Short studies in the nature of music

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THE ESSENTIAL NATURE OF MUSIC : SIX SHORT ESSAYS

2. THE RETURN TO NATURE - - 23

Preface

The Origin and Nature of Music are subjects upon which most scientists and all sentimentalists have their own theories. The following essays attempt neither to teach the one nor to guide the other, but merely to suggest some lines of thought for the average thinking person who is interested in the subject. Most of them have passed the primary test of editorial scrutiny, others have been delivered as lectures to audiences, alike learned and unlearned, in many different places in England and Ireland, some of the original papers being modified as the result of discussions following the publicity so afforded.

The longer ones have generally appeared as several distinct articles, sometimes in journals of widely differing scope. To the Editors of the Musical Quarterly, Musical Times (that severe critic, but genial and unvarying friend, the late Dr. W. G. McNaught), New

PREFACE

Music Review, Educational Times, British Review, Musical News and Musical Opinion, an acknowledgment is due for their kind permission to reprint.

While the essays claim to be unified by their endeavour to discover or state one or other aspect of the Nature of Music, of its essential qualities, its constitutent materials and the methods in which such materials are employed, each essay is complete in itself. This has involved a certain amount of overlapping, which, however, has been avoided so far as is agreeable with a complete statement of the theorv or fact set forth.

X

SIX SHORT ESSAYS

THE RETURN TO NATURE

THE UNIMPORTANCE OF MELODY

SPEECH AND MUSIC

STYLE AND SUBSTANCE IN MUSIC

DELICACY AND THE ORCHESTRA

TO

O. G. SONNECK

When we come to a serious study of the position taken by music in the polity of human life, there are two points which are most obvious. The first of these is that the art, in its elemental forms chiefly, but also in a less degree in those more highly developed, has had a widespread and an effective influence on nearly all departments of human life. Secondly, that that influence is the most unaccountable and erratic of all the influences to which human life is subject. It is an influence of which no science has yet given any adequate explanation, and least of all those sciences which are most applicable to the subject, the sciences of psychology and sociology.

It is not improbable that its very universality has been the cause of its neglect by psychologists and sociologists and also by historians. So often is it difficult to see the importance of that which works in a subtle way among all classes, that there is always a temptation to ignore it, especially where, as with music, it has left no landmarks on history, and no outstanding characteristics in psychology. Music is the one art in which all find pleasure, and by which all are inspired. Shakespeare was not a musician, yet he had some pungent remarks as to "the man that hath no music in his soul." If such a being did or could exist he would be fit only for the grossest evils of which we have any knowledge; but it is well-nigh impossible that he should ever appear in human guise. Nevertheless, the greater our lack of the sense or appreciation of music, so much the greater, as a rule, is our lack of the saving graces of humanity. Without being a pathologist it is comparatively easy to see why the curative qualities of music are now being increasingly recognised. Its qualities as a physical as well as a mental refreshment and food cannot be ignored by those who realise the relation that exists between mind and body. Its expressive power is supplemental to that of speech, but it is just as necessary as speech itself to our health and happiness. We may live without either speech or music, but living so is life maimed of two of its most precious faculties. The lack of speech is usually either the cause or the consequence of some physical or mental disorder, and equally so — though less apparently so — is the lack of musical feeling and expression. From the crooning of its sorrows by the infant weakling to the spontaneous outburst of song by the young man rejoicing in his strength, and from this to the recollection by the aged imbecile of songs sung years before, music is inseparable from our lives. We can do without the graphic and plastic arts, for they are not essential or elemental to our nature. They are the products of long ages of growth and development, and are imitative in their scope and intent. Music in its present state of development is no doubt largely artificial; but in its primary and essential form it is an elemental and original quality of man's nature. High and low, rich and poor, good and bad, old and young, learned and unlearned, wise and foolish, all find in it a means of expression of their joys and a solace in their woes. Without music man could not exist, for he would destroy himself in his melancholy, if he did not wither and pine away in the lack of cheer and solace. He would go mad for want of a means for expressing the emotions which fill the every moment of his life, and for the grotesque ugliness with which the world would be filled.

