Momence High School - Monesse Yearbook (Momence, IL)

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18 SENIOR YEAR BOOK. the aesthetic. The Hebrews were dead to the sensuous and artistic side and exalted in the spiritual side. They despised the art of culture. In this they presented a marked contrast to the Assyrians. The music from the masses inspired motives and noble conceptions. During David’s reign there were signs of a musical renaissance. Music acted as a nerve stimulant. The He¬ brew music was rhythmical, which is shown by the absence of a conductor and in its use for sacred dances. In this it was a contrart to the Egyptian music. The first mention of Hebrew music in the Bible is in the fourth chapter of Genesis. All classes practiced music but did little or nothing to advance it. We do not know the date of its origin. The Assyrians held music in very high esteem and employed it for liturgi¬ cal purposes and in social and private life. Their music was sensuous and martial, with strong, rhythmical effects. They beat time by stamping the foot. Their instruments were harps, banjo-like instruments, drums, trumpets, cymbals, lyres, lutes, dulcimers, flutes and double pipes. All these were smalll, and treble in pitch. In fact, all their music was treble and was in sharp con¬ trast to that of the Egyptians, who were fond of the lower tones. The dulcimer was the favorite instrument and most likely the parent of the piano. They had organized bodies of musicians who played in bands instead of in orchestras, as the Egyptians did. The vocal music was rendered by women and boys. The Chinese seem to have possessed music earlier than any other nation. They have a sensuous delight in tone and excel in the manufacture of instru¬ ments. They recognize eight different sounds in Nature, and their instruments correspond to these. They had drums of skin, cymbals of stone, bells of metal, horns of bak¬ ed earth, castanets and vibrating instruments of wood, flutes of bamboo, mouth organs of gourd and lutes of silk. Two of the principal instruments in modern use are the “kin” and the “ke,” both stringed. The first resembles the guitar. The “ke” is a represen¬ tative of their higher musical culture. The Chinese scale had, at first, five tones, i, 2, 3, 5 and 6 of our scale, but later it was enlarged to seven and they used intervals and small fractions of a step. Their music always has been monodic, or one vaiced. They have made small progress in music because of their principle that, having once found a thing to be satisfactory it is made official and never after¬ wards changed. The origin of Chinese music is attributed to the good and bad spirits.

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SENIOR YEAR BOOK. 17 double pipe. This gave the treble and bass at once. The harp was the foun¬ dation of the Egyptian orchestra. The origin of Egyptian music is uncertain. The tones were probably discovered accidentally. Egyptian music was purely diatonic. There were no half steps, modern modulation was unknown and every composition, from beginning to end, was played in one key. The compass of the orchestra was about four and a half octaves, or more than half that of our modern or¬ chestra. The long strings gave the lower tones and the short ones the higher ones. Egyptian music was not of a high rythmic order as is shown by the pres¬ ence of conductors. They used no batons but marked the time by clapping the hands. They possessed a system of notation, in the form of hieroglyphics, but not what we would call a musical notation. Small progress was made in music, considering the long period in which the Egyptians enjoyed the art. The cause of this was the slow perception, child-like intelligence, and limited opportunities of the Egyptians. They were also conservative to reaction. Their music was mostly carried on by slaves at the banquets of the Great, for revelry and pleasure, and in the ten ples by the priests. The musicians were placed on a platform at one end of the hall. In the last stages of the Egyptian music every man learned to play the flute or the lyre. Even the King himself, Ptolemy Anletes, was an expert performer. The musicians only knew how to please, astonish and amuse. Their music possessed no harmony, all of it being in unison or in octaves. They gave us the harp. Egypt’s contribution to art w r as the mechanical excellence of its instrument makers. The Hebrew music is second in point of antiquity and first in modern association. The principal instrument, in the olden time, was the harp. Later, they had the shepherd’s pipe. Under this term is included the flute, horn, etc. They also had the timbul or tambourine and the sistra, which served the pur¬ pose of bells. They borrowed their instruments chiefly from the Egyptians but they did not adopt the sensuous ones. The harp, which might better be called the lyre, was a small, portable instrument. The music of the Hebrews was chiefly vocal. They turned from bands and concerts to the minstrel poet, the exponent of religion. This music, sung by the masses had an important place among the people. They used it for praising God. Men were the musicians and the women were pretty generally excluded until later. Women’s charms were considered dangerous. There was no elaborate harmony in the Hebrew music. The enthusiasm centered in the thought and not in the form. There was not much care for

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SENIOR YEAE BOOK. 19 Judging from the samples of Chinese music heard in Chicago the bad spirits must be responsible for the whole of it. The Japanese are a very musical nation. Their instruments resemble those of the Chinese but their music is much better. They never understood harmony until it was introduced to them by the European nations. They are adopting modern methods, however, even introducing music into their schools and with their keen musical sense there is hope of the very best results. By music the Greeks meant much more than the tonal art itself. It in¬ cluded much of what they meant by a liberal education. Music itself they called harmony. They were in advance of all the other ancient nations in music, because they very early recognized its rank as a fine art. The characteristic instrument was the lyre. The later form was called the “cithera”, which had six strings and no finger board, and so had as many tones as strings. They also had a flute. Greek music was weak on the tonal side but, for the aesthetic side musi¬ cal theory is indebted to the Greeks. Their notation consisted of the letters of the alphabet placed over the syllables to which the tones indicated were to be sung. The letters represent¬ ed absolute pitch. There were about seventy characters. They used the slur and the staccato in a limited way and divided semitones into quarter tones. Greek history of music may be divided into four great sections, begin¬ ning at about 1000 B. C. with the rhapsodists. These sections, or periods, overlapped each other. The first period lasted two hundred fifty years. The rhapsodists;. chanted the Homeric poems and we find the minstrel an honored guest who- sang the ancient ballads or improvised new ones, as the occasion required.. The heroes sometimes took part, for the Odyssey tells us that Ulysses occas¬ ionally took the lyre and sang a rhapsody of his own adventures. There were regular guilds, or schools of rhapsodists to which only those were admitted as masters who were able to treat the current topics with the light touch of real poetry, and those as apprentices who showed proper talent and promise. It is supposed that the poems were transmitted in this way for more than three centuries before they were written. One of the famous rhapsodists was Terpander. He was the starting point of the later and more elaborate art. First, he separated the prelude from the recital which followed, and thus constituted an independent piece of music. Next he added words to the instrumental part and thus created a new and terse musical form. It contained pleasing melody and was no longer a mere musi¬ cal recitation. His second reform was the regulation of tune. Up to this time tune had