Music Trade Review

Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
THE
ffUMCT^ADE
V O L . LIX. N o . 2
Published Every Saturday by Edward Lyman Bill at 373 Fourth Ave., New York, July 11, 1914
SING
$ 8 E OO C0 P P EE\EAR. ENTS
When A Musical Education Should Begin.
RE the men who are interested financially in the manufacture and vending of pianos doing
as much as they should to promote musical interest throughout the nation?
^
Should there not be a greater effort manifested on the part of piano merchants in
their respective localities so that music will occupy a larger portion in the education of the
young than it does at the present time?
The musical child of to-day is sure to become the piano prospect of to-morrow; but leave out
the musical education and the sales possibilities decrease in a like proportion.
Of course, this is putting it on a sordid commercial basis, but this is a commercial age. I am
not saying what music does for the nation in inspiration, and in everything which makes for human
greatness, but I am simply arguing for a moment on the strictly business side.
A man who is interested in selling pianos should be willing to give some of his time with the
object in view of assisting towards the musical education of the children of to-day, so that they may
acquire a knowledge and love for piano playing as the years roll by.
When a child commences to learn music, the music hunger grows apace, and every boy and
girl can always find a large share of personal enjoyment in piano playing. No one need ever pass
a lonesome moment who can play even with mediocre ability. So the men who devote some of
their time and energy to educational purposes with the object in view of stimulating a greater
musical interest on the part of young Americans, are working along lines which will logically
increase the business possibilities of the musico-industrial forces, and will add immeasurably to the
total sum of happines of the whole people.
There is no denying the fact that we need a musical education to make us appreciate music;
and who should be more interested than the men whose business future depends upon the musical
education of the masses? Just a keener appreciation of music, if you will.
To the average untuned and non-technical person who knows only when the band plays that
it is music that is being played, is music a real pleasure or is it a problem? That question was
asked the other day.
A critic asks: "Is high-class music an inspiration, or is it an abstruse proposition amenable to
mathematical calculation?" Answering the question he says: "Can you tell me whether poetry
is an inspiration, or can be constructed by mathematical calculation, by meters and rhymes;
whether pictures may be painted by mastering the geometrical rules of perspective and the optical
theory of color effects, or whether the expert use of rulers, compasses and tables of strains and
stresses and board measure is enough to call into being the cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous pal-
aces and the solemn temples that architects have scattered over the earth since man began to build."
There is no uncertainty as to how real composers reach their public and grasp enduring fame.
They know after experimenting and theorizing that no music is any better than it sounds. You
may not know what a composer is driving at, but his melody will win you if he has any. If he is
short on the melody, the divine or inspirational element of music, and long on harmony, which
is the earth-born and mathematical end of the game, his composition is nothing but an experiment
or problem, and leaves you cold.
Rules are made by the masters and not the masters by the rules.
When Reethoven was told that consecutive fifths, with which one of his compositions bristled,
A
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