That it is necessary at all times and in all circumstances I do not suggest. Many people get more music than is good for them; they b THE ESSENTIAL NATURE OF MUSIC

hear so much as to stultify their critical faculties, which is one great reason why there is so much trivial music heard in the great centres of population. Does not the same condition obtain in the matter of speech and conversation? The people who cannot live without constant conversation, who are miserable and dissatisfied when left for a short time to their own thoughts, usually fill up their time with scandal and levity, or at the best in repeating other people's remarks which they only half understand or do not understand at all. To all of us, however, not only speech but conversation is so necessary that without it we should go mad or die of some equally distressing complaint. And this applies still more strongly to music, in which are the elements of beauty of sound, motion and form; without it beauty ceasing to exist and life becoming death.

Yet if we approached half a dozen of the world's greatest thinkers and asked each of them the question, "What is Music?" we should probably get half a dozen answers of such varied characters as to leave us no wiser, and possibly to leave us even more bewildered than before. It is also [)retty certain that not one of such answers would be a satisfactory one, even viewed apart from the conflict of idea arising out of so many different standpoints. Each would define it according to the science or philosophy which is his particular study, or according to his peculiar trend of thought. The mathematician would define it as the sounds resultant on certain regular and controlled vibrations of the air or the ether; the idealist philosopher would explain it as a supernatural gift the source and extent of v/hich we cannot reach on this side of the grave; one would show it to be a development of speech, and another would prove it independent of but supplementary to speech. Of these two latter views, Herbert Spencer the sociologist and Richard Wagner the musiciandramatist would seem to be the most redoubtable of the champions of the speech theory,- while Jules Combarieu, Richard Wallaschek, Ernest Newman and others have made out what would appear to be a strong case for the theory of independent development.

It is all but impossible, however, to prove the nature of the origin of what, if it is not quite as ancient as is the human race itself, is pretty nearly so. Probably neither of these theories so ably contested by great debaters is exclusively in the right, though equally probably both have a certain amount of truth in them. As things exist now the two faculties of Speech and song are so intimately related that, while each still retains its independence, there seems to be little practical purpose to be served by ascertaining, if it were possible to ascertain, the origin of either or both. Each is the natural and perfect complement (i.e., completement) of the other, and lacking either we are unable to express in any full degree our entire mental and spiritual natures. Whereas each is a natural means of expressing thought and emotion, one is mainly the means of expressing thought and the other mainly (and primarily) the means of expressing emotion. There are instances in which both express precisely the same thing; yet generally each has a power to express something of which the other fails. When words and music are combined, whether by means of joint utterance in song or chorus, or by the suggestive means which we call '' Programme Music," it is generally the words which express the ideas and supply the mental framework, while the music expresses the underlying emotion.

All expression, whether of thought or emotion, is either deliberate or spontaneous; intentional or accidental. It may be crude and fulfil its purpose very imperfectly, as when an uneducated person attempts to speak of something outside his or her previous experience; or it may be highly developed so that it delivers its message fully and completely, as when an orator whose knowledge and control of language are each perfect in their day. Artistic expression is never entirely spontaneous, because art implies deliberation. Exactly how and when deliberation takes place varies according to circumstances. The spontaneity of art expression comes from previous deliberation, so that direct deliberation may not be necessary. Nature is not art until art is second nature; but always art is something more than nature. It must be sincere and without cant or mere artificiality; though artifice has its place in art it is one of complete subservience, while a merely spontaneous utterance is never art. So when we speak of the Art of Music we speak of something that has extended beyond, though it has not moved away from, its original and primary functions. Music may be crude in two respects; either in its emotionalism or in its artificiality. Crudity in the former respect occurs among comparatively uncivilised nations, whose art is undeveloped and whose general ideas are of a primitive nature. Crudity in the latter respect occurs among the uneducated classes in civilised nations or in those races whose lO THE ESSENTIAL NATURE OF MUSIC

civilisation has been developed entirely along intellectual lines. For instance of the first we must now-a-days look to a few African and South Sea tribes whose chief idea of music is to drive away evil spirits. Among the lower and middle classes of the European nations are to be found many instances of the second class, while of the third no more striking instance could be wished than the wonderfully elaborate theories and the crude practice of the musicians of China and some parts of India.

In its first beginnings there is little doubt that music was a means of expression; not necessarily in the same manner or to the same extent as speech; but nevertheless really a means of making known to others, of giving audible sign of, emotion and thought. It is also equally certain that it always has been chiefly a means for the expression of emotion as distinct from thought.

