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SPIRIT AND MUSIC
_By the same Author_
NERVE CONTROL
SELF TRAINING
A BOOK OF AUTO-SUGGESTIONS
THE INFLUENCE OF THOUGHT
A MANUAL OF HYPNOTISM
THE HIDDEN SELF
POINTS ON PRACTISING
Spirit and Music
BY
H. ERNEST HUNT
Author of Nerve Control, Self Training, &c, &c.;
Lecturer in Psychology at the Training School for
Music Teachers, The Metropolitan Academy of
Music, The Kensington School of Music, &c.,
London
LONDON:
KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, TRUBNER & CO., LTD.
J. CURWEN & SONS, LTD.
NEW YORK: E. P. DUTTON & CO.
1922
Printed in Great Britain by St. Stephen's Printing Works, Bristol.
CONTENTS
CHAP.
I THE SPIRIT OF MUSIC
II THE PLACE OF MUSIC IN LIFE
III THE EXPRESSION OF LIFE
IV SPIRIT A LIVING FACT
V THE CONDITIONS OF INSPIRATION
VI THE INTERPRETER
VII THE TEACHER
VIII THE SOUL OF SONG
IX MUSIC AND EDUCATION
X THE ARTISTIC TEMPERAMENT
XI "PURE MUSIC"
XII THE PURPOSE OF ART
SPIRIT AND MUSIC
CHAPTER I
THE SPIRIT OF MUSIC
"Art is the Manifestation of the Spiritual by means of the
Material"
Newlandsmith
Music is a part of life. It is not merely an accomplishment or a hobby,
nor yet a means of relaxation from the strenuous business of earning a
living. It is not an addendum or an excrescence: it is an actual part of
the fabric of life itself. The object of these pages will be to show how
closely Music, and indeed Art in general, has woven itself into the
pattern of our lives, and how intimately it may influence and fashion
the design.
The structural basis of Music is vibration. Sound comes to us in the
guise of air-waves, which impinge upon the drum of the ear. The
nerve-impulse thus aroused is conveyed to the brain, and there
translated into sound. Strictly speaking there is thus no sound until
the brain translates the message, while if the machinery of the ear be
too dull to answer to the vibration the sound simply does not exist for
us. Beyond doubt the world is full of sounds that we cannot hear and of
sights that we never see, for of the whole range of vibration our senses
permit us to garner but the veriest fragment--a few notes here of sound,
and a brief range there of sight, out of the whole vast scale of vibrant
Nature.
There are sounds which are musical, and others that are raucous and mere
noise. The difference lies in the fact that harsh sounds are compounded
of irregular vibrations, while the essence of Music is that its waves
are rhythmic and follow each other in ordered swing. Rhythm is thus the
primary manifestation of Music: but equally so it is the basic
characteristic of everything in life. We learn that in Nature there is
nothing still and inert, but that everything is in incessant motion.
There is no such thing as solid matter. The man of Science resolved
matter into atoms, and now these atoms themselves are found to be as
miniature universes. Round a central sun, termed a Proton, whirl a
number of electrons in rhythmic motion and incessant swing. And these
electrons and protons--what are they? Something in the nature of charges
of electricity, positive and negative. So where is now our
seeming-solid matter?
When this knowledge informs our outlook we see that all that lives,
moves: and even that which never seems to move, lives also in continual
rhythm and response. The eternal hills are vibrant to the eye of
science, and the very stones are pulsing with the joy of life. The
countryside sings, and there is the beat of rhythm not merely in our
hearts but in every particle of our body. Stillness is a delusion, and
immobility a fiction of the senses. Life is movement and activity, and
rigidity and stiffness come more near to what we understand as death.
Yet even in death there is no stillness, there is but a change in the
form of activity. The body is no longer alive as an organised community,
but in its individual cells: the activity is the liveliness of
decomposition. Thus all the world expresses life, and expresses it in a
rhythm in which law and order reign supreme, and in which a sweet and
sane regularity is the ordinance.
Regular rhythm involves accent. Whether or no there be any such emphasis
as a thing in itself, the listening ear supplies it to meet a need. When
we attend to a clock ticking, the tick-tock, tick-tock, however even it
may sound at first, soon resolves itself into a rhythm with the accent
on either the tick or the tock. So does the beat of an engine, or the
hum of a railway train, merge itself into some definite sound picture,
with the accent for relief that the ear demands. Thus out of rhythm
grows very naturally an accentuation which gives balance, structure, and
form. We start with the little units--the ticks and the tocks--and we
build something bigger by grouping these together. This is a principle
which we may see running through the activities of life in a thousand
forms.
