Part 8 (1/2)

But we have dwelt too long on the general characteristics

Although our examples have been drawnprinciples apply to all kinds of rhythm, tactual and visual as well as auditory It is tiest, , most full of e been known that there is especially close connection between sounds and motor innervations All sorts of sensorial stimuli produce reflex contractions, but the auditory, apparently, to a ree Animals are excited to all sorts of outbreaks by noise; children are less alarmed by visual than by auditory impressions The fact that we dance to sound rather than to the waving of a baton, or rhythht for instance--the fact that this second proposition is felt at once to be absurd, sho intiether The irresistible effects of dance, martial music, etc, are trite commonplaces; and I shall therefore not heap up instances which can be supplied by every reader from his own experience Now all this is not hard to understand, biologically The eye h away to be fled from, or prepared for; the ear as likely to be nearer, unseen, and so more ominous As more ominous, it would have to be responded to in action more quickly So that if any sense was to be in especially close connection with the

The development of the auditory functions points to the same close connection of sound and movement Sounds affect us as tone, and as impulse The primitive sensation was one of ians at first only gave information about the attitude and movements of the body, and were connected with motor centres so as to be able to reestablish equilibriuan” developed into the organs of hearing and of equilibrium (that is, the cochlea and the semicircular canals respectively), but these were still side by side in the inner ear, and the close connection with the motor centres was not lost Anatooes to those parts of the brain whence the motor innervation emanates, and to the reflex centres in the cerebelluastric nerve, which rules the heart and the vasoular effect of sound on anic functions which have soand emotion

Every sound-stimulus is then much more than sound-sensation

It causes reflex contractions in the whole muscular system; it sets up some sort of cardiac and vascular excitation

This reaction is in general in the direction of increased amplitude of respiration, but di on a peripheral vaso-constriction Moreover, this vasoiven in a melody or piece of music, not by its continuity, but for every one of the variations of rhythht of what has been said of the latent ically translated as vaso-constriction In general, music induces cardiac acceleration

All this is of value in showing how completely the attention- motor theory of rhythm applies to the rhythm of sounds Since sound is much more than sound, but sound-sensation, ether, we can see that the rhythmical experience of music is, even more literally and completely than at first appeared, an EMBODIED expectation No sensorial rhythanis to music, we see how it is that we ourselves, body and soul, seem to be IN the rhythm We make it, and ait to make it The satisfaction of our expectation is like the satisfaction of a bodily desire or need; no, not like it, it IS that The conditions and causes of rhythe, custom, even instinct; they are in the most fundamental functions of life This element of uage”

IV

The facts of the relations of tones, the elements, that is, of melody and harmony, are as follows We cannot avoid the observation that certain tones ”go together,” as the phrase is, while others do not This peculiar iether is known as consonance, or harmony The intervals of the octave, the fifth, the third, for instance, that is, C-C', C-G, C-E, in the diatonic scale, are harmonious; while the interval of the second, C-D, is said to be dissonant

Consonance, however, is not identical with pleasingness, for different co In the history of music we know that the octave was to the Greeks thecombination, to medieval musicians the fifth, while to us, the third, which was once a forbidden chord, is perhaps htful Yet we should never doubt that the octave is the most consonant, the fifth and the third the lesser consonant of combinations We see, thus, that consonance, whatever its nature, is independent of history; and we must seek for its explanation in the nature of the auditory process

Various theories have been proposed That of Helhty objections have been raised to it, itit a short review of the fa may not be out of place

The vibration rates per second of the vibrating bodies, strings, steel rods, etc, which produce those musical tones which are consonant, are in definite and small mathematical ratios to each other Thus the rates of C-C' are as 1:2; of C-G, C-E, as 2:3, 4:5 In general, the sireater the consonance

