Scan 10
Musical Courier 1897-07-14: Vol 35 Iss 906, 1897
76 lines. Read by computer on 21 September 2026. Printed page 11. See the scan on archive.org.
A town on its own line is one of the directory's headings. That is where the town on a maker's page comes from.
1Brahms or Franck. Would that such records of concert life in New York and Boston were published yearly, with similar care, and in volumes of equally attractive form.
3There are painful rumors concerning the intestine life of the Handel and Haydn. I hear that certain men and women, vexed at the result of the late election of officers, go about the streets proclaiming that they have changed their wills, by which the Handel and Haydn would have eventually received sums ranging from $5 to $150,000. Thus do they harvest in their lifetime the glory of intention.
5PHILIP HALE.
7A Plea for a Simpler Notation.
9WHEN Music—heavenly maid—wished to reveal herself to man, she whispered to the soul of a dreamer, and he told the sweet story in song to his fellow men. These simple melodies were handed down from father to son, and were known only by tradition.
11In the early dawn of religion music was devoted to the service of the gods, and the rude chants then improvised were accompanied with words and gestures. To learn these chants they must be taught orally, as written music was then unknown. To read the history of music is to learn the struggles of musical sounds to express themselves visibly to the eye.
13Through the long ages poet and monk labored arduously to devise a written language for music, so that inspired melodies could be preserved and reproduced. The many imperfect systems of notation of the past are fully described in the dictionaries.
15At the present day a system is in universal use, which pretends to express perfectly and completely the three necessities of written music, i.e., the pitch, accent and duration of musical sounds. This system is the staff notation, by which it is claimed that all needed tones can be depicted on two staves of five lines each, supplemented by leger lines.
17If this staff be the culmination of progress, if the imperfections of past systems have been discarded and the perfect attained, then its analysis will prove it. In the system of Hucbald, in the tenth century, the words to be sung, or their symbols were written in the spaces between the lines; a century or two later notes were placed on the lines and the spaces left vacant. The use of alternate lines and spaces for notes provides for the division of the octave into seven tones. But the development of music has divided the octave into twelve tones. What then? Shall we still use the staff of the ancients who knew not nor could have foreseen the possibilities of the chromatic scale and equal temperament. Why not a chromatic notation? has been asked by more than one patient (or impatient) teacher of the present system.
19How do we express absolute pitch? or, it might be asked, Do we express it? A clef placed at the beginning of the staff assures us that a note written on the second line will give the sound G, but it also gives the surprising information that a note on the first space F double sharp and a note on the second space A double flat will give the same sound; therefore the position of the note on the staff does not give absolute pitch. Also this note written on the second line may have five different sounds—its own pitch, a lower pitch when written G flat, and a still lower G double flat, a higher pitch when written G sharp and a still higher G. Therefore the claim for absolute pitch has not been proven. No more can we claim that the present notation expresses relative pitch. From the first line to the second is four semitones or half steps—a minor third. From the second to the third is five semitones or half steps—a major third. The tone intervals between lines varying so radically gives no picture to the eye of relative pitch.
21There are six different clefs in general use; therefore any one line or space may express thirty different tones or pitches. The music for some orchestral instruments is written to represent certain notes or pitch, while the instruments give an entirely different pitch.
23The pitch of the symbols of sound is being constantly contradicted by the signatures, clefs and accidentals. The absurdities of the present staff notation are not generally acknowledged, because we accept it without reflection as to its logic, or perhaps for want of a simpler and better system.
25Does the staff notation express adequately to the eye the primary and secondary accents? The primary accent is indicated by the bar or measure line; why should not the secondary accent be similarly indicated? Rhythm is measured by notes in written music. In performance rhythm is measured by accents which recur periodically. Syncopation is an indicated time contradicted by the actual rhythm.
27Now methinks I hear you say—after all this fault finding, you can have nothing to say against the relative values of the notes, as they are fixed by mathematical ratios. Well! let us see—the whole note is the unit of time. Half, quarter, eighth and other notes have the relative value indicated by their names. But—when three-eighths or when five, six or seven sixteenths are equal to a quarter note, and when a half note in a presto movement is shorter than a sixteenth in a largo, it would seem that a note does not have the relative duration indicated by its name. In a long appogiatura the written eighth is played as a fourth note and the fourth is played as an eighth. In mordants and other ornaments the notes have apparently no value, the measure being filled with other notes; the time for them must consequently be borrowed or stolen from these other notes.
29The music printer says he uses 364 different pieces of type to express the alphabet of music. Is it any wonder that would-be students of music so often shirk the learning of this alphabet if possible?
