Page:The Complete Works of Lyof N. Tolstoi - 08 (Crowell, 1899).djvu/312

298 half tone. Then I showed that you can sing and write a scale starting from any note you please; that if a whole tone or a half tone does not occur when it is needed, it can be sharped or flatted. For convenience' sake I wrote for them a chromatic scale after this fashion:—



On this scale I made them all the possible major and minor gamuts, beginning with any desired note. These exercises thoroughly absorbed them, and their success was so striking that two of the classes entertained themselves by noting down the melodies of the songs they knew. These pupils often hum the motives of songs, the names of which they cannot remember, and hum them delicately and prettily, and they repeat the principal part the best; and they do not like it at all when many join in, screaming the song together coarsely.

There were barely a dozen lessons in the course of the winter. Our study was spoiled by our vanity. The parents, we, the teachers, and the pupils themselves wanted to surprise the whole village—to sing in church. We started to prepare a mass and the Kherubimskaya songs of Bortnyansky. It seemed as if this would be jollier for the children, but it proved to be the contrary. In spite of the fact that the desire to go into the chancel supported them, and that they loved music, and that we