MELODY SPEECH. Pleasnnt Sounds Met Everywhere If Only Looked For.

Te Aroha News, Volume IV, Issue 202, 7 May 1887, Page 3

MELODY SPEECH. Pleasnnt Sounds Met Everywhere If Only Looked For.

Tnijtr. is an infinite variety of interesting and pleading Hounds in nature's music mound u,s, that may be noted by an attentive ear ; these sounds are mostly melodious and harmonious, or in some harmonious connection and form exact intei vuls and chords. The wind, in passing over houses, over trees, in gardens,fields,and forests, produces beautiful sounds ot every variety, swelling irom the softest to the loudest in majestic grandeur. Thunder strikes us with awe by its deep rolling- sounds ; a storm or g^^le on land or on the ocean sends forth fierce and sublime sounds, rushing from the lowest to the highest pitch ; the stately flow of a gioat nver sings an everlasting organ-pam, while the lively brook sings melodiously, and modulates like human speech. The suspended wiies of an electric telegraph, w hen vibrated by a strong wind, produce touching and wailing sounds and chords over a whole country, like so many iEolian. harps, of sweet and sad sounds that may, from solemn stiains and most perfect ideal harmonics, rise in an indescribable and inimitable crew undo, higher and higher, to moaiih and discoids, und with the abating wind return to haimony. All the animals on land, quadrupeds and bipeds, have their characteristic voices and. calls in distinct intervals. Of our domestic animals, the cow gives a perfect fifth and ochue tenth. The dog barks in a fifth or i fouith. The donkey m coarse voice brays in a perfect octave. The horse neighs in a descent on the chromatic scale. The cat when excited at night on the roof or in the gaiden may howl over an extended compass, and at time-, give cries like those of an infant. The hens, gee^e and ducks in a farmyard chatter in pleasing chorus, and proud eliantieleei cocks, piercing solos beween, aie in the diminished triad and se\enth choul. The birds in bushes and trees, in gardens and woo(U, smo most beautiful tones in exact mtcM.iK, e\ en in melodious chords and in measuted tune. Annuals ot (he s;une species vary in theii musical gitt. as they do in other points. Some animals are \ery fond ot music and aie gieatly alleeted by it, while othei.s aie insensible or quite a\erse to it ; of the for mci the hoi se has already in remote antiquity been mentioned for its joy at the sound ot the trumpet, as we read in the book of Job (\\\i\, '2.')). A touching proof ot this old tiuth was given in the late Franco-(teiman war, when in the e\ ening after the battle of Cravelotte, on the trumpet signal ior the roll-call of the Lite <juard.s moie than three hundred riderless hor&e.s, some ot them wounded and hobbling on thiee legs, answered the wellknow n sounds- and mustered with the remnant ot their regiment. Of the nightingale it is- .said that in spring the males pel eh on a tree opposite the hens and sing their best one after another ; whereupon the hens- select their mates and fly off with them. The intervals we observe most in the voices oi animals are fifths, octaves, and thirds, and also fourths and sixths. The human \oice in speaking uses also these intervals foremost, but it moves also over most ot the other intervals in melodious and harmonious combinations. We speak in melodies and harmonies, impro- ■\ ising them by the impulse of our thoughts and teehngs oa er an extent or compass of one and a halt or two octaves ; as every plant glows with a certain colour, so every sentence is spoken in some melody which rises in sympathy -with the sense and sentiment ol the words, giving character to the i\ hole .sentence ; and fiom the quality and accent ot this musical investment, the truth and sincenty of the words maybe felt, and the character of the speaker traced. in inanimate <-ounding bodies, as church bells, m the larger strings of the piano, in the .Tjolmn harp (or wind harp), the iitth and lenth (or third in the next higher oc t<n c), commonly called harmonies, aie \cry distinctly heaid toward the end of fie principal sound. "Longman's Journal."