Two kinds of music are to be found among races which are still more or less in a primitive condition. One, which is frequently almost toneless, depends for its effect upon its rhythm, upon regular or irregular pulsations, usually produced upon a drum which gives out only just sufficient tone to be heard clearly by a number of people at one time. The other, which is usually vocal, consists of tones, not

THE ESSENTIAL NATURE OF MUSIC II

SO clearly defined or so varied as even the simplest of our present day European music, but still sufficiently defined and varied to be unmistakeably tonal. Both kinds are emotional in two ways; they express emotions and they appeal to emotions. Even the emotional appeal may be made in two essential, elemental ways; through the senses and through the imagination. An example of this twofold appeal occurs in the primitive use of the drum. Mr. Henry George Farmer in his little book on The Rise and Development of Military Music has told us that "the drum became a particular object of worship. Like the ark of the Hebrews, it was taken into battle ' to give victory over enemies,' and the warrior had but to rub it on his thighs, and he was immediately endowed with irresistible strength, whilst the voice of the god or spirit was found most efficacious in creating fear and dismay in his enemies." Here we have the emotion of courage aroused by the imagination when the thighs are rubbed by the drum, and the actual sensible emotion of fear aroused by its clamour. Other instances right down the ages might be given of the manifold appeal to the emotions and of how its artistic side has grown by slow degrees upon the employment of this function of sound.

12 THE ESSENTIAL NATURE OF AfUSIC

The Statements of the immanence — the everywhereness — of music made by Carlyle and the similar but different references to its omnipresence by those who hear in every sound of nature a musical note may be explained in two ways. The former are mystic, spiritual or religious, and are made by analogy or by a literal assumption of the idea that all nature is living and that its life is centred in the heart of man. Such an analogy is that in the book of Job, " When the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy." The aim is to bring the infinite within the comprehension of finite minds.

The latter on the other hand are realistic — almost materialistic. Their analogy is brought about by a desire to explain everything according to the measured and organised art of human civilisation in its present state. At its highest it is an attempt to do a similar work with regard to the natural as the former does for the supernatural. At its worst it forms a sense of comparison which has never risen above a crude imitationalism.

Before it is an art, therefore, we see that music is a means of expression, whether in a crude, undeveloped state or in one fully developed and regulated. In its simplest and most elemental forms it is a means of expression of pure emotion. The possibility of there being states of pure emotion, of feeling without thought, about which psychologists argue need not detain us here. We often hear of or experience what are known in common parlance as "thoughts too deep for words." These, whether momentary or continuing are merely emotions or feelings unmixed with thought or incapable of being shaped by thought, and consequently inexpressible in words. When thought is employed some verbal utterance, adequate or inadequate, becomes possible. Because music is the one means of expression of pure emotion it is the only one which may be entirely spontaneous.

Inarticulate, unordered sound is the primary and elemental expression of emotion. The shriek of pain, the cry of joy, the wail of grief — these are the natural and most effective utterances of certain things that cannot be expressed in words. "I am afraid," or the corresponding words in any language, uttered in the most terror-stricken tones, is almost expressionless compared with the formless and unspellable wail of terror that inspires the feeling which it also expresses. What is more expressive than the grunt of the satisfied gourmand? No words will convey even a meagre suggestion of the feeling which this unmeasured and indeliberate sound so vividly portrays.

Brought down to its primary and most elemental conditions it is into this that all the elaborate development of art music resolves itself. It is the expression of feelings to which no words can do adequate justice, and while the application of intellectual formulae has made it more understandable by others, it is its spontaneity first of all that makes it so fully expressive of that which bears but little relation to thought, and therefore to speech. "Words will not express" many emotions which other sounds express quite clearly and forcibly. To some extent we can trace this back to the sounds made by the lower animals, at least by inference if not by actual genealogy. In the purring of the cat and the tiger, the growling and barking of the dog, the roaring of the lion, even, possibly, in the croak of the frog and the chirp of the grasshopper, we have expressions of emotion — of contentment or discontent, of pleasure or pain or anger. Doubtless in many of these animals such sounds arise largely from physical emotions; but the dividing line between physical and psychological emotion has yet to be determined. Nor are these sounds music as we usually understand it, any more than the sound of the waves on the sea shore or of the waterfall or the rustling branches of the trees are music. They are, nevertheless, the elemental sounds out of which music is formed, and apparently they arise from emotions which in more highly developed beings are expressed in sounds more ordered, though as an inevitable consequence, more artificial. Humming and crooning are a species of spontaneous music that is closely related to art music, because the melodies used are commonly those in the construction of which art has been employed.

