The true northerner. [volume] (Paw Paw, Mich.) 1855-1920, 1886-07-01
Home beginnings in Musical Taste.

The being brought up in q musical
atmosphere is the first prerequisite of
musical culture. Some minds may re-
veal their musical talent later than
others, but for all it is essential that
they live in place where there is "mu-
sic in the air. :" This is the case every
where throughout Germany and Aus
tria, and explains why the Germans
are 30 vastly superior to all other ma
tions in musical taste and skill. In
Berlin, for instance, hardly an hour
passes without giving residents an OPP
portunity to hear military band
marching down the street and, besides
the numerous cheap concerts and ope-
ratio performances, there are, on every
pleasant evening, dozens of open-air
free concerts connected with the res
taurants. Young children cannot very
well be taken to regular concerts where
absolute silence is imperative, but at
open-air concerts the music is not so
ethereal and classical as to be married
by an occasional childish exclamation.
The concerts for young people given
by Theodore Thomas In New York
have shown, however, that children of
five years can observe a silence in the
presence of good music which adult
audiences might occasionally initiate to
advantage.
Where opportunities of this kind for
becoming familiar with good music are
wanting, the voice and the piano in the
parlor have to supply the deficiency.
A mother who can sing a cradle song
has q gift of amusing and soothing her
child which is often superior to toys
and narcotics. An! if, somewhat later,
she can get the child interested in sim
pie German or Italian melodies sung
or played on the piano, the germ may be
laid of taste for which the child will,
when 1t grows up, be always grateful.
Nor is it at all difficult to get children's
attention for good music, providing it
is sufficiently simple and melodious.
But although with good compositions
and an expressive performance a child's
attention may be directed to music, it
seems to be popularity of young
folks that they much prefer playing by
themselves to listening to others.
Whistles and toy trumpets are too
noisy and unmusical to be desirable
in the house; but music-boxes are
harmless and entertaining to children,
especially if they are allowed to wind
them up themselves. Many a child's
love of music is crushed in the germ
because it is obliged to play stupid
scales on the piano for months before
anything amusing is given 20 it. What
the child wants, and should have first
of all, is a few simple tunes. If these
can be taught to birds, why not to
children? A piano is somewhat too
complicated, and a mouth harmonica
too monotonous and unartistic, for
young child; but in any toy-store may
be found several musical toys on which
simple melodies can be played. One
of these, which is also used in orches-
tras, is the glass or metal harmonica,
or the xylophone, on which any child
may be taught to play melody after
few trials; and it requires but little
time to get them interested in such
little toy which will teach them melody
and rhythm, leaving harmony for
later time. Much amusement may also
be provided by making simple kind
of Kolian harp, which is done by
fastening a long horse-hair or thin
thread to two nails, and placing it,
frightened, below a slightly opened
window. Whenever there is a strong
draught the tones produced will run
up and down harmonic scale in a weird
and fascinating way.-He11ry Z. Finck,
in BdbyhOod.