[1] Such a sentence as the following from one of his
Commonplace Books shows how important his responsiveness to music was
for his poetical composition.
"These old Scottish airs are so nobly sentimental that when one
would compose to them, to _south_ the tune, as our Scottish phrase
is, over and over, is the readiest way to catch the inspiration
and raise the Bard into that glorious enthusiasm so strongly
characteristic of our old Scotch Poetry."
[1] The question of the nature and extent of Burns's musical abilities
may be summed up in the words of the latest and most thorough student
of his melodies:--"His knowledge of music was in fact elemental; his
taste lay entirely in melody, without ever reaching an appreciation of
contra-puntal or harmonious music. Nor, although in his youth he had
learned the grammar of music and become acquainted with clefs, keys,
and notes at the rehearsals of church music, which were in his day a
practical part of the education of the Scottish peasantry, did he ever
arrive at composition, except in the case of one melody which he
composed for a song of his own at the age of about twenty-three, and
this melody displeased him so much that he destroyed it and never
attempted another. In the same way, although he practised the violin,
he did not attain to excellence in execution, his playing being
confined to strathspeys and other slow airs of the pathetic kind.
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