Both correct
modulation and rhythm are essential for melody. The sense of hearing is the
primary incitation to the voice. This accounts for the fact that children
who have learnt to speak, and suffer in early life with ear disease, lose
the use of their vocal instrument unless they are trained by lip language
and imitation to speak. The remarkable case of Helen Keller, who was born
blind and deaf, and yet learned by the tactile motor sensibility of the
fingers to feel the vibrations of the vocal organ and translate the
perceptions of these vibrations into movements of the lips and tongue
necessary for articulation, is one of the most remarkable facts in
physiological psychology. Her voice, however, was monotonous, and lacked
the modulation in pitch of a musical voice. Music meant little to her but
beat and pulsation. She could not sing and she could not play the piano.
The fact that Beethoven composed some of his grandest symphonies when stone
deaf shows the extraordinary musical faculty he must have preserved to bear
in his mind the grand harmonies that he associated with visual symbols.
Still, it is impossible that Beethoven, had he been deaf in his early
childhood, could ever have developed into the great musical genius that he
became.
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