For Every Music Lover | Page 8

in every normal
human breast. Shakespeare indicated this truth when he had his
Lorenzo, in the Merchant of Venice, say:
_"The man that hath no music in himself, Nor is not moved with
concord of sweet sounds, Is fit for treasons, stratagems and spoils; The
motions of his spirit are dull as night, And his affections dark as Erebus;

Let no such man be trusted."_
It is not the normal soul, fresh from its Creator's hands, that is fit for
such dire evils, but the soul perverted by false conditions and
surroundings. Where vice has become congenial and the impure reigns
supreme, that which rouses and expresses noble aspirations and pure
emotions can find no room. Normal instincts may also be dulled, the
inner being made, as it were, musically deaf and dumb, by a false
education which stifles and dwarfs the finer feelings, or by
circumstances which permit these to remain dormant.
The emotional natures of human beings differ as widely in kind and
degree as the intellectual and physical natures. In some people
sensibility predominates, and the irresistible activity of fancy and
feeling compels the expression in rhythmic tone combinations of ideals
grasped intuitively. Thus musical genius manifests itself. No amount of
education can bring it into being, but true culture and wise guidance are
needed to equip it for its bold flight. "Neither diligence without genius,
nor genius without education will produce anything thorough," as we
read in Horace. Other people with marked aptitude for musical
expression have reproductive rather than creative endowments. To
them belongs talent in a greater or less degree, and they are adapted to
promulgate the message which genius formulated for mankind. Talent
may be ripened and brightened by suitable environments and fostering
care.
There are besides persons led by genius or talent into other avenues
than those of the tone-world, and the great public with its diverse
grades of emotional and intellectual gifts. The cultivation of the
æsthetic tastes is profitable to all, and no agency contributes so freely
to it as music. Too many people engaged in purely scientific or
practical pursuits have failed to realize this. In those nations known as
musical, and that have become so through generations occupied with
the art, music study is placed on an equal footing with any other worthy
pursuit and no life interest is permitted to exclude musical enthusiasm.
Unless disabled by physical defects, every one displays some sense of
musical sound and rhythmic motion. It is a constant occurrence for

children, without a word of direction, to mark the time of a stirring tune
with hands, feet and swaying motions of the body. A lullaby will
almost invariably soothe a restless infant, and most children old enough
to distinguish and articulate groups of tones will make some attempt at
singing the melodies they have often heard. The average child begins
music lessons with evident pleasure.
It should be no more difficult to strengthen the musical instincts than
any other faculties. On the contrary, it too often chances that a child
whose early song efforts have been in excellent time and tune, and not
without expression, who has marched in time and beat time accurately,
will, after a period of instruction, utterly disregard sense of rhythm,
sing out of tune, play wrong notes, or fail to notice when the musical
instrument used is ever so cruelly out of tune. Uneducated people,
trusting to intuitive perceptions, promptly decide that such or such a
child, or person, has been spoiled by cultivation. This is merely a
failure to trace a result to its rightful cause, which lies not in cultivation,
but in certain blunders in music study.
These blunders begin with the preliminary course on the piano or violin,
for instance, when a child, having no previous training in the rudiments
of music, starts with one weekly lesson, and is required to practice a
prescribed period daily without supervision. To the difficulties of an
introduction to a musical instrument are added those of learning to read
notes, to locate them, to appreciate time values and much else. The
teacher, it may be, knows little of the inner life of music, still less of
child nature. Manifold perplexities arise, and faltering through these the
pupil acquires a halting use of the musical vocabulary, with other bad
habits equally hard to correct. A constant repetition of false notes,
wrong phrasing, irregular accents, faulty rhythms and a meaningless
jumble of notes dulls the outer ear and deadens the inner tone-sense.
Where there is genius, or decided talent, no obstacle can wholly bar the
way to music. Otherwise, it retreats before the blundering approach.
Many a mother when advised to direct her child's practicing, or at least
to encourage it by her presence, has excused herself on the plea that it