chological
laws which seem, so far as we can understand them, to be coeval with
humanity itself; and these form the permanent code by which music is to
be judged. The reason why, in past ages, the critics have been so often
and so disastrously at fault is that they have mistaken the transitory
for the permanent, the rules of musical science for the laws of musical
philosophy."

An acquaintance with form as the manifestation of law is essential to an
intelligent hearing of music. The listener should have at least a
rudimentary knowledge of musical construction from the simplest ballad
to the most complex symphony. Having this knowledge it will be possible
to receive undisturbed the impressions music has to give, and to
distinguish the trivial and commonplace from the noble and beautiful.

The oftener good music is heard the more completely it will be
appreciated. Therefore, they listen best to music who hear the best
continually. The assertion is often heard that a person must be educated
up to an enjoyment of high class music. Certainly, one who has heard
nothing else must be educated down to an enjoyment of ragtime, with its
crude rhythms.

"We know a true poem to the extent to which our spirits respond to the
spiritual appeal it makes," says Dr. Hiram Corson. It is the same with a
true musical composition. We must take something to it, in order to
receive something from it. Beyond knowledge comes the intuitive feeling
which is enriched by knowledge. Through it we may feel the breath of
life, the spiritual appeal, which belongs to every great work of art and
which must forever remain inexplicable.

VI

The Piano and Piano Players

When Pythagoras, Father of Musical Science, some six centuries before
our era, marked and sounded musical intervals by mathematical division
on a string stretched across a board, he was unconsciously laying the
foundation for our modern pianoforte. How soon keys were added to the
monochord, as this measuring instrument was named, cannot positively be
ascertained. We may safely assume it was not slow in adopting the rude
keyboard ascribed by tradition to Pan pipes, and applied to the portable
organ of early Christian communities.

After the tenth century the development of the monochord seems to have
begun in earnest. Two or more strings of equal length are now divided
and set in motion by flat metal wedges, attached to the key levers, and
called tangents, because they touched