The Pittsburgh Press from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania • Page 84

THE Sunday. July 6, 1919 1 ilia nil Translations by Winifred Merrill Set to Music Russei: Bennett. Fills With deep feeling (J so) PUP' tn It ui i i i i i ii. i lit i3 1 Hi LIU WM Mortis, iSS Remarkable Invention in "Melodic Outline9 by Winifred Merrill, and How the System Is Applied. With great energy (J ioo) I I i4 1 twiia 1 I I i I ai I Marcn-time (w i32 8 3 2.

Dramatically (J 72) By Barbara Craydon Jpvery marked and it was the influence cf this book upon my mentality that some years later led me to choose as the subject of the thesis for my doctor's degree in mathematics, at Columbia University, 'The Unification of the Several Systems of Mathematical Co-ordinates. Consciously and unconsciously throughout a busy life, as the mother of four children and for 13 years principal of a girls' school, I continued this mental search for co-ordinating elements in life-experiences, in art-forms, in the complexities of educational problems, always searching for a better understanding of the nature of things through some underlying unifying principle. "In discussing music, I found that my experience in listening to it was not usual with everyone. Far more distant to me than the aural pictures, my attention was riveted upon light forms which flashed through my brain in the familiar curves of the mathematical researches of my girlhood, and I found that in the modern French operas, 'Pelleas and and others (which I heard over and over again to corroborate the impression), the curves complex and intricate, were definite curvoids revolution. These phenomena were les3 frequently manifest in the older operas.

I began to speculate as to whether there might not be a possibility of translating through the agency of mathematical formulae the rhythm of one art-form into terms of another. From this began the series of experiments, which developed a method for interpreting form musicographically. Tint tn Ksfcnt Arf "My present invention is founded upon the principle that every line or point in nature or in art or in science is subject to mathematical expression through some one of the many systems of co-ordinates or references axes, among which I include one which I denominate 'Musical Axes. The lines referred to may exist in nature, art or science, or be seen in the imagination, but are subject always to mathematical law and are thus capable of relative expression. "My object is to produce a melodic progression which will correspond to and be characteristic of the successive lines and curves or movements of writing, or of art, or of science-forms, and this is accomplished by determining the position of notes on the musical staff to correspond to the relative position of points of the ritten characters, or graphic art or science-forms.

To this end I employ the system of mathematical' expression wherein the location of the notes is determined by t'ro mathematician's method of selecting the points determining essential properties of the lines of curves involved. "If the lines or points to be translated be superimposed upon the musical staff (as by handwriting thereon the locat ion of the musical notes i-determined by the above-mentioned method in the proper order of progression. The resulting arrangement will be characteristic of the lines or curves from which it is derived. "In the melodic progression th" upward and downward, or the downward and upward curves that is to say, the convex upward or the concave upward curves are characteristic of the separate curves entering into any one letter or succession of letters, and these curves determine the measures of the melodic progression. It follows therefore that the measure, in the established progression, corresponding to each curve of the hand-writing is determined liter-' ally by the mathematician's method of blocking curves, only a convex or a concave curve appearing in any one measure.

"The last two measures of the melodic outline will largely determine the key in which the entire composition should be written, although the nature of handwriting is such that frequent modulation is usually necessary and appropriate. "The pitch is established by the location of the points on the staff." Prmfiivaxt Wfhmf In President Wilson's signature, for example, the points actually determining, by mathematical law, the position of the successive straight and curved lines of the signature of Wood-row Wilson on the staff are used as With ima'gination (J-r ss) (il'1 )V I I CZ2S WHEN you -write your name you are not likely to feel that you are furnishing a basis for a piece of music. Yet Winifred Edgerton Merrill, A. Ph. -wide student and experienced teacher, has discovered a new principle that seems to show that the handwriting expert stops far short of finding all that your handwriting may really tell.

Mrs. Merrill has, in fact, furnished proofs that one art form may be translated in the terms of another. This has been, indeed, contended, on many occasions, and science offers many hints that help to such a visualization. As all senses are senses of touch, by which we may understand how we feel color and sound as well as hear it, certain intricate manifestations of personality are translatable through various arts in a way to show relationships of: a significant kind. The mathematicians tell us that higher mathematics enters the realm of poetry.

"Perfume concerts" have demonstrated the relation of odors and musical notes. By many signs we come to a realization of the interplay of beauty and significance in all expression. In a series of "Musical Autograms" Mrs Merrill calls it "an album of twenty melodic silhouettes" the author of this particular demonstration puts forward an ingenious group of musical pictures. She takes the autographs of men as diverse as Theodore Roosevelt, Bishop Greer, David Belasco and John Philip Sousa and translates the connotations of their visualized names, the reduction to full musical form being completed by Robert Russell Bennett. The examples on this page show simply the opening bars of each composition.

In the case of the "melodic outline" at the bottom of the page we have an example of the first step in finding the relation of the autograph form to the staff. Mrs. Merrill's description of how she came to make her discoveries and how she worked them out will interest every student of music and be of scarcely less interest to every one who has watched the "coming together" of the arts, as well as that new tendency, not confined to highbrow monists, to find unifying explanations for human things. Mrs. MerrilTs Discoveries In my early education," says Mrs.

Merrill, "I was greatly impressed by a book by Benjamin WtTffl, antitled 'Ideality in the Physical Sciences," Gracefully (J. o) mp' Opening Bars from Six Examples of Handwriting Translations by Winifred Merril as Set to Music by Robert Russell Bennett. notes of a melodic outline in the order of their occurrence in the handwriting as shown at the bottom of this page. The next step in the establishment of a melody is determining the division of the measures, first according to the natural divisions of the writing. The further development of the material is left to the musician, whose art is the real medium of expression, and yet he is limited by the mathematician to the actual expression of Woodrow Wilson.

"As will be readily understood," says Mrs-Merrill, "the character of the melodic progression, and consequently of the musical composition, will be governed not only by the character of the language in which it is written, but especially by the individuality of the handwriting itself. Thus the musical expression will portra -national characteristics as governed by the letters and spelling as well as the personality of the individual as exemplified in the handwriting. The revelation of the individual through this musical method is carried to the point of varying with mood and becomes not only an individual but a temperamental expression of the original This sort of transcription, according to the inventor, is applicable not only to handwriting but to any series of hues and curves found in nature. The clover leaf has, in fact, formed the basis for an exquisite little pastoral. Copyright.

19 IS. by Winifred EdKerton Merrill. 5. Sehirmer, Publisher. Veu-gpaper Feature Service, 1819.

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