[Sidenote:  An intermediary necessary.]

Not only that, but in the case of all, so far as some forms are concerned, and of all who are not practitioners in others, it is necessary that there shall be an intermediary between the composer and the listener.  The written or printed notes are not music; they are only signs which indicate to the performer what to do to call tones into existence such as the composer had combined into an art-work in his mind.  The broadly trained musician can read the symbols; they stir his imagination, and he hears the music in his imagination as the composer heard it.  But the untaught music-lover alone can get nothing from the printed page; he must needs wait till some one else shall again waken for him the

    “Sound of a voice that is still.”

[Sidenote:  The value of memory.]

This is one of the drawbacks which are bound up in the nature of music; but it has ample compensation in the unusual pleasure which memory brings.  In the case of the best music, familiarity breeds ever-growing admiration.  New compositions are slowly received; they make their way to popular appreciation only by repeated performances; the people like best the songs as well as the symphonies which they know.  The quicker, therefore, that we are in recognizing the melodic, harmonic, and rhythmic contents of a new composition, and the more apt our memory in seizing upon them for the operation of the fancy, the greater shall be our pleasure.

[Sidenote:  Melody, Harmony, and Rhythm.]

[Sidenote:  Comprehensiveness of Melody.]

In simple phrase Melody is a well-ordered series of tones heard successively; Harmony, a well-ordered series heard simultaneously; Rhythm, a symmetrical grouping of tonal time units vitalized by accent.  The life-blood of music is Melody, and a complete conception of the term embodies within itself the essence of both its companions.  A succession of tones without harmonic regulation is not a perfect element in music; neither is a succession of tones which have harmonic regulation but are void of rhythm.  The beauty and expressiveness, especially the emotionality, of a musical composition depend upon the harmonies which either accompany the melody in the form of chords (a group of melodic intervals sounded simultaneously), or are latent in the melody itself (harmonic intervals sounded successively).  Melody is Harmony analyzed; Harmony is Melody synthetized.

[Sidenote:  Repetition.]

[Sidenote:  A melody analyzed.]