Tune

“ I can plead guilty to having written the words of a dozen songs or so in as many years, but to put two notes of music together is beyond me, and to sing anything in tune would be an impossibility, even if I had the assurance to stand up in public for that purpose. ”

“ Voices do not at once blend, and until they do the singing should be never loud. I look upon the earlier work as tentative—a feeling for the beauty of perfection of pitch, tunefulness, and intonation. A practice to be condemned is that of learning the parts of a tune separately, and then bringing them together. ”

“ Some one once said: “All one's life is music if one touched the notes rightly and in tune.” A very happy thought and true. But finding the right note is infinitely more difficult than the striking in tune. ”

“ When they rose to sing, the tune must needs be one which they had often sung together, out of the same book, at the singing-school,—one of those wild, pleading tunes, dear to the heart of New England,—born, if we may credit the report, in the rocky hollows of its mountains, and whose notes have a kind of grand and mournful triumph in their warbling wail, and in which different parts of the harmony, set contrary to all the canons of musical Pharisaism, had still a singular and romantic effect, which a true musical genius would not have failed to recognize. ”

“ The love of novelty occasions the great variety of tunes which we possess, and the diversity of musical skill. A newly-constructed instrument, a new or superior mode of performing on it and the last new tune, are objects of universal attraction. ”

“ The truth appears to be that certain bars of music which might easily happen to be similar, or even identical, when plain-song was the common style, were produced at different times and places, and one man finally harmonized the wandering strains into a complete tune. ”

“ When we say that a tune is melodious, or an image sublime, or a scene pathetic, the adjectives may seem to be predicated of these objects, in precisely the same way as redness is predicated of a geranium. ”

“ Sounds also, besides the distinct cries of birds and beasts, are modified by diversity of notes of different length put together, which make that complex idea called a tune, which a musician may have in his mind when he hears or makes no sound at all, by reflecting on the ideas of those sounds, so put together silently in his own fancy. ”

“ To the great majority of every audience all tunes seem too much alike. Modern harmony being restricted to a few simple rules, which also re-strain the freedom of the melodies themselves, and the time and measure of our sacred music having settled down into a slow and solemn uniformity, it requires some practical acquaintance with music to distinguish one tune from another. ”

“ The 'chanson'—i.e., the dance tune, was played on the flute, and accompanied by the 'tabourin' or drum, which beats all the time. Every 'bar' of the music is called either a 'battement' of the drum, or a 'mesure' of the chanson. ”

“ Not that they seem to give the least attention to any music, vocal or instrumental, which they hear; but they universally dance in their cages to the most exact time, striking the ground with their feet in a regular measured cadence, and never changing their tune without an interval of rest. ”

“ In setting a hymn to music it is important that the accented syllables of the poetry fall on the accented beats of the musical bars. Try singing “Softly and tenderly Jesus is calling” (456) to the tune “Ich weiss einen Strom” (232) . The meter is the same in each case—11.7.11.7.—with refrain—but the words and tune are obviously not suited to each other because of differences in accentuation.
18. Hymn Tunes. a. What is a good tune? b. Importance of tunes. c. Composers of tunes. d. Sources of tunes. e. Tune names. a. What is a good tune? ”

“ Religious ideas have the fate of melodies, which, once set afloat in the world, are taken up by all sorts of instruments, some of them woefully coarse, feeble, or out of tune, until people are in danger of crying out that the melody itself is detestable. ”

“ From beginning to end there is nothing that can be called a tune, and the accompaniment merely supports the voice by occasional chords contributed by a harpsichord and three instruments of the lute type. ”

“ I suppose it’s the name: there’s a deal in the name of a tune.” ”

“ If the souls of lives were voiced in music, there are some that none but a great organ could express, others the clash of a full orchestra, a few to which nought but the refined and exquisite sadness of a violin could do justice. Many might be likened unto common pianos, jangling and out of tune, and some to the feeble piping of a penny whistle, and mine could be told with a couple of nails in a rusty tin-pot. ”

“ There are seasons at which we are gratified with very moderate excellence. In childhood every tune is delightful to a musical ear: in our advanced years, an indifferent tune will [55] please, when set off by the amiable qualities of the performer, or by any other agreeable circumstance. ”

“ The constantly vitiated sense of hearing, which is brought about by the continual jangle of notes just a fractional part of a tone out of tune, is responsible [Pg 256] for much of the distaste for good music which prevails among the people. ”

“ I even think that sentimentally I am disposed to harmony. But organically I am incapable of a tune. ”

“ Such sweet compulsion doth in music lie,
To lull the daughters of Necessity,
And keep unsteady Nature to her law, 70
And the low world in measured motion draw
After the heavenly tune, which none can hear
Of human mould with gross unpurged ear. ”

“ What flexibility of tone Coloured in turn with pathos and cheerfulness but animated from beginning to end with a movement and rhythm that are unique, smooth, facile, lively and “tuney,” the music reflects every aspect of the subject by which it is inspired, the passion of an old man in love—the pathetic and touching aspect, the laughter-provoking and extravagant aspect. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Behind every scale of music, the gayest and cheeriest, the grandest, the most triumphant, lies its dark relative minor; the notes are the same, but the change of a semitone changes all to gloom;—all our gayest hours are tunes, that have a modulation into these dreary keys ever possible ”

