"I'm afraid I don't," Alice admitted, "though there's something familiar about it. I'm not very good at reading music; but I could play it on the piano," she added confidently.
"What a funny idea!" exclaimed the Bass Viol. "You might just as well say that you couldn't read print but that you could play it on the typewriter. I shouldn't call that being able to read, would you?"
"Why, n--no," said Alice, "I s'pose not."
"Well, music is like print - either you can read it or you can't. Now, I'm sure you can read that piece of music if you try. Come, I'll give you the first note:
Do" - he sang the tone in what was for him a high falsetto voice. "Now, what's the next one?"
"
Re," sang Alice promptly.
"Right; and the next?"
"
Mi."
Right again. Now go ahead and sing the whole tune. You'll find it's not at all difficult once you know how to go about it."
Thus encouraged, Alice began, and was surprised at the ease with which she sang the piece through from the beginning to end.
"Not bad," said the Bass Viol when she had finished. "You have a very good ear, and not a bad tone for a wind instrument."
"Why, the very idea!" Alice protested. "I'm not a wind instrument."
"Oh, aren't you?" said the Bass Viol, rather sarcastically. "Then what kind of an instrument do you call yourself? You certainly aren't a stringed instrument."
"I'm not an instrument at all," Alice declared indignantly. "I'm a - I'm a human being."
"You may be whatever you like in your own country," said the Bass Viol, "but here you're an instrument. Everybody is."
Alice was silent for a moment. She was a little offended. Then an idea occurred to her and her face brightened.
"Is
that why they call this country Orchestralia?" she asked.
"Naturally; because all the instruments of the orchestra live here."
"Oh, goody!" cried Alice. "And can I see them all, and will you tell me their names and all about them?"
"I will introduce you to them - then you can ask them all the questions you like about themselves."
"I hope they won't mind," said Alice, "there are so many things I want to know. Do you mind answering questions?"
"Not at all," said the Bass Viol, once more in a good humor. "You may ask me as many as you please."
"Then I may as well begin now," said Alice, "because there are going to be lots and lots of them. First of all, can all the instruments that live here walk and talk just as you can?"
"Yes, indeed," the Bass Viol assured her.
"Then why don't they do it in - in my country?"
"Well, you see, it isn't necessary. In your country there is always somebody to carry us about, and plenty of people like yourself to do the talking. So we just let you do the walking and the talking for us while we make music for you. That's fair, isn't it?"
Alice admitted that it seemed so. By this time they had left the park and were walking down a shady winding road between rows of little houses set in the middle of delightful gardens. Some of the houses were of red brick, some of soft gray stone, some of cream-colored plaster with dark oak beams; some had red roofs, some green, and some had roofs in which many colors were blended in a rich pattern like that of a Persian rug. Most of the houses were covered with vines and creepers which seemed almost to be part of them.
"Pretty, isn't it?" remarked the Bass Viol, waving its hand toward the houses and gardens.
"I never saw anything so lovely!" said Alice. "It's all so - so restful! Everything seems to match."
"That's just it - it's harmonious. Harmony is our motto here. That's why it's such a pleasant country to live in."
"Is it always as quiet as this?" Alice inquired. "I haven't seen anybody yet but you. Where are all the other people - I mean instruments?"
"Oh," said the Bass Viol, "they're all at the rehearsal. We're on our way there now, so you'll soon see them - all the fiddles, that is; the others don't live in Fiddladelphia, except a few of the lower-class stringed instruments, such as the
guitars and
mandolins and those pesky ukuleles, who hang about the outskirts of the village. By rights they ought not to be here at all; they're not members of the orchestra. But it seems impossible to keep out the undesirable element, even in Orchestralia."
Alice couldn't help thinking that her amiable guide must be just a wee bit snobbish, and she wondered if life in this extraordinary country was, after all, as perfectly harmonious as the Bass Viol had claimed. However, she said nothing about it, and presently her thoughts went racing off on another tack.
"You said," she reminded the Bass Viol, "that only fiddles lived in Fiddladelphia; but you're not a fiddle, are you?"
"Of course I'm a fiddle," it declared, proudly.
"But," Alice persisted, "It thought 'fiddle' was only another name for a violin."
"Not at all," said the Bass Viol. "'Fiddle' means a stringed instrument played with a bow. We all belong to the fiddle, or viol, family. The violin is merely one member of it - and the smalles one, at that. But here we are at the Conservatory, where we hold our rehearsals. Now you shall see all my brothers and nephews and cousins."
