we are understanding what they say. The question, therefore,
faces us: how shall we learn this mysterious language so as read-
ily to understand it? And the answer is equally inevitable: by
learning something of the material of which it is composed, and
above all, the fundamental principles of its structure.
[Footnote 6: Just as some people are color-blind there are those
who are tone-deaf—to whom, that is, music is a disagreeable
noise—but they are so few as to be negligible.]
In attempting to carry out this simple direction, however, we are
confronted by another of the peculiar characteristics of music.
Music, in distinction from the static, concrete and imitative arts,
is always in motion, and to follow it requires an intensity of con-
centration and an accuracy of memory which can be acquired,
but for which, like most good things, we have to work. We all
know the adage that “beauty is in the eye of the beholder” and
that any work of art must be recreated in the imagination of the
participant. The difficulty of this process of recreation, as ap-
plied to music, is that we have, derived from our ordinary daily
experiences, so little to help us. Anyone can begin, at least, to
understand a work of architecture; it must have doors and win-
dows, and should conform to practical ideas of structure. In like
manner, a painting, either a portrait or a landscape, must show
some correspondence with nature herself, and so we have defi-
nite standards to help our imagination. But music has worked
out its own laws which are those of pure fancy, having little to
do with other forms of thought; and unless we know something
of the constructive principles, instead of recreating the work be-
fore us, we are simply lost—“drowned in a sea of sound”—often
rudely shaken up by the rhythms, but far from understanding
what the music is really saying. As the well-known critic, San-
tayana, wittily says, “To most people music is a drowsy revery
relieved by nervous thrills.”
Notwithstanding, however, the peculiar nature of music and
the difficulty of gaining logical impressions as the sounds and
rhythms flood in upon us, there is one simple form of coöper-
ation which solves most of the difficulties; that is, familiarity.
It is the duty of the composer so to express himself, to make
his meaning so clear, that we can receive it with a minimum of
mental friction if we can only get to know the music. All really
good music corresponds to such a standard; that is, if it is need-
lessly involved, abstruse, diffuse, or turgid, it isin so farnot