Musical tempo

“ In primitive states of music rhythmic sounds were heard, defined by the pulses but with little or no change of pitch, and sounds varying in pitch without regularity of impulse. A high degree of intellectuality was reached before our modern scales were evolved from long-continued attempts at making well-balanced successions of sounds. As musical art advanced rhythm and melodic expression became united. ”

“ The orderly beauty which the tonal relations confer upon music is further enriched and complicated by rhythm. Rhythm in music is of two sorts: a rhythm of time and a rhythm of accent, or increased loudness. Through the one, the duration of a musical composition is divided up into approximately equal parts filled by notes and rests of definite length, and through the other, the light notes are subordinated to the heavy notes. ”

“ Ah! could we but see the vibrations of the atmosphere which a single musical chord produces—the rolling bass, the gliding alto, the sweeping soprano, and the soaring tenor, rolling onward in one broad channel of harmony, with its myriad tributary streams of thirds and fifths, and its curling, twinkling, shifting, blending, soaring mists of delicate-toned harmonics, how would our enjoyment of music be enhanced! ”

“ This progress has gone on until the present time, when two particulars of our music are exactly recorded—the pitch and the rhythm. The exact relation of every tone to the key note is ascertainable from our musical notation, and the precise degree of rhythmic importance appertaining to each tone according to its place in measure and in the larger rhythms. ”

“ As rhythm is the heart pulsation of music, [69] it naturally took hold of the first singers of in any measure formulated melody, leading to swaying of the body, clapping of the hands, stamping of the feet, and quickly suggested the employment of other resonant means for marking its progress. Our drums were at first only hollow pieces of wood, our cymbals, triangle, and gong may have had double duties,—musical and culinary,—and our harp and piano were anticipated by single strings stretched to yield a sonorous tone regardless of pitch. ”

“ The aspect of importance here, in short, is the varied motion of the music simply, the ups and downs of the harmony or melody, the stream of sound through its degrees of opposition, preponderance, emphasis, acuteness or vivacity, the elaboration of a melodic phrase in every respect that is suitable to the means of musical art, the musician-like fusion of all the instruments as one ensemble of tone, or in their succession, alternation, and emphatic display of themselves and each other. ”

“ But even more striking than the clearness of his harmony is the trenchant perspicuity of his rhythm. The sense of rhythm is perhaps the prime criterion of intellectuality in a composer. For just as determinations of accent and measure, such as occur in the dances of the most primeval savages, were undoubtedly the earliest means of formulating the cries and wails of emotion which underlie all musical expression, so throughout musical history rhythm has been the chief formative or rationalizing agent, and a vivid sense of it has always characterized the more intellectual musicians. ”

“ This source of pleasure received from the melodious succession of colours or of sounds must not be confounded with the pleasure received from the repetition of them explained above, though the repetition, or division of musical notes into bars, so as to produce common or triple time, contributes much to the pleasure of music; but in viewing a fixed landscape nothing like musical time exists ”

“ Rhythm, Melody, Harmony, and Timbre (or tone-color) .
179. Rhythm is the regular recurrence of accent. In music it is more specifically the regular recurrence of groups of accented and non-accented beats (or pulses) —according to some specified measure-system. Since rhythm implies continuity, there must usually be at least two such measure groups in order to make musical rhythm possible. (See p. 44, Sec. 97.)
180. A melody is a succession of single tones of various pitches so arranged that the effect of the whole will be unified, coherent, and pleasing to the ear. ”

“ Contrasts of timbre and tone are at least as various as contrasts of colour: the complexity of musical rhythm is far beyond anything that language can achieve; while, in the devices of harmony, and still more of polyphony and counterpoint, the composer occupies a position which is virtually unique in human experience. ”

“ In other words, when tone, as it does in the art of music, or for that matter, colour as in that of painting, no longer essentially recovers and expresses the entire content, in that case the musical treatment of the composition under its aspects of time, no less than those of harmony and melody, drops away; we have left us merely the generalized configuration of the time-measure of syllables and words, to which we may add rhythm, euphony, and the like. ”

“ Rhythm enters into melody to differentiate and emphasize. By means of accent and time-value, the different tones are weighted and their relative value fixed. The heavy tones assert their will with a more insistent energy; the long tones upon which we linger make a deeper and more lasting impression; while the light and short tones in contrast become points of mere passing and transition. If, moreover, we include the element of tempo, then all the temporal feelings are introduced into melody—the excitement of rapid motion, the calmness of the slow ”

“ Rhythm in Music.—The rhythm of modern music began to develop through -the attempts of learned medieval musicians to adapt the rhythms of spoken language to the necessities of choral singing; but before the process had gone far, certain much more ancient and powerful principles, always manifest intfolk-song and dance, gained ascendancy, so that even the simplest classical music has a rhythm for which no criteria of poetic metre can be made adequate. From the musical point of view, the rhythm of speech, whether in prose or verse, is very subtle and almost uniformly fluent. ”

“ Even the tiny baby responds to rhythm and to melody. Rhythm brings “a cadence to the soul”, to use G. Stanley Hall’s phrase; it relaxes and soothes both mind and body; it has far-reaching significance as a spiritual and moral force. Chanting any rhythmic poem or jingles, singing, rhythmic performing of physical exercises, are the beginnings of music as a rhythmic art. When the noise-enjoying age arrives, at about six months, a string of soft-toned, musical sleigh bells, or later in the first year, at the pounding stage, a tubephone, will give as much enjoyment as harsh noises ”

