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We teach Shakespeare in our literature classes, not a modern poet the essays of Bacon, not those of a modern essayist. And our reason is that the only way to create a standard of taste is to take our children to the classical fountains of prose and poetry. We must do the same in music. To those who are not accustomed to the Sol-fa notation it appears at first sight a useless encumbrance.
In the popular Tonic Sol-Fa notation, which corresponds so closely to Rousseau's in principle, the key-note is always styled Do, and the other symbols, mi, la, and the rest, indicate at once the relative position of these tones in their particular key or scale.
John Spencer Curwen, wife of the president of the London Tonic Sol-fa College, and daughter-in-law of the late Rev. John Curwen, founder of the movement it represents, has applied to pianoforte teaching the logical principles underlying the system, which are those accepted by modern educators as the psychological basis of all education.
We are so thoroughly accustomed nowadays to the diatonic scale that it is almost impossible for us to understand the old system of Muance or Solmisation. Suffice it to say that only four keys were known, and that each note was called by its full Sol-Fa name. Thus D was called D-la-sol-re, C was C-sol-fa-ut, etc.
The hymn-book was written in the language of the people the Sechuana language and Shomolekae taught them from the book to sing hymns. The music was the sol-fa notation. This is one of the hymns: 1. "Yesu oa me oa nthata, Leha ke le mo dibin; A re yalo mo kwalon, A re yalo mo pedun. E, Yesu oa me, E, Yesu oa me, E, Yesu oa me, Oa me, mo loraton.
In the scale of C major the child has been trained to feel the sharp, bright effect of the note G, the fifth from the key-note C. It would naturally feel the same effect for the note E in the key of A minor, when related to the key-note A. But the orthodox Sol-fa teacher says: 'No. You must feel the calm, soothing effect of E in relation to C! Can the child be really trained in this way?
It is no new thing never heard of before, for a parochial minister, who has his reward and is at his Hercules' pillars in a warm benefice, to be easily inclinable, if he have nothing else that may rouse up his studies, to finish his circuit in an English Concordance and a topic folio, the gatherings and savings of a sober graduateship, a Harmony and a Catena; treading the constant round of certain common doctrinal heads, attended with their uses, motives, marks, and means, out of which, as out of an alphabet, or sol-fa, by forming and transforming, joining and disjoining variously, a little bookcraft, and two hours' meditation, might furnish him unspeakably to the performance of more than a weekly charge of sermoning: not to reckon up the infinite helps of interlinearies, breviaries, synopses, and other loitering gear.
But when a new footman, engaged by Lord Ingleby with no reference to his musical gifts, chanced to possess a fine throaty tenor, Myra felt she really had material with which great things might be accomplished, and decided herself to learn the Tonic sol-fa system.
As I had given evidence of possessing a musical ear, the good father, who had himself been in former days a notable singer and choir-master at Notre Dame, kindly taught me my notes. "Listen, Mathurin," he said to me one day: "you are only a peasant's son, but you know well your catechism and sol-fa, and some day, perhaps, if you are good and industrious, you may become a great musician."
In classes the stimulating effect of healthy competition may be felt, an impulse given to writing notes, transposing phrases and melodies, strengthening musical sentiment and refining the taste. Both the French Solfège method and the English Tonic Sol-fa system prove the advantage of rudimentary training in classes. Mrs.
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