BIRDS.
ILLUSTRATED BY COLOR PHOTOGRAPHY.
| Vol. III. | MAY, 1898. | No. 5. |
COLOR IN MUSIC.
"No ladder needs the bird, but skies
To situate its wings,
Nor any leader's grim baton
Arraigns it as it sings.
The implements of bliss are few—
As Jesus says of Him,
'Come unto me,' the moiety
That wafts the cherubim."
—Emily Dickinson.
O
H, Music! voice inspired of all our joys and sorrows, of all our hopes and disappointments, to thee we turn for life, for strength and peace. The choristers of Nature—the birds—are our teachers. How free, how vital, how unconstrained! The bird drops into song and delicious tones as easily as he drops from the bough through the air to the twig or ground. To learn of the bird has been found to be a truthful means whereby children's attention and interest may be held long enough to absorb the sense of intervals in pitch, notation on the staff, and rythms.
In teaching a child, it is obvious that the desire to learn must be kept widely awake, and heretofore black notes on five lines and four spaces, with heiroglyphics at the beginning to denote clef, and figures to indicate the rhythm of the notes, have never interested children. But now, color and the bird with its egg for a note, telegraph wires for the staff, and swinging the pulsing rhythm instead of beating the time, has charmed children into accomplishment of sight singing and sweet purity of tone. Formerly, and by the old method, this was a long and laborious task, barely tolerated by the musical child and disliked by the little soul unawakened thereby to its own silent music.
It may be questioned, what is the new method, and what its value? The method is this: In recognizing tone, the finer and more sensitive musician has realized that certain intervals of scale suggested to their minds or reminded them of certain colors. Thus the Doh, the opening and closing tone of the scale, the foundation and cap stone, suggested Red, which is the strong, firm color of colors, and on the ethical side suggested Love, which is the beginning and end, the Alpha and Omega of Life. This firmness and strength is easy to recognize in the tune "America," where the tonic Doh is so insistent, and colors the whole melody. "The Star-Spangled Banner" and "Hail Columbia" are other strong examples.
The Dominant or fifth tone in the scale is clear and pure, which the blue of heaven represents, and so also the quality of aspiration or exaltation is sounded. This is joyously clear in the Palestrina "Victory," set to the Easter hymn, "The strife is o'er the battle done."
The Mediant or third of the scale is peaceful and calm, and the color Yellow is suggested, with its vital, radiating, sunshiny warmth and comfort. The "O, rest