n 1664, in one of Lully's operas, but its technique
(stopped tones and crooks) was only properly understood about
1750; the present-day valve horn did not come into general
use until within the last half century. Fifty years before
the principle had been applied to the horn the trumpet had
crooks and slides, a mechanism which, in the trumpet, is still
retained in England, pointing to the fact that the trombone is,
after all, nothing but a very large kind of trumpet.

XI

FOLK SONG AND ITS RELATION TO NATIONALISM IN MUSIC

In order to understand as well as to feel music, we must reduce
it to its primary elements, and these are to be found in folk
song, or, to go further back, in its predecessor, the chant
of the savages.

Folk music may be likened to a twig which has fallen into a
salt mine, to borrow an expression from Taine; every year adds
fresh jewels to the crystals that form on it until at last the
only resemblance to the original is in the general contour. We
know that the nucleus of melody lies in one note, just as the
origin of language is to be sought for in the word. Therefore
folk music proper must be separated from what may be called
barbaric music, the most primitive type of the latter being
the "one-note" strain from which spring the melodies of the
people. This one-note form passes through many rhythmical
changes before song becomes developed to the extent of adding
several notes to its means of expression. The next development
of savage chanting (which is the precursor of folk song) may
be traced back to its two elements, one of which was a mere
savage howl, and the other, that raising of the voice under
stress of strong emotion which still constitutes one of our
principal means of expression.

Thus, in this barbaric music we invariably find three
principles: 1, rhythm; 2, the howl or descending scale of
undefined intervals; and 3, the emotional raising of the
voice. The rhythm, which characterizes the most primitive
form of song or chant, consists of the incessant repetition
of a very small group of rhythmic sounds. This incessant
recurrence of one idea is characteristic of primitive, weak,
or insane natures. The second principle, which invariably
includes the first (pointing to a slightly more advanced state
of development), is met with in many folk songs of even modern
times. The third principle is one which indicates the transition
stage from primitive or barbaric music to folk musi