Word: sound
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Dates: during 1890-1899
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...music. We conclude on the contrary that the aesthetic worth of what may be called the acoustic content of music is in no wise inferior to that of its poetic expression. Significance can give no higher beauty to a composition than that to which it can attain as empty sound...
...seeking explanations for the immense power of music over the fancy and the feelings certain general reasons may first be noted why the perception of any measured combination of notes should be a source of excitement. Sound is in itself a stirring and rousing sensation; in its production the nerves are acted upon by a considerable mechanical force; the end organ of its perception is in closest proximity to the cerebral hemispheres; further, musical notes are to the nervous system comparatively unwonted experiences, and they are almost pure pleasures; finally, the textures of sound of which music consists force themselves...
...this music of simultaneous notes at different pitch was composed in the old diatonic scale and addressed to an attitude of listening which on our hypothesis involved the latent anticipation more or less defined, of the sound of a certain one of its steps. This might in different compositions be any one of five or six different notes of the scale. In a music of chords composed under the influence of the feeling of tonality the triad on the tonic becomes the most important of all possible combinations of notes and appears at all points of close in a composition...
...House it would be stampeded through without difficulty; consequently the silver men on the finance committee were constantly trying to force the committee to a report; they did not care whether the report were favorable or unfavorable, all they wanted was to get the bill before the House. The sound money men adopted a policy of delay, and have succeeded so well as to practically kill the bill for this session. But the silver men are all confident that free coinage legislation must come sooner or later. The members of the Boston delegation were sharply cross-examined by these...
...explanation which these facts themselves demand may in its application to the auditory sense be formulated as follows: In the case of any sequence of sound which has begun to recur the ear forms the anticipation of the further elements at the same intervals at which they originally followed one another. The application of this principle to bars of music would lead to their combination into periods according to the powers of the number...