But no sonorous body vibrates in one single rate; a taut string vibrates as a whole, which gives its funda out a weaker partial tone, in har to the different ways in which a sonorous body divides, that is, according to the different combination of partial tones peculiar to it, is its especial quality of tone, or timbre The whole complex of fundamental and partial tones is e popularly speak of as a tone,--itations or vibrations are trans the account of the anatomical path by which they reach the inner ear, we find the up vibrations in a many-fibred membrane, the basilar membrane, which is in direct connection with the ends of the auditory nerve It is supposed that to every possible rate of vibration, that is, every possible tone, or partial tone, there corresponds a fibre of the basilar th to vibrate synchronously with the original wave-elements

The complex wave is thus analyzed into its constituents Nohen two tones, which ill for clearness suppose to be siether, have vibration rates in simple ratios to each other, the air- waves set in motion do not interfere with each other, but coeneous wave If they have to each other a complicated ratio, such as 500:504, the air- waves will not only not coalesce, but four tih of one ill ebraic sue of the sound When these stoppages, or beats, as they are called, are too numerous to be heard separately, as in the interval, say, 500:547, the effect is of a disagreeable roughness of tone, and this we call discord

In other words, any tones which do not produce beats are harmonious, or harmony is the absence of discord In the words of Helmholtz,<1> consonance is a continuous, dissonance an interen_, p 370, in 4th edition

Aside froical fact, seeative, two very important facts can be set up in opposition As a result of experiation, we know that the ih sound- sensations we know as beating tones; and, conversely, tones can be dissonant when the possibility of beats is removed

Briefly, it is possible to make beats without dissonance, and dissonance without beats

The other explanation makes consonance due to the identity of partial tones When two tones have one or more partial tones in coives the degree of relationshi+p Physiologically, one or more basilar ives the positive feeling of relationshi+p or consonance Of course the obvious objection to this view is that the two tones should be felt as differently consonant when struck on instruan and piano, while in fact they are not so felt

But it is not after all essential to the aesthetics of ical basis of harmony should be fully understood The point is that certain tones do indeed seeruity,” preordained either in their physical constitution or their physiological relations, and not to have achieved congruity by use or custom Consonance is an iically an ultimate fact That it is ultimate is emphasized by Stumpf<1> in his theory of Fusion Consonance is fusion, that is, unitary iuish two tones froh thisof unity, and fusion is the

<1> _Beitrage zur Akustik u Musikwissenschaft_, Heft I, Konsonanz u Dissonanz, 1898

The striking fact of modern music is the principle of tonality

Tonality is said to be present in a piece of nificance from its relation to, a funda and lowest note in the scale in question, and all notes and chords are understood according to their place in that scale But the conception of the scale of course does not cover the ground, it merely furnishes the point of departure,-- the essential is in the reference of every eleravity of a rew up as follows Every one was referred to a fundamental, whether or not it ed TOGETHER WITH every other note, and when a group of such references often appeared together, the feelings bound up with the single reference (interval-feelings) fused into a single feeling,-- the tonality-feeling When this point is once reached, it is clear that every tone is heard not as itself alone, but in its relations; it is not that we judge of tonality, it is a direct iical principle that we have already touched on in the theory of rhythe, just as the shape of objects is a h all possible experiences in relation to these objects, we POSSESS their fores, which are themselves only motor cues for coordinatedat a certain distance from, with a certain relation to, another tone which is di a ether for us by virtue of the background of the tone to which they are related, and in terms of which they are heard

The tonality is indeed literally a ”funded content,”--that is, a funded capital of relation

These are the general facts of tonality But what is itsfor the nature of music? Why should all notes be referred to one? Is this, too, an ultiical fact?

In answer there inal basic quality of certain tones, and the desire we have to return to them

Of two successive tones, it is always the one which is, in the ratio of their vibration rates, a power of thich ish to end<1> When neither of two successive tones contains a power of te have no preference as to the ending Thus denoting any tone by 1, it is always to 1 or 2, or 2n that ish to return, from any other possible tone; while 3 and 5, 5 and 7, leave us indifferent as to their succession In general, when two tones are related, as 2n:3, 5, 7, 9, 15--in which 2n denotes every power of two, including 2o=1, with the progression from the first to the second, there is bound up a tendency to return to the first Thus the fundamental fact of melodic sequence may be said to be the primacy of 2 in vibration rates