It is rare to find a large class in which there is not one
musical child, and the only sure test of progress is to make the less
musical children sing at sight alone from time to time.
Now, if those who have 'picked up' the knowledge of sight-singing
without knowing how they did it be asked to explain how they arrive at
their intervals, it will be found that _tonality_ plays a large part in
their consciousness. In other words, they are perfectly certain of their
key-note, and at any moment could sing it, even after complicated
passages.
This fact is the root of the Sol-fa system. The child is taught to think
of all the notes of the scale in relation to the key-note. A very
sensible objection is sometimes raised to this, i.e. that it must surely
entail a great deal of detachment from the matter in hand if the mind
has to grope for the key-note between every two consecutive notes of a
melody. But this process becomes automatic very quickly. We are not
conscious of references to the multiplication tables every time we do a
sum, yet we could not do the sum without these.
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