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THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW
9
The Player-Piano and Its Desirability as an Aid to the Study of Music in
Public Schools—A Field that Should be Studied by the Trade—Profiting
by the Example of the Talking Machine Men in Exploitation Campaign.
A wide and almost untouched field is opened up
to the gaze of the trade promoter when he turns
his thought to the public schools of this country.
Within the past twenty years a vast revolution, not
less vast because silent, has been taking place in
the thought of the community toward the condi-
tions and scope of education as manifested in the
public school system. The rough-and-ready ideals'
of a time when the country itself was virtually vir-
gin territory have gradually given way before con-
ceptions more refined because more matured, wiser
because better founded. We have gone through the
earliest stage where the cultural ideal dominated but
could not be practically carried out, through the in-
termediate stage where the cultural could have been
carried out but was deliberately throttled to make
place for the severely specialized and practical, and
t) the stage where finally the values of the cultural
and of the practical alike are being seen in some-
thing like true perspective and an intelligent effort
is being made to take advantage of both in the
shaping of the child life.
Now, among none of the various directions in
which intelligent thought has moved has there been
so much real progress made as in that of promoting
the study of music. Much, it is true, remains to
be done before the people of this nation are awak-
ened to the real value of music study as an asset
in education. There still remains much of the old
contempt for cultural study, the old, easy manner
of sneering away everything that does not immedi-
ately commend itself as "practical.." To the thinker
this simply means limitation of thought. That is
to say, the man who believes that children should
be taught nothing beyond what is necessary to per-
mit them to extract a livelihood from a reluctant
world is living in the belief that society is not
ready to pay for talent. Society, however, is more
than willing. We do not need fewer educated
people, but more of them.
Still the kind of educated people we want are
educated democrats, people educated but not snob-
bish, cultured but also able to work and desirous
to do so. Such a race of men and women will
dominate the world.
Form of Culture the Race Needs.
Music, so we are all coming slowly to see, is a
formfof culture which the race needs. It is a form
of culture which is necessary to a well-ordered life.
The schools see that the influence of music study
upon the child is good, and so they are trying to
give children as much music as possible. Within
the limits imposed by the present condition of
public opinion and of school equipment they are
doing well.
But it is fairly clear that music appreciation can
only be made part of the general life of the school
when something like adequate means are provided
for the hearing of good music. The point about
music that must be understood by all is that, viewed
in the light of a science, music is a dry-as-dust
proposition, while as an art it is the most fas-
cinating thing in the world. Now, the child mind
does not want music if it finds that its natural in-
clinations to sing and dance are suddenly chilled by
a desolate prospect of exercises in scales and les-
sons in notation, not to speak of harmony and
theory in general. What the child mind needs first
is to hear a lot of good music, hear it constantly,
hear it so much and so often as to become alive
to its meaning, to its message, to become spiritually •
alive with its beauty. Children so brought up get
more out of life than any others. They are being
made acquainted from early life with the possibili-
ties of the beautiful, are learning what beauty is,
and are unconsciously undergoing a process of re-
fining, softening and of polishing that scarcely any
other study could give them, and none so pleasantly.
But this all means especially hearing lots of good
music. It means that above everything else.
This is a proposition to which every teacher will
agree. The practical difficulty has been to impart
such teaching in a manner that will involve the
practical requirement above mentioned. How are
we to get the good music constantly heard by the
child? Plainly, we cannot hire symphony orches-
tras to play in the schools, nor can we develop
bands of instrumentalists overnight. The piano is
our only hope, but where are the pianists, where
are the artists gifted to teach, where are the fine
players and fine teachers learned in musical history
and eager to teach the young mind all they know ?
Where are they? Certainly they are not in the
schools. Most of them, in fact, are in their studios
sneering at the player-piano.
The Player-Piano in the Schools.
Yet the player-piano is the salvation of music
teaching in the schools. No other instrument
comes anywhere near doing what the player-piano,
with all its faults, effectually can be made to do,
namely, give good music in abundance to all.
Now, the player trade sometimes complains that
the field of business is not increasing in dimen-
sions ; that the old ways of selling are too well
known, and that the player must perforce come
down to the level of the cheap upright piano and
be sold on terms and prices, not on merit. Have
they missed entirely the enormous field occupied
by the public schools of the country and waiting
only to be cultivated? Indeed, the harvest is there
ready to be gathered, if only one knew it. Every-
where education authorities are waking up to the
necessity of doing something in the cause of music
appreciation. If many of them are skeptical as to
the claims of the piano-player this is only because
they have heard such awful, performances on it as
to disgust, if not terrify, them. When the topic
is approached intelligently and when we undertake
to explain sincerely to such men the real facts about
the player-piano and show that we can back up our
talk with demonstration we shall have no difficulty
in selling player-pianos in the schools.
