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Music Talks With Children

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<h2 id="id00153" style="margin-top: 4em">CHAPTER VI.</h2> <h5 id="id00154">THINKING IN TONE.</h5> "The gods for labor sell us all good things."—Epicharmus.[21] Perhaps you have some doubt as to exactly what is meant by music-thinking. Being somewhat acquainted with composers and with music, the thought may here come to you that all the music we hear in the world must have been made by somebody—by many somebodies, in fact. They have had to sit down, and forgetting all things else, listen intently to the music-thought which fills the mind. If you will sit quietly by yourself you will discover that you can easily think words and sentences and really hear them in the mind without pronouncing anything. In quite the same way the composer sits and hears music, tone by tone, and as clearly as if it were played by a piano or an orchestra. And to him the tones have a clear meaning, just as words have a clear meaning to us. Naturally, one can see that there could be no other way. Unless the composer can think out everything exactly there could be no music, for music must be written, and one can only write what one thinks. So at this point the thought to remember is this: Music must exist in some one's mind before others can have it to hear and enjoy. In like manner—just the same manner, in fact—the painter is one who thinks pictures; the sculptor, one who thinks statues; the architect, one who thinks buildings. They think these things just as you think words; and as you tell your thoughts in spoken words, so they tell their thoughts in printed music, in painted pictures, in chiseled statues, and in erected buildings. Now, from all this it should be clear to you that there can be nothing which has not first been thought of by some one. You think the door must be closed and you close it; you think you must know the time and you look at the clock; you think the one hand should play more loudly than the other and you try to do it. Power to get things and to do things comes to us rapidly only in the fairy-tales. In the real, beautiful, healthy world in which we live we have to work hard and honestly for the power either to get things or to do things. By faithful labor must we win what we want. What we do not labor for we do not get. That is a condition of things so simple that a child can readily understand it. But all, children and their elders, are apt to forget it. In the life of every great man there is a story different from that of every other great man, but in every one of them this truth about laboring for the power one has is found. In our Talk on Listening, it was said that the sounds we hear around us are the more easily understood if we first become familiar with the melody which is called the major scale. But in order to think music it is necessary to know it—in fact, music-thinking is impossible without it. As it is no trouble to learn the scale, all of you should get it fixed in the mind quickly and securely. It is now possible for you to hear the scale without singing its tones aloud. Listen and see if that is not so! Now think of the melodies you know, the songs you sing, the pieces you play. You can sing them quite loudly (can you sing them?) or in a medium tone, or you can hum them softly as if to yourself; or further yet, you can think them without making the faintest sound, and every tone will be as plain as when you sang it the loudest. Here, I can tell you that Beethoven wrote many of his greatest works when he was so deaf that he could not hear the music he made. Hence, he must have been able to write it out of his thought just as he wanted it to sound. When you understand these steps and ways you will then know about the beginning of music-thinking. Let us inquire in this Talk what the piano has to do in our music-thinking. What relation is there between the music in the mind and the tones produced by the piano? It seems really as if the piano were a photographic camera, making for us a picture of what we have written,—a camera so subtle indeed, that it pictures not things we can see and touch, but invisible things which exist only within us. But faithful as the piano is in this, it may become the means of doing us much injury. We may get into the habit of trusting the piano to think for us, of making it do so, in fact. Instead of looking carefully through the pages of our new music, reading and understanding it with the mind, we run to the piano and with such playing-skill as we have we sit down and use our hands instead of our minds. Now a great many do that, young and old. But the only people who have a chance to conceive their music rightly are the young; the old, if they have not already learned to do it, never can. That is a law which cannot be changed. We have talked about listening so much that it should now be a settled habit in us. If it is we are learning every day a little about tones, their qualities and character. And we do this not alone by hearing the tones, but by giving great heed to them. Let us now remember this: listening is not of the ears but of the thoughts. It is thought concentrated upon hearing. The more this habit of tone-listening goes on in us, the more power we shall get out of our ability to read music. All these things help one another. We shall soon begin to discover that we not only have thoughts about sounding-tones, but about printed tones. This comes more as our knowledge of the scale increases. We can now learn one of the greatest and one of the most wonderful truths of science: Great knowledge of anything comes from never ceasing to study the first steps. The major scale, as we first learn it, seems a perfectly simple thing. But if we think of it all our lives we shall never discover the wonders there are in it. Hence, three simple rules for us to follow in learning to think music are these: 1. To listen to all tones. 2. Never to stop studying the major scale. 3. To become accustomed to hear tones within. If we are faithful to these we shall, with increasing study and industry, become more and more independent of the piano. We shall never think with our hands, nor depend upon anything outside of ourselves for the meaning contained in printed tone-thought. If now we join two things we shall get the strength of both united, which is greater than of either alone. If in our playing lessons we have only the very purest music (heart music, remember), and if we are faithful in our simpler thinking lessons, we shall gain the power not only of pure thought, but of stronger and stronger thought. This comes of being daily in the presence of great thoughts—for we are in the presence of great thoughts when we study great music, or read a great poem, or look at a great picture, or at a great building. All these things are but signs made manifest,—that is to say, made plain to us—of the pure thought of their makers. Thomas Carlyle, a Scotch author of this century, spoke very truly when he said: "Great men are profitable company; we cannot look upon a great man without gaining something by him."[22] <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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