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MUSIC (RELIGIOUS)

1286

MUSIC (TEACHING OF)

childhood to disregard those distinctions that give to religious music its peculiar effectiveness. Rather than sacrifice this it would be better to adhere consistently to the demands of pure, religious music and so to educate our congregations that they will see the incongruity of demanding from religious music what they get from secular music. If hotels, railroad-stations and factories all employed church-architecture, the significance of a given style for religious service would be lost. Similarly, if all forms of music are employed in Sunday-schools, the distinctively religious music will be lost. It will then be known only by the words that accompany it.

To sum up the points we have so far made: First, the aim of religious music is to strengthen religious feeling — we have seen how music accomplishes this through its power of awakening undefined feeling; second, association is necessary in order to make effective the transfer of musical feeling into religious feeling; third, for the sake of the necessary associations, the field of religious music should be limited; fourth, the natural desire for attractiveness in church-music tends to weaken its associa-tional power, through the introduction of means employed by secular music. In conclusion, effective religious music, as a result of the above considerations, will belong to a type (i) long used for religious purposes; (2) employing a musical form which does not lend itself to secular use; and (3) effective musically. A mass of Palestrina, a choral by Bach or a simple hymn like Mason's Olmutz all have these three characteristics: They are thoroughly charged with religious feeling and association; they have no connection with secular forms of expression as now employed; and at the same time they are musically expressive. Religious music, to be appropriate to the use for which it is intended, does not have to be in one gloomy mood. The whole gamut of feeling from glorious Halleluiah to profoundest Miserere must be capable of being expressed through its means. But in all these changes of mood there must be felt a type or a characteristic differentiating it from the secular forms. Music expressing spiritual victory must be different from that which expresses a foot-ball triumph. The employment of the church-modes would give the modern composer an excellent opportunity for attaining effective expression of feeling and, at the same time, ensuring a distinctness of type, and there are numbers from great art-works like oratorios and masses that successfully combine attractiveness with genuineness of religious expression. Whatever can be done to make religious music attractive to modern ears without destroying its distinctive nature makes it all the more effective; but where-ever effort towards attractiveness simply

turns religious music into secular music, the pleasurable gain is at the cost of that very quality for which the distinction "religious music" is made. CHARLES FARNSWORTH.

Music, Teaching of. The civil engineer, the mechanical engineer, the electrician, the chemist, the astronomer, the financier and the ordinary man all employ various forms of applied mathematics, yet all begin with elementary courses which have two ends in view,— to supply the knowledge of the fundamental laws of mathematics necessary for everyone and the application of these to the needs of the general public in the problems of daily life. So in music there is need of such a cultivation as will form a basis for all musical activity and will make clear the special application of musical principles that are essential to the enjoyment of the general public. It is the aim of this article to show what the character of such a study should be and what the means for its accomplishment.

The large majority of children are able to sing more or less when they commence music-study. Hence no time need be taken from pure music-study in getting the command of an instrument. The problem is how to conduct this study, so that it will be fundamental to all forms of applied music and at the same time be useful to the general public. Whatever one may do with his music, the power to appreciate it is fundamental to all, both the performer and the listener. Hence an elementary course in music must be primarily directed toward its comprehension.

Turning to the means, there are three essentials to such comprehension: First, experience; second, a generalization from experience to the formation of ideas; and, third, the classification of these ideas so that they can be effectively used. Hence, in the elementary course of music-study, the first phase of the work will consist in giving experience through imitative singing, in forming ideas from this experience and in defining and classifying these by associating them with their notation. The second phase, by means of sight-singing, will continue the classification of musical ideas and their application in the forming of concrete musical ideas. The third phase, largely by means of instrumental examples, will continue the application by showing how definite concrete ideas are employed in large musical compositions, thus leading to a comprehension of the nature of these compositions.

Taking up the first of these phases, the first step in music-study should consist in the ability to imitate accurately what one hears and to hold such a passage in the memory. The resulting development of the power of observation and memory is especially important in music, because a musical passage is incomprehensible unless the memory relates the note or chord we are hearing