42 
Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. [sess. 
standard, or, in other words, he has a gift of absolute perception of 
pitch in conformity with his standard. 
After this trial, he came to my house and was tested by a 
Bechstein piano and an American organ, both at concert pitch. 
He made very few mistakes, and it was only reasonable to 
attribute these to the distraction caused by the new surroundings 
in which he was placed. When I caught his attention he was 
invariably correct. 
Those who practise the tonic sol-fa system are expected to sing 
any note of the scale when the tonic is given, and, no doubt, tens 
of thousands of children can do this without difficulty. The 
test for the elementary certificate of the Tonic Sol-fa College is as 
follows : — 
“ Pitch the key note by means of a given C, sol-fa not more than 
three times, and afterwards sing to words or to the syllable 
laa any £ part ’ in a Psalm or Hymn tune in the tonic sol-fa 
notation, not seen before, but not necessarily containing 
any passages of transition, or of the minor mode, or any 
division of time less than a full pulse.” 
This quotation is given to show that the tests are quite different 
from those which were applied to this child, who had no key or 
reference note given to him to aid him in his search after particular 
notes. Here, however, is a case where pitch is appreciated directly, 
and where no musical education has been imparted. It is true 
that in one sense there has been a musical education of the ear, as 
during the. last two years the boy has touched every key on the 
piano and listened to the sound ; but it is only about a month since 
he acquired the names of the notes. He has also listened almost 
daily to good music. He now associates the names a, b, c, g, etc., 
with particular sounds within the whole range of the piano. 
I observed that in resolving a triplet of notes he always men- 
tioned first the one highest in pitch, and he seemed to “ feel about,” 
as it were, for the other notes, but the correct answer was given 
within a quarter of a minute. After a good many trials his 
attention flagged, and then, occasionally, he made mistakes. In 
the fingering with his own piano, the only error committed was with 
the lowest note of the instrument, and this note was out of tune. 
It was also curious to notice that the boy was astonished that his 
