MUSIC AND MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS.
We have previously referred (p. 94) to the love of singing, which is as much a part of the nature of man as it is of some species of monkeys and birds. To increase the effect of the tones of the voice every nation, no matter how rude, has called in the aid of some sort of resonant instru ment. This brings about a division of the subject into vocal and instru mental music.
'ocal illnsic.—Nations are by no means alike in their singing powers. Even divisions of the same nation differ widely in this respect. To a certain extent, this depends upon the language and the dialect. The muffled and nasal sounds of the Otomi language could not possibly equal in melody those of its immediate neighbor, the sonorous Nahuatl; the harsh Catalan dialect of Spain is of itself much less musical than the Castilian; the guttural German less than the vocalic Italian. Long ago, Johannes Diaconns, the biographer of Gregory the Great, expressed his despair of the Germans ever singing the Gregorian chants to suit a refined ear; and, though their instrumental music captures the plaudits of the world to-day, it is Italian and not German opera that holds the stage. A traveller of musical taste reports that the singing of the Chinese is jarring and cacophonous, while that of the Siamese is pleas ant to the European ear (Diefenbach). The voices of the Indians of the Plains have in singing a peculiar metallic ring (Clark), and those of Cen tral America a depressing harshness (Haefkens).
The musical intonation of national songs is a recognized expression of the national spirit, as is also the facility of expression in verse. The traveller Laing relates that in approaching some negro tribes he was greeted with improvised and joyous chants; and "merry England" re ceived this title on account of the number of ballad-singers who used to entertain its population, but whose vocation was destroyed by the gloomy religious sects which arose in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
Instrumental music has been divided into three kinds, as it is produced by vibrating surfaces, wind instruments, or those sounding by strings. Examples of the two first-mentioned varieties were in use all over the world. Some species of sonorous drum or gong early took the place of the rattle or the sticks clashed together, which were still more primitive devices for making a noise. Almost any tube a few feet long, as the stein of the cane or bamboo, will sound the successive notes of the common chord and furnish the most important of the musical intervals. Such flutes or trumpets were popular with most savage nations, and educated their ears to the correct scale of notes. The "Lydian airs" played on the pipe of Pan were in the ancient five note scale. Pleasant-sounding flutes were manufactured in earthenware by the Mexicans, and the blasts of horns and conchs were frequent in their ceremonies (see pl. 53, fig.
Stringed instruments do not seem to have been known anywhere in America, although a certain Aztec manuscript represents what appears to be a harper with his instrument. At least, they were very rare. In ancient Egypt they were common, as well as a variety of other musical contrivances. Some have alleged that Pythagoras, who was the first to teach the mathematical relations between the vibrations of strings and the musical notes they produce, learned this from the "wisdom of the Egyptians." Both Chinese and Siamese have from the dawn of history possessed a guitar, whose soft sounds are in agreeable contrast to the clangor of their general orchestra.
Our musical notation is a remote descendant from that of ancient Greece, but independent systems have been devised by other nations; as, for instance, the Abyssinians, who express the notes by the arrange ments of fifty-three letters of the Amharic alphabet.