Alto

“ The mere fact of having high tones does not necessarily make one a soprano, neither is a voice always to be classified as alto by reason of not being able to sing high. It is quality that decides what a voice is. Soprano is a quality. Alto is a quality. The terms tenor, baritone, bass, refer to a quality rather than a compass. These qualities are determined primarily by the construction of the organ. ”

“ Allow me to say that I have found men altos infinitely preferable to those of boys. In short, one good man alto I{88} have experienced to be equal to half-a-dozen boy altos as regards tone; and in respect to phrasing and reading I have found men altos decidedly superior. The two gentlemen altos who were in my choir at SS. Michael and All Angels, Exeter, were acknowledged by London organists to be 'second to none' in the provinces. ”

“ We are speaking here of vocal music; but the parts in an instrumental fugue are mostly treated pretty much as if they were voice parts. For the purposes of fugal answer, we group the voices in pairs, the higher pair being the treble and tenor, and the lower the alto and bass. If the student remembers the directions for transposing a given subject which are given in Counterpoint, he will be aware that a subject given in the treble must be transposed a fourth or fifth lower for the alto, an octave lower for the tenor, and an eleventh or twelfth lower for the bass. ”

“ There must have been a spent moon,
For the Tall One's veil held a shimmer of silver...
That too I remember...
And the tenderly rocking mountain
Silence
And beating stars...
Dawn
Lay like a waxen hand upon the world,
And folded hills
Broke into a sudden wonder of peaks, stemming clear and cold,
Till the Tall One bloomed like a lily,
Flecked with sun,
Fine as a golden pollen—
It seemed a wind might blow it from the snow. ”

“ The boys send up notes clear and sweet as nightingales into the fretted arches of the roof; the men’s deeper notes swell the music until it breaks on the ears in a full tide of perfect harmony; the great organ fills in the breaks and pauses. ”

“ I seemed to hear depths and heights of sound beyond the scale which human ears can receive, keen, far-up octaves, like vividly twinkling starlight of music, and mighty slow vibrations of gigantic strings going down into grand thunders of depths, octaves below anything otherwise appreciable as musical notes. ”

“ But whence the ear that orders the length of the strings
To a magic of numbers flying before your thought
Through a door that closes against your breathless wonder?
Is there no Ear round the ear of a man, that it senses
Through strings and columns of air the soul of sound?
I thrill as I call it a tuning fork that catches
The waves of mingled music and light from afar,
The antennæ of Thought that listens through utmost space.
Surely the concord that ruled my spirit is proof
Of an Ear that tuned me, able to tune me over
And use me again if I am worthy to use. ”

“ No sooner was I within than I was overwhelmed by an experience analogous to that which had greeted me in the Tower of Sight, but even more ravishingly sweet. This time what I felt was the sensation of pure sound: sound, not merely heard, but, as before in the case of light, apprehended at once by every avenue of sense, and folding and sustaining, as it seemed, my whole being in a clear and buoyant element of tone. It was only by degrees that out of this absolute essence of sheer sound distinctions of rhythm and pitch began to appear, and to assume definite musical form. ”

“ Often have I, when passing in the evening a dwelling from which floated out upon the air the notes of tuneful voices, accompanied by the piano-forte or some other instrument, paused to listen, lingering long, the ear so ravished by the sweet sounds as to cause me to stand almost spell-bound, and to remain under music's magic influence even after its charming sounds had died away. ”

“ As the tree standing in the forest may be made into the violin music box of harmony, so my body, the material in the forest of matter, may be put in tune, become harmonious and be raised to perfection by the Master Musician, God—His mind within me. ”

“ There is a whole new set of sensations when one enters the softly lighted, dim white interior, with the echo repeating each word like the response of a chanted service—a single note from flute or guitar a whole theme. ”

“ Sometimes it seemed to him that he would climb and climb, as a star climbs in the sky, to the loftiest pinnacle of the highest peak from which the whole mountain world would spread in glory below him, and the setting sun would throw its red glow over him. ”

