THINKING IN TONE.
"The gods for labor sell us all good things."--_Epicharmus_.[21]
Perhaps you have some doubt as to exactly what is meant by
music-thinking. Being somewhat acquainted with composers and with
music, the thought may here come to you that all the music we hear in
the world must have been made by somebody--by many somebodies, in
fact. They have had to sit down, and forgetting all things else,
listen intently to the music-thought which fills the mind. If you will
sit quietly by yourself you will discover that you can easily think
words and sentences and really hear them in the mind without
pronouncing anything. In quite the same way the composer sits and
hears music, tone by tone, and as clearly as if it were played by a
piano or an orchestra. And to him the tones have a clear meaning, just
as words have a clear meaning to us. Naturally, one can see that there
could be no other way. Unless the composer can think out everything
exactly there could be no music, for music must be written, and one
can only write what one thinks. So at this point the thought to
remember is this: Music must exist in some one's mind before others
can have it to hear and enjoy.
In like manner--just the same manner, in fact--the painter is one who
thinks pictures; the sculptor, one who thinks statues; the architect,
one who thinks buildings. They think these things just as you think
words; and as you tell your thoughts in spoken words, so they tell
their thoughts in printed music, in painted pictures, in chiseled
statues, and in erected buildings. Now, from all this it should be
clear to you that there can be nothing which has not first been
thought of by some one. You _think_ the door must be closed and you
close it; you _think_ you must know the time and you look at the
clock; you _think_ the one hand should play more loudly than the other
and you try to do it.
Power to get things and to do things comes to us rapidly only in the
fairy-tales. In the real, beautiful, healthy world in which we live we
have to work hard and honestly for the power either to get things or
to do things. By faithful labor must we win what we want. What we do
not labor for we do not get. That is a condition of things so simple
that a child can readily understand it. But all, children and their
elders, are apt to forget it. In the life of every great man there is
a story different from that of every other great man, _but in every
one of them_ this truth about laboring for the power one has is found.
In our Talk on Listening, it was said that the sounds we hear around
us are the more easily understood if we first become familiar with the
melody which is called the major scale. But in order to think music it
is necessary to know it--in fact, music-thinking is impossible without
it. As it is no trouble to learn the scale, all of you should get it
fixed in the mind quickly and securely.
It is now possible for you to hear the scale without singing its tones
aloud. Listen and see if that is not so! Now think of the melodies you
know, the songs you sing, the pieces you play. You can sing them quite
loudly (_can_ you sing them?) or in a medium tone, or you can hum them
softly as if to yourself; or further yet, you can think them without
making the faintest sound, and every tone will be as plain as when you
sang it the loudest. Here, I can tell you that Beethoven wrote many of
his greatest works when he was so deaf that he could not hear the
music he made. Hence, he must have been able to write it out of his
thought just as he wanted it to sound. When you understand these steps
and ways you will then know about the beginning of music-thinking.
Let us inquire in this Talk what the piano has to do in our
music-thinking. What relation is there between the music in the mind
and the tones produced by the piano? It seems really as if the piano
were a photographic camera, making for us a picture of what we have
written,--a camera so subtle indeed, that it pictures not things we
can see and touch, but invisible things which exist only within us.
But faithful as the piano is in this, it may become the means of doing
us much injury. We may get into the habit of trusting the piano to
think for us, of making it do so, in fact. Instead of looking
carefully through the pages of our new music, reading and
understanding it with the mind, we run to the piano and with such
playing-skill as we have we sit down and use our hands instead of our
minds. Now a great many do that, young and old. But the only people
who have a chance to conceive their music rightly are the young; the
old, if they have not already learned to do it, never can. That is a
law which cannot be changed.
We have talked about listening so much that it should now be a settled
habit in us. If it is we are learning every day a little about tones,
their qualities and character. And we do this not alone by hearing the
tones, but by giving great heed to them. Let us now remember this:
listening is not of the ears but of the thoughts. It is thought
_concentrated_ upon hearing. The more this habit of tone-listening
goes on in us, the more power we shall get out of our ability to read
music. All these things help one another. We shall soon begin to
discover that we not only have thoughts about sounding-tones, but
about printed tones. This comes more as our knowledge of the scale
increases.
We can now learn one of the greatest and one of the most wonderful
truths of science: _Great knowledge of anything comes from never
ceasing to study the first steps._
The major scale, as we first learn it, seems a perfectly simple thing.
But if we think of it all our lives we shall never discover the
wonders there are in it. Hence, three simple rules for us to follow in
learning to think music are these:
1. To listen to all tones.
2. Never to stop studying the major scale.
3. To become accustomed to hear tones within.
If we are faithful to these we shall, with increasing study and
industry, become more and more independent of the piano. We shall
never think with our hands, nor depend upon anything outside of
ourselves for the meaning contained in printed tone-thought.
If now we join two things we shall get the strength of both united,
which is greater than of either alone.
If in our playing lessons we have only the very purest music (heart
music, remember), and if we are faithful in our simpler thinking
lessons, we shall gain the power not only of pure thought, but of
stronger and stronger thought. This comes of being daily in the
presence of great thoughts--for we are in the presence of great
thoughts when we study great music, or read a great poem, or look at a
great picture, or at a great building. All these things are but signs
made manifest,--that is to say, made plain to us--of the pure thought
of their makers.
Thomas Carlyle, a Scotch author of this century, spoke very truly when
he said:
"Great men are profitable company; we cannot look upon a great man
without gaining something by him."[22]