There is bound to be this relation in all even of the most spontaneous and the least ordered of the utterances of civilised peoples. We cannot, even in our wildest moments, cast off altogether the tradition and growth of centuries; and, therefore, consciously or unconsciously, we express the least controlled of our emotions in the terms, the ordered sounds, of art. Those persons who have the least control of their emotions, who are possessed of few emotions, or who are in the habit of concealing their emotions, seldom or never indulge in such practices as humming, crooning, whistling, etc. Such indulgence is a sure sign that emotion is the ruling force; the restraint of it generally, though not invariably, is a sign that thought or mentality is the ruling force. Those who have little capacity for thought and whose circumstances have compelled them to restrain their emotions — such, for instance, as many among the poorest classes of labourers in both town and country, to whom long hours and poor living are the daily round — also refrain from this indulgence. In this case it is the restraint of emotion, not the lack of thought which causes the suppression of such sounds, for the youthful peasant characterized in the popular song A Careless Whistling Boy am I is usually all emotion.

To other proofs of the essentially emotional character of music we must add the fact that it is, more than anything else, a means of collective expression. Collective thought — and particularly thought on the part of a large crowd — is so rare as to be almost non-existent. Collective emotion is constantly at work, and is the cause of all great social movements, whether made by sudden impulse or by gradual and slow development. And collective emotion is a force of which it is impossible to estimate either the direction or the impetus, the character or the power. There is a cause for this which can best be ascertained by deduction from the effect.

Collective expression is not, as some conceive it to be, the mere expression on the same subject of thoughts and feelings possessed in common by a number of individuals. There is a certain character about collective thought, feeling and expression, that is not the mere agglomeration of the thoughts and emotions of the individuals of which the collective body is composed. The conjunction of two individual temperaments produces a third collective temperament (a kind of joint temperament possessed by two persons acting in sympathy) which exists only in the conjunction of the two. The possession by two minds of a unity of thought is rare; but the possession by two or more souls of a unity of emotion is so frequent as to be a commonplace. When a large number of temperaments (of emotional dispositions) are conjoined, the result is a new temperament still more widely separated in character from that of any individual, and of deeper intensity, though usually short-lived.

Upon those who come into contact with such a collective temperament, whether as contributing separate atoms to its constitution, in opposition to it, or merely as observers, the effect is more rapid and frequently more vital than that produced by contact even with the strongest and most distinctive of individual temperaments. This quick influence is seen most in music, in which numbers have a more direct and powerful influence than in other matters.

Proportionately with the number of occasions on which it is possible, a spontaneous burst into song is more common on the part of collective temperaments than on the temperaments of individuals. This, however, is in inverse ratio to the size of the body out of which the collective temperaments arises, and a small party is more ready to sing than is a large crowd. Half a dozen individuals sharing a common emotion and unrestrained by the artificial conventions of society, very readily express in song the common emotion which they feel, particularly if that emotion is one of joy or pleasure. The previous association of the music may have had little or nothing to do with the emotion it is called upon to express. (The use of Tifperary is a striking and appropriate illustration of this) . This association is a matter of little or no importance, though the character of the music will probably be in some degree suited to the emotion.

What happens is that the emotion is expressed in the terms which come most readily to hand, and which best fit it at the moment. Probably those who so express themselves have no thought of the fitness or unfitness of what they are doing. They exercise no process of selection, for they have no standard by which to select, and possibly no variety of emotional expression by which they may give vent to varied emotions. They express themselves in music because it is the one method of giving utterance to their emotions, and serves the same purpose no matter what such emotions may be. At the same time, one reason why large bodies are not so quick at expressing their emotions in song is that, though there may be perfect unity of emotion, to obtain a unity of expression does require a certain degree of thought. This thought is supplied, not infrequently, by a leader whose one qualification for the office is a quicker and more spontaneous thought than that possessed by his followers.

Rhythm is one of the most important elements in music for various reasons. It is one of the commonest forms of elementary music, and it is also the means by which emotional or natural sounds are converted into the materials of art. It is the latter largely because it is the means by which sound may be measured and stored away or remembered by the non-scientific hearer. We say now-a-days that *'time'* is the means by which rhythm may be measured; but long before time measurement was invented or developed on an orderly system rhythm was employed not only in the making of music, but as a system of teaching and learning notes unrememberable without it.

