence of music-feeling would not be the case. 



What proof is there that my feeling of tone-relation 

 is true ? It lies in the fact that you are able to follow 

 and express (sing or hum) a melody since each tone 

 in a melody simultaneously reports a definite relation 



