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THE
AUGUST 13, 1-921
MUSIC TRADE REVIEW
13
OuiTECHNICAL DEPARTMENT
CONDUCTED BY WILLIAM BRAID WHITE
MESSIG TELLS THE TEACHERS
Being Some Observations From an Eastern
Gentleman on the Genus Music Teacher and
the Habits Thereof—Dedicated to Long-suffer-
ing Tuners Whose Patience Merits Reward
The gentleman from Brooklyn who sets forth
the trenchant observations which follow might
be supposed by some to be a little hypercritical.
As for that, the judicious reader must do his
own judging. I shall content myself with put-
ting the matter forward. After all, this is Sum-
mertime, and for ten months at least in every
twelve I am feeding the most serious of serious
matter to my readers. Now for the present
week let us have a little comic relief. It will do
us all lots of good. Here goes :
"Dear Mr. White:—You run the Technical
page in order to get tuners together and keep
them busy among themselves. Now, all our lec-
tures and experience do not alone get us business
when we see a piano in need of tuning, and we
find that the people themselves do not under-
stand when it is out of tune. I wish to empha-
size the fact that in order to get a thing done
there must be a right beginning, or a desire
created. It is all right enough that a tuner has
to be a salesman to get a job of tuning, but when
he has to explain his head off and get a sore
throat trying to make people understand that a
piano is out of tune when the teacher says it
isn't, I think that tuner might just as well sit
down.
"But from another point of view: A tuner
ought not to be obliged to appear as if looking
for a job. So I think that the following idea is
wonth your consideration.
"We all want to boost tuning. To do this we
shall have to teach the music teachers how to
test tuning, and show them (with the dead
ears they all have) how to realize that when one
or two octaves are out of tune the piano itself
is actually getting out of tune.
"The music teachers will be believed by the
people when they say that a piano is in tune.
DEAGAN TUNING FORKS
even after they have 'tuned it' themselves or
sent some '50-50' tuner. But that is not doing
the piano any good.
"I should think that the tuners would be
glad to contribute to a fund to spread better
knowledge. If you, Mr. White, would get up a
small but effective note to the teachers and in-
sert this in the magazines which are read by
music teachers that would do some good. It is
no good talking about these things just in our
magazines. You must put it up to the teachers,
even if you only get a sign put up in every
music publisher's store.
"You know, I think there is not a music
teacher's piano in the country right now that is
in good tune. Most of them are rotten, even the
action.
"It may be all right for a good mechanic to
work with rusty or broken tools, but with music
it is different. You cannot eat bum food, and
how can you listen to bum music? There is
something about out-of-tune music that makes
you wonder what is the matter; but if the
teacher says that it is all right, why, of course,
say the people, it must be so.
"The teachers are afraid that if the people
spend money on the piano they will lose a lesson
or two, so they are not at present a great help in
bettering the condition of music. If a teacher
really loved music instead of something else he
or she could not sit right next to a piano out of
tune and listen to it. How can any one say
whether it is the fault of the pupil or not when
things go wrong in an out-of-tune piano? But
let it go at that, say they, the child only wants
to be a teacher and not a musician. Please print
all of this article, as it does us tuners good to get
wise. We ought to work together, like doctors,
not like peddlers. Your brother tuner, George
Messig, Brooklyn, N. Y."
Mr. Messig Is Severe
Mr. Messig is severe. In fact, he is really too
severe, and I am not sure that his letter would
merit quotation in full, despite his anxiety lest
1 mutilate it, if there were no other interest
attached to the matter. But when he says that
tuners need waking up to the fact that public
apathy is induced largely by the ignorance of
those who ought to know better, then he tells the
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truth. The subject is important and interesting
to us, and I shall be forgiven for saying some-
thing more about it here.
Professional music in the United States is
almost the same thing as the profession of
music teaching. Besides the few orchestral
musicians and quartet players, the few singers
and the few instrumental soloists who prefer,
and are so placed in public esteem that they
can afford to devote their entire time to self-
cultivation and improvement, the musician is
compelled to teach. Even composers have to
do something of the sort if they are not to
starve, unless they are fortunate enough to have
independent means. Nor are the business musi-
cians exempt from this rule. Of course, the
greater number of these men and women are
conscientious souls who work very hard upon
difficult and extremely tough material for a
pecuniary return which is nothing like what it
ought to be in respect of size. That there are a
great many persons teaching piano and other in-
struments who ought not to be doing so is un-
doubtedly true; and the reason is economic.
Competition, unrestrained and extremely fierce,
leads, in the lower ranks, to wickedly low prices.
The music teachers are unorganized, narrow-
minded and without solidarity. Therefore, they
are exploited. Which, in reality, serves them
right.
The Narrow-minded Profession
Hence we find, of course, a low level of pro-
fessional attainment in the rank and file, and
gross ignorance as well in every branch of
knowledge outside the elements of the science
and art which they profess to teach. Seeing
that thousands of children are reluctantly forced
to go through weekly hours of torture because
it is thought right for them to play some instru-
ment, and not at all because there is any genu-
ine love of music in the family, it is easy to see
where the low-grade commercial music-teacher
comes from—mainly from young women who
regard the work as more pleasant than working
in a store or an office, and who know just
enough to "get by," as they would put it. Why,
therefore, should any one expect any recondite
knowledge from them? Is it to be expected
that they should know or care whether a piano
is or is not in tune?
Educated Bad Taste
The truth of the matter is that if all pianos
could in some way have been constantly kept in
good tune from the earliest days till now the
public ear would be so accustomed to perfection
that no deviation from it would be tolerated for
a moment. As it is, of course, the precise oppo-
site has been the case. The public ear has grad-
ually become so accustomed to imperfeetion
that it neither thinks of, nor cares for, anything
else. It has become the sad truth that a spe-
(Continued on page 14)
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