From the foregoing it is possible to construct a short formal definition which will serve to unify considerations of the nature and utility of the art. Music is that art which expresses in an orderly manner the emotions of human beings collectively or individually, whether such emotions be combined with thought or not. Its pleasurable sensations are caused sometimes by its actual beauty of construction, but more often by the fact that it arouses a certain sympathy between the one responsible for its expression (either composer or performer) and the one upon whom the impression is made, that is, the hearer. Sounds which do not arouse this sympathy fulfil only the minor functions of music, and however beautifully constructed the music containing them may be, it is quickly condemned by all save the pedant. In considering the subject of the expressiveness of music, therefore, we are compelled by its nature to see chiefly how far and in what manner it expresses and arouses these emotions.

But there is one other point also to be considered; that is the necessity and utility of the limitations of the art.

Limitation, the exclusion of some matter or of some method or methods, is of the very essence of intelligence and therefore of art. It is the most important function of the faculty of selection. To bring them within the comprehension of finite beings all things must be limited. It is because of the nature and character of these limitations that one art, or one science, is distinct from every other. If music were free from the limitations which prescribe its expression to the emotions, or to matters connected more or less directly with the emotions, it would lose much of its force as an emotional expression. Its power as emotional expression rests mainly on the fact that its limitations exclude from its expressiveness matters which, though sometimes an aid, are more often an encumbrance to the emotions. And as limitation is necessary for comprehension, so selection is for effective expression. Therefore art progresses as the power of selection increases; which happens with the general increase of knowledge and experience.

The development of music as a means of expression may be said to pass through five different stages, viz.. Pure emotional sound, with no artistic or intellectual selection or control, and therefore, though in some degree expressive, lacking any force or direct aim in its expressiveness; Crude undeveloped art; Art developed mainly upon artificial lines, or mechanical art; "Art for art's sake/' which is somewhat the same, but with a deeper and more spiritual beauty than the last; and, its ultimate aim, a complete and forceful means of expression of all emotions and moods.

Although this is what might be called a historical order, it is not necessarily a chronological one; for several of its stages may exist at one and the sanie time and in a single work. For this reason we have to separate the study of musical expression from our ordinary historical studies, nevertheless co-ordinating the two at various points and always remembering their correlation. It is one of the weaknesses of the ordinary historians that they have neglected entirely to observe the effect of art, and particularly of music, upon the progress of human life. They have looked upon the arts as being purely ornamental rather than essential to life, of both the individual and the community. Consequently history as it is now presented is the dryest and least useful of studies, and sociology is an infant science, the bulk of whose professors are on the wrong tack. If, as the foregoing considerations seem to indicate, music is one of the essential constituents of human life, neither psychology nor sociology, which are the root sciences of history, will achieve its purpose till both give a fuller and more scientific recognition to the fact, and employ it accordingly.

THE RETURN TO NATURE

If we study the religions and philosophies that have pfoverned men's lives at all times and in all places we shall find that all are agreed on one point. This is, that all created things return in due course to the source of their origin. There is, for instance, the Pagan idea of man's return to the womb of Mother Earth, just as there is the Buddhist belief in " Nirvana,'' that is, the return to the Universal Spirit from which we have all sprung by the extinction of individual desires. Christianity recognises the same principle in the oft-repeated dictum *'dust unto dust," and in the doctrine that our destiny is fulfilled only in complete union with the Godhead. And many scientists tell us that everything from the motion of the worlds to the supply of water for the meanest stream, and from the complete history of the world to the hereditary history of a single family, progresses by revolutions and in cycles. Every detail, it may therefore be assumed, is at least affected bv, even if it does not actually perform or take part in such revolutions. And in all we can see some trace of either the complete revolution, or of some part of it which shows clearly that such revolution is actually in progress.

From this we may gather that it is for the purposes of development alone that things depart from their source; we cannot see their full fruition until they shall have completed their full course and returned to that from v/hence they issued. This is a very important consideration in viewing the progress of an art, and especially in viewing an art such as that of music, with its seemingly unlimited resources and variations, its strange developments, its sudden starts and rapid retardations, its unexpected beauties and its apparent uglinesses, which in course of time come to be regarded as beauties.