“ We referred at some length, in the chapter on "The Dance and Its Development," to this germination of musical thought as of the greatest importance in composition. The reader will readily understand that the highest form of an art like music, in which the element of time enters as a vital matter—in which the message of the composer comes to us in successive sounds—must depend on something more than the beauty of its several and successive melodies. ”

“ Our scale intervals are the slowly gained triumphs of the human mind. Modern music did not emerge from the darkness of the past until harmony, as we know it, came into active being.
Both melody and harmony are controlled by rhythm. It is the master force of the musical organism. Before man was the ebb and flow of nature had its rhythm. On this elementary rhythm, the one model music finds in nature, the inventive mind of man has builded the wonderfully impressive art rhythms existing in the masterpieces of music. ”

“ Rhythm is the oldest of the musical elements and there is no question but that the rhythmic appeal is still the strongest of all for the majority of people. Rhythm is the spark of life in music, therefore, woe to the composer who attempts to substitute ethereal harmonies for virile rhythms as a general principle of musical construction. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It is, of course, obvious that our analysis has confined itself to the barest elements of the musical experience. Our music to-day, with its many-voiced harmonies, with its procession of chords instead of single tones, with its modulation into related keys, has an infinite wealth and complexity defying description. A large part of the astonishing effect of music is derived from the fact that in a brief space we seem to hear and absorb so much: the careers of multitudinous lives compressed into an instant. ”

“ Lastly, the element that appears at first sight most strictly melodic, namely, the rise and fall of the, pitch, is intimately connected by origin with the nature of the human voice, and in later forms is enlarged fully as much by the characteristics of instruments as by parallel developments in rhythm, harmony and form. Thus modern melody is the musical surface of rhythm, harmony, form and instrumentation ”

“ 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. ”

“ That routine in music should exist at all, and, furthermore, that it can be nominated as a condition in the musician's bond, is another proof of the narrow confines of our musical art. Routine signifies the acquisition of a modicum of experience and artcraft, and their application to all cases which may occur ”

“ The child does not think of the artistic forms as does the musician; but like the canary which, even if grown in isolation in a soundproof cage, in due time produces his natural tours in repertoire, the child instinctively comes out in melody, dynamic modulation, and rhythm. But all these are modified by the environment.
Music and speech. Speech has the same media as music; namely, pitch, loudness, time, and timbre which result in such musical forms as tonal and dynamic inflection, rhythm, articulation, and vowel quality. ”

“ We may therefore easily understand why musical sounds are musical, why they are acceptable and moving, while those affront the sense in which the minute reposes are capricious, and, as it were, upon ill terms with the movements. ”

“ It presents all the characteristics we are accustomed to [pg 87] in freer musical forms: a flowing and distinctive melody, ease, clarity, and facility in the progression of the parts, inexhaustible variety of modulation, purest harmony, the exclusion of every jarring or unnecessary note, unity of form and variety of style, rhythm, and measure, and such superabundant animation that the hearer may well ask himself whether every note is not actually alive. ”

“ It is, however, when rhythm develops into melody that we experience the utmost force of its suggestive power.55 It is interesting to see how well Hanslick describes this preliminary condition of musical enjoyment—this trance-like state—only to censure it. “The elements of music, sound, and movement hold many emotional music lovers willing captives. ”

“ Not only does the rhythmic impulse precede the other musical elements, but the superiority of sonant rhythm is such as to serve as an incitement to tone-production. Rhythm tends to set the voice going ”

“ Yet, here too we notice the insignificance of the musical interval, while the strong pleasure in the tones different by 4 vibrations only refers probably to the complete fusion of the tones; there arises a direct enjoyment from the four waves of sound in every second, given by the beats. The pleasure-curve of these simultaneous tones indicates of course that the inhibition of the musical dispositions and expressions holds over from the successive to the simultaneous series. ”

“ The element of rhythm gives the whole body its life,—regulates the choice of varying lengths, defining the infinitely varied "tapping" of the musical mechanism.
It is evident, from this, that no vivid, satisfying musical impression can be created in the absence of any one of these essential elements. But, for all that, they are not of equal importance; and, in determining the extremities of the phrase (and of all other factors of musical structure) , the melody takes precedence over harmony and rhythm. ”

“ The second cause for the concreteness of the musical experience I take to be certain emotions and feelings which are aroused by association, not with the rhythmic elements of music alone, but with the tone-color, intensity, and melody also. There is a human quality, a poignancy and intimacy, about much music, which can be understood only through its analogy with the sounds of the human voice. ”

“ Music proper. Sounds may be woven into beautiful patterns. This is music. We admire the melodic progressions, the rhythmic patterns, the harmonic structure, and the qualitative modulations in the flow of beautiful sounds. Harmony, balance, symmetry, contrast and fusions become embodied in musical form. Here the object of our affections is the artistic creation. The place of the musician is quite analogous to the astronomer's feeling of the sublime as he looks into the heavens in the light of his knowledge of the nature and movement of heavenly bodies. ”

“ The first likings for musical composition are based on this instinctive feeling for rhythm. It is the simple tunes, with well-marked, easily recognizable time divisions, which first take the child's fancy, and he knows the quieting and the exciting qualities of different rhythms and times. Where rhythm is less marked, or grows highly complex, the motor responses being confused, the pleasurable interest declines. ”