Curiosities of Music: A Collection of Facts not generally known, regarding the Music of Ancient and Savage Nations

A Collection of Facts, not generally known, regarding the Music of Ancient and Savage Nations
By LOUIS C. ELSON
OLIVER DITSON COMPANY BOSTON
New York Chicago CHAS. H. DITSON & CO. LYON & HEALY
Copyright, MDCCCLXXX, by J. M. STODDART & CO. Copyright, MCMVIII, by OLIVER DITSON COMPANY
TO MY ESTEEMED FRIEND, Dr. C. Annette Buckei, THIS LITTLE WORK IS DEDICATED.
In this work, I have endeavored to bring together the most curious points in the music of many nations, ancient and modern. As the work originally appeared in a magazine (“The Vox Humana”) I was obliged to avoid any extended research into disputed points, such as Hebrew music, Greek music, water organs, etc., as being too abstruse for periodical reading. Yet many of the facts contained in its columns have not yet found their way into English literature. This was so entirely the case with Chinese music, that I was tempted to somewhat transgress my limits on this subject, it being, apparently, a neglected one. In all the other chapters I have merely sought out such facts as would interest, and present a comprehensive idea to the general reader, whether musical or not.
My hearty thanks are due to Col. Henry Ware, and Mr. J. Norton, of Boston, for many facilities afforded and suggestions offered, in the course of compiling this book. If it fills an unoccupied niche, however small, in musical literature, it will have fulfilled the desire of
The Author.
Music has been broadly defined by Fetis as “the art of moving the feelings by combinations of sounds;” taken in this broad sense it may be considered as coeval with the human race.
Vocal music, in a crude form, is as natural in man, to express feelings, as it is for a cat to purr or a lion to roar; as regards instrumental music, the primitive man might have found in every hollow tree a reverberating drum, and in every conchshell or horn of cattle, the natural beginnings of instrumental music; we shall find later that many nations ascribe the discovery of their music to the accidental appliance of some natural instrument; our surest guide in watching the rise of the art, should be the manner in which savage peoples, yet in a state of nature, produce music, and we shall find too, that even the lowest in the scale, even those beings who make the monkey tribe nearer and dearer to us, as possible relatives (the bushmen of Australia for example), have still a method of “moving the feelings by means of combinations of sounds.”