What we do
not labor for we do not get. That is a condition of things so simple
that a child can readily understand it. But all, children and their
elders, are apt to forget it. In the life of every great man there is
a story different from that of every other great man, _but in every
one of them_ this truth about laboring for the power one has is found.
In our Talk on Listening, it was said that the sounds we hear around
us are the more easily understood if we first become familiar with the
melody which is called the major scale. But in order to think music it
is necessary to know it--in fact, music-thinking is impossible without
it. As it is no trouble to learn the scale, all of you should get it
fixed in the mind quickly and securely.
It is now possible for you to hear the scale without singing its tones
aloud. Listen and see if that is not so! Now think of the melodies you
know, the songs you sing, the pieces you play. You can sing them quite
loudly (_can_ you sing them?) or in a medium tone, or you can hum them
softly as if to yourself; or further yet, you can think them without
making the faintest sound, and every tone will be as plain as when you
sang it the loudest. Here, I can tell you that Beethoven wrote many of
his greatest works when he was so deaf that he could not hear the
music he made. Hence, he must have been able to write it out of his
thought just as he wanted it to sound.
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