Music lesson

“ Yet now a human hand has gathered us from moor and mountain and lonely fell, and side by side we lie and give out music to the hand that strikes us. Thus we, who had lain for centuries unconscious that there was a note of music in our hearts, answer one another in melodious tones, and combine in rich chords, just because we have been brought together. ”

“ Perhaps the music will begin by being solemn and grand, becoming even tragic, and gradually the tones and melody will rise to cheerfulness, the rhythm will become more animated and the tone swell out again until a perfect ecstasy of joy is reached—and all the while the figures of the pupils are harmonising absolutely with the music, trained as they are to listen accurately to every note, every accent, every change of key and, above all, every rhythm. ”

“ The merit of the troubadours in furthering the progress of music as an art was that they liberated melody from the fetters of calculation, gave it the stamp of individuality, and bore it on the wings of fancy into the domains of sentiment. ”

“ No other art is able to inflict such merciless suffering! Under the name of music we are afflicted with every variety of noise, including the hand organ, the bagpipes, the German band, the man who toots the cornet in the street, the harp man, the lady who has seen better days and who sings before our house in the evening, the active piano-organ invented by a heartless genius, the musical box and all its amazing progenies, the gramophone and the pianola. ”

“ Young people like rhyme, drum-beat, tune, things in pairs and alternatives; and, in higher degrees, we know the instant power of music upon our temperaments to change our mood, and give us its own: and human passion, seizing these constitutional tunes, aims to fill them with appropriate words, or marry music to thought, believing, as we believe of all marriage, that matches are made in heaven, and that for every thought its proper melody or rhyme exists, though the odds are immense against our finding it, and only genius can rightly say the banns. ”

“ Music extracts and embodies only the spirit of the doctrine, that inmost life of it which all feel, and miraculously revivifies and transfigures the cold statements of the understanding with the warm faith of feeling. In music there. is no controversy; in music there are no opinions: its springs are deeper than the foundations of any of these partition wails, and its breath floats undivided over all their heads. ”

“ The musician looks quite away from the incidents of ordinary life, entirely upheaves its details and its accidents, and sublimates whatever lies within it to its quintessence of emotional content—to which alone can music give a voice, and music only. ”

“ From a neighboring house the sound of a masterly performance on the piano reaches our ears. Do you mean to assert that the music is nothing more than an act of the piano, that the instrument plays of itself? Every child would say of you, "these people are too clever by half." Therefore, good gentlemen, we continue to believe that thought is the music of the soul; and that where thoughts exist, there must be a soul capable of thought, just as, where there is the sound of music from a piano, there must be also a performer. ”

“ We in some sort listen to such music as we do to the pleasing murmur of a neighbouring brook, the whisper of the passing breeze, or the distant warblings of the lark and nightingale; and if agreeable natural voices have the power of soothing the contemplative mind, without interrupting its contemplations, simple musical effusions must assuredly have that power in a superior degree. ”

“ Thus if, as we have endeavoured to show, it is the function of music to facilitate the development of this emotional language, we may regard music as an aid to the achievement of that higher happiness which it indistinctly shadows forth. Those vague feelings of unexperienced felicity which music arouses—those indefinite impressions of an unknown ideal life which it calls up, may be considered as a prophecy, to the fulfilment of which music is itself partly instrumental. ”

“ For, itself offering no images of things and events to which we may attach the feelings which it arouses, we supply our own. We fill in the impersonal form of musical feeling with the concrete emotions of our own lives; it is our strivings, our hopes and fears, which music expresses. By denying us access to the world about us, music compels us to turn in upon ourselves; it is we who live there in the sounds. For, as we have seen, the rhythmic tones seize hold not only of our attention, but of our bodies also—hand and foot and head and heart, resounding throughout the whole organism. ”

“ It is as if we had been present at some important event, without having the least idea why it was important, or what was its real meaning. All of us, at one time or another, must have had this experience. And, indeed, how could it be otherwise? Music gives us nothing that we can see with our eyes or touch with our hands. ”

“ All music is what awakes from you when you are reminded by the instruments, It is not the violins and the cornets, it is not the oboe nor the beating drums, nor the score of the baritone singer singing his sweet romanza, nor that of the men’s chorus, nor that of the women’s chorus, It is nearer and farther than they. ”

“ We have come to see that this great mass of traditional music—only in part, of course, the outpouring of sheer genius, but at its worst sincere—is, with its appeal alike to the child and the adult, either in years or in musical culture, the most perfect educational weapon yet devised with which to combat all the forces that make for musical degradation. ”

“ Borrowing as by right from all the arts, and pressing into its service all that has been won in the region of form and colour to enforce its own message of the spirit, it is nevertheless inevitable that to music it must remain the heaviest debtor, for its chosen vehicle of rhythmic language approaches most nearly to the abstract instrument of the musician. ”

“ Then he will agree with me that music is the sole incorporeal entrance into a higher world of knowledge which, to be sure, embraces man, but which he, on the other hand, can never embrace. Rhythm of the spirit is necessary to comprehend music in its essence; music imparts presentiments, inspirations of divine science, and what the spirit experiences of the sensuous in it is the embodiment of spiritual knowledge. ”

