Show UNWRITTEN MUSIC the music ot of nature halody ID in ayery sound the beginnings ays paul past nor in the Alu musical heralds of music as of eve every art are to be bought sought in nature mature unwritten In unwritten written music came before written music birdsong before tha ro plyde the wil wail of the he cincin in the tenet before the lize dirge 1 the ainu innumerable merable voices and th the silvery ivery i tink tinkle leat at the woodland brook before mana mansi first initiative inita tive attempts at melody even in the present high development ent ot the art of music we may still trace these simple intuitive beginnings that music is considered the finest and truest which suggests sug gesta nature which effects us as do the voices of nature so too the highest form of reproductive 0 art of whatever kind is to imitate the sights and sounds the physical impressions we get from nature with a fidelity which makes them seem real in fact we refer here to nature as the soundest metho dof criticism we recognize the fact that art no matter how highly developed has its begin dings in in the natural visible world about us u the study of this unwritten music this music in nature to which I 1 have bave referred is i one of the most fascinating of employ ments it leada leads one to make moel most C charming harming discoveries to t trace face out relations between the express expressed id and the which else were never dreamed 0 of f to take a simple instance I 1 have found tho the beginnings the keynotes if you choose sometimes an entire bar of sever several A I 1 of the in most st beautiful of our standard operatic airs in the songs of birds there is one bird 1 I 1 am not enough to name it which sings so many notes ot of a certain popular ai air r that I 1 am irresistibly impelled whenever I 1 bear it to whittle oct ont the measure this bird is a shy haunter of moist tangled bover cover and I 1 have never been able to approach n near ar enough to make wake out its plumage or its shape but iut it is by no mean means the only bird suggests some musical passage the robin has 1 u sung which it sometimes sings in the deep woods or away at least from the dwellings and the bustle of the busy world that ie fis extreme and which I 1 am sure roust somewhere have been reproduced in composition though I 1 have not yet been able t to 0 ident identify if 1 it the music of nature is of course merely fragmentary rudice rudimentary it jugg suggests ests but doea does not satisfy the moaning of the wind in the trees is not a dirge but it suggests a dirge it has the inspiration of funeral music iu in it the me lolles OfIlA of nature ture are at best alian incoherent and broken but it is arom them that t the truly po poetic composer gets bis his ideas and anu ahe nearer be he approaches these very molodie mt lodie lodies in the fidelity of hie his reproduction while solving and completing them the more will bis his music stir the hearts and rose the imaginations of men the ear with a little practice tige and by maahs means of a habit of atun tion can readily detect mume music in in nearly all 11 the plem pleasant ant bounds sounds of nat nature u ic the plash of the waves on the rocky beach the voices of the stirring keayes the chorus fronc the pools and the fields in summer evenings fhe repeated cd cries besof of 9 all 11 the animate creation these and a thousand other sounds and fiur knuts are full un music we live and move fu a vast auditorium where gade musicians are always playing to us u if we will but listen our oui greatest compos are our best listeners |