IN one sense music ranks as the youngest of all the Arts.
But this statement is true only so far as we limit the subject to
the history of musical development in the Western World, the
basis of which is the simultaneous employment of two or more
musical sounds, that is to say, the combination of melodies.
The contrast to such combination is, of course, the bare
utterance of melody unadorned by any accompanying sound
whatever, unless it be a pedal or drone, an important feature,
for instance, in Indian music, the most highly developed
system of exclusively melodic music that has yet been evolved.

Music is, in fact, as old as the human race, for Song must
be classed with Speech and Dance as one of the natural forms
of expression of primitive man. Instrumental music of an
elementary nature made its appearance very soon after Song,
and as a necessary sequel to it in the process of the evolution
of this primeval instinct. But, for countless generations, music
throughout the world remained absolutely and solely melodic
in character. Two exclusively melodic types of music that have
survived to the present day are Folk-song and Plain-song; and
consequently, from the standpoint of pure Art, these should
preferably be rendered without musical accompaniment; but
when accompaniment is employed, as it often must be for
reasons somewhat similar to those which induce us to mount
our pictures in frames, such accompaniment should be so
designed that it may work the least possible harm to the
melody; nor should it ever be employed with the smallest idea
of adding any material that might distract attention from the
melody in all its natural simplicity.

Apart from purely melodic music there are two other distinct
phases in the history of musical development, namely, the
polyphonic and the harmonic. And these are to be found

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