Tulsa daily world. [volume] (Tulsa, Indian Territory [Okla.]) 1905-1919, 1917-01-21
MUSIC and DRAMATIC ART
Il Eded for The Tulsa Lghnuer Frost Mus

Your music editor has been taking
vacation, but we are on tho lob
again however. This week we shall
try especially to interest the bows ana
girls who are students of music in
some events Of history pertaining to
music. We have been told that the
ancient Chinese were writing learned
works upon the art of music when the
Pharaohs were building the pyramids
and II Is only reasonable to believe
that they had some kind of notation
of music. but all these tablets and
records were destroyed many years
before Christ was born 10y an old cm-
poror who became fanatically rellgi-
Gus and ordered all the libraries
burned by this destruction all of the
scientific works Of the ancionts were
lost TO the world.
We owe much 10 the Roman Catho-
lie church FOR what has been pre-
served of the ancient music and IT'S
progress since the birth Of Christ for
1t was the priests, who were men of
great learning, who fOstcrod what
they had to build on and kept making
new discoveries. The first school OF
music Of which we have any record
was established 10y Pope Sylvester.
$3.50 Years after the birth OF Christ.
This school was for the training Of
that followed the beginning of this
school OF music. no one had as yet at
tempted to discover n plan for writing
music. Notes. bars and spaces were
unhoard Of and ii was not until the
Thirteenth century that a Roman
philosopher bv the name OF Boethus
devised a system--each word letter
in the alphabet-thus: lie began on
low A in the bass and came up. using
II -
which carried the letters up to \
above middle c on our plano. taking
IN two OctaVes This idea was con-
fusing. because the singers could not
tell whether they should sing high or
low so he changed the upper eight.
writing them in small letters. ] am
sure not only the boys and girls
should have had a hard time reading
that music. but older musicians as
well would have been terribly CON
fused.
The next invention toward writing
music was sort Of musical short
hand I'm which many signs called
"reumcs" were used These signs
consisted of points. lines. accents.
hooks. curves and many other char
aCtors placed more or less exactly
over the syllables to which they were
irt9nded to be sung. in such manner
us 70 snow rclatNcly by the distance
above the text. how much the voice
was to rise or fan. The number of
these characters I'm use. according TO
manuscripts stlll preserved. varied
from seven to forty. The next adj
vanccment was Il plan to show pitch
by using n number OF parallel lines
(and from this movement began our
modern plan Of lines. bass and notes
and writing the words in the spaces.
Example: Draw six parallel lines and
write the words MY country, 'tis of
thee sweet land Of liberty placing
the svIlables In the spaces according
TO their correct pitch Begin ~ plac-
ing "my" on the second space. or the
81 ace we call \ in the treble clef.
This clumsy contrivauco enabled the
singer TO have some conception of
relative pitch. but as yet there could
he no Idea of the length or duration
OF sound, nor was there any estab-
lished key.
The next step was TO use the lines
and the signs (neumes) which soon
gave way to square notes The pitch
was indicated hy n red line for r
and green or yellow one for e.