“ The dulness of the poet's ear shows itself in the defective melody of his verse; for both metre and rhythm have a physiological basis; they represent and express the harmony which is in the body when the body is finely attuned to the spirit. ”

“ In some places nought can be heard but the stunning sounds of ‘deep calling unto deep’; in others, the mind is led to musing by the quiet murmur of the brook, that falls upon the ear like distant music. ”

“ The measured sound of the oars grew stronger, keeping time to a low murmuring chant which proceeded from those who pulled them, more for the purpose of preserving the regularity of the stroke than for any music that they might have made. ”

“ What pleasure lives in height (the shepherd sang)
In height and cold, the splendour of the hills?
But cease to move so near the Heavens, and cease
To glide a sunbeam by the blasted Pine,
To sit a star upon the sparkling spire ”

“ Thou shalt behold all the grandeur thy toil has earned thee. Unto those who climb to the mountain summit, who mind not the sharp rocks and loose, rough grass beneath their tread,—unto such shall all the views be given; for they shall some day be lifted in vision, without aid of feet, to grander heights than their weary limbs have reached. ”

“ Bent as you are from straining
against the bitter horizontals of
a north wind,—there below you
how easily the long yellow notes
of poplars flow upward in a descending
scale, each note secure in its own
posture—singularly woven.
All voices are blent willingly
against the heaving contra-bass
of the dark but you alone
warp yourself passionately to one side
in your eagerness. ”

“ An air, generally speaking, is any melody, the passages of which are so constructed as to lie within the province of vocal expression, or which, when sung or played, forms that connected chain of sounds which we call a tune. But the strict import of air is confined to vocal music ”

“ In rising up to sing she often traces a sweeping spiral in the air at first, going round once or twice; after which, seeming to settle on the line she means to ascend, she goes up almost perpendicularly in a series of leaps, as it were—pausing a moment to gather impetus, and then shooting upwards till a mere speck in the sky. ”

“ In the rise and fall of sensation and emotion the sequences of height and depth are as closely related as are the proportions of the crest and trough in the waves of the ocean, or those of the vibration of the strings of a musical instrument. ”

“ Imagine an Æolian harp provided with all the scales, commingled by an artist's hand into all manner of fantastic, ornamental combinations, yet in such a way that you can always distinguish a deeper ground tone and a sweet continuous melody above—and you have an approximate idea of his playing. ”

“ She plunges up the slope toward the light, her own refulgence illuminating those who come immediately after her. The music reaches its wildest and highest point as the crowds falling in widely behind her, begins to ascend the slope. ”

“ Forever sounding in our ears, it has a mood for every hour,—stirring us at times as with the blast of a trumpet, then visiting us in solemn tones, like the bell which calls to prayer, and then again awaking us to unmistakable duty, like the same bell, when at midnight it summons all to stay the raging conflagration. ”

“ When the good man began to play upon his favorite instrument he was astonished at the sound that came from it. The beautiful notes of the pipes sounded clear and strong down into the valley, and spread over the hills, and up the sides of the mountain beyond, while, after a little interval, an echo came back from the rocky hill on the other side of the valley. ”

“ Sounds are not far heard on a mountain-top; they are lost in the abyss of vacant air. But amid these low, dense, dark spruces, which make a sort of canopied privacy of every square rod of ground, what could be more in keeping than this delicate musical whisper? ”

“ High above the life of earth beneath it shall wave in the blue band of heaven, neighbour to the thunder, on the boundary of the starry world. It shall be a voice from above, ay, as the bright choir of the stars, who praise their Creator in their motion and conduct the garlanded year. ”

“ Five aerial forms of exquisite beauty arose from its golden circlet, lifting themselves above it like drifting wreaths of sea-mist in the radiance of the moonlight, and their voices, small and soft, yet clear as the notes of a sweet song, made music in the silence. ”

