Down (feather)

“ Adult male. — Head and neck, above and laterally, black, each feather with a conspicuous mesial guttate streak of buffy white; under parts, including chin and throat, dull slate-gray, similarly but more broadly streaked, as far back as the lower abdomen, where the streaks become obsolete and the ground color paler and more buffy gray; under tail-coverts cinnamon with narrow shaft-streaks of paler; thighs deeper cinnamon, or russet; under wing-coverts and broad edgings to inner webs of primaries deep cinnamon-buff ”

“ As her voice, in the song, made soft vibrations in his ears, it seemed to him that she grew dim and vague before him, and that somehow, under the soft searching prod of her song, he was otherwhere. So much was he otherwhere that he did the surprising thing. He sat down abruptly, almost cataleptically, drew his head away from the clutch of her hands and out of the entanglement of her hair, and, his nose thrust upward at an angle of forty-five degrees, he began to quiver and to breathe audibly in rhythm to the rhythm of her singing. ”

“ When no bowing is indicated, a phrase beginning with a weak beat commonly has an up-bow for the first tone, while one beginning on a strong beat has a down-bow; but this principle has many exceptions. ”

“ There are several parts as a rule, but they wander in and out of one another at will, and every now and then a single voice will break away and embroider a little improvisation of its own upon the melody that is like a sudden scatter of spray from the crest of a rolling breaker. Then the chorus takes it up and answers it, and the whole mass of the voices hurls itself upon the tune like the breaker [164] falling and bursting upon the shore. ”

“ SWING HIGH AND SWING LOW Swing high and swing low While the breezes they blow— It's off for a sailor thy father would go; And it's here in the harbor, in sight of the sea, He hath left his wee babe with my song and with me: "Swing high and swing low While the breezes they blow!" Swing high and swing low While the breezes they blow— It's oh for the waiting as weary days go! And it's oh for the heartache that smiteth me when I sing my song over and over again: "Swing high and swing low While the breezes they blow!" ”

“ The figure of a dwarf, a head sunk beneath the shoulders, hunchbacked, and repulsive, he was hardly a man fitted by nature for a stage hero. Yet his exquisite voice and irreproachable taste as a musician gave him a long reign in the very front rank of his profession. He was so morbidly conscious of his own stage defects that he would beg composers to write for him with a view to his singing at the side scenes before entering on the stage, that the public might form an impression of him by hearing before his grotesque ugliness could be seen. ”

“ Sitting here in my balcony, I picture the possessor of that voice as a small, stout young man, standing a little apart from the other singers, with his hands behind him, under his coat-tail, and a severe expression of countenance. He sometimes leans forward, with a futile attempt to read the music over somebody else's shoulder, but always resumes his old severity of attitude before singing his part. ”

“ Up and down the passage way between the beds marched the fife and drum; louder beat the drum, more piercing grew the fife. What delirious joy-of-battle, what poignant cries of anguish, has not that immortal music both stirred and soothed! To what supremacy of effort has it not incited? It has succoured dying men with its viaticum. ”

“ Never, for an instant, however, does the music stop, and as his tiny form rises farther and farther into the air he gradually begins to drive forward in a wide curve—but still rising and still fluttering madly—until he becomes a mere speck against the sky. ”

“ When the tide of harmony has reached its flood, and is gradually ebbing back to fainter sounds, the Master raises his instrument to 81his shoulder and lays his ear upon it, as if listening for his key-note amidst the tones that are serpentining through his brain. When to the audience ‘nothing lives ’twixt these and silence,’ a strain which has at first a dying fall imperceptibly swells on the ear. ”

“ The musicians grow rigid with the instruments in their hands. The dancers remain fixed in the game position in which they were when the silence fell. Man rises, straightens himself, throws back his gray, beautiful, terribly majestic head, and calls out in a surprisingly loud voice, full of sorrow and wrath. ”

“ When a person singing a song has to stop up because he forgets the next verse, he says (mostly in joke) 'there's a hole in the ballad'—throwing the blame on the old ballad sheet on which the words were imperfect on account of a big hole. ”

