ON THE ORIGIN OF MUSIC
HERBERT SPENCER · Mind · 1891
There is the swaying of the body to and fro under pain or grief, of the leg under impatience or agitation. Dancing, too, is a rhythmical action natural to elevated emotion. To perception the tone seems simple, and in dealing with musical effects the people are dealing with perceptions. Harmony, as ordinarily understood in music, and as spoken of by the author, is concerned with the fundamental tones, and ignores the overtones; as is clearly shown by the fact that two notes of widely unlike instruments are said to be in unison, or in harmony, if their fundamental tones have the requisite congruity: no attention being paid to the overtones. Though the melody was the same, and the effect was produced by one choir commencing a bar or two after the other, yet the new kind of effect suddenly achieved cannot be considered as evolved, without stretching somewhat unduly the meaning of the word.