There is music in everything if you only know how to get it out without cracking it. When a small boy beats a pie-pan with a stick, or drums on a wooden fence he is making music, only the neighbors won't believe it.

This is because he sets up the same note in succession and after a while the constant repetition of this single note gets on a grown-up's nerves, especially if he is writing a book; hence he thinks the sounds are noise but it is really music of a bombastic 98 order.

By this I mean that what we call noise is sound set up by uneven air waves 99 in time and volume while music is made by a tone, or tones, of even air waves. Any musical instrument that produces sound by shock, or concussion as it is called, is said to be bombastic.

98 The gong, drum, bell, and cymbals all set up sound by concussion and these are called bombastic instruments.

99 For the theory of air waves and sound see The Magic of Science by the present author, published by Fleming H. Revell and Co., New York.

When a bombastic instrument is played alone the sounds set up by it are not very sweet or musical but if you will use a set of eight of them, or octave as it is called, and tune them so that the pitch - which is the number of air waves that are produced and heard in a second of time - of each one is a note higher than the one before it and then make first one and the other vibrate you will produce pleasing tones, and by combining these tones properly you will have a resemblance of what we call music.