Page:American Anthropologist NS vol. 1.djvu/32

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new element added to music in this stage of culture is harmony. When music was but rhythm, there was a germ of harmony in it, for the waning sound would blend with the waxing sound, and the succession of sounds that become melodious also become harmonious; but more than this: in folk chant the voices of men and women differ in pitch, and still other differences arise in the commingling of children’s voices. When music became melody, the bonds which held music to the dance were broken and melody was married to song as chant was married to dance; but song music was especially adapted to the development of harmony, because it became choral music; doubtless songs were sung by individuals for their amusement and as solos for the amusement of others, but when many join in the song we have choral music. Thus the blending of tones in melody becomes at last the blending of tones in harmony. The pleasure derived from harmony does not inhere in sounds themselves; sounds are colorless to the ear. The spoken word is but sound until it is informed with a meaning; so sound as sound has no power to create emotion until it is informed with an emotional meaning, and harmony is developed as a pleasure only by long experience. Perfect evidence of this is furnished through the modern and scientific investigation of folk music. Both the melody and the harmony of different races differ in the intervals of pitch exhibited in their music. This is proof that all men may read, and it clearly teaches that the pleasures of music are derivative.

Here let us pause for a remark about the attitude of idealism and materialism toward this question. Idealism affirms that not only is pleasure as a quality created by the mind, but that even the properties of sound itself are created by the mind. Materialism affirms that the property inheres in the sounding body and the quality also in the sounding body. What we affirm is that the property inheres in the sounding body and the quality in the body pleased.

Symphony—In modern time, or the time of representative