Centre Democrat. [volume] (Bellefonte, Pa.) 1848-1989, 1880-06-10
Condensed History OF Music.

Music as a science may be said TO have
beeE Graded with the Christian era, for
while Iren have sung with the birds
from time immemorial. and played on
rude instruments as far back as any his
tory takes us, just rs David did, when
he said: 90 will sing unto the Lord q
new song, and praise him upon psaltery
and harp"
/ was amused Mt an arrangement
gotten up last year by Chicago party
ostensibly TO make music simple, ignor-
ing notes, laws and all of our musical
characters except the bare letters for
each sound, and claimed in this way TO
be teaching thorough He simply
retrograded TO the time of st. Ambrose,
1900 years ago. Any skilled musician
will see the righteousness of trying TO ex-
press thorough which is the science
OF figured harmony, by any letter. In
ohe sixth century, sol, st. Gregory did
the next active work, but regarded from
our standpoint he did little OF value
more than write the Gregorian chants,
some of which are in use to-day by the
Catholic churches, with many changes.
He introduced one line, where we now
have five, around which to arrange the
musical characters. Singers had to do
some tall guessing in those days. There
was no harmony, or no time thought of,
as yet.
In the tenth century Hucbald began
to evolve some valuable thoughts on
harmony, which, though very faulty,
was a splendid step in the right direc-
tion. In looking over transcript OF
his work found ii full of errors that no
modern composer would dare to make,
such as the doubled thirds, consecutive
ffths, and consecutive octaves, ETC., all
of which, the good monk says, were
very pleasing to the ear.
In the eleventh century an Italian
monk named Guido invented our pres
ent syllables, which are invaluable for
vocal music. These were the first sylla-
bles of some old Italian verses. lie also
improved largely on notation.
In the thirteenth centm y Franco de Co
logno conceived the first time" the idea
of expressing time by the shape or form
OF the notes. On this we have since
made no special Improvement.
In the sixteenth century, 1902, one
Petruci invented the casting of metal
music type. This was sixty years after
the art OF printing books, etc, was dis
covered l442) and twenty years after
| the first Bible was printed, in l47s.
lltIt Has Decn u magnificent progress
in all musical instruments. Mentally ]
am taken back to the rude tom-tom oil
long ago-a round hoop, with ceupel
of gut strings. making about as music as
salt box would. Some of the savages
cling to this tom-tom yet. They have
legend like this: An angel in heaven
was sitting on the clouds playing on the
| tom-tom, and so entranced was he with
its music, that he forgot himself and
dropped i'll think / should have
dropped it myselfifI had to play it
when savage found it, and has used
the heavenly pattern ever since.
In the fourteenth century our organs
began TO assume valuable shape. The
pianoforte was invented about 1850. In
about l7l7, at London, great crowd
went TO concert TO hear n wonderful
instrument called the pianoforte, 50
says n clipping which came across n
short time since. We get some splendid
conceptions of musical advancement
when we contrast the tom tom with our
matchless grand pianos of to-day, or
with our mighty pipe organs, whose
magnetic and powerful voices cause US
involuntarily TO remove our hats and
bow our heads, lifting us bytheir infu-
ence almost into the presence of the in
nite.-Prof. S. q. Rice.