CHAPTER I.

ELEMENTS OF MUSICAL FORM.

I. INTRODUCTORY.

Of the thousands of people who consider themselves lovers of music, it is surprising how few have any real appreciation of it. It is safe to say that out of any score of persons gathered to hear music, whether it be hymn, song, oratorio, opera, or symphony, ten are not listening at all, but are looking at the others, or at the performers, or at the scenery or programme, or are lost in their own thoughts. Five more are basking in the sound as a dog basks in the sun--enjoying it in a sleepy, languid way, but not actively following it at all. For them music is, as a noted critic has said, "a drowsy reverie, relieved by nervous thrills." Then there are one or two to whom the music is bringing pictures or stories: visions of trees, cascades, mountains, and rivers fill their minds, or they dream of princesses in old castles, set free from magic slumber by brave heroes from afar. Perhaps also there is one who takes a merely scientific interest in the music: he is so busy analysing themes and labelling motives that he forgets to enjoy. Only two out of the twenty are left, then, who are actively following the melodies, living over again the thoughts of the composer, really appreciating, by vigorous and delightful attention, the beauties of the music itself.

Can we not, you and I, join the ranks of these true lovers of music? Can we not learn to free our minds of all side issues as we listen--to forget audience, performers, and scene, to forget princesses and heroes, to forget everything except this unique experience that is unfolding itself before our ears? Can we not, arousing ourselves from our drowsy reverie, follow with active co-operation and vivid pleasure each tone and phrase of the music, for itself alone?

One thing is sure: Unless we can do so, we shall miss the keenest enjoyment that music has to offer. For this enjoyment is not passive, but active. It is not enough to place ourselves in a room where music is going on; we must by concentrated attention; absorb and mentally digest it. Without the help of the alert mind, the ear can no more hear than the eye can see. Sir Isaac Newton, asked how he had made his wonderful discoveries, answered, "By intending my mind." In no other way can the lover of music penetrate its mysteries.

Knowledge of musical technicalities, on the other hand, is not necessary to appreciation, any more than knowledge of the nature of pigments or the laws of perspective is necessary to the appreciation of a picture. Such technical knowledge we may dispense with, if only we are willing to work for our musical pleasure by giving active attention, and if we have some guidance as to what to listen for among so many and such at first confusing impressions. Such guidance to awakened attention, such untechnical direction what to listen for, it is the object of this book to give.

II. WHAT TO NOTICE FIRST.

It is no wonder, when one stops to think of it, that music, in spite of its deeply stirring effect upon us, often defeats our best efforts to understand what it is all about, and leaves us after it is over with the uncomfortable sense that we have had only a momentary pleasure, and can take nothing definite away with us. It is as if we had been present at some important event, without having the least idea why it was important, or what was its real meaning. All of us, at one time or another, must have had this experience. And, indeed, how could it be otherwise? Music gives us nothing that we can see with our eyes or touch with our hands. It does not even give our ears definite words that we can follow and understand. It offers us only sounds, soft or loud, long or short, high or low, that flow on inexorably, and that too often come to an end without leaving any tangible impressions behind them. No wonder we are often bewildered by an experience so peculiar and so fleeting.

Yet these sounds, subtle as they are, have a sense, a logic, an order of their own; and if we can only learn how to approach them, we can get at this inner orderliness that makes them into "music." The process of perception which we have to learn here is somewhat akin to certain more familiar processes. For example, what comes to our eyes from the outer world is simply a mass of impressions of differently colored and shaped spots of light; only gradually, as we grow out of infancy, do we learn that one group of these spots of light shows us "a house," another "a tree," and so on. Similarly words, as we easily realize in the case of a foreign language, are to the untrained ear mere isolated sounds of one kind or another; only with practice do we learn to connect groups of them into intelligible sentences. So it is with music. The sounds are at first mere sounds, separate, fragmentary, unrelated. Only after we have learned to group them into definite melodies, as we group spots of lights into houses or trees, and words into sentences, do they become music for us. To approach sounds in such a way as to "make sense" of them--that is the art of listening to music.

III. MUSICAL MOTIVES.

The first step in making sense of any unfamiliar thing is to get quite clearly in mind its central subject or subjects, as, for example, the fundamental idea of a poem, the main contention of an essay, the characters of a novel, the text of a sermon. All music worthy of the name has its own kind of subjects; and if we can learn to take note of, remember, and recognize them, we shall be well on the road to understanding what at first seems so intangible and bewildering.

A possible confusion, due to the use of terms, must here be guarded against. The word "subject" is used in a special sense, in music, to mean an entire theme or melody, of many measures' duration--thus we speak of "the first subject of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony," meaning the entire contents of measures 6-21. Now this is obviously a different meaning of the word "subject" from the general one we use when we speak of the subject of a poem or a picture, as the fundamental idea about which it all centers. This long musical "subject" all centers about a little idea of four notes, announced in the first two measures of the symphony:

[Music: score]

But as we are already using the word "subject" to mean something else, we must have another name for this brief characteristic bit out of which so much is made, and for this the word "motive" is used. Here again there is a difference of usage which must be noted. When we speak of a "motive" or "leading motive" of Wagner, we mean not a short group of this kind, but an entire melody associated with some special character or idea; e. g., "the Siegfried motive." Let us here, however, keep the word "motive" to mean a short characteristic group of tones or "figure," and the word "subject" to mean a complete melody or theme built up out of one or more motives.

The smallest elements into which we can analyze the subject-matter of music are "_motives_"--_that is, bits of tune, groups of from two to a dozen tones, which have an individuality of their own, so that one of them cannot possibly be confused with another_.

"Yankee Doodle," for instance, begins with a motive of seven notes, which is quite individual, and wholly different from the motive of six notes at the beginning of "God Save the King," or the motive of five notes at the beginning of the "Blue Danube" waltz. The three motives are so different that nobody of ordinary musical intelligence would confound them one with another, any more than he would confound the subject of Longfellow's "Psalm of Life" with that of Browning's "Incident of the French Camp," or the characters in "Dombey and Son" with those in "Tom Jones." The whole musical individuality of each of the three tunes grows out of the individuality of its special motive.

Here, evidently, is a matter of primary importance to the would-be intelligent music lover. If he can learn to distinguish with certainty whatever "motives" he hears, half the battle is already gained.

Four points will be noticeable in any motive he may hear. Its notes will vary as to (1) length, (2) accent, (3) meter or grouping into regular measures of two, three, or four notes, and (4) pitch. If he can once form the habit of noticing them, he will have no further difficulty in recognizing the themes of any music, and, what is even more important, following the various evolutions through which they pass as the composer works out his ideas. The importance of such active participation in the composer's thought cannot be exaggerated. Without it there cannot be any true appreciation of music; through it alone does the listener emerge from "drowsy reverie, relieved by nervous thrills" into the clear daylight of genuine artistic enjoyment.

IV. WHAT THE COMPOSER DOES WITH HIS MOTIVES.

Let us put ourselves now in the place of a composer who has thought of certain motives, and who wishes to make them into a complete piece of music. What shall we do next with these scraps of melody, attractive but fragmentary? Now, one thing we can see at once from our knowledge of arts other than music. We must somehow or other keep repeating our central ideas, or our piece will wander off into mazes and fail to have any unity or intelligibility; yet we must also vary these repetitions, or they will become monotonous, and the finished piece will have no variety or sustained interest. The poet must keep harking back to the main theme of his poem, or it will degenerate into an incoherent rhapsody; but he must present new phases of the root idea, or he will simply repeat himself and bore his readers. The architect, having chosen a certain kind of column, say, for his building, must not place next to it another style of column, from a different country and period, or his building will become a mess, a medley, a nightmare; but neither must he make his entire building one long colonnade of exactly similar columns, for then it would be hopelessly dull. In short, every artist has to solve in his own way the problem of combining _unity of general impression_ with _variety of detail_. Without either one of these essentials, no art can be beautiful.