31Why should the mind be confused by a system which gives several names to one pitch? If we have progressed so far as to divide one octave into twelve tones why should we still use a staff designed for seven tones and which has been shown to be illogical? Would not a dramatic notation be simpler and more logical? Should not the sound we call G, for example, be represented to the eye in exactly the same position, no matter in which octave it is written, as it appears on the keyboard of a piano? Where is this pitch represented? In one place on the first line, in another on the second line on the fourth space, and on other leger lines spaces in the F or G clefs, to say nothing of the other clefs. Neither the staff, clefs or notes express what they pretend to express. This scheme of notation was designed to express a system of music utterly opposed to the present system.
33The old music was indissoluble from poetry, and notes were invented to represent quantity or length, and not stress or accent. In modern music measure is formed by grouping accents, and the distance between accents should show the duration of sounds more perfectly to the eye than the arbitrary forms of notes.
35Would it not be much more simple and equally scientific to use the twelve Arabic numerals to represent the twelve divisions of the octave, and Roman numerals to show the absolute pitch of octaves? Just think how simple—the twelve divisions of the octave expressed by Arabic numerals. Then will the tones be pictured visibly to the eye, as they are by the keys of the piano. Then with vertical lines for accents, and punctuation marks to divide the tone space between the accents, the eye would receive a pictorial representation of the absolute pitch of notes, their accent and duration, mathematically and exactly measured and expressed with a few symbols. The fewer the symbols, the clearer, simpler and easier to learn would be the notation.
37A very simple notation, entitled, Musical Shorthand or Graphic Music, easy to comprehend and easily acquired by a child or adult, has been invented; it is now in press and will shortly be advertised in these columns.
39X.
41For Concert Engagement:
42Mrs. ANNA THOMPSON,
43SOPRANO LEGÈRE.
44Complete Repertoire—French, English, Italian.
45Three Years in Paris. Address care of
46M DUBULLE, Prof. de Chant, 85 rue d'Amsterdam. Paris.
48Summer, 1897.
49PIERMONT COLLEGE OF MUSIC,
50Piermont-on-Hudson, N. Y.
51An ideal spot for Summer study, within one hour's ride from New York City and offering finest advantages obtainable in the United States. Heads of Departments: Violin, George Lehmann; Piano, Rachel Hoffmann, Josephine Wood; Cello, Leontine Gaertner; Voice, Elise Lathrop. "Coaching" of young professionals a specialty. For all information address GEORGE LEHMANN, Director.
53THE MUSICAL COURIER.
55Brooklyn
57MANHATTAN BEACH, July 10, 1897.
59THE natural desire to "talk back" to our charmingly fearless Milwaukee correspondent is more than I can resist, so I will just put in
61A Plea for Teachers.
63Half of the teachers would not be musical frauds if they could help themselves. I do not now refer to the teachers of our large cities, where reaches the education of the orchestra, the oratorio, the concert, the national conventions (!) to assist them.
65I speak from an experience, Miss Von Tetzel, more painful, more pitiful, than ever yours in Milwaukee can be; an experience which has taught me what suffering a conscientious teacher may be made to undergo through the ignorance of the people. By "the people" I mean first the parents, then the relatives, and then the friends of one poor little miserable pupil; then I mean the people who never went to hear a piece of music in their lives; of course they would go to hear a great pianist if they had the opportunity, and would gladly hear him through a dozen Liszt rhapsodies, but attend one symphony concert—oh no!
67But in this letter I will just give myself to discussing teaching in places remote from the art centres, and let the concert go until another time.
69In the first place a good, honest, capable teacher has to meet the competition of young girls who "really don't need it, you know—just for pin money"—and it is pin money; the pupil is getting stuck right along. She is a member of some church, and people who ought to know better will say, "Well, you see, I wanted Elinor to study with a good teacher, but this girl is in our church you know"—and there it goes.
71Then there is the nervous mamma who "thinks it quite a torture to hear those horrible finger exercises; Mrs. ——don't give them, and she studied in Boston, don't you know. Now, there is just one of two things, you will have to stop giving those finger exercises or give up the pupil." This is all well enough if you are able to, but if it means bread to you what are you going to do about it? Are you going to give up the pupil? Do you think about the contemptible gossip of a small town? No, you don't realize that inside of twenty-four hours all your pupils' parents will have held an indignation meeting over your temerity, and they will decide that you were getting along too well—had things your own way too long, taught those horrible sonatas and exercises instead of "nice little pieces." Ugh! I shudder at the words "nice little pieces."
73When you are engaged (some of them call it "hired") the first thing you are told is: "Now just have things your own way; I always let my teachers have their own way, and if ever my little one won't practice, we'll give up right away, because I won't fuss about it." There's consolation to start on. Did anybody ever know a pupil who never grew tired of practice? For all information regarding such a pupil, the writer will be thankful, being much interested in curios.
75Then you begin and everything is very smooth for about a month. Then comes the question, "When are you going to give him a little piece?" This strikes terror to the heart of the teacher, for to him, her or it, the vision of the finale is distinct. Tell this anxious mamma that it will be very soon—only to trust to your judgment; that the little one is
The computer misreads some letters and numbers. Where a name matters to you, read the scan.