The Ray or second of the scale which completes the Dominant chord is rousing and expectant—quite in contrast to the eagerness and dispair of the seventh. This second is represented by orange, the mixture of red and yellow between which it stands being equally related to both, with the expectancy born of trust and rest which the Mediant expresses, and the rousing hopefulness which is the outcome of the firm strength and conviction of the Doh. As a musical example take Pleyel's hymn set to the words: "Children of the Heavenly King." In the remaining tones of the sub-dominant chord Fah and Lah, we find Fah the fourth has a distinctively leaning tendency, a solemnity which calls forth the direct opposite of the seventh or Ti which yearns upward and cannot be otherwise satisfied, while Fah is a downward leaning, a protective and even-solemnly grand, dependent tone. We hear this in the dead march in "Saul," and the almost stern reproach in the two measures of "Too late, too late, ye cannot enter now." Fah's tonal qualities suggest the protective green.
Lah, or the sixth tone is expresive of tender sympathy, and unlike Fah, is a variable tone which may turn upward or downward for rest. It is found prominently in Minor music and is represented by the half mourning color of lavender or violet. "By the sad sea-waves" is a good illustration of this gentle wail.
While these emotional effects are certainly true, it may be well to remind the reader that when modulation comes in, the character of the tones is necessarily changed; just as the appearance and impression of an individual will be modified and altered by change of surroundings. Consequently these effects are strong only in the pure unmodulated key.
In awakening the musical sensibility of the child, we are rescuing it from probable loss of appreciation for the noble, and true, and fine. This loss is shown by such as are pleased with the trash of the "popular" tunes of a day—tunes which express nothing worthy of the great gift of expression. Music is life in all its moods and tenses, but we should be sensitive only to that which is the expression of the best and most helpful.
Through the many percepts of sight of the birds which represent the intervals of the scale, of touch in pasting the little colored discs on the staff, of ear in singing the tones of the Doh bird, the Me bird, the Soh bird, etc., the child finds the symbols and mechanics of musical notation entrancing instead of tedious.
In teaching the rythms and value of notes the imagination is called upon in marking off rooms instead of measures, and putting one or more bird eggs into them, naming them with the time names and swinging the rythm with a snap-tape measure.
Agnes Stewart.
In charge of classes in Color Music and assistant teacher of Voice in The Mrs. John Vance Cheney School, Steinway Hall, Chicago.