SECTION XIX.

Of the Interval of the Rising Semitone; and of the Chromatic Melody founded thereon.

THE smallest but not the least important division of the scale, through which the radical and vanish may be heard, is the interval of a Semitone. In the second section of this essay, we learned the means for acquiring a distinct perception of this concrete interval. It was there said,-if, in ascending the scale, the effect of the transition from the seventh to the eighth place be compared with the syllabic utterance of a plaintive sentiment, their identity will be acknowledged. Now the interval from the seventh to the eighth, in the diatonic scale, is a semitone. This interval is used in speech for the expression of complaint, pity, grief, plaintive supplication, and other sentiments allied to these.

In ascending through the diatonic scale, by a repetition of the word fire, subdivided into two syllables, with a prefix of the subtonic ye to the last, so that fi and yer shall be alternately set on successive points of the scale, the transition from the seventh to the eighth place gives to the word, here reduced to a single syllable, the same plaintive expression it has through the streets, in the outcry of alarm.

Intonation by the concrete semitone, is universally, the sign of animal distress; and when exemplified by the scale, the effect is very different from that of the concrete passage of the word as a single syllable, through the space of a whole tone, between its first and second degrees. Among a multitude of voices where the alarm is given by public cry, this utterance through the second is occasionally heard: and perhaps some of my readers may be able to call to mind the defect of its dissonant. difference from the plaintive intonation of the great majority. It cannot be exemplified by the pen: but when the uncommon impression of a particular cry, among a number, is not produced by quality or shrillness, it generally arises from this misapplied

form of pitch. We are much disposed to estimate men by assumed characteristics of their classes; and though our judgments thereby may sometimes be erroneous, there is often truth, and always caution in this method of opinion. Be this as it may, I never hear the phlegmatic cry of fire, through a whole tone, without a pursuasion of the general impotence or deformity of the voice or the ear, that in this particular, can so far transgress the ordination of nature.*

The semitone is employed for the expression of gentleness of feeling and rarely for great energy, harshness, or impetuosity of thought. It affects generally a slow time and long quantity. The interjective exclamations of pain, grief, love and compassion, are prolongations of the tonic elements on this interval. But its effect is distinctly perceptible, on the short time of immutable syllables. For it will be found on experiment, that the word cup, and other immutables, can be uttered with a plaintive intonation, even in its shortest time. Since then this plaintiveness, on long quantities, distinctly measurable, is always produced by the concrete semitone, and not by any other known interval of speech; it may be fairly concluded, when this plaintiveness

* Since the first publication of this work, in eighteen hundred and twentyseven, the practice of public out-cry in the streets of Philadelphia, has now in eighteen hundred and fifty-five, entirely passed away. Instead therefore of being as formerly, aroused, in the stillness of midnight, by the Watchman's hollow Orotund, to the plaintive interests, and solemn contrasts of near and distant solitary cries, awaking our safety to sympathy with the perils of a conflagration; hear what we have now, under the prosperous onward-ism of our great political, moral and æsthetic 'mission': the Alarm-bells of a whole city at once; the jangling clappers of Hose-carriages without number; the ceaseless roar of inarticulate trumpets; the screams of boys; the yells of men; the wrangling preparations for a street-fight; the out-shouting shouts, upon the first volley of stones; the discharge of revolvers; the uproar of a thousand brutal throats; and the silent absence of a 'non-committal' republican police. After the Imperial Roman had robbed-out every Treasury, every Temple, and every private purse, within reach of his quarrelsome and ruthless sword, his avaricious courage failed; and the Barbarian came back, and down upon him in righteous revenge. We with overmatching cupidity, are pursuing and exterminating the Native Indian from his Land. But Hah! with retributive justice, he seems, in the forced submission of his retreat, to have thrown away to the winds, his gross and unlawed spirit; which now, like a national malaria, is spreading an avenging savagism among his conquerors.

is heard on an immutable syllable, that the semitone is rapidly performed, even though the gradual course of its time and motion is imperceptible.

In the next section, we shall consider the nature and uses of the downward vanishing movement. But it is necessary to consider here transiently, the downward vanish of the semitone; since it is one of the constituents of the chromatic melody of speech, now to be described.