“ The representative, figurative element in music may be an added interest, but its appeal is intellectual; if as we hear the "Funeral March," we say to ourselves, This is so and so, and, Here they do this or that, we are thinking rather than feeling. Music is the immediate expression of emotion communicated immediately; and the composition will not perfectly satisfy unless it is music, compelling all relations of melody, harmony, and rhythm into a supreme and triumphant order. ”

“ Yes, this prayer of the little children who are only learning how to play the first notes of life’s music, turns to the great Master musician who knows it all and who loves to bring a melody out of every instrument that He has made ”

“ But it is time that the importance of music, taught thoroughly, especially in its theory, should be recognized in education; and that the hideous screaming, without melody, measure, or harmony, which is heard in most places of Protestant worship, should be stilled, together with the scraping of violins and bass-viols, and the pounding of the keys of piano-fortes and organs, to the destruction of all musical ear, and the derangement of every standard of proportion which God has planted in the nervous organization of man, for the first discipline of the mind to order. ”

“ The bird sings, but he is ever expressing his soul in song: it is only the human singer who can utter sounds without significance. Music is never mere notes, never sound alone, but always the outer form as the expression and unfoldment of something deeper. Rhythm, melody, and harmony are simply the three-fold means of expression, both of the musician and of Mother Nature. Of the two, Nature makes the better Music, being closer to the heart of God. ”

“ She realised that music might give great joy and interest to the life of all, and she felt that just as children in the P.U.S. were given the greatest literature and art, so they should have the greatest music as well. ”

“ Let us make a start toward a sincere and intimate understanding of music through making it ourselves. Let us give up criticism of other people and begin to construct. Then shall we learn to see music as it is and to value it accordingly. ”

“ Moreover, the discipline of music is diffused through all the acts of our life. For when we keep the commandments of God, and observe His law, it is certain that our words and acts are associated by musical rhythm with the virtues of harmony. ”

“ Just at the end of our Talk about Music in School, I said that music was the most powerful of all the studies for giving joy to others. In this Talk we shall try to learn what the studies do for each other.
Once more—and we must never get tired if the same thought comes again and again—let us remember that music is thought expressed in tone. Classic music is great and strong thought; poor, unworthy music is weak, perhaps wrong or mean thought. ”

“ But suddenly, so it seemed to the little girl, this time-honored talk passed into another phase; she heard the word music mentioned, and she became at once interested to learn what these people had to say on a subject which was dearer to her than any other.
"For my own part," said a stern-looking old man, "I have no words to describe what a gracious comfort music has been to me all my life. It is the noblest language which man may understand and speak. ”

“ This that the child hears is what is called music, seemingly a mere succession of sounds, really a vision of what a great man has seen of all those inner things of life which only he can truly see. These sounds are formed into a perfect order. Their very soul may hide in the peculiar tone of the oboe or horn; they change their significance a dozen times in as many moments ”

“ But music moves us, and we know not why;
We feel the tears, but cannot trace their source.
Is it the language of some other state,
Born of its memory? For what can wake
The soul's strong instinct of another world,
Like music? ”

“ Of the influence,—whether salutary or injurious,—which music has upon the general character,—when cultivated, to great refinement, and so universally as almost to become a part of the habit of daily social life,—it is not, at present, the place to speak. But of its temporary influence, as a source of tranquillizing delight, there can be no doubt,—nor, perhaps too, of its occasional efficacy, in exciting emotions of a stronger kind, when peculiar circumstances may have predisposed to them in a very high degree. ”

“ Well, no one, I think, will question the existence in us, at the present day, of something that may well be called, in general terms, the musical faculty. For the musician as we now know him—and, indeed, have known him for [199] some centuries—music is a means of emotional expression that can function without the aid of poetry or even of speech. ”

“ The force of these words is exemplified in the proper study of music, which results in a rich harvest of self-restraint, self-reliance, industry, patience, perseverance, powers of observation, retentive memory, painstaking effort, strength of mind and character. To possess these qualities at their best abundant thought must be sown. Merely to ring changes on the emotions will not elevate to the heights. The musical education that educates makes of the reasoning powers a lever that keeps the emotions in their rightful channel. ”

“ This is true on a smaller scale in all musical leadership, composition, performance of the virtuoso, musical criticism and passionate listening.
Symbolism. The main function of the great musician is to make his music symbolic. He must take the listener out of the humdrum attitudes of life through the avenue of musical feeling into a state of abandon, which, in its extreme form, approaches ecstasy and obliviousness to material surroundings and facts. Even the devices of program music give but remote and stilted aid. ”

“ Once we have understood what these means are, we can enquire to what extent they are employed in the music of various schools and epochs, and thus judge, with some chance of likelihood, whether the music which strikes us as serene and vigorous could have affected our ancestors as turbid and enervating.
'Tis a dull enough psychological examination; but one worth making, not merely for the sake of music itself, but because music, being the most emotional of all the arts, can serve to typify the good or mischief which all art may do, according to which of our emotions it fosters. ”

“ Whatever difference of opinion there may be as to choral singing, singing in schools, etc., there can be no question that time spent in developing the appreciation of musical art is well spent, and makes for the development and provides for the innocent and elevating sources of enjoyment of a people. If some of the time spent in bad piano-playing were devoted to the development of the power to appreciate and delight in really good music, including the sweet sounds of speech and song, the world would thereby be greatly the gainer. ”