“ On raising the eyes beyond the façade to the pinnacles of the farthest spires, comprehending at a glance all that delicate harmony of line and color, one experiences a feeling of exquisite pleasure, as{106} when one listens to a strain of music which sweeps gradually upward from the expression of solemn prayer to an ecstasy of sublime inspiration. ”

“ The instrument is set, and as the moment draws near, the stillness becomes more and more impressive. At last I look—it is glorious! A pure bright star is marching through the field to the music of the spheres ”

“ As we sit in this wonderful air, many sounds—that of wood-chopping for one—come to our ears, agreeably blunted, or muffled even, like the drumming of a partridge, not sharp and rending as in winter and recently. ”

“ As we wind up the slope, the tinkling of multitudinous bells from the herd comes to us, which is also in the domain of poetry. All the way up we have found wild flowers in the greatest profusion; and the higher we ascend, the more exquisite is their color and the more perfect their form. ”

“ None but the simplest of sounds, therefore, are borne on the keen winds that come from the moorland heights, and the purity of the air whispers in the ear the pleasing message of a land where chimneys have never been. ”

“ As the leading tone of our diatonic order of intervals—the Major Seventh—is wanting, our common cadence, or the usual harmonious treatment of the conclusion of a melody to which our ear has become so much accustomed that any other appears often unsatisfactory, cannot be applied to those tunes. Nevertheless, they will be found beautiful by inquirers who are able to dismiss prejudice and to enter into the spirit of the music. ”

“ The ear, too, is the magic instrument which conveys to the soul all the varied harmonies of sound, from the choirs of spring, and the other innumerable minstrelsies of nature, as well as from the higher art of man, that soothe, elevate, and solemnise. ”

“ The pitch, or the differences of acute and grave, in sounds, form another important property, and one which fits them for a great part of their purposes. By the succession of different notes, we have all the results of melody and harmony in musical sound ”

“ Overture begins with a murmuring passage for strings that grows in volume and changes character before an expressive melody unfolds in lower strings against an accompanying figure borrowed from the opening passage. A vigorous interlude of strong chords and a vigorous pronouncement by the brass lead into the most famous theme of the composition, a vivacious and jaunty melody for strings and woodwind. ”

“ The longer it is the greater is the tension, and the more shrill the tone: the closer its fibres, and the greater its thickness, the thicker the speech of the instrument: the nearer it stands to the bridge-foot, the more powerful becomes the vibration, and the harder the pull of the bow on the strings. ”

“ This wonderful instrument, our voice, alters its timbre with every note it yields, as the face changes with every look, until at last the dominant emotion is master, and gives quality to tone and character to expression. ”

“ Grandeur of bulk and mass is conjoined with splendor and fulness of detail; form and shape are crowned with soaring peak and matchless line; and the summits mingle with that sky which seems to be the only fitting background for the eternal hills. ”

“ As one diffusive air, passing through the perforations of a flute, is distinguished as the notes of a scale, so the nature of the Great Spirit is single, though its forms be manifold, arising from the consequences of acts. ”

“ The mountain, judged by the scale of remembered toil, grows wonderfully in height. The eye thus trained begins to realise and even to exaggerate the vast scale on which peaks are built. But along with this gain in the truthful sense of scale comes the loss of mystery. The peak which was in heaven is brought down to earth. It was a mere thing of beauty to be adored and wondered at; it has become something to be climbed. ”

“ What we call a higher note is so called because sounds produced by the mere rapid vibrations make every being, without exception, who has a musical ear, think of height, just as a lower note makes us all think of depth. ”

“ But it should be borne in mind that quantity has reference to loudness or volume of sound, and pitch to the elevation or depression of a tone. The difference may be distinguished by the slight and heavy strokes on a bell;—both of which produce sounds alike in pitch; but they differ in quantity or loudness, in proportion as the strokes are light or heavy.
RULES FOR QUANTITY.
1. SOFT, OR SUBDUED TONES, are those which range from a whisper to a complete vocality, and are used to express fear, caution, secrecy, solemnity, and all tender emotions. ”