They had arrived at a very large and beautiful building all of white stone, with a row of tall columns across the front. Mounting a flight of broad stone steps they passed through a magnificent marble entrance hall and into a large auditorium. On the stage a small group of instruments were assembled, and many others sat about in different parts of the hall, but there were plenty of vacant seats.
"Let us go right down to the front," said the Bass Viol, "so that you can see plainly. We can hear perfectln in any part of the hall - the acoustics are so good."
"Acoustics?" said Alice. "What are they?"
"Why, acoustics are - ahem! -
acoustics, you see -- Well, it's rather difficult to explain, but they're the things that make music or speaking sound well in a hall."
"What do they look like?" Alice inquired. The name suggested something with horns and four legs, but she saw nothing of that description in the auditorium.
"Oh, you can't see them. They're only spaces and proportions and - and all that sort of thing," the Bass Viol explained, rather lamely. "As a matter of fact, nobody knows exactly what they are; but if music sounds well in a place you say that place has good acoustics, and if it doesn't sound well you say the place has bad acoustics. Does that make it clear?"
Alice thought it was still rather confusing, but as it didn't seem to be so
very important she merely nodded her head and dismissed the matter from her mind.
By this time they had reached the front of the auditorium and taken seats near the center of the stage, from which point Alice could see the performers quite plainly. There were four of them: three small fiddles and one which was about half the size of Alice's friend, the Bass Viol. They seemed to be having a consultation about the music they were going to play, but in a moment they all went to the rear of the stage where a row of tall, narrow cupboards stood against the wall. Each fiddle opened a cupboard and took from it what appeared to be a man dressed in a tail coat and striped trousers.
"Look! Look!" cried Alice, excitedly. "They keep human beings shut up in those little closets!"
"They're not human beings," the Bass Viol corrected her, "they're only musicians."
"Only musicians?" said Alice, puzzled. "Aren't musicians human beings?"
"Well, at any rate, these are not," said the Bass Viol. "They're only mechanical dummies that we use for making music."
"Can't you make music without them?" Alice asked.
"Certainly not," said the Bass Viol. "In your country a fiddler can't make music without a fiddle to play on, can he? Well, we can't make music without a fiddler to play on us. So we all have our fiddlers, just as your fiddlers all have their fiddles; and we keep them in boxes, just as your violinists keep their instruments."
"Well," said Alice, "I s'pose that's fair; but somehow it seems all topsy-turvy."
“You’ll soon get used to the idea,” said the Bass Viol, reassuringly. “Things always seem more or less topsy-turvy when you first visit a strange land.”
Having led their mechanical players to the front of the stage and seated them so that they faced each other, two on the left and two on the right, the fiddles then placed their bows in the players’ right hands and their necks in the players’ left hands. At a word from one of the small fiddles, who seemed to be the leader, they all sprang to their positions - the small fiddles underneath their players’ chins, the large fiddle between its player’s knees - and the automatic musicians promptly began to play.
“These four instruments constitute what is called a string quartet,” said the Bass Viol, speaking in a whisper in order not to disturb anybody. “I suppose you them all?”
” said Alice, also in a whisper, “I don’t know the big one’s name, but the three small ones are violins.”
“Wrong,” said the Bass Viol; “only two of them are violins - those in front. The one back there at the left is a viola. He’s an older brother of the violins and looks very much like them for he’s the same shape and has four strings, just as they have; but it you look more closely you’ll see that he’s a little larger, and if you listen very carefully you’ll hear that his voice is a little deeper and has rather a sad quality. The big fellow facing the viola is a violoncello, but all his friends call him ‘Cello for short.”
“I suppose,” said Alice, “that ’violincello’ means a big violin.”
“Wrong again,” the Bass Viol corrected her; “it’s ’viol
oncello,’ not ’viol
incello.’ Now let’s get these names all straight in our minds: ’viola’ is Italian for ’viol’ or ’fiddle,’ and ’violin’ means ’little viol.’ Now my name in Italian is ‘violone,’ which means ‘biggest viol’; and ‘violoncello’ really means ‘little violone.’”
“I see,” said Alice; “it’s all clear now - only I thought your name was ‘bass viol.’”
