100/115 SPIRITUAL CONSCIOUSNESS By FRANK H. SPRAGUE

12.
MUSIC.

Music constitutes a world of itself, co-ordinate with the worlds of Nature, Religion and Philosophy. It is not, like the other arts, an extension of the natural order, for it is characterized by an entirely different mode of revelation. The world of Music is pre-eminently the world of harmony. The idea of harmony unity in variety is exhibited not alone in the blending of tones, but in the complexion of each individual tone.

Sound is sensation occasioned by atmospheric vibrations acting on the auditory nerves. Vibrations recurring at regular intervals, and at certain specific rates, produce musical (harmonic) tones. Pitch is determined by rapidity of vibration.
Quality depends on the prominence of certain overtones or harmonics (secondary vibrations induced by the fundamental vibration, and which blend with it and modify its effect). In music every note sustains to every other note a definite harmonic relation, according to the ratio of their respective vibrations.

Combinations of tones are agreeable or disagreeable, concordant or discordant, in proportion to the degree in which their vibrations blend.
When the fundamental vibrations conflict, the effect of dissonance is produced.

Sounds suggest all conceivable moods, all phases of emotion. No longing is too deep, no aspiration too high, no purpose too broad, to be paralleled in music. Every creature finds its most spontaneous and significant means of emotional expression in sound.

The cries of wild animals, the songs of birds, and the more suggestive utterances of human speech, attest this fact. One’s first impulse on experiencing intense joy or grief is to cry out. In that act emotion obtains its most direct and natural satisfaction.
With the dawn of this modern era the heart of civilization began to throb with renewed life which demanded just such expression as music alone affords.