In a discussion of tone leading as expressed by Pound to Duncan in a
postcard, I wrote that "tone leading" would have to be a property of
pitch RATHER than of time; said that he MUST have been talking about the
movement from the 7th to the tonic (completely off course); and
proceeded to fire away with these ideas in mind.  I was incorrect in
some, and at the least inaccurate in all.

Good fortune has given me access to Margaret Fisher's essay, "Great
Bass: Undertones of Continuous Influence".   Though the concept of tone
leading is not directly discussed in the monograph, pondering Great Bass
and "the tone leading of vowels" in the context of this essay, as well
as that of her discussions of Pound's operas in "Ezra Pound's Radio
Operas" has led me to reorient my thinking.  What follows was not taken
from her book or essay and should not be taken as a report of her
opinions, i.e. don't blame her; her writings were the context from which
I derived the ideas.

Account is also taken of George Sainstbury's monumental 3-volume
"History of English Prosody", in particular Appendix IX of volume I:
"Vowel Music - 1200-1600, and Appendix V of volume III: "Alliteration
and Vowel-Music, 1600-1900.  Since Saintsbury's work has been out of
print since 1961 and is difficult to obtain, I've scanned Appendix IX of
volume I to pdf and posted it at
http://www.dirk-johnson.com/prosody/saintsbury_app_09.pdf (I don't
really use the site so there's nothing else on it of interest).  I
didn't have time to scan Appendix V of volume III this morning, so I'll
post it tomorrow and give notice here.

Having not thought much about the details of prosody for several years,
they were buried under a technological avalanche from my position as
bottle-washer, programmer, trouble-shooter, and systems administrator. I
may be back up to speed within a couple of weeks, but here's my prelim:

A.  Vowels as leading tones; Pitch

Take a sequence of syllables whose only differences are the vowel
sounds, e.g. cat, cut, cot, kit or even words with a voiced consonant
such as this, thus, that.  Sound them aloud without attempting to alter
their pitch properties in any way from the naturally spoken.  In
relationship with one another, they exhibit characteristics of pitch.

Also note that Pound added the tone numbers for characters printed in
the Cantos.

Rime:  The naive ear, seeking music, wants end-rime.  It hears a
movement of pitches through a line of speech, perceived as disorganized,
and is relieved when it hears two identical pitches spaced fairly
closely together (temporal distance is a major factor, which is why the
naive ear doesn't care for more complex verse forms).  In a couplet,
e.g., the end-rime rapidly becomes the tonic; all of the disorganized
sound of the line resolves when the rime manifests.  People with a weak
ear for poetry listen only to these pitches and depend for the music on
unison.  (These statements are not meant as an attack on rime.)

Assonance: A somewhat more sophisticated ear will also crave and notice
non-riming assonance, but still have a preference for the mellifluous.
In the hands of a master versifier such as Chaucer or Swinburne,
astonishing musical affects can be achieved through the manipulation of
assonance, especially when set in harmony with rime and alliteration.
It is in fact a feature of Swinburne's verse (a very strong influence on
Pound) that the vowels are primary carriers of the harmony; consonants
tend toward the liquid, sibilant, or unvoiced (producing an
overwhelmingly mellifluous effect in most of his verse).

The consonants are the percussion section, and alliteration is a
foregrounding of percussion (though Swinburne plays his drums with brushes).

If listened to purely as music, these forms rapidly cloy, which is
probably why Pope was such a master of vowel-music (adopting
Saintsbury's terminology for want of knowing a better one).  By paying
close attention to the vowels one can add various levels of controlled
dissonance to verse, and derive a more complex music of pitch in the
line.  The tones are literally led by the vowels not, as I stupidly
proposed earlier this month, moving from the 7th to the tonic.  One may
even be able to execute diabolus in the scale, if one isn't afraid to.

To approach the condition of music, and to literally take verse into a
sung state, it's necessary to attend to more than assonance, rime,
alliteration, and rhythm.  To find an arrangement of pitches, i.e.,
vowel sounds, that (in conjunction with the widely recognized
manipulation of consonantal effects) perfectly render the emotional
content of the verse is the essence of Pound's instruction to Duncan.

B. Pitch/Rhythm

The separation of the idea of pitch from the idea of rhythm is directly
contrary to Pound's theory of Great Bass.  I don't know how I could have
been so ignorant as to suggest any such dichotomy in reference to his
instruction to Duncan.

C. The Spencer-Shelley-Browning-Pound Arc

If you don't feel like reading the "Faiery Queen", at least read in it a
bit with vowels in mind.  Then pick up "Prometheus Unbound" and/or
"Adonais".  (You can, of course, digress to Keats, Tennyson, and
Swinburne if you wish.) Then read just about anything from Browining.
Consider these in the context of Pound's vowel tone leading statement.

For that matter, why not read some Pound, maybe take a look at Duncan's
use of vowels?