“ But as I ran up the stairs, I heard the tinkle of the spinet, and the notes of an old, familiar tune fell upon my ears. The words rose in my head with the cadence.
“Love me little, love me long, Is the burthen of my song, Love that is too hot and strong Runneth soon to waste.” ”

“ Depth is the path which leads from what-is, to our own body. In music it is not otherwise. Tone is existence, without which nothing at all can be. Symmetry and Numbers are the manner in which tones exist, one with another. ”

“ When, therefore, a whole tone lies below any note marked for a beat, an accidental sharp is to be supposed on that lower note, except that A is seldom thus sharpened in a beat. The beat is, therefore, the reverse of the shake, (but without the turn,) and is made generally at the distance of a semitone below ; and all the notes, excepting C and F, re-quire the note below to be sharped for the beat. ”

“ Hitherto the verse groans and labors with its load, and goes not forward blithely, singing by the way. The best ode may be parodied, indeed is itself a parody, and has a poor and trivial sound, like a man stepping on the rounds of a ladder. ”

“ But the throbbing rhythm has died away: the dream is nearing an end. Swiftly the phantom rises, and makes as if to go. Tenderly it stoops over the fair face of the sleeper, and imprints a single kiss upon her brow. The music draws to a close, the appointed hour inexorably approaches. Longingly the phantom lingers, till a fear assails one, lest it tarry too long. ”

“ A man might well be moved to song on the top of one of those old coaches of a fine spring morning with the hedge-rows all in tender green. Even we ourself, who have a voice that causes people to turn around and scowl when we join in a chorus, even we might be led to troll a rollicking catch under such circumstances as that.
But who ever heard of anyone singing in a Pullman car—unless it should be a traveller in the smoking-room who had travelled not wisely but too well? And even those days are past now. Singing isn't done, that's all. ”

“ Mounting upward from the clods, he finally reaches a far height, where he pours out his melodious, tinkling music, minute after minute, sweeping about in wide circles, or steadily flying into the wind. Thirty or forty times he may give his song, then becoming tired of his performance, downward he drops to the earth in long, graceful sweeps to alight unconcernedly. ”

“ If, in the inferior Cadences, the best Singers of these Days think they are not in the wrong in making you hear the final Note before the Bass [87] , they deceive themselves grossly; for it is a very great Error, hurts the Ear, and is against the Rules; and becomes doubly so, going (as they do) to the same Note with an Appoggiatura, the which either ascending or descending, if not after the Bass [88] , is always very bad.
§ 13. And is it not worst of all, to torment the Hearers with a thousand Cadences all in the same Manner? ”

“ They call on the spectators to follow them, with loud calls mingled with the music: these cries now become louder and more boisterous, and the coil rapidly unwinds, moving more and more quickly, until some one of the dancers, being unable to keep up, slips and falls. ”

“ A preliminary movement sufficiently ample to be easily followed by the eye must be made before actually giving the beat upon which the singers or players are to begin the tone, if the attack is to be delivered with precision and confidence. ”

“ To his sensitive ear the words had sounded exactly like the opening line of the refrain of a vaudeville song-hit. He decided to waste no further speech on a man with such an unfortunate surname until he could see him face to face and get a chance of lowering his voice a bit. Absolutely absurd to stand outside a chappie’s door singing song-hits in a lemon-coloured bathing suit. ”

“ So, having turned down the gas, I came to the staircase-head and began to descend. A certain something, not too far from fear, prompted the idea of a hand reaching on to me from behind. I desired to turn and look. My will overcame my desire. I descended slowly, step after step, in an actor's way rather. ”

“ Some feel of draught from the entrance gave him its direction and he made his way uncertainly towards it. She saw him outlined against the dying light, his fingers making sure of the exit. Then he blocked it.
"Come down," he cried again. "Curse you for a jade, speak up!" His voice faltered, whimpered like a child in the dark. Even if she obeyed him, unless he was guided by the sound of her voice he could not find her. So she prayed and believed. Bound as her ankles were, she could not do more than wriggle from the niche to the floor and this she determined not to do. ”

