ASSOCIATION
I have mentioned the principles of song construction, but there are other things which have to do with making a song effective. One of the most important of these is association. Let us remember that the effect and consequent value of music depends upon the class of emotions it awakens rather than upon the technical skill of the composer, and that these emotions are dependent to a considerable extent upon association. We all remember the time honored expedient of tying a string around a finger when a certain thing is to be remembered. The perception of the digital decoration recalls the reason for it and thus the incident is carried to a successful conclusion. In like manner feelings become associated with ideas. Church bells arouse feelings of reverence and devotion. To many of us a brass band awakens pleasant memories of circus day. Scots Wha Hae fills the Scotchman with love for his native heather. The odor of certain flowers is offensive because we associate it with a sad occasion. The beauty of a waltz is due not only to its composition but also to our having danced to it under particularly pleasant circumstances.
At the opera there are many things that combine to make it a pleasant occasion—the distant tuning of the orchestra, the low hum of voices, the faint odor of violets, and the recollection of having been there before with that miracle of a girl,—all combine to fill us with pleasurable anticipation. In this way we give as much to the performance as it gives to us. According to some Aestheticians the indefinable emotions we sometimes feel when listening to music are the reverberations of feelings experienced countless ages ago. This may have some foundation in fact, but it is somewhat like seeing in a museum a mummy of ourselves in a previous incarnation.
Songs which have the strongest hold upon us are those which have been in some way associated with our experience. The intensity with which such songs as Annie Laurie, Dixie, The Vacant Chair, Tramp, Tramp, Tramp grip us is due almost entirely to association.
Therefore the value of a song consists not alone in what it awakens in the present, but in what it recalls from the past. Man is the sum of his experience; and to make past experience contribute to the joy of the present is to add abundance to riches.
VIII