Music, theoretically considered, consists altogether of lines of tone. It more nearly resembles a picture or an architectural draw...ing, than any other art creation; the difference being that in a drawing the lines are visible and constant, while in music they are audible and in motion. The separate tones are the points through which the lines are drawn; and the impression which is intended, and which is apprehended by the intelligent listener, is not that of single tones, but of continuous lines of tones, describing movements, curves and angles, rising, falling, poising--directly analogous to the linear impressions conveyed by a picture or drawing.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Music has often been compared with language itself, and the comparison is quite legitimate. While it combines easily with actual l...anguage, it also speaks a language of its own, which it has become a platitude to call universal. To understand the significance of the organizing factors of rhythm, melody, harmony, tone color and form, the analogy of a familiar language is helpful. Music has its own alphabet of only seven letters, as compared with the twenty-six of the English alphabet. Each of these letters represents a note, and just as certain letters are complete words in themselves, so certain notes may stand alone, with the force of a whole word. Generally, however, a note of music implies a certain harmony, and in most modern music the notes take the form of actual chords. So it may be said that a chord in music is analogous to a word in language. Several words form a phrase, and several phrases a complete sentence, and the same thing is true in music. Measured music corresponds to poetry, while the old unmeasured plain-song might be compared with prose.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
When one is very young, to read is as it were to pour a continuous stream of water on a parched and virginal plain. The soil seems... to have an endless capacity to drink up the stream, sometimes with prolonged perpetual rapture, sometimes with impartial calm indifference.... But when one is no longer young, to read is a very different matter. The parched plain has become a luxuriant forest with lakes and streams in the midst of it. Every image which enters it evokes ancient visions from the depth of its waters, and every tone rustles among the trees with a music so rich in haunting memories that one grows faint beneath their burden.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Why do comparisons of words and tone poems (poetry and music) never take into consideration that the word is a mere signifier, but... that the sound, aside from being a signifier, is also an object?LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Music is the sound of the universal laws promulgated. It is the only assured tone. There are in it such strains as far surpass any... man's faith in the loftiness of his destiny. Things are to be learned which it will be worth the while to learn.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Soon after John's death I listened to a music-box, and if, at any time, that event had seemed inconsistent with the beauty and har...mony of the universe, it was then gently constrained into the placid course of nature by those steady notes, in mild and unoffended tone echoing far and wide under the heavens. But I find these things more strange than sad to me. What right have I to grieve, who have not ceased to wonder? We feel at first as if some opportunities of kindness and sympathy were lost, but learn afterward that any pure grief is ample recompense for all. That is, if we are faithful; for a great grief is but sympathy with the soul that disposes events, and is as natural as the resin on Arabian trees. Only Nature has a right to grieve perpetually, for she only is innocent. Soon the ice will melt, and the blackbirds sing along the river which he frequented, as pleasantly as ever. The same everlasting serenity will appear in this face of God, and we will not be sorrowful if he is not.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Dance with a girl three times, and if you like the light of her eye and the tone of voice with which she, breathless, answers your... little questions about horseflesh and music--about affairs masculine and feminine,--then take the leap in the dark.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
He doesn't know a damn thing about China ... That's what makes him an expert. He knows nothing about music, being tone deaf. That'...s what makes him a musician ... And he's batty in the head. That's what makes him a philosopher.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Thru all the tumult and the strife, I hear that music ringing.... It sounds and echoes in my soul; How can I keep from singing?LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »