Music is a language—a species of soft, dreamy speech which makes up for its lack of definiteness and precision by a beauty and harmony which can best be described as divine. Indeed, the ancient Greeks made music an all-inclusive term for the higher conceptions of life. Dancing, poetry, and even science were supposed to be under its sway, while the revolution of the heavenly bodies created that “music of the spheres” which entertained the gods.
It would be better for mankind if this sentiment were more popular today. It is a narrow notion which confines the idea of musical harmony to the sounds produced by certain man-made instruments. Art which is restricted to workings in oil may be very pleasing but it is also very much limited. Music which is only interpreted on a violin or a piano falls far short of its grandest possibilities. To certain minds, the sighing of the wind through a Pine forest is more exquisitely expressive than a hundred breath-blown symphonies. When men cannot agree as to what is music among the sounds produced by their self-created instruments, dare they lightly ignore the many pleasing sounds which accompany the operations of Nature?
To an American ear, Chinese singing sounds like squealing and a Fiji concert like a vociferous boiler factory. Yet a Chinaman or a Fiji Islander will leave our grandest operatic efforts in disgust, though he may be pleased with the preceding orchestral tunings. Where are we to set the standard? Is it not safest to fall back on Nature for our truest conceptions?
The real sublimity of Nature lies in her vocalism. A soundless world would be greatly lacking in charm. The endearing noises of the woods and the fields often become so familiar that we fail to notice their individual merits. Yet they are there. Their sudden cessation would leave a terrible and unbearable gap. The woods are filled with gaily costumed feathered minstrels. The meadows are great emerald stages of song and fancy. The very grass roots are filled with little insect-fiddlers who chirp cheerfulness. Wind, water and rain all furnish a grand and beautiful accompaniment.
Nature sings in the inharmonic scale, that is, a scale which takes in all intervals. Between the piano notes “C” and “D” lies a great space. They only represent halting points in the ascent of sound. Just as in the spectrum there are a hundred variations of shade between blue and green, so the cultivated human voice can hint at a hundred intervals between “C” and “D”. Nature uses all the tiny shades of sound there are, and certain humans have followed suit. To the Arabians, water “lisps in a murmuring scale.”
Occasionally, Nature uses the diatonic scale familiar to our western civilization. When the wind unites its vibrations into the long shrill note we call the whistle, it is playing according to our musical rules. Water, when falling perpendicularly from a great height also gives forth a long, steady note. Even the rhythmical quality so essential to good music is not lacking in such phenomena as rain pattering on dry leaves. This sound has proved unusually appealing to many people. The Mexicans sometimes attempt to imitate it by means of clay rattles.
Not only does the countryside continually sing a great symphony, but each region has its own acoustic properties. While large cities maintain a discordant and incessant roar, the country is filled with soft and pleasing voices. Birds, animals, water and wind give forth quaint musings of the most soothing nature. Once in a while the woods go on a musical jag and every instrument becomes discordant. Under the influence of the bright moonlight, the inhabitants of the South American jungles sometimes seem to go mad. The hoarse roars of the Tiger mingle with the piercing shrieks of Parrots and the shrill wailings of Monkeys, while the croaking of Bull Frogs and the dismal hoot of Owls is deafening. Jaguars scream as they chase Monkeys through the tree-tops.
The various members of the plant kingdom are the principal instruments upon which the wind plays. Without the obstruction offered by plants, trees, rocks, and houses, we should not hear the wind at all. The trees, because of their size and exposed positions, are most noted as plant-musicians, but the grasses and herbs are also very susceptible to the caressings of the wind.
Who has not heard and gloried in the music of the Pines? The sharp needles of these big conifers seem unusually fitted for esthetic expression. They are the Aeolian harps of the woods. During a storm, they sing in a mighty chorus of acclaim. At such a time, the breaking of many small branches sounds like the snapping of overstrained violin strings.
Almost any tree located on a cliff or on the edge of a mountain, becomes a musician of the first order. It is apt to take on the sorrowful tendencies of solitude. The weepings, wailings, murmurings, groanings, sighs and whispers of the universe vibrate through its branches. It would seem as if such a tree were trying to express many mysterious wonders of which man has little knowledge.