“ And all at once, as if hoping to lighten their labours—lovers of music as these people are—a shrill, musical, woman’s voice arose, starting a familiar chorus, which was taken up directly by the young, to rise and fall and swell along the valley, the sweet soprano tones supported by the roaring waters’ heavy bass. ”

“ You feel as tall as the Singer Building to-day, but you'll shrink before long. You'll shrink until, after a long, hard day, with about nine turndowns in it, you'll have to climb up on top of the dresser to look at yourself in the glass. ”

“ From far away, as from another world, he hears the murmur of a large body of people, the rolling of the drum, the throbbing of the double-bass, the wail of the fiddles, sometimes the thud of the wooden-shoe dancer, and sometimes a sudden silence as the music dims away to rubbish for the big stunt of the trapeze performer. ”

“ The first note drawn forth by the Don had arrested their attention, and there was a rush for every spot from which a view could be had of the performer. See them, therefore, a few of the older ones just inside the door, the less fortunate craning their necks behind, and upon their faces that rapt attention which is an inspiration to an artist. ”

“ At the commencement of the present century the alto of the female voice was unknown here ; the part, when made use of; being sustained by men. Old singing books will accordingly show you the alto written in counter tenor upon the high notes of the staff, an octave above where it now stands for the female voice. ”

“ Donne had clearly no thought of his songs being an exception to this rule:
But when I have done so,
Some man his art and voice to show
Doth set and sing my paine.
Yet it is difficult to think of some, perhaps the majority, of Donne's Songs and Sonets as being written to be sung. Their sonorous and rhetorical rhythm, the elaborate stanzas which, like the prolonged periods of the Elegies, seem to give us a foretaste of the Miltonic verse-paragraph, suggest speech,—impassioned, rhythmical speech rather than the melody of song. ”

“ Taking leave of the others, with a just appreciation of the last mentioned two or three, and coming suddenly upon Longfellow’s lyrics, is like passing out of a ragged country into a rich Eastern garden, with the music of birds and falling waters singing in our ears at every step. ”

“ As the tempo becomes more rapid, decrease the number of beats; but as it becomes slower, increase the number, at the same time elaborating the beat so as to express more tangibly the idea of a steady forward movement. ”

“ The chief beat or accent in a measure is the first. Secondary accents occur on the odd beats afterwards. The first beat is always a down-stroke with the baton. The following diagram will show the more usual ways of beating times. ”

“ These irregularities are chiefly Reversed Feet and Reversed or Counterpoint Rhythm, which two things are two steps or degrees of licence in the same kind. By a reversed foot I mean the putting the stress where, to judge by the rest of the measure, the slack should be and the slack where the stress, and this is done freely at the beginning of a line and, in the course of a line, after a pause; only scarcely ever in the second foot or place and never in the last, unless when the poet designs some extraordinary effect; for these places are characteristic and sensitive and cannot well be touched. ”

“ The voice is often seriously impaired in using the high notes in both chest and head registers, by forcing of the high notes, and exaggerating the timbres and, if often renewed, will eventually destroy the best voice and the tremolo follows in consequence and the once promising voice is lost and forever inevitably destroyed. ”

“ The dejected giant, hearing himself thus questioned, ejaculated whiningly: "Come back again? Oh! certainly not until the mount has become the bottom of the sea, and the sea itself arable and fertile land; if this should ever happen, then I may perhaps come back again."
[Pg 141]
CURIOSITIES IN MUSICAL LITERATURE.
Anything which is new and unprecedented in music is seldom at once properly appreciated by the majority of musicians however beautiful it may be. ”

“ I heard singing, and a guitar, somewhere near. I listened attentively, for the voices of the singers affected me strangely; dim reminiscences stirred within me, but were slow to take definite form. I got off my horse, and slowly drew nearer to the vine-covered arbour where the music was going on. The second voice had stopped; the first was singing a canzonetta alone; the singer was in the middle of an elaborate cadenza, it went warbling up and down, till at last she began a long holding-note, and then, all at once, a woman's voice broke out in a fury, with curses, execrations and reproaches. ”