The downward radical and vanishing semitone may be exemplified comparatively, by beginning with the word fire divided, as before, into two syllables, fi and yer, and descending except at the extremes of the scale, by their alternate use. The concrete movement on the syllable fire, from the eighth degree to the seventh, has a plaintive expression; whereas the movement on the same single syllable, from the second to the first, has not that character. When therefore the voice rises concretely through the semitone, at the summit of the scale, and immediately in continuation descends through it; this repetition of the interval must prolong the plaintive impression. Now, as the sentiment which dictates the semitone usually affects a slow time, and an extension of syllabic quantity, the expression is generally made by this continuation of its upward into its downward concrete, in the form of a wave. This answers two important purposes. It produces a stronger impression of the sentiment and by repeating the interval, in its concrete form, allows a prolongation of voice, without the liability of a long quantity, to pass into the protracted radical or protracted vanish of song. The expressive effect of this doubled semitone may be exemplified on the word fire, as a single syllable, by making an immediate return in the downward direction, after ascending to the top of the scale: for this exactly resembles the plaintive utterance of a protracted syllable of speech.

The sentiments naturally expressed by the semitone, are sometimes restricted to individual words; sometimes they extend over phrases and sentences, and even throughout a whole discourse. These last occasions, requiring the semitone on every syllable, necessarily produce a melody consisting of a

continued succession of that interval. In the eighth section, the Diatonic melody was represented, by the progression of pitch through the interval of a whole tone. The progression here described, being through a semitone, may be called the Semitonic or, by its other term, the Chromatic Melody. Like the former, it is subdivided into the current melody, and the melody of the cadence. The movement of its current may be resolved into seven Phrases, similar to those in the diatonic progress. But as the change by radical pitch in the chromatic current, as it appears to me, is through the interval of a tone, only when it descends, and not when it ascends, the use of the nomenclature must be pardoned, when I call the several semitonic phrases by the terms assigned to those of the diatonic melody.

The doctrine of key, and modulation is the same in the two melodies. A similar appropriation of phrases to the pauses of discourse, for continuing, suspending, or closing the sense, is used in each; and the same rule for varying the phrases of the current melody. But the expression of the chromatic, being generally more grave, or subdued than that of the diatonic, the former more frequently affects the phrase of the monotone.

In describing the diatonic melody, its essential movements were subdivided into the concrete, and the radical pitch. The same distinctions occur in the progression of the chromatic melody. Its concrete pitch is always the interval of a semitone. Its radical pitch, if I have not erred in observation, is conducted in the following manner. When the current melody descends, the radical change is downward, over the space of a whole tone. But when it ascends, the radical change is upward over the space of a semitone. This change of a tone in descending, will be perceived on executing the downward ditone of a chromatic melody, and comparing its effect with that of the two first constituents of the triad of the diatonic cadence: for if the downward radical pitch of a chromatic melody be followed by another downward radical, similar to the first; or in other words, if we attempt to make a downward tritone in a plaintive intonation, the triad of the cadence will be thereby so nearly accomplished,

that it requires for its consummation, only the faint downward vanish of that triad on its last constituent. Now the radical. pitch of the triad of the cadence is formed of the successive descent of whole tones.

The following considerations lead to the conclusion that a radical change in the upward direction, is in some cases made by the step of a semitone. By intonating the scale in the manner directed at the beginning of this section, it will be perceived that after rising through the first semitone, on fi, the next syllable yer begins at the top of that preceding concrete; thus making the radical change of the ascent in this case, a semitone: and as every concrete of a chromatic melody is a semitone, it would seem to follow, by the rule of the scale, that each successive syllable of a chromatic progression, when the radical pitch rises but one degree, must be at the distance of a semitone above the preceding. But it has been shown that the concrete pitch of this melody is, in slow utterance, generally continued into the returning downward vanish of the semitone, in the form of a wave. On this occasion then, the above reason for the radical change taking the interval of a semitone in its upward progress does not perhaps, apply. Whether in this case of the returning downward concrete, the subsequent radical change upward is by the semitone or the tone, I am not prepared to decide, with the confidence I have felt on other points of observation recorded in this work. On the whole, however, there is not much change of radical pitch in this melody; since the monotone is its prevalent phrase. The question is however, left for the inquiry of others; but not to be made a subject of useless refinement and dispute; for as such, it can be of no importance in our Practical Philosophy of Speech.

We learned in a previous section, that in the diatonic melody, special purposes of expression call occasionally for the introduction of the interval of the octave, the fifth, and third. It will be asked, perhaps, whether these intervals are found in the course of a chromatic melody: and if so, how they are engrafted on it. They have a place in it, for the purpose both of interrogation and emphasis; and are applied in the following manner.