Text: Letter to Lord Kames on the Scotch Tunes

* * * In my passage to America I read your excellent work, the Elements of Criticism, in which I found great entertainment. I only wished you had examined more fully the subject of musick, and demonstrated that the pleasure artists feel in hearing much of that composed in the modern taste, is not the natural pleasure arising from melody or harmony of sounds, but of the same kind with the pleasure we feel on seeing the surprizing feats of tumblers and rope-dancers, who execute difficult things. For my part I take this to be really the case, and suppose it the reason why those who are unpractised in musick, and therefore unacquainted with those difficulties, have little or no pleasure in hearing this musick. Many pieces of it are mere compositions of tricks. I have sometimes at a concert, attended by a common audience, placed myself so as to see all their faces, and observed no signs of pleasure in them during the performance of a great part that was admired by the performers themselves; while a plain old Scotch tune, which they disdained, and could scarcely be prevailed on to play, gave manifest and general delight. Give me leave on this occasion to extend a little the sense of your position, That "Melody and Harmony are seperately agreable, and in union delightful," and to give it as my opinion that the reason why the Scotch tunes have lived so long, and will probably live for ever (if they escape being stifled in modern affected ornament) is merely this, that they are really compositions of melody and harmony united, or rather that their melody is harmony. I mean the simple tunes sung by a single voice. As this will appear paradoxical, I must explain my meaning. In common acceptation, indeed, only an agreable succession of sounds is called melody, and only the co-existence of agreable sounds, harmony. But since the memory is capable of retaining for some moments a perfect idea of the pitch of a past sound, so as to compare with it the pitch of a succeeding sound, and judge truly of their agreement or disagreement, there may and does arise from thence a sense of harmony between the present and past sounds, equally pleasing with that between two present sounds. Now the construction of the old Scotch tunes is this, that almost every succeeding emphatical note, is a third, a fifth, an octave, or in short some note that is in concord with the preceding note. Thirds are chiefly used, which are very pleasing concords. I use the word emphatical to distinguish those notes which have a stress laid on them in singing the tune, from the lighter connecting notes, that serve merely, like grammar articles in common speech, to tack the whole together.

That we have a most perfect idea of a sound just past, I might appeal to all acquainted with musick, who know how easy it is to repeat a sound in the same pitch with one just heard. In tuning an instrument, a good ear can as easily determine that two strings are in unison by sounding them separately, as by sounding them together; their disagreement is also as easily, I believe I may say more easily and better distinguished when sounded separately; for when sounded together, tho' you know by the beating that one is higher than the other, you cannot tell which it is. I have ascribed to memory the ability of comparing the pitch of a present tone with that of one past. But if there should be, as possibly there may be, something in the ear similar to what we find in the eye, that ability would not be entirely owing to memory. Possibly the vibrations given to the auditory nerves by a particular sound may actually continue some time after the cause of those vibrations is past, and the agreement or disagreement of a subsequent sound become by comparison with them more discernible. For the impression made on the visual nerves by a luminous object will continue for twenty or thirty seconds. Sitting in a room look earnestly at the middle of a window a little while when the day is bright, and then shut your eyes; the figure of the window will still remain in the eye, and so distinct that you may count the panes. A remarkable circumstance attending this experiment, is, that the impression of forms is better retained than that of colours; for after the eyes are shut, when you first discern the image of the window, the panes appear dark, and the cross bars of the sashes, with the window frames and walls, appear white or bright; but if you still add to the darkness in the eyes by covering them with your hand, the reverse instantly takes place, the panes appear luminous and the cross bars dark. And by removing the hand they are again reversed. This I know not how to account for.—Nor the following; that after looking long thro' green spectacles, the white paper of a book will on first taking them off appear to have a blush of red; and after long looking thro' red glasses, a greenish cast; this seems to intimate a relation between green and red not yet explained. Farther, when we consider by whom these ancient tunes were composed, and how they were first performed, we shall see that such harmonical successions of sounds was natural and even necessary in their construction. They were composed by the minstrels of those days to be played on the harp accompanied by the voice. The harp was strung with wire, which gives a sound of long continuance, and had no contrivance like that in the modern harpsichord, by which the sound of the preceding could be stopt, the moment a succeeding note began. To avoid actual discord, it was therefore necessary that the succeeding emphatic note should be a chord with the preceding, as their sounds must exist at the same time. Hence arose that beauty in those tunes that has so long pleased, and will please for ever, tho' men scarce know why. That they were originally composed for the harp, and of the most simple kind, I mean a harp without any half notes but those in the natural scale, and with no more than two octaves of strings, from C to C, I conjecture from another circumstance, which is, that not one of those tunes really ancient, has a single artificial half note in it, and that in tunes where it was most convenient for the voice to use the middle notes of the harp, and place the key in F, there the B, which if used should be a B flat, is always ommitted, by passing over it with a third. The connoisseurs in modern music will say, I have no taste, but I cannot help adding, that I believe our ancestors, in hearing a good song, distinctly articulated, sung to one of those tunes, and accompanied by the harp, felt more real pleasure than is communicated by the generality of modern operas, exclusive of that arising from the scenery and dancing. Most tunes of late composition, not having this natural harmony united with their melody, have recourse to the artificial harmony of a bass, and other accompanying parts.* This support, in my opinion, the old tunes do not need, and are rather confused than aided by it. Whoever has heard James Oswald play them on his violoncello, will be less inclined to dispute this with me. I have more than once seen tears of pleasure in the eyes of his auditors; and yet, I think, even his playing those tunes would please more, if he gave them less modern ornament.

I am, &c.

B. F.

* The celebrated Rousseau in his Dictionnaire de Musique, printed 1768, appears to have similar sentiments of our modern Harmony, viz. "M. Rameau prétend que les dessus d'une certaine simplicité suggèrent naturellement leur basse, & qu'un homme ayant l'oreille juste & non exercée, entonnera naturellement cette basse. C'est-là un préjugé de musicien, démenti par toute expérience. Non seulement celui qui n'aura jamais entendu ni basse ni harmonie, ne trouvera, de lui-même, ni cette harmonie ni cette basse; mais elles lui déplairont si on les lui fait entendre, & il aimera beaucoup mieux le simple unisson.
Quand on songe que, de tous les peuples de la terre, qui tous ont une musique & un chant, les Européens sont les seuls qui aient une harmonie, des accords, & qui trouvent ce mélange agréable; quand on songe que le monde a duré tant de siècles, sans que, de toutes les nations qui ont cultivé les beaux arts, aucune ait connu cette harmonie; qu'aucun animal, qu' aucun oiseau, qu'aucun être dans la nature ne produit d'autre accord que l'unisson, ni d'autre musique que la mélodie; que les langues orientales, si sonores, si musicales; que les oreilles Grecques, si délicates, si sensibles, exercées avec tant d'art, n'ont jamais guidé ces peuples voluptueux & passionnés vers notre harmonie; que, sans elle, leur musique avoit des effets si prodigieux; qu'avec elle la nôtre en a de si foibles; qu'enfin il étoit réservé à des peuples du Nord, dont les organes durs & grossiers sont plus touchés de l'éclat & du bruit des voix, que de la douceur des accens, & de la mélodie des inflexions, de faire cette grande découverte, & de la donner pour principe à toutes les règles de l'art; quand, dis-je, on fait attention à tout cela, il est bien difficile de ne pas soupçonner que toute notre harmonie n'est qu'une invention gothique & barbare, dont nous ne nous fussions jamais avisés, si nous eussions été plus sensibles aux véritables beautés de l'art, & à la musique vraiment naturelle."