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On Certain Novel Aspects of Harmony
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 January 2020
Extract
Melody and Harmony in music are commonly held to be two distinct provinces. Strictly, however, the precise shares of the harmonic and melodic elements of the art are hardly to be separately evalued, insomuch that a musical strain, even unaccompanied by supporting harmonies, has its underlying chord-structure, which the mental ear recognises and adds to the impression. All affecting such things as scales, keys, modulations, is essentially dependant upon a rightful appreciation of the harmonic relationship of sounds, and all questions raised thereupon pre-suppose the latter to a greater extent than is commonly imagined. Even the simplest melody contains its harmonic support, and the same, whether we are conscious of it or not, enters into the total impression of the strain. That most elementary of aesthetic principles in music—the antithesis of concord and discord—reposes upon this harmonic element. But, apart from this, the technical distribution and ordering of chords, from the simplest of consonances up to the most complex of dissonant combinations, at the same time that it calls for a certain differentiation of the study, requires a scientific or theoretic basis of the most accurate kind. However free art may be, on the whole, from theoretical control, there is yet no doubt that in this special department a wrongful theory may detrimentally influence the material, and through it, consequently, the technicalities and practice of the art.
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- Research Article
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- Copyright © Royal Musical Association, 1886
References
∗ Very little, strangely, is taught upon this point in musical histories. We learn that, in the decadent period of the Greek nation, the old mathematical systems, as I have termed them, were set aside in favour of a certain sliding “semitonic” scale; that the scientists Didymus and Ptolemy did manage to “hit upon” the true ratios of the major and minor thirds, along with that of the major semitone, and, in fact, projected certain scales differing only from the modern upon the mere point of ordering of these ratios; but what the general system of scale measurement was, during the early Christian era, when the already obsolete Grecian modes had become resuscitated for church use—whether the recommendations of Didymus and Ptolemy were in any part followed out, or whether the old mathematical Greek tuning also obtained—the student is simply left uninformed. Though most careful distinctions of the different ecclesiastical modes are made, yet this important point is passed over as of no claim to mention.Google Scholar
∗ Thus, the ratio 4:3 (C-F) actually represents the chord of F; as likewise 5 : 3 (C-A). Given the vibrational ratio of any two sounds of a scale, we arrive at the harmonic generator.Google Scholar
† It is to be understood, by the way, that in order to bring these different triads into the required opposition they need to be inverted. To use them as they stand in the natural series would be ineffectual, just as the “harmonics” of any given sound set up no opposition among themselves. There they simply remain as they are formed in nature.Google Scholar
∗ I should mention that a simplified version of that portion of the work treating upon harmony (that upon rhythm being quite distinct) has been published since the author's death; completed and edited by Dr. Oscar Paul. Leipzig : Breitkopf u. Härtel. 1868.Google Scholar
∗ If our present scale is, indeed, naturally founded upon a harmonic system, such as explained, any future extension of the scale-material can only be possible in that direction where these elementary harmonic principles shall still rule the same as before.—E. J. B.Google Scholar