The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1856-1888, 1883-01-27
EDITORIALS.
lDaiIu. Lanuaru D.

ONE of the surest indications of the
growth Of a refined taste in a community,
is the development of the love of music that
is inherent in all animated creation. We
say all animated creation, for observation
goes to show that the higher order of
creatures possessed of animated life express
by sound their emotions of pleasure, and
solace their hours of rest and recreation by
music and when we meet with instances
of what we call dumb life in the lower
orders Of creation, the exception Is probably
made by the want of sensitiveness on the
part of the human ear, rather than from
the actual absence of vocal or instrumental
powers in the creature whom We exclude
from the list of those who give expression
by sound to their sensations. Whether the
oyster is capable of a love song when WOO
ing some elegant Miss Bevalve in the cool
depths of his birthplace, is a point that is
too profound to explore without a diving
bell. Certain we are, however, that the
tabled Mermaid's song is what remains to
us of the music of the inhabitants of the sea
whom a practical civilization has driven to
~unexplored regions, where they may yet be
rediscovered. The ancient Hawaiians be-
lieve that the pretty land shells found on
the forest vegetation of the stands sing, and
if one choose to try the experiment of
placing a live snail on a sheet of glass
strewn witt fine sand, he will see the parti-
Gle arrange themselves in geOmetric shapes
corresponding with certain we'll known
curves or sound waves, which define the
note-produced by the moving shell-that
the dull human ear cannot distinguish.
Not to multiply instances of the wide
spread existence of musical sounds in ami
mated nature, we revert to the considera-
ton of the influence exerted by their de-
velopment. In purely savage natures the
Unborn love of music finds expression in the
production of simple sounds that har-
monte with each other, and serve to carry
on the tide of passion, whether of love or
revenge, until the brains of listeners and
performers are excited to the same pitch Of
frenzy, or dulled to a common degree of
repose. Introduce into one of those savage
communities the softening and refining infu-
ences of civilization, and the most successful
harmonizer is found to be music. Instinctively
the nature that seems to be incapable of being
impressed by lessons of abstract truth, or sus-
ceptible to the importance of moral obligations,
will expand and soften under the influence oil
melody. A t first the music introduced amongst
a primitive people will impress its more simple
notes upon them, and their songs be character
lied by a monotony of expression that partakes
of the nature of a chant. Then the song is
modified by the adoption of chords, almost
always in a minor key, and invariably sweet,
The transition to a full melody is often made al
once, and a national song is born. These com
positions stand ever after as the true exponent
of the character of a people as a nation, and
even when Time has wasted the energies Of
those who brought it into existence, and they
may have dwindled into a handful of exiles, the
song remains with them not so much as a relic
of the past as an emblem of their character wher
a nation ftesidehL