“So it is. You see, I have several names. In Italy they call me ‘violone’ or ‘contrabasso,’ and in your country ‘bass viol’ or ‘double bass.’ But most people call me simply ‘bass,’ because it’s easier to say. And now we’d better stop talking and listen to the music. It’s a quartet by Mozart - one of his best.”
It was indeed exquisite music, and Alice marveled that the four automatons - mere pieces of machinery - could produce such lovely sounds, even with the aid of four fine instruments. It was not like the music of the full orchestra - not so loud and rich; but it made up for that by its purity and delicacy. Alice listened attentively throughout the performance of the quartet, but when it was finished she was ready with a lot of new questions.
“Why,” she demanded of her friend the Bass, “do they have different kinds of fiddles in a quartet? Why not four violins or four violas or four violoncellos?”
“Ah,” said the Bass, “we have instruments of different sizes partly in order to give variety of tone color and partly in order to increase the compass of the quartet. Do you know what ‘compass’ means?”
Alice shook her head.
“’Compass,’” explained the Bass, “means the number of tones, from the lowest to the highest, that an instrument or a group of instruments can produce. Now the piano can produce all the notes of the scale - over seven octaves - but the orchestral instruments have much smaller compasses. So in order to produce the entire scale we have to combine several instruments of different sizes, the smaller ones playing the high notes, the larger ones the low notes. For, as a general rule, the larger an instrument is, the lower its pitch.”
“No wonder you have such a deep voice!” Alice exclaimed, gazing with new interest at the enormous bulk of the Bass.
“My voice is the lowest of all, except the double bassoon and bass tuba,” he said proudly. “I can sing the lowest E on the piano. But I haven’t finished explaining about the compass of the string quartet. The violin, as you probably know, can play as high as the highest notes on the piano, but it can’t go lower than the G below Middle C. Do you know what Middle C is?”
“Oh, yes,” said Alice. “It’s the white key just to the left of the two black keys just to the left of the keyhole.”
The Bass chuckled. “I see you know how to find it. Well, then, the viola can’t go as high as the violin, but it can go five tones lower - to the C an octave below Middle C; and the ‘cello can go an octave below the viola. So between them they have a compass of six octaves - and with a scale of six octaves you can make a lot of music. Of course, for orchestral work you need a still larger scale, and a very strong bass besides; that’s where I come in. I can go nearly an octave lower than the ‘cello, and my low tones are fuller and heavier, too, so that’s why I’m one of the most important instruments in the orchestra.” The Bass sat up very straight and certainly looked extremely important.
Alice was duly impressed, but her mind was still teeming with questions.
“Why,” she inquired, “are there two violins in a quartet? I should think one would be enough, since there’s only one viola and one ‘cello.”
“Well,” said the Bass, “in the first place, if there were only one violin it wouldn’t be a quartet - it would be a trio; and a trio isn’t so satisfactory as a quartet, partly because most music is written in four-part harmony, and partly because the tone of the ‘cello is stronger than the tone of the violin. So we have two violins, a first violin and a second violin, to keep the balance.”
“What’s the difference between a first violin and a second violin?” Alice asked. “They look exactly alike.”
>BR? “So they are,” said the Bass. “The only difference is that the first violin usually plays higher than the second. Do you go to church?”
The question was so unexpected that Alice was a little disconcerted. “Wh-why, yes-of course,” she stammered.
“Then you’ve probably heard a vocal quartet - a quartet of singers - two women and two men.”
“Yes, indeed,” said Alice. “We have a quartet choir at our church every Sunday.”
“And do you know which voice sings the highest part?”
“The soprano.”
“And the next highes?”
“The alto.”
“And the next?”
“The tenor.”
“And the lowest?”
“The bass.”
“Quite right. Now then, a string quartet is just like a vocal quartet: the first violin is the soprano, the second violin is the alto, the viola's the tenor, and the 'cello's the bass. And a symphony orchestra is simply a group of three quartets - a string quartet, a wood-wind quartet, and a brass quartet - with a few extra instruments and a lot of drums and cymbals and things thrown in for good measure. I dare say you thought an orchestra was a frightfully complicated affair, but you see it's really quite simple."
"I
am beginning to understand it a little better," Alice confessed. "But there's lots and lots of it that I still don't know about; for instance, the wood-wind quartet - what is that?"
"You shall learn all about it in due time," said the Bass. "But now I want to introduce you to some of the fiddles. They've finished their rehearsal, so come along and we'll interview them before they go home."
