I well remember the first morning I ever spent in a foreign Conservatory
of Music. I arrived just as the Harmony Class had assembled. Beside me
sat a slim little girl, with a very pretty pale face and a tired,
anxious look. When we had all opened our books, she whispered to me,
"May I look over you?"
The expression in her eyes was so piteous that it went to my heart to
answer, "You may if you like, dear; only it won't help you. I don't know
much of anything myself."
I never shall forget her look as she burst into a silent fit of crying,
which for ten minutes stopped the lesson.
Often since I have thought of my little worried companion, who struggled
on through the winter, always declaring she _could_ not learn because
she could not _like_ it, and I have wondered if there were not a great
many young students who feel in the same way.
It is so stupid to hear of semibreves and crotchets and quavers and
minims and scales and clefs and scores, and all sorts of terms like
"allegro" and "andante" and "con moto" and "adagio," and, indeed, whole
Italian sentences, that used to look to me when I was a child like
impertinent intrusions into English music.
But have you ever thought whether this system of music which we have
to-day may not have had a story--a far-off story almost as entrancing as
a fairy tale?
I think had some one told my little friend the story of the system she
was toiling to understand, it would all have looked very different, and
the study would have been tinged with a real delight.
Now what I propose to tell you is the history of the _notes_ we use.
This is really an introduction to the study of _thorough-bass_, or
_harmony_; and if you make yourself complete master of the first simple
rules or ideas, you will find later that many seemingly difficult things
come almost instinctively.
You know, of course, how music is written to-day--the five lines; the
division of bars; the arrangement of time; the value of notes. Of course
you can easily understand that such a perfect system did not come
without years of trial of various methods, and centuries of experiment,
and a very crude sort of music.
Away back in early Oriental times there was music at festivities,
triumphs, or times of mourning, and from the Greeks came the first ideas
of harmony. You see, directly music came to be written down, it was
evident that some sort of a _system_ had to be established.
In very early ages musical sounds were represented by the letters of the
alphabet. These were the days when good St. Gregory had singing-schools
in ancient Rome. The singers chanted psalms and other church music,
which must have been very solemn and beautiful.
This system came to an end, however, and was replaced by the use of a
series of characters. These were called neumæ, and each character had a
different name. The first was known as the _virga_, and it was a long
single note; the _bivirga_ represented two notes; the _trivirga_, three;
the _punctus_ was a short note, etc.
[Illustration: FIG. 1.--THE NEUMÆ.]
Now I have culled out of an old volume some illustrations showing how
music was written in ancient times, and I want you to study them, and
see how curious the methods were which preceded our present perfect
system.
[Illustration: FIG. 2.]
Fig. 1 shows the neumæ. There are ten here, but authorities differ as to
the number that were really in use. These neumæ were placed over the
words, as shown in Fig. 2. We are not quite certain what melody they
here represent, but the solution given underneath is the probable one:
[Illustration]
The first idea of making _lines_ occurred in the year 900. But for a
long time only one _red_ line was used, and on this the F note was
written; the grave sounds were placed below this line, the acute ones
above it. How this music looked when written you will see in Fig. 3.
[Illustration: FIG. 3.]
[Illustration: PROBABLE SOLUTION.]
[Illustration: FIG. 4.]
Early in the tenth century a monk in Flanders named Hucbaldus introduced
a _stave_, as we call it, consisting of a great number of lines. At
first these lines were not occupied by notes, but by the syllables to be
sung, as shown in Fig. 4. In order to show whether the voice was to
proceed by a tone or a semi-tone, the letters T and S were introduced.
One advantage attending this system was that it could be applied to a
scale of any extent, and even used for a number of voices singing at the
same time.
[Illustration: SOLUTION.]
[Illustration: FIG. 5.]
In the Bodleian Library at Oxford, England, is a very precious old book,
once used in the cathedral at Winchester. It is MS., of course, and is
believed to have been written during the reign of King Ethelred II., who
died in 1016. In it we find music written in two different fashions, as
shown in Fig. 5. This, then, was the period of change. We have the
simple neumæ above the words, and we have actually a four-line stave
with notes instead of words.
[Illustration: FIG. 6.]
But up to this time all the notes were the same; no difference in length
was indicated, and no one who had not heard the melody could sing it
from them. Presently the breve, semibreve, and dot, as shown in Fig. 6,
began to appear, and thus, little by little, our own system of notation
was approached. In 1600 an Italian named Franco de Colonia established a
system of time, and in or about 1600 the first idea of a _score_
originated.
Do you know what a score is? I was at a concert rehearsal in Paris one
day, when a very knowing-looking young person of about fourteen, with a
great deal of fur and velvet on, and a large roll of music, came in with
her governess, and sat down near me. The orchestra were going to give
part of _Faust_, with some singing, and this pert young lady turned to
her governess, saying,
"Don't you want the _score_, Miss ----," and forthwith she handed her
the _programme_.
Now I think it would have been much wiser for this small person to have
first been sure what a score was before she talked of it. The origin of
the _score_ was in 1600. A composer named Peri published his _Euridice_,
and he put the instrumental accompaniment below the vocal part. Then he
_scored_ bars through the _stave_, connecting the words and music. Hence
we call the music and words together the _score_ of the work.
As music began to progress--as oratorios, masses, and operas were
written--it became necessary to establish a definite system of time. It
was done gradually; but at last, in Bach's day, it was a carefully
arranged science; so many beats to the bar, so much value to each note.
Here we have finally a whole well-disciplined little army of crotchets
and quavers and minims and semibreves, and all the big and little notes.
A grand science has come from those first queer little attempts at
written music, which we find it so hard to understand to-day, and yet
how grateful we ought to be to the patient people of the seventh and
tenth centuries who tried to record some of their musical feelings!
When you sit down to your first harmony lesson, try to remember what a
wonderful story those little black notes could tell. It is not dull or
colorless work. Listen to the word "allegro," which comes in your first
piece, I am sure. What does it make you think of? Some long-ago
Christmas-tide, when all music was written to glorify God, when out upon
the night in the dim cathedral aisles were poured forth the praises of
the Infant Lord.
[Illustration: FLOWN.]