Momence High School - Monesse Yearbook (Momence, IL)

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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

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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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20 SENIOR YEAR BOOK. been a mere extemporization. He wrote two books, one on harmony, the oth¬ er on rhythm. Patriotic and love songs lasted for a period of about two hundred fif¬ ty years. These songs softened the manners of the audience and united them in zeal for excellence and virtue. Terpanderand Sappho were the chief representatives of this period. Sing¬ ing attained its perfection under the Lespian school, followed by Sappho, who was a gifted poetess and the inventor of vocal music. Between 580 B. C., and 570 B. C. Sappho became a leader in Grecian musical culture. She gath¬ ered around her a large and elegant circle, entirely of women and girls, to whom -she taught poetry and music. Her home must have been a musical univer¬ sity. Her career certainly was a wonderful one for, among the ancient Greeks women.were looked down upon, and were regarded as slaves, and only fit for domestic duties. Sappho, apparently, was the only woman in all the realm of the ancient Greek music who was pure, noble and uncontaminated. After her, music as practiced by her sex, was handed over to the most degraded. The period of the drama and chorus lasted for about five hundred years. This was the culmination of Greek musical art, upon the artistic and aesthet¬ ic side. These were the palmy days of Greek music. Songs were sung in unison. There was no part singing, accompanied by the cithara. Every town had its body of singers, who sang and performed the evolutions of the dance appropriate to the services. This lead to the drama. The three great dramatic authors of the period were AEschylus, Sopho¬ cles and Euripides. All were great poets, the first, probably, the greatest. They wrote the music to the plays, as well as the words. About four hundred seventy B. C. the great tragedian made his debut as actor and author and placed three speakers on the stage, instead of one. The principles each rep¬ resented more than one character, making some slight change of costume nec¬ essary, in order to indicate the transformation. The stage was simply an open platform. He lessened the part of the chorus and made dialogs possible without their assistance. He aimed at the terrible and seems usually to have hit it. Sophocles was a fine musician and an elegant poet. He composed what was called the “orchestric”. From this term we get our word “orchestra”. It formed the pantomimic complement of the acting, with the added grace of art in grouping and posturing, mythical dancing and gestures. It will readily be seen that this drama was essentially opera. The music is thought to have been of slight tonal value from the compass of the instruments aud the gener¬ al deficiencies of the Greeks upon this side. This mythical drama, which left so much to the imagination, lasted but a few years. Euripides felt the chorus to be an inconvenience, and yet he could not