280 



THE NATURE OF MUSIC 



ceptive power to grasp the four-voice music-thought 

 embodied in these given basses. The impossible be- 

 ing demanded, the student's performance is neces- 

 sarily mechanical and musically dead since his musical 

 faculties are not called into requisition. How many 

 beginners are there who even so much as hear the 

 given bass itself! Even those who do, what musical 

 sense can they make of it, what harmonic connection 

 do they perceive in these series of bass-tones ? None 

 whatever. Does not the untrained and natural bass- 

 singer feel and find his tones in relation to something 

 else which he grasps and remembers as a whole, 

 namely, to a melody ? When there is no one present 

 to sing the melody what does this natural bass do, 

 does he sing the bass-part ? No, he sings the melody. 

 Thus cut off from melody, from music-thought by 

 these basses, the student's only intellectual refuge 

 lies in the prescribed rules for connecting chords 

 which more often tell him what not to do rather than 

 what to do. Even though he performs his task cor- 

 rectly he has gained nothing musically, and the edu- 

 cational purpose is not attained. 



1. 8 2.8 



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75*- 



P=t 



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B 



I IV I VI IVIIVVI 



The same material, in short, the same exercises are 

 next presented in the form of melody, of music-thought 

 itself. 



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5 1 



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1 2.1 3 1 



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