fluency. Handel, even as a boy, wrote a new church composition for
every Sunday. Mozart began to write music when less than five years
old, and when he was yet a boy, in Rome, he wrote down a
composition,[44] sung by the choir of the Sistine Chapel, which was
forbidden to the public.

Harmony and counterpoint stand to music very much as spelling and
grammar stand to language. They are the fundamentals of good writing
and of good--that is, of correct--thinking in music. Harmony is the
art of putting tones together so as correctly to make chords.
Counterpoint has to do with composing and joining together simple
melodies. A modern writer[45] on counterpoint has said: "The essence
of true counterpoint lies in the equal interest which should belong to
ever part." By examining a few pieces of good counterpoint you will
readily see just what this means. The composer has not tried to get
merely a correct chord succession, such as we find in a choral. Let us
play a choral; any good one of a German master will do.[46] We notice
that the soprano is the principal part, and that the other voices,
while somewhat melodic, tend rather to support and follow the melody
than to be independent. If, now, we play a piece of counterpoint like
the G-Minor Prelude by Bach,[47] we shall have quite a good piece of
counterpoint, as far as separate melodies being combined is concerned.
Let us play the voice-parts separately. We shall find equal melodic
interest in each. The chords grow out of the music. Comparing this
with the choral, the main difference between harmony and counterpoint
should be clear to us. We shall observe that the three voices do _not_
proceed in the same way. If one part moves quickly, as in the bass of
the first two measures, the other parts are quieter; if the bass
ceases to move rapidly some other voice will take up the motion, as we
see in the third and following measures. As a general thing no two