Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, August, 1878, page 179 by Various Authors
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o a disciple of Galin it is really amazing that such a bungling, unscientific way of expressing silence should have been tolerated so long. Compare these "pot-hooks and trammels," dotted and double-dotted, with Galin's symbol of silence, the cipher (0)! This is all, and yet it expresses every length of rest, as will be shown presently.
Let us now examine the symbols representing the prolongation of a sound. There are three ways by the common notation, where there should be but one. First, by the form of the note itself, as--
[Illustration of musical note symbols]
Second, by one or more dots after a note, the first dot prolonging the note one-half, and the second dot prolonging the first in the same ratio. Third, by the repetition of the note with a vinculum or tie, the second note not being sung or played. Galin uses simply a dot. It may be repeated, as a rest or a note may, but then its value is not changed, any more than in the case of notes or rests repeated. For example:
KEY OF E.
1|3556|5.31|[7.]143|3.21|
Here are the first measures of a well-known hymn in common time, four beats to the measure. As all isolated signs, whether notes, prolongations or rests, fill a unit of time, or beat, it follows that the dots following sol and mi prolong these through an entire beat, for the dots are isolated signs. Whatever the time, each unit of it appears separate and distinct to the eye at a glance; and all the notes, rests or prolongations that fill a beat are always united in a special way. This will be more fully shown hereafter.
Third. Elementary textbooks or methods should never present two difficulties to the mind at the same time; and such textbooks or methods should be an assemblage of means adapted to aid ordinary intelligences to gain the object proposed.
The first thing that the student of music encounters is a staff of five lines, armed wi