CORNELL

CHAPTER XVICONCLUSIONIt is true that composition cannot be taught by rule, but thetechnique of it can, and this must be acquired in one wayor another, before real composition becomes possible. Thecomposer may learn this technique slowly and painfully byhis own keen experiences of failure and success ; or he maysecure its mastery by a diligent and enthusiastic analysisof the works of the great masters, first in the study andthen in the music-room, the concert hall, and at the operahouse.Either of these methods may be supplemented materiallyby advice and lessons from a good master, or from the carefulstudy of a modern theoretical work. A theory of musicalharmony is a systematized collection of musical facts, andlogical and clear thinking is greatly assisted by such aclassification of harmonic possibilities. However acquired,a knowledge of technique must precede the expression ofmusical thought.Moreover, it is not sufficient for the present-day musicianto be master of one kind of musical expression, but he mustj^^ be fuUy primed in the technique of all the styles.Composer's There is the great contrapuntal school of theEquipment, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the fineexpressional school of the nineteenth, the Romantic Movement,the Programmatic, the Impressionistic, the Post-Impressionistic styles, and so on. And standing at this endof a period of amazing artistic activity, and a phenomenallyrapid development on all sides, in an art little more thanthree hundred years old, the composer's technical equipmentevidently is no matter to be lightly taken in hand.The Exercises at the end of this volume are given toenable the student to gain some insight into the methodsand some practical experience in the technique of the various191