Spirit and Music | Page 3

breadth, and
solidity do we disport ourselves. Music also has its three-fold manner
of expression, its rhythm, its melody, and now its harmony. The rhythm
is for balance, the melody for the outline, while the harmony
constitutes the texture. Here again in other directions we may trace the
same essentials: there is a texture of colouring, a style in Literature, and
an appropriate technique for harmony in every branch of Art, just as

there is an harmonic scheme in Music. This may be airy, light, and
gossamer, or turgid and obscure: it may be commonplace or ponderous.
Like Nature, it may have a thousand or a myriad shades to mirror as
many moods and tenses. It may have the misty filminess of steam, the
limpid deeps of water, or the cold weight and icy dullness of pompous
ignorance.
See how Nature harmoniously groups her colour scheme, with a master
hand ensuring that nothing shall clash or be inappropriate. Into this
scheme she introduces the song of birds and the sighing of the breeze,
with perhaps in the dull distance the roar of the sea growling away and
refusing to be driven from its obstinate pedal bass. Into our life she
brings affection rose-colour, and for openness and truth the blue of the
sky. She paints hatred dark, and passion fiery. Energy she portrays as
red, and purity white. Could we but see ourselves in this colour-scheme
we should realise that, like God's fresh air, all should be clear and
bright, but we ourselves pollute the design with the smoke of our own
desires.
So the musician to-day takes the theme that has been given to him by
the high gods, for "the idea in embryo comes from a Higher Power"[1]
and paints in and accompanies it with such harmonies as his soul may
sound and his technique record. He has Nature for pattern, and he may
do what he will so long as, Nature-like, there is life expressing itself.
Everything in the world stands for something, as even the hills stand
for pulsing life. As within, so without: the outer semblance is never the
real thing, but ever stands as a mirror to the inner. The bird sings, but
he is ever expressing his soul in song: it is only the human singer who
can utter sounds without significance. Music is never mere notes, never
sound alone, but always the outer form as the expression and
unfoldment of something deeper. Rhythm, melody, and harmony are
simply the three-fold means of expression, both of the musician and of
Mother Nature. Of the two, Nature makes the better Music, being
closer to the heart of God.
[Note 1: Macpherson. "Music and its Appreciation."]

CHAPTER II
THE PLACE OF MUSIC IN LIFE
"Music is not merely a matter for the cultured: it is inextricably bound
up in the bundle of common life"
Scholes
Music, as we have seen, is implanted in the very nature of things, and it
is as deeply embedded in our lives. Was there ever a time when no man
sang? As a matter of evolutionary accuracy, yes, there probably was
such a time. But, looking at it in a commonsense way the answer is No.
To-day we find that savages and aborigines, who are still in the
childhood stage of evolution, are immensely susceptible to the sway of
rhythm, and in their weird dances to the beating of the Tom-toms
accompany their antics with a crooning or chanting, which no doubt to
them stands in the place of song.
Was there ever a mother who did not croon to her fretful child, and who
did not rock her babe to sleep with rhythmic lullaby? Song spans the
gap from mother Eve to the mother of to-day: the song may vary,
though the emotion of the mother-love remains the same. This crooning,
with its element of soothing monotony, it is interesting to note is
distinctly hypnotic in its effect, for the sleep of hypnosis is definitely
induced by monotonous stimulation of any of the senses. The rocking
and crooning on the part of the mother are quite akin, though
unconsciously so, to the approved scientific methods. It is also curious
that the nature of the monotonous stimulation does not seem to matter
very much, for there is a case on record where a doctor hypnotised a
patient by reciting to him in a low voice a few verses of "The Walrus
and the Carpenter." The psycho-analysts would probably say that the
patient went to sleep in self-defence. We can well remember how we
were lulled to sleep in earliest days to the following somewhat
fearsome and original words sung to the tune of a popular hymn:--
"Bye, bye, bye, bye, Horse, pig, cow, sheep, Rhinoceros, donkey, cat:
Dog, dickie, hippopotamus, Black-beetle, spider,