The Wilmington daily Republican. (Wilmington, Del.) 1890-1902, 1892-12-28
MUSICAL CULTURE.
WELL MEANING HINTS, BUT NOT
TOO KIND FOR, THE AMATEUR.

Music Is H,micidaI and suicIdaI-It De-
YOURS Its Own Children and Stays
Itself - Radical Changes Concerning
Instruments and Sex. .
As speech to thought, as pictorial art
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 a 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 unconscidusly.
But the great majority need kind of
acclimatization before they can breathe
and move freely In an element more or
less strange to them, and this acc lima
tization is what we know as musical
culture" .......... ......
Most people have some latent musical
faculty, and this is capable of develop
ment. Tho notion has at any ratP died
out that it was effeminate for a man to
play the piano and impossible for a
woman to play the violin. 1t is not so
long since, in the upper classN NO girls
education was considered even approx
mately complete without large mount
of piano forte drill-music it shall not
be called-while certain proficiency in
this respect was too often held to atone
for the absence 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 day fol
fddiers. Boys now and then learned q
little of the instrument at school,
knowledge soon to be dropped ard for
gotten. The difference now scarcely
needs to be pointed out. Boys and girls
In numbers. and not few who hre nc
longer boys or girls, are learning to play
on the violin and other stringed instru
ments. The discovery has been made
that, though virtuoso must begin early
it is not necessary to practice huff the
day at four or five years old in order tt
be good useful player at twenty.
Ensemble classes and school orches
| tras show that on our amateurs the trutl
Is at last dawning that unlimited sole
performance is not the ultimate aim O
| 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 b.
of any use singly, may result in an eff
feet which is not only good, but great
SO long as music, not self display, is tn
object sought after.
1t may be roundly stated as genera
truth that musical study proclailns itsel
on the housetops, without ceasing for a
instant to assert itself in the garrett, in tn
basement and at sundry inteTmediat
points. The students friends assist n
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 fo
them if two or three such dramas are nc
going on In the house at once, TO sa
nothing of probable puffs of me ody an
harmony from next door or over the way
That the character CT musical practic
is far superior to what itused tobe avai
these helpless ones but little.
To them it is an insignificant fac
compared with the fact that for ever
victim of coercion who formerl y pount
ed wiry piano for couple Of hours
day there now are dozen students I
various instruments and singers galor
all practicing away for dear life. Shou
s any link be missing in the continuol
chain of sound, it is filed up by barr
organs, street bands, wandering ball'
) singers. solos on the whistle and 9th
q peripatetic instruments.
f Good, very good, no doubt. The m
steal crusader looks on the work Al
congratulates himself, There must
e means to all end, Music requires N
= chincry, and the machinery f1r music
being brought into most forward sta
Of efficiency. But the music itse
whence in the future Is that to con
The "enraged composer and his troub
= have long been favorite theme for
efforts of humorists. Yet THO fact Il
comically represented is no joke, and
the present condition Of things it tire
ems to resume ugly proportion s.
Music is homicidal, suicidal 1t
yours its own children and Stays it's
Silence, the absence or cessation
musical sound, ia an absolute necess
for musical thought. But putting
che side the troubles Of composers, v
= after all are comparatively few and
- between, the born poor things! to
Ishmacls, their hand against ey
eli man and every mans hand agai
them, what ON the rest Of he world
tho effect Of this unceasins, often Inc
\ gruous sound2 1t is easier to conpl
III than 10 cure, and far easier TO point
these evils than 10 suggest any effect
is remedy for them.
If architects and builders would t
into consideration the diffusion Of no
and would do something to make W
and partitions music