Music Trade Review
Issue: 1931 Vol. 90 N. 11 - Page 4
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GROUP PRACTICING IN
WAREROOMS OF GLEN
BROS.
MUSIC
CO.,
OGDEN, UTAH
Throw Open Piano Stores to
Piano Students—
Says John Erskine
T is the young piano student who does his studying and
practicing in company with fellow students, preferably
in the warerooms of a piano dealer, who gets most pleas-
ure and profit out of the instruction and finds it least
irksome. This is the declaration made by John Erskine,
president of the Juilliard Musical Foundation and a member
of the board of control of the National Bureau for the Ad-
vancement of Music, in an illuminating' article in the Sunday
magazine of the New York Herald Tribune of October 18.
On previous occasions Mr. Erskine has seen fit to cham-
pion the cause of the piano and piano study for the masses
in no uncertain terms, but unquestionably the most construc-
tive of his suggestions appears in the Herald Tribune article
when he shows the way by which piano dealers can lend
their assistance to the cause in a manner to help both them-
selves and the student.
Mr. Erskine heads his article, "Play for Your Aunt," and
draws a picture of the terror experienced by the average
youngster upon receiving such a request. He brands the
practice of giving individual instruction to youngsters and
forcing them to practice by themselves as being a little short
of barbarous, and calculated to make the child dread rather
than enjoy his lessons. The answer is in starting the student
off at once under a system of public study and practice. In
this connection, the writer says:
"How long would he enjoy baseball if you compelled him
to practice the game alone, as a kind of solitaire? Half the
fun of any sport is contact with one's fellows. The vitality
of an art is in its contact with an audience. You don't
know how to express yourself in words until you can reach
hearers or readers; you can't really paint until your design
and color say something to others; you haven't learned to
sing or play unless, without the collapse of your nervous
system, you can permit someone to hear you. Aunt Martha
is Tommy's public. In what way has he been trained to
make use of her presence or to enjoy it? * * *
"Tommy, I take it, belongs with the majority of young
piano students—he has a private teacher, his talent is modest,
THE
MUSIC
TRADE
REVIEW,
November,
1931
GROUP PRACTICING IN
WAREROOMS OF GLEN
BROS.
MUSIC
CO.,
OGDEN, UTAH
Throw Open Piano Stores to
Piano Students—
Says John Erskine
T is the young piano student who does his studying and
practicing in company with fellow students, preferably
in the warerooms of a piano dealer, who gets most pleas-
ure and profit out of the instruction and finds it least
irksome. This is the declaration made by John Erskine,
president of the Juilliard Musical Foundation and a member
of the board of control of the National Bureau for the Ad-
vancement of Music, in an illuminating' article in the Sunday
magazine of the New York Herald Tribune of October 18.
On previous occasions Mr. Erskine has seen fit to cham-
pion the cause of the piano and piano study for the masses
in no uncertain terms, but unquestionably the most construc-
tive of his suggestions appears in the Herald Tribune article
when he shows the way by which piano dealers can lend
their assistance to the cause in a manner to help both them-
selves and the student.
Mr. Erskine heads his article, "Play for Your Aunt," and
draws a picture of the terror experienced by the average
youngster upon receiving such a request. He brands the
practice of giving individual instruction to youngsters and
forcing them to practice by themselves as being a little short
of barbarous, and calculated to make the child dread rather
than enjoy his lessons. The answer is in starting the student
off at once under a system of public study and practice. In
this connection, the writer says:
"How long would he enjoy baseball if you compelled him
to practice the game alone, as a kind of solitaire? Half the
fun of any sport is contact with one's fellows. The vitality
of an art is in its contact with an audience. You don't
know how to express yourself in words until you can reach
hearers or readers; you can't really paint until your design
and color say something to others; you haven't learned to
sing or play unless, without the collapse of your nervous
system, you can permit someone to hear you. Aunt Martha
is Tommy's public. In what way has he been trained to
make use of her presence or to enjoy it? * * *
"Tommy, I take it, belongs with the majority of young
piano students—he has a private teacher, his talent is modest,
THE
MUSIC
TRADE
REVIEW,
November,
1931
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