6 
Bird- Song : and New Zealand Song Birds 
is able to detect the first five partials, or four besides the first 
partial, the principal note: some ears are able to detect more 
than these. 
The result of this is far-reaching. Lower the fifth harmonic 
one octave; then strike the principal note G firmly, and imme¬ 
diately afterwards the second, third, fourth, and the fifth 
lowered an octave, together, lightly, as in the diagram. The 
sounds of the second to fifth partials, heard faintly when the 
principal note was struck, are now accentuated, 
and the common chord of G has resulted. This 
' means that ’whenever a note is sounded the 
common chord of that note is also sounded, 
and is heard by the listener, though he may not 
be conscious that he hears it, as he may hear 
the ticking of a clock and not be conscious 
that he hears it until it stops, or until he consciously directs 
his attention towards it. He is conscious of the change in 
quality of a note, and this change is caused by a subduing, or 
an accentuating, of certain partials. The four partials heard 
with the lower G as above are the principal notes of the scale; 
the intermediate notes are derived from the higher partials. 
Whilst, then, the scale, as a scale, may be an artificial pro¬ 
duction, the notes of which it is composed are natural pro¬ 
ductions, all sounding, in varying degrees of intensity, every time 
a musical note is produced. Science did not invent the scale; it 
merely explains the manner in which the scale came to be used 
unconsciously by singers from time immemorial. It must be 
remembered that until music came to be written in harmony— 
that is about the seventeenth century—there was no need for 
the term “scale.” Mankind had been singing its melodies for 
hundreds of years without knowing such a term, and without 
feeling any need for it. Their ear was probably as true as the 
ear of the most skilled musician of the present day; certainly 
their melodies were equal to his in beauty. Not that the 
melodies themselves were fixed: they were common property, 
and singers varied them as the mood inspired, and as the ear 
allowed. It cannot be said of any particular melody that its 
