or that he is to give to his lip a certain form and pressure; if he do this with mechanical correctness, the sound will answer to its symbol. Not so the singer. He cannot, by any mere mechanical act, put his larynx into such a position as to ensure the production of any given sound. C sharp is not visible to the naked eye, nor is the dwelling-place of B flat at any appreciable distance between the top of the windpipe and the opening of the pharynx. The singer must know the sound due to the note he sees, before he can possibly sing it with certainty and correctness. In this consists the difficulty of what is called singing at sight.

To the possession of this power considerable study as well as practice is necessary. The instrumentalist ought to know, the singer must know, the various systems or scales into which sounds can be classified; and how, by the varieties of combination and succession which these sounds afford, the different relations or intervals between them are produced. For, the sound due to a note must be known, either from its place in some scale or system to which it belongs, or by measurement from some other note sung before it, or at the same instant with it.

The constructions of scales and their relations to one another, and the nature and properties of the various intervals, will occupy a very prominent place in the course of lectures I shall have to deliver in

this Institution. Indeed these subjects must form a very large part of every course of a similar kind wherein any object is sought beyond the filling up of a few vacant hours; I shall be greatly disappointed if you are not much interested in the consideration of them. Amused, you will not be; for amusement is not the business of an honest teacher;I might add of an honest pupil;-but there must be some grave deficiency in the method or the manner of one who does not make his lessons interesting. That they be equally profitable, depends as much on his pupils as on him. Those who labour to improve and to simplify modes of instruction always get the credit, or discredit, of attempting or intending to do a great deal more than they even think of attempting or know to be possible. In my own case for example. Some people think that I have put together a book which will enable them to sing at sight. How, or from what that ever I can have written or said, this impression is derived, I know not: all that I conceive it possible any book or course of lessons on Music can do, is, that diligently read and thoroughly practised, it will enable those who read and those who practise, to set about the study of classical Music in the right way. This is what the method I have published pretends to do; and this is what it has done in a thousand instances. That these instances have been more numerous among one class of society than another, is a matter for congratulation rather

than condolence.

The achievement of that which

was thought impossible, may fairly encourage us to attempt what can only be considered difficult.

I sincerely hope that what the Training Colleges of the National Society have done for the musical education of the poor, this institution may be the means of doing for the musical education of the rich.

XIV.

ON HARMONY.

BY

WILLIAM STERNDALE BENNETT.

T

those who have already made any progress in

the study of "Harmony and the Elements of Musical Composition," my Lecture will, I fear, possess but little interest. I have purposely framed the remarks which I am about to offer, with a view of addressing them to the untutored student, and to carry out this intention I have chosen the most simple language adequate to the occasion, avoiding the use of more technical terms than absolutely necessary to the proper explanation of the different branches of the subject coming under our consideration.

It cannot be denied that musical students of the present generation are evincing a strong desire to become better acquainted with the science. Simple mechanical perfection is in itself insufficient to confer on the performer the honourable title of musician.

It is not my desire to depreciate the value of

mechanical power. I should not however be doing justice to you or my subject, did I not most strenuously urge the necessity of combining with your practical attainments a thorough knowledge of the fundamental principles of Music.

The celebrated Albrechtsberger, one of the profoundest musicians the world has known, the valued tutor and adviser of Beethoven, recommends the study of Harmony as "indispensable to the success of all who devote themselves to music even though endowed with the finest genius."

An eminent English authority (the late Dr. Crotch*) has, in his very interesting lectures delivered at Oxford, in his official capacity as Professor of Music in that University, very clearly described the advantages of theoretical study. After some interesting observations on the doctrine of Harmonics, (a matter which is not at all within our province to consider on this occasion) he thus expresses himself: The study of Harmony and the rules of Composition is of yet greater practical utility. It necessarily induces a knowledge of the clefs, and a power of reading from score, and of playing thorough Bass.

A knowledge of the derivation and inversion of concords, the resolution and preparations of discords, and the construction of counterpoint in general, will facilitate the reading of music at first sight,-an

*Lectures on Music.-London: Longman and Co.