unusual pleasure which
memory brings. In the case of the best music, familiarity breeds
ever-growing admiration. New compositions are slowly received; they
make their way to popular appreciation only by repeated performances;
the people like best the songs as well as the symphonies which they
know. The quicker, therefore, that we are in recognizing the melodic,
harmonic, and rhythmic contents of a new composition, and the more apt
our memory in seizing upon them for the operation of the fancy, the
greater shall be our pleasure.

[Sidenote: _Melody, Harmony, and Rhythm._]

[Sidenote: _Comprehensiveness of Melody._]

In simple phrase Melody is a well-ordered series of tones heard
successively; Harmony, a well-ordered series heard simultaneously;
Rhythm, a symmetrical grouping of tonal time units vitalized by
accent. The life-blood of music is Melody, and a complete conception
of the term embodies within itself the essence of both its companions.
A succession of tones without harmonic regulation is not a perfect
element in music; neither is a succession of tones which have harmonic
regulation but are void of rhythm. The beauty and expressiveness,
especially the emotionality, of a musical composition depend upon the
harmonies which either accompany the melody in the form of chords (a
group of melodic intervals sounded simultaneously), or are latent in
the melody itself (harmonic intervals sounded successively). Melody is
Harmony analyzed; Harmony is Melody synthetized.

[Sidenote: _Repetition._]

[Sidenote: _A melody analyzed._]

The fundamental principle of Form is repetition of melodies, which are
to music what ideas are to poetry. Melodies themselves are made by
repetition of smaller fractions called motives (a term borrowed from
the fine arts), phrases, and periods, which derive their individuality
from their rhythmical or intervallic characteristics. Melodies are
not all of the simple kind which the musically illiterate, or the
musically ill-trained, recognize as "tunes," but they all have a
symmetrical organization. The dissection of a simple folk-tune may
serve to make this plain and also indicate to the untrained how a
single feature may be taken as a mark of identification and a
holding-point for the memory. Here is the melody of a Creole song
called sometimes _Pov' piti Lolotte_, sometimes _Pov' piti Momzelle
Zizi_, in the patois of Louisiana and Martinique:

[Music illustration]

[Sidenote: _Motives,