26 UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO STUDIES 



questions, not in order to answer them, but as a means of calling atten- 

 tion to a few of the many problems which are generally dismissed in 

 an offhand manner as being neither difficult of solution nor of impor- 

 tance. 



As one proof that music is not a language capable of "describing an 

 emotion," note the following test which the writer has frequently 

 performed in the classroom. A composition, for example Schumann's 

 "Warum?" is played and then each student, not already acquainted 

 with the composition, is asked to explain its meaning. Scarcely in 

 a single instance has the right answer been given; but when it is then 

 played a second time, after having the title announced, all the mem- 

 bers of the class at once recognize the relation between the music and 

 its title. If music be a language it must convey in such a test at least 

 the same impression, no matter how defined by the student, but it 

 does not. The concord element of repose and the discord element of 

 imrest are factors to be considered, but they do not explain the differ- 

 ence between a beautiful composition and a mere succession of chords. 

 Scientific methods of investigation lead at last to a contemplation of 

 music from the idea of the beautiful. But what is the beautiful? 

 In the words of Voltaire, ''Ask the philosophers — and they will answer 

 you in jargon." And now do all these arguments lead to but this? 

 Scientifically, "yes!" but musically, "no!" for after wandering still 

 farther along the well-paved but treeless highroad of science, we shall 

 at last reach the groves wherein the gods and nymphs danced and 

 dreamed unconcerned with questions of the "why and the wherefore" 

 of life's problems. 



That the scientists themselves are not altogether at home when 

 speaking of music, is illustrated by the following quotation from Her- 

 bert Spencer,^ which reveals not only a misunderstanding of the 

 fundamental principles of the aesthetics of music, but of the actual 

 process of musical composition. He refers to music as "a language 

 of feelings which may ultimately enable men vividly and completely 

 to impress on each other the emotions they experience from moment 

 to moment." The fatal error here is that a composition does not 



' Origin and Function of Music. 