Talking Machine Men Busy.
and a progressive man. He has seen the necessity
for giving as much time as is available to pro-
moting the cause of musical appreciation among
the 3,000 pupils under his charge. So when the fur-
nishing of the school was being considered this
principal decided that he would have a player-piano
for his assembly hall, which is a magnificent con-
cert room in effect, seating the entire school. He
bought an A. B. Chase Artistano grand and in-
stalled it in the hall. Here the school music teacher
weekly gives little talks and demonstrations on
good music, -while at intervals the entire school is
treated to short programs of classical music, which,
by the way, in spite of what is generally supposed,
it may be said that they thoroughly enjoy.
Pupils Are Receptive.
The writer has been much interested in this
movement and some time ago had the privilege of
playing this very beautiful instrument before some
1,500 pupils of the night schools. He has also had
the pleasure and privilege of assisting the regular
music teacher to get the fine points of manipulation
so as to play the Artistano more musically. To cap
the climax, the writer has begun, the week that these
remarks are published, to give a series of music
talks on great composers before the singing classes
of the school, who number several hundred each
session. These talks are given as part of the regu-
lar school day, last forty-five minutes each and
consist partly of a short talk on each composer,
partly of the playing of some of his representative
compositions, with explanations and anecdotes ap-
propriate to the situation. To say that the young
people like it is putting it mildly; they are crazy
(as they say) over it. Last week the writer had
the privilege of playing upon this Artistano grand
before the entire school, an audience of 3,000 young
people, at general assembly. The following pro-
gram was rendered: Chopin, iballade in A flat;
Schumann, "Scenes of Childhood; Wagner, Tann-
hauser Overture (concert paraphrase by Liszt).
The thing only lasted forty-five minutes all told,
but every word of explanation was followed with
rapt attention and the music listened to breath-
lessly. It was one of the most inspiring occasions
at which the -writer has ever been permitted to
assist.
Do the talking machine men feel pessimistic
about the schools? Not at all, for they have gone
after school business intelligently. They have or-
ganized departments to promote school sales, have
gotten up systems for teaching music to school
children through the talking machine and have em-
ployed well-salaried promoters competent to deal
with school people to take charge of these depart-
ments. Have they succeeded? They have! Ask
any school principal about the use of reproducing
instruments for teaching music appreciation and he
will at once be enthusiastic about the talking ma-
chine, but more or less dubious about the player.
Partly this is because the talker does not need
operation, while the player-piano does. But mostly
it is because the one has been promoted and the
other has not.
The player-piano must be played, and played well
in these circumstances. But all large schools have
music teachers. Why cannot they learn to play
them? In fact, they can. Some already do play
the player-piano and swear by it, using it in their
work and finding it every day more useful. Let
us take a concrete example of this.
One of the finest high school buildings in Amer-
ica is that of the new Carter Harrison Technical
High School in Chicago. This institution is brand
new, having been opened only in September last.
Its principal happens to be a broad-minded man
Of course the piano had a lot to do with it, and
perhaps the performer had his share, too. But the
important thing is that the young people of to-day,
if taken at the impressionable age and before they
have had time to acquire a cheap cynicism, are
only too glad to hear the message of fine music.
School Authorities Are Now Awake.
And be it remarked that the school authorities
themselves arc getting to realize this and are fast
putting themselves into a receptive mood toward
any reasonable method for promoting musical cul-
ture. Nothing is so good for such work as the
player, for only the player is universal, is an imi-
tator and reproducer of everything in music. Let
the dealers think of this, let them know that if
they would give, each in his community, one-tenth
of the time to promoting good, straight, clean
propositions of this sort that they give to thinking
up ways to cut down prices and terms the result
in a year would be wonderful. Every schoolhouse
in the country is fair game to the enterprising
dealer.
Of course the manufacturers ought also to back
up the dealers. Suppose that the Manufacturers'
Association or the proposed new Chamber of Com-
merce took up a scheme of this sort and proceeded
to promote it, as the talking machine people do.
Would it be a success ? We are very sure it would.
Here is a new field. Let somebody get after it.