Omaha daily bee. (Omaha [Neb.]) 187?-1922, 1915-07-27
"And All for a song"

OMAHA, July 25.-To the Editor Of The
Bee: The splendid team work Of 1000
male voices (Maennerchor) of the cities
making UP the Northwestern Saengerfest,
on the stage OF the Auditorium last
week, speaks for itself OF the history OF
song 10 this the first part Of the twentieth
century. Few realize what struggle
the art Of song had I'm past ages to build
music to it's present position-first
through melody and then harmony and
then symphony.
The first scale OF record IN history Is
one Of three notes, made by the natural
infections of the tones OF the voice in
musical speech downward like the Greeks
sang their epic poetry. Thus: say hello
naturally to the telephone girl and your
voice will fall in tone on the low TO the
musical interval Of q fourth. II she does
not answer, you say it again. but this
time your voice does not fall so far quite.
but to the interval of a major third and
thus we have the scale. say down from
middle C to c, A flat, @. Next we have
the scale of sappho (sl0 r. c., not a
myth or a muse. but real little woman,
with black hair and sweet voice.
At the time OF the Greek philosopher,
Pythagoras, (6S2 B. c. all OF the seven
primary notes were In and few Of the
chromatic notes also. This was the
seven-note or diatonic scale in which the
voice struggled for some eighteen cen
turtles 20 make song in melody and all
through the dark and middle ages to the
time OF the Italian renaissance. Then
Instrumental music came to the rescue
OF cantata music. by the msdrigals or
- a. ha1
singers accompanied by their stringed
instruments.
Like them, too, Martin Luther broke
away from the droning, aing-song chants
and liturgies Of the church. still singing
like the Greeks In fourths and thus
started music In the melody OF thirds
with some snap to It and a tuned instru-
ment 10 check the voice up to. and thus
was modern harmony born.
The five-note scales OF the Asiatics.
where the voice went TO the fifth in
stead Of down 20 the fourth, has for
some reason never developed harmony
and is very wailing to US, like Chinese and
japanese music. or the hoot-che koot-che
OF the streets OF Cairo The trouble dur
ing all these centuries was the terrible
tri-tone in the scale. called In the middle
ages 1.-THE devil in music" They did not
realize that the octave was the natural
division Of the scale, but they tried 70
divide in the middle OF the octave. but
there was the tri-tone Of three full notes
from TO b. To avoid this they made
two scales in the octave and the true
Greek pentachords start on to F, q. A.
below. ana the one above. b. c. ID. F.
These were simple scales Of fourths and
major and minor thirds and no tri-tone.
but very tame music.
They knew that to pluck half OF the
string made the octave above the whole
string, TO pluck three-fourths OF the
string and you get the interval OF the
fourth. two-thirds makes a fifth. four
fifths major third, five-sixths a minor
third. etc. but they did not know that
two consecutive thirds make a fifth and
three-thirds seventh and BY inversion
thirds become sixths and seventies become
seconds because they ala not know how
10 use the octave note. nor did they use
fifths and 70 them the fourths sounded
better than the thirds on which modern
music Is founded. II was the great choral
master OF Italy. Palestrina us2O who
brought on octave OF diapason music ana
bridged around the devil IN music at last
IL was Mozart q German QIb0 who first
made use OF the baritone voice. that