The second cause for the concreteness of the musical experience I take to be certain emotions and feelings which are aroused by association, not with the rhythmic elements of music alone, but with the tone-color, intensity, and melody also. There is a human quality, a poignancy and intimacy, about much music, which can be understood only through its analogy with the sounds of the human voice. For the human voice is emotionally expressive through its mere sound alone: one can know a large part of what is going on in the breasts of people who talk in a foreign tongue just by listening to the sound of their voices--their excitement or boredom, their anger, love, or resentment; and one becomes conscious of these emotions, as in hearing music, without knowing what they are all about. All human emotions betray themselves in speech through the rise and fall, range of intervals, loudness or softness, tempo and differences of duration of tone. Now, although it is far too much to say that music is actually an imitation of the voice, it is nevertheless true, as Diderot thought, that in certain musical passages we overhear the voice. There is never any exact similarity between music and vocal sounds, but there is enough resemblance to awaken by association the feelings that are the normal accompaniments of such sounds. Any tone analogies that there happen to be are felt as such. This is notably true of all music that has a peculiar lyrical and human quality,--the music that readily becomes popular because it seems to speak direct to the heart. Originally, all music was song, and since speech and song employ the same organ, it would be surprising indeed if something of the same expression of the emotions that overflows into the one should not also overflow into the other, and that musicians should not, unconsciously or consciously, tend to choose their melodies because of such analogies. Instrumental music probably got its first melodies from song, and despite its vast present complexity and independence, has never completely lost touch with song. Since the first meaningful sounds that we hear are those of the voice, music must always have for us the significance of a glorified speech.