Page:Pratt - The history of music (1907).djvu/631

 that the facts of scale-relationship could be more simply presented to the singer's mind, so that essentially the same relations should always be shown by the same signs. Hence came the invention of systems in which either numerals or letters were used to indicate where in the scale the tones desired were situated. The pictorial element in the staff-notation was sacrificed to gain precision of tonal thought. Out of many experiments two systems of notation were evolved—that of Galin or Chevé and that known as the 'Tonic Sol-Fa'—which have demonstrated their utility in France and England respectively, not as complete substitutes for the staff-notation, but as helps to the right use of that notation or as means for rudimentary teaching. Both systems were gradually improved until they were capable of showing all sorts of time-relations and all ordinary intricacies of modulation. Both gained power through the minute study of methods of teaching and the preparation of systematic textbooks. The practical success of the Tonic Sol-Fa movement in England has been prodigious, exercising a large influence upon the whole musical culture of the nation.

Reference to these matters calls up the fact that during this period there was a constant multiplication of special 'methods' for teaching particular musical branches, especially on the part of leading teachers in the conservatories. All these testified to the care with which pedagogical processes were being scrutinized and the system that was becoming characteristic of technical training. Hence the rate of advance among pupils was greatly accelerated and at the same time the results made better. This was specially conspicuous in the acquisition of keyboard and vocal technique. The number of expert trainers in piano-playing and singing increased everywhere, constituting two groups of specialists who were constantly bringing out well-equipped performers. The only untoward result of this activity was the confusion often introduced into the minds of students and the public between technical proficiency in execution and genuinely broad musicianship.

Among the pioneers in promoting popular singing were the following:—

Hans Georg Nägeli (d. 1836), a music-publisher of repute near Zurich, was one of the first to agitate for school music. He was the head of a Swiss society for promoting popular song, a strong advocate of the methods of Pestalozzi, a practical teacher and author of several manuals (from 1812).