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tween the two notes is so divided by musicians that from one to the other they reckon eight different tones. If the strings be of the length, two and three, the coincidence of the pulses will happen less frequently, viz. at every third vibration of the shorter string, and the concord will be less perfect. This forms what is called a fifth. The less frequent the coincidence of the vibrations, the less perfect will be the concord, or the less pleasure will it afford to the mind; till the vibrations coincide so seldom, that the sound produced by both strings at once is harsh and disagreeable, and is called a discord. The effects of music upon the mind, the power by which it moves the heart, touches the passions, and excites sometimes the highest pleasure, and sometimes the deepest melancholy, depend upon melody. By a simple melody the ignorant are affected as well as those skilled in music. The pleasures arising from harmony or a combination of sounds are acquired rather than natural. Its pleasures are the result of experience and knowledge in music; music affords a source of innocent and inexhaustible pleasure, but its effects are different on different persons: some are enthusiastically fond of it, while others hear the sweetest airs with a listlessness bordering upon indifference. This has been supposed to depend on a musical ear, which is not given by nature to all. The cause of this difference is by no means evident. It does not depend on the delicacy of the sense of hearing, for there are some persons half deaf, who have the greatest relish for music; while others who have a very acute sense of hearing have no relish for music. In some instances I think a musical ear has been acquired where it did not seem originally to exist. The force of sound is increased by the reflection of many bodies, particularly such as are hard or elastic, which receive the waves or pulses of the air and reflect them back again; these reflected pulses, striking the ear along with the original, strengthen the original sound. Hence it is, that the voice of a speaker is louder, and more distinctly heard, in a room than in the open air. I said that these reflected sounds entered the ear at the same time with the original: this however is not strictly the case, for they must enter the ear after the original, because the sound has a greater space to move over: but they enter the ear so quickly after the original that our sense cannot dist
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