“ 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. ”

“ that a harp of thousand strings
Should keep in tune so long. ”

“ Feed the musician, and he's out of tune; ”

“ Я знаю мотив, но не знаю слов. • мелодия. That's a pretty tune the orchestra is playing. Какую прелестную мелодию играет сейчас оркестр. • настраивать. They have been tuning the organ all day. Они целый день настраивали орган.
□ out of tune фальшиво. She always sings out of tune. Она всегда фальшиво поёт.
to change one's tune запеть другое. He'll change his tune when he finds out what's in store for him. Он другое запоёт, когда узнает, что ему предстоит.
to tune in настроить. You tuned in the wrong station. Вы настроили радио не на ту станцию. ”

“ A good melody, that is, a melody that appeals to the intelligent music lover as tuneful, pleasing, and intelligible, is one in which, first of all, each successive tone and each successive group of tones stands in a rational harmonic relation to the one before it, and even, usually, to several preceding tones or groups. ”

“ In them, as in all the tunes, the compass of ordinary voices has been considered; and although nothing has been left undone which could give beauty to melody or scholarly variousness to harmony, the whole has been brought within the range of all singers. ”

“ But each tone of the melody is accompanied by appoggiaturas which are an infinitesimal sixteenth below the main harmonic tones to which the human ear is attuned. It is like the singsong cry the wind whistles through a cracked chimney ”

“ So when the last and dreadful hour
This crumbling pageant shall devour,
The trumpet shall be heard on high,
The dead shall live, the living die,
And Music shall untune the sky. ”

“ His body and the accordion together become one musical instrument on which his soul plays tunes, for he sways and vibrates with the music from head to foot and throughout his frame, half closing his eyes and uplifting his face, as painters represent St. ”

“ At a very early age I began to thump on the piano alone, and it was not long before I was able to pick out a few tunes. When I was seven years old, I could play by ear all of the hymns and songs that my mother knew. I had also learned the names of the notes in both clefs, but I preferred not to be hampered by notes. ”

“ In the
fusing of melody and words into an utterance of song—at last into a strophe—music worked potently, shaping the composition of the lines, moulding them to rhythm, insisting upon sonorousness in the words, promoting their assonance and at last compelling them to rhyme so as to meet the stress, or mark the ending, of the musical periods. Thus the exigencies of melody helped to evoke the finished verse, while the words reciprocating through their vocal capabilities and through the inspiration of their meaning, aided the evolution of the melodies. ”

“ First of all, I will endeavour, by the following explanations, to give you as clear an idea as possible of what thorough-bass or harmony is, and to what purpose it serves.
Music consists of melody and harmony. When, for example, a female sings quite alone, without any accompaniment, her song is pure, simple melody. When another female singer, with a somewhat deeper voice, accompanies the first with a different, but still agreeably sounding melody, this will form music in two parts, which may also be called two-part harmony. ”

“ The slightest sound becomes a crash, and we hear the fall of waters, the roar of cataracts, the blare of trumpets, or brilliant harmonies. I have seen persons, naturally almost insensible to music, lifted by a few musical notes into an ecstasy such as we read of in the lives of saints. ”

“ An opposite conclusion would be at war with our convictions of the wisdom and benevolence of the Deity, who made the hearing ear and formed the melodious voice, and strung the soul of man with chords ever responsive to the influence of sweet sounds. Music is as truly the voice of nature as speech ; that is, it is as natural for man to convey and to receive the movements of sentiment by the influence of sweet sounds as by the use of words. ”

“ Nay,—to increase still more the difficulty,—they are often as sensible, as others, of the beauty of series of tones of a different kind; and some of our best poets and declaimers,—who of course must have had a quick discernment of metrical rhythm, and of the melody of elocution,—have yet been incapable of distinguishing the musical relations of sounds, as reciprocally high or low,—the melody that results from them in certain successions, and the harmony or the discord of their union. ”

“ Sweet, affecting music—not the tone of the piano, nor the peals of the organ—but a melodious air, sung by strong and well-disciplined voices, and accompanied by the flute and viol—such music reaches the fountains of thought and feeling ”

“ 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! ”

“ It is the outcome of so much patience and skill that by a little adjustment it can be made to produce any kind of music—vocal or instrumental—from a single voice singing the simplest melody, up to the grandest orchestral masterpieces. ”

“ The rich combination of all stands out in strong musical relief, compared with what each voice alone would yield, or with the sweet but thin sound of a tuning-fork that sings forth the same fundamental pitch. ”

“ 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 ”

“ These crude gestures and cries by which primeval man expressed his feelings, though they were the germs out of which music grew, were as yet no more music, which is not only expressive sound, but formed, articulate sound, than an infant's cooings are speech. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Only by passing on and on, from chord to chord in ever-changing forms, from sweetest consonance to most brilliant dissonance, from exciting successions and combinations to calming ones, is harmonic texture provided for musical compositions. Sometimes, also, the melody remains unchanged when the harmonies are greatly altered, so that its expression may be varied, as the features of the same countenance may express varied emotions, and yet be always recognized. ”