Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XII.djvu/90

 MUSIC Each interval gives rise to its own combination tone, but, in the cases of the fundamental po- sition and second inversion of the major triad, two combination tones happen to coin- cide. The reader will at once observe that in the major group no note extraneous to the harmony is brought in by the combination tones. In the minor group this is no longer the case. The fundamental position and the first inversion of the triad are both in an A|>, which is foreign to the harmony, and the sec- ond inversion involves an additional extraneous note, B|>. The position of these adventitious sounds is not such as to produce dissonance, for which they are too far from each other and from the notes of the triad ; but they cloud the transparency of the harmony, and so give rise to the effects characteristic of the minor mode. The unsatisfying character of minor compared with major triads comes out with peculiar dis- tinctness on the melodeon; as indeed, from the powerful combination tones of that instru- ment, we should naturally have anticipated. Sedley Taylor, from whose work " On Sound and Music " nearly all of the above passage on inversion is taken, says : " The musical nota- tion in ordinary use evidently takes for granted a scale consisting of a limited number of fixed sounds. Moreover, it indicates directly abso- lute pitch, and only indirectly relative pitch. In order to ascertain the interval between any two notes on the stave, we must go through a little calculation, involving the clef, the key signature, and perhaps, in addition, 'acciden- tal ' sharps or flats. Now these complications, if necessary for pianoforte music, are perfectly gratuitous in the case of vocal music. The voice wants only to be told on what note to begin, and what intervals to sing afterward; i. e., it is concerned with absolute pitch only at its start, and needs to be troubled with it no further. Hence, to place the ordinary no- tation before a child who is to be taught to sing, is like presenting him with a manual for learning to dance, compiled on the theory that human feet can only move in twelve different ways. Not only does the established notation encumber the vocalist with information which he does not want ; it fails to communicate the one special piece of information which he does want. It is essential to really good music that every note heard should stand in a definite re- lationship to its tonic or key note. Now there is nothing in the established notation to mark clearly and directly what the relation ought in such case to be. Unless the vocalist, besides his own part, is provided with that of the ac- companiment, and possesses some knowledge of harmony, he cannot ascertain how the notes set down for him are related to the key note and to each other. The extreme inconvenience of this must have become painfully evident to any one who has frequently sung concert- ed music from a single part. A bass, we will suppose, after leaving off on F#, is directed to rest thirteen bars, and then come in fortissimo on his high Efc. It is impossible for him to keep the absolute pitch of Fj^in his head du- ring this long interval, which is perhaps occu- pied by the other voices in modulating into some remote key ; and his part vouchsafes no indication in what relation the E^ stands to the notes or chords immediately preceding it. There remains then nothing for him to do but to sing at a venture some note at the top of his voice, in the hope that it may prove to be E|>, though with considerable dread, in the op- posite event, of committing a conspicuous for- tissimo blunder. The essential requisite for a system of musical notation, therefore, is that, whenever it specifies any sound, it shall indi- cate in a direct and simple manner the relation in which that sound stands to its tonic for the time being. A method by which this criterion is very completely satisfied shall now be briefly described. The old Italian singing masters de- noted the seven notes of the major scale, reck- oned from the key note upward, by the sylla- bles do, re, mi, fa, sol, la, si. As long as a melody moves only in the major mode, without modulation, it clearly admits of being written down, as far as relations of pitch only are con- cerned, by the use of these syllables. The opening phrase of ' Rule Britannia,' for in- stance, would stand thus : do, do, do, re, mi, fa, sol, do, re, re, mi, fa, mi. In order to abridge the notation, we may indicate each syllable by its initial consonant. The ambiguity which would thus arise between sol and si is got rid of by altering the latter syllable into ti. In order to distinguish a note from those of the same name in the adjacent octaves above and below it, an accent is added, either above or below the corresponding initial. Thus d' is an octave above d; d, an octave below d. When a modulation (i. e. a change of tonic) occurs, it is shown in the following manner : A note necessarily stands in a twofold relation to the outgoing and incoming tonic. The interval it forms with the new tonic is different from that which it formed with the old one. Each of these intervals can be denoted by a suitable syllable initial, and the displacement of one of these initials by the other represents in the aptest manner the supersession of the old by the new tonic. The old initial is written above and to the left of the new one. Thus r f indi- cates that the note re is to be sung, but its name changed to fa. As this is a somewhat difficult point, a few modulations are appended, ex- pressed both in the established notation and in that now under consideration. The instances selected are from to G-, from to F, from E to C, from G to F#. fg j f m d S d, f m d