Arizona republican., 1892-11-20
MUSICAL CULTURE.
WELL MEANING HINTS, BUT NOT
 TOO KIND FOR, THE AMATEUR.
Music Is Homicidal and Suicidal-It De- yours Its Own Children and Stays Itself - Radical Changes Concerning Instruments and Sex.

to external nature, Is practical music to music the element. And for this out ward and audible art form music is de- pendent on human mediums, and those human mediums require certain prepa- ration to fit them for the reception and the transmission of their message. To some people. in whose natures musical sympathy is strong, this preparation comes easily and almost unconsciously. But the great majority need kind of standardization before they can breathe and move freely in an element more or less strange to them, and this acclima- | tizaaion is wLat we know as musical culture"
 Most people have some latent musical faculty and this is capable of develop ment. The notion has at any rate died out that it was effeminate for a man to play the piano and impossible for a woman to play the violin. It is not so long since, in the upper classes, no girls education was considered even approxi- mately complete without large amount of piano forte drill-music it shall not be called-while a certain proficiency in this respect as too often held to atone for the abse ce of all other culture.
 The violin on the other hand was held to be good only for men; perhaps we should restrict the term and say for fddlers. Boys now and then learned | little of the instrument at school-a knowledge soon to be dropped and for gotten. The difference now scarcely needs to be pointed out Boys and girls in numbers, and not few who are no longer boys or girls, are learning to play on the violin and other stringed instru- nlents. The discovery has been made that, though virtuoso must begin early, it is not necessary to practice half the day at four or five years old in order to be a good useful player at twenty. | Ensemble classes and school orches- | tras show that on our amateurs the truth | is at last dawning that unlimited solo performance is not the ultimate aim of all music training; that while only gifted few can attain to high individual excellence and finish, the combination of many atoms of good, too small to be of any use singly, may result in an ef- feet which i, not only good, but great, so long as music, not self display. IS the object sought after.
 It may be roundly stated us general truth that musical study proclaime itself on the housetops, without ceasing for an instant to ass, Tt itself in the garret, in the basement and at sundry intermediate points. The students friends assist at every stage of his progress; they are in voluntary and mostly unwilling partici- pators in his difficulties, his perseverance, his triumph and his despair. Well for them if two O. three such dramas are not going on in the house at once, to say nothing of pi 'bable puffs of melody and | harmony from next door or over the way. That the chg acter of musical practice is far superior to what it used to be avails these helpless ones but little.
 To them 1t is an insignificant fact, compared with the fact that for every victim of coercion who formerly pound- ed wiry piano for couple of hours a day there now are dozen students of various instruments and singers galore, all practicing away for dear life. Should any link be missing in the continuous chain of sound, it is filled up by barrel organs, street bands, wandering ballad singers, solos on the whistle and other peripatetic instruments.
 Good, very good, no doubt. The mu- sical crusader looks on the work and congratulates himself. There must be means to all end. Music requires ma chinery, and the machinery for music is being brought into most forward state of efficiency. But the music itself, whence in the future is that to come? The "enraged composer" and his troubles have long been favorite theme for the efforts of hu. orists. Yet the fact thus comically re. resented is no joke, and in the present condition of things it threat ems to resume ugly proportions.
 Music is homicidal, suicidal. It de- yours its own children and stays itself. Silence, the absence or cessation of musical sound, is an absolute necessity for musical thought. But putting on one side the troubles of composers, who after all are comparatively few and far between, the born poor things! to be Ishmaels, their hand against every man and every mans hand against them, what on the rest of the world is the effect of this unceasing, often incon- gruous sound? It is easier to complain than to cure, and far easier to point out these evilS than to suggest any effective remedy for them.
 If architects and builders would take into consideration the diffusion of noise, and would do something to make walls and partitions music proof, it wculd be much. There are continental towns both in France and Germany where practicing is prohibited by law, except at certain stated hours. For a large and enviable portion of mankind the remedy against the evil lies in getting used to musical sound, and so uncon- scious of it.-Nineteenth Century.