Bricks are made to pattern and thus possess a rhythm of their own, but
when they are laid in courses they merge their individual rhythm into
the ordered lines of the courses. These again may be comprehended in
larger units of arches, buttresses, and stories: and all these again
will be grouped and contained in this or that style of architecture. So,
too, Music may begin with notes and tones, but accent quickly groups
these into larger units to satisfy the senses in their demand for
balance and proportion. Thus by increasing the size of our unit we build
the rhythm of form and lay the foundation for the further development of
the Art.
Since Nature is regular, from the beating of our own hearts to the swing
of universes in the heavens, therefore engrained in our very selves is
this claim for ordered progression, balance, and sustained sequence.
When we attain this, whether in Music or otherwise, we derive a measure
of restfulness and satisfaction and we gain a sense of completeness. Any
work of Art should leave us with this conviction, that nothing could be
added or left out without marring the perfect proportion of the whole.
"Jazz," whether in Music or in any other direction, gives just the very
opposite effect, marring the sense of proportion and distorting the
feeling of satisfaction. It exists as a testimony to a morbid
dissatisfaction with life, it gives emphasis to the unbalanced and
neurotic. The true beauty of Art--as of Music--consists on the contrary
of this larger rhythm which makes for wholesomeness and proportion,
which achieves at once the rest and the satisfaction that the soul
craves. Its wholesomeness is health, which again is ease. Its reverse is
disease: and when Music becomes mere noise and discord it is the same as
when beauty becomes ugliness and health vanishes in sickness.
The second element of Music is melody, and this corresponds to the
outline in Nature. Things have their shapes and their forms, even as our
very lives consist of ups and downs, varied with occasional runs along
the level. The country has its outlines, its hills that rise and climb,
its valleys that fall and fade. There is the even line of the horizon,
topped by the swelling clouds: there are curves and sweeps in the
swaying of trees and grasses, in the flight of birds, and in the grace
of the human form. It is significant that Nature's handiwork so abounds
in curves, whilst that of man is fashioned so much upon straight lines
with consequent sharp points and angles. Is it not obvious that Art has
had but scanty share in designing our towns and manufactories? Right
angles, no doubt, stand for utility in a commercial age, but Nature with
her longer purview has little use for them and prefers a more rounded
way of progress. Nature inspires, but not in square-cut periods. It is a
safe plan to turn to Nature, as to the diagram of God, if we find
ourselves in any doubt as to the way.
"Let your air be good, and your composition will be so likewise, and
will assuredly delight," says tuneful Father Haydn, and Music's outline
in melody limns, as does that of Nature, the beauty of her design. It
speaks of wood or stream, of billowed sky, and now of sombre shadow. It
ripples in dainty dance, or tumbles down in cascades of joy. Music's
melody vies with the drive and bluster of the wind, sobbing and
sighing, whistling round corners and playing pranks. Then, maybe, it
sinks to silence, and the white mist creeps up: and now there is no
melody, no outline, but just the one still sameness over all.
We live in a three dimensional world, and in its length, breadth, and
solidity do we disport ourselves. Music also has its three-fold manner
of expression, its rhythm, its melody, and now its harmony. The rhythm
is for balance, the melody for the outline, while the harmony
constitutes the texture. Here again in other directions we may trace the
same essentials: there is a texture of colouring, a style in Literature,
and an appropriate technique for harmony in every branch of Art, just as
there is an harmonic scheme in Music. This may be airy, light, and
gossamer, or turgid and obscure: it may be commonplace or ponderous.
Like Nature, it may have a thousand or a myriad shades to mirror as many
moods and tenses. It may have the misty filminess of steam, the limpid
deeps of water, or the cold weight and icy dullness of pompous
ignorance.
See how Nature harmoniously groups her colour scheme, with a master hand
ensuring that nothing shall clash or be inappropriate. Into this scheme
she introduces the song of birds and the sighing of the breeze, with
perhaps in the dull distance the roar of the sea growling away and
refusing to be driven from its obstinate pedal bass. Into our life she
brings affection rose-colour, and for openness and truth the blue of the
sky. She paints hatred dark, and passion fiery. Energy she portrays as
red, and purity white. Could we but see ourselves in this colour-scheme
we should realise that, like God's fresh air, all should be clear and
bright, but we ourselves pollute the design with the smoke of our own
desires.
So the musician to-day takes the theme that has been given to him by the
high gods, for "the idea in embryo comes from a Higher Power"[1] and
paints in and accompanies it with such harmonies as his soul may sound
and his technique record. He has Nature for pattern, and he may do what
he will so long as, Nature-like, there is life expressing itself.
Everything in the world stands for something, as even the hills stand
for pulsing life. As within, so without: the outer semblance is never
the real thing, but ever stands as a mirror to the inner. 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.
[Note 1: Macpherson. "Music and its Appreciation."]