Often since I have thought of my little worried companion, who struggled on through the winter, always declaring she could not learn because she could not like it, and I have wondered if there were not a great many young students who feel in the same way.
It is so stupid to hear of semibreves and crotchets and quavers and minims and scales and clefs and scores, and all sorts of terms like "allegro" and "andante" and "con moto" and "adagio," and, indeed, whole Italian sentences, that used to look to me when I was a child like impertinent intrusions into English music.
But have you ever thought whether this system of music which we have to-day may not have had a story—a far-off story almost as entrancing as a fairy tale?
I think had some one told my little friend the story of the system she was toiling to understand, it would all have looked very different, and the study would have been tinged with a real delight.
Now what I propose to tell you is the history of the notes we use. This is really an introduction to the study of thorough-bass, or harmony; and if you make yourself complete master of the first simple rules or ideas, you will find later that many seemingly difficult things come almost instinctively.
You know, of course, how music is written to-day—the five lines; the division of bars; the arrangement of time; the value of notes. Of course you can easily understand that such a perfect system did not come without years of trial of various methods, and centuries of experiment, and a very crude sort of music.
Away back in early Oriental times there was music at festivities, triumphs, or times of mourning, and from the Greeks came the first ideas of harmony. You see, directly music came to be written down, it was evident that some sort of a system had to be established.
Fig. 1.—The Neumæ.
In very early ages musical sounds were represented by the letters of the alphabet. These were the days when good St. Gregory had singing-schools in ancient Rome. The singers chanted psalms and other church music, which must have been very solemn and beautiful.