| OCR Text |
Show ADMINISTRATIVE REPORT LXXI or story of the musical composition, but rest satisfied with the emotional effects produced. Very few persons read music as an intellectual art, and there are but few critics of the art who survey these intellectual elements. Indeed, the intellectual thread of a musical composition is very slender, and much of it in the folk song of the world is unconsciously developed, like the meaning of words in folk speech. It is a growth by minute increments found to be beautiful in experience. Rhythm- Music has its germ in the dance, for it begins with the effort to control the rhythm of the lilting folk. Rhythm, therefore, is the first structural element of music, but new elements are added from time to time in the history of man as he proceeds along the way of life from wildwood time to the higher civilization in representative time- a long time indeed. Melody- Passing from the hunter stage to the shepherd stage we find that a new element is added to music; then melody appears fully fledged. As the more complicated dancing steps become more pleasing than the primeval monotonous step, the melodic chant becomes more pleasing than the simple rhythmic chant; that is, a rhythm of rhythms is developed which makes melody. So music was endowed first with rhythm and then with melody. Melody is a pleasing succession of sounds, or notes as they are called in written music, having a different pitch, and we have to consider how such notes come to obtain that quality which we call melody and which is so delightful to the hearer. The dance is a sport in which usually many persons simultaneously engage. In primitive dancing the time is marked by the voice,. and the shouts of the dancers constitute a chant in which oftentimes they all take part, but at other times there is a leader and only one marks the time. As the dance develops from the simple monotonous recognition of the same step to a combination of two or more differentiated steps, they are marked by differences in the pitch of the voice. To fully understand the ultimate effect of this device, we must appreciate the universality of dancing and that it continued in the first stage of society through thousands of years. |