Here we are, then, with our motive and with the problem before us of repeating it with modifications sufficient to lend it a new interest, but not radical enough to hide its identity.

If we are making our music for several voices or instruments, or for several parts all played on one instrument like the organ or the piano, we can let these different voices or parts sound the motive in succession. If, while the new voice takes the motive, the voice previously brought in goes on with something new, then we shall have a very agreeable mingling of unity and variety. This is the method used in all canons, fugues, inventions, and so on, and in vocal rounds. For an example, take the round called "Three Blind Mice" (see Figure I).

[Music: score] FIGURE I. "THREE BLIND MICE."

Three blind mice, three blind mice, See how they run, see how they run, They all ran af - ter the farm - er's wife, Who cut off their tails with a carv - ing knife. Did you ev - er see such a sight in your life as three blind mice.

One person, A, begins this melody alone, and sings it through. When he has reached the third measure, B strikes in at the beginning. When B in his turn has reached the third measure (A being now at the fifth), C comes in in the same way. In a word, the three people sing the same tune _in rotation_ (whence the name, "round"). And the tune, of course, is so contrived that all its different sections, sounded simultaneously by the various voices, merge in harmony. This kind of literal repetition by one part of what another has just done is called "imitation," and is a fundamental principle of all that great department of music known as the "polyphonic," or many-voiced.

But now, notice another kind of repetition in this little tune. Measures 3 and 4 practically repeat, though at a different place in the scale, the three-note motive of measures 1 and 2. (In order to conform to the words, the second note is now divided into two, but this is an unimportant alteration.) The naturalness of this kind of repetition is obvious. Having begun with our motive in one place, it easily occurs to us to go on by repeating it, _in the same voice, but higher or lower in pitch than at first_. The mere fact that it is higher or lower gives it the agreeable novelty we desire, yet it remains perfectly recognizable. We may call this sort of repetition, which, like "imitation," is of the greatest utility to the composer, "transposition," to indicate that the motive is shifted to a new place or pitch.

But suppose we do not wish either to imitate or to transpose our motive, is there any other way in which we can effectively repeat it? Yes:--we can follow its first appearance with something else, entirely different, and after this interval of contrast, come back again and _restate_ our motive just as it was at first. Looking at "Three Blind Mice" again, we see that this device, as well as the other two, is used there. After the fifth, sixth, and seventh measures, which contain the contrast, the eighth measure returns literally to the original motive of three notes, thus rounding out and completing the tune. This third kind of repetition, which may be called "restatement after contrast," or simply "restatement," is also widely in use in all kinds of music. A most familiar instance occurs in "Way Down upon the Suwanee River."

Let us keep distinctly in mind, in all our study, these three modes of repetition, which are of radical importance to musical design: 1st, the imitation of a motive in a different "voice" or "part"; 2d, the transposition of a motive, in the same voice, to a higher or lower place in the scale; 3d, the restatement of a motive already once stated, after an intervening contrast. We shall constantly see these kinds of repetition--imitation, transposition, and restatement--used by the great composers to give their music that unity in variety, that variety in unity, without which music can be neither intelligible nor beautiful.

V. THE FIRST STEPS AS REVEALED BY HISTORY.

It must not be thought that these ways of varying musical motives without destroying their identity were quickly found out by musicians. On the contrary, it took centuries, literally centuries, to discover these devices that seem to us so simple. All savage races are musically like children; they cannot keep more than one or two short bits of tune in mind at the same time, and these they simply repeat monotonously. The first two examples in Figure II, taken from Sir Hubert Parry's "The Evolution of the Art of Music," give an idea of the first stage of the savage musician.

1. [Music: score]

2. [Music: score]

3. [Music: score]

4. [Music: score]

FIGURE II. TUNES OF PRIMITIVE SAVAGES.

The first is from Australia, the second from Tongataboo. Both are made of a single motive endlessly repeated without relief.

In a slightly higher stage, two motives are used, but with little more skill. Number 3, in Figure II, is an example. Then come tunes in which one or more motives, repeated literally, are still the main feature of the design, but in which a certain amount of variety is introduced between the repetitions (see Number 4, in Figure II, a Russian tune). Here the little characteristic figure of four short notes and a long, marked N.B., is agreeably relieved by other material.

VI. A SPANISH FOLK-SONG.

From such primitive music as this to the beautiful "folk-song" of the modern nations is a long step indeed. Even in the simplest real folk-songs, the means of varied repetition of ideas that we have been discussing are used with an ingenuity which places them on an infinitely higher level than these primitive efforts of savages. It is true that in folk-songs, which were sung by a single voice instead of a group of voices, the device of "imitation" was used hardly at all:--that is available only where there are several different voices to imitate one another. But in order to see what good use was made of "transposition" and "restatement" we need take only a single example, from Galicia in Spain (see Figure III). Let us examine this tune in some detail, as a preparation for a further study of folk-songs in a later article.

[Music: score] From Galicia in Spain.

FIGURE III. FOLK-SONG.

The tune, in spite of its impression of considerable variety, is founded entirely on two motives--

[Music: score]

[Music: score]

In the sixth and seventh measures, (1) is so altered and transposed that it ends on D instead of on C, and in the eighth, ninth, and tenth measures (2) is transposed so as to end on G instead of on C. By these transpositions the important element of _contrast_ is introduced, and when therefore we have, at the end, the two motives given again almost exactly as to first, we get, by this restatement after contrast, a delightful sense of unity and completeness. The means here are wonderfully simple, but the effect is truly artistic.

VII. BALANCE OF PHRASES.

An important principle of musical design is introduced to our notice by this little melody. It will be observed that it divides itself into three equal parts: the statement, measures 1-5; the contrast, measures 6-10; and the restatement, measures 11-15. (We may represent these by the letters A, B, and A.) Now these three parts, being of equal length and similar material, balance each other just as lines in poetry do. One makes us expect another, which, when it comes, fulfills our expectation. Thus we get the impression of regularity, order, symmetry. This element of symmetry, or the balancing of one phrase of melody by another, like the balancing of one line of poetry by another, as in the verses

"The lowing herd winds slowly o'er the lea, And leaves the world to darkness and to me."

is a most important one, as we shall soon see, in all modern music.

This balance of one large section of a melody by another is often referred to by the term "rhythm," owing to its analogy with "rhythm" in architecture (in the symmetry, for example, of two halves of a building). But it is simpler to keep the word rhythm, in music, to mean rather a characteristic combination of tones, as regards their relative length and accent, as, "the rhythm of the first motive in Beethoven's Fifth Symphony" (see motive quoted on page 5). In the present articles the word will be used in this latter sense.

VIII. SUMMARY.

In this chapter we have seen how music, in spite of its subtle, intangible nature, has certain definite features called "motives," which we can learn to recognize and follow by noticing the length, accent, metrical arrangement, and movement "up" or "down," of the tones of which they are composed.

We have seen that these primary motives are worked up into complete pieces of music by being repeated with such alterations as serve to vary them pleasantly without disguising them beyond recognition. The chief kinds of modified repetition we have noticed are "imitation," "transposition," and "restatement after contrast." All of these we have seen illustrated in "Three Blind Mice."

We have remarked how very gradually musicians got away from monotonous harping on their ideas by using these devices. In connection with the Spanish folk-song, we have noted that, although imitation was not available, transposition and restatement were most effectively used.

Finally, we have seen that music, like poetry, has its larger balance of phrases, by which whole parts of a melody are set off against one another and made to balance, just as lines do in verse.

In succeeding chapters we shall trace out all these principles in more detail.

SUGGESTIONS FOR COLLATERAL READING.

_Parry: "The Evolution of the Art of Music," Chapters I and II; Dickinson: "The Study of the History of Music," Chapter I; Grove: "Dictionary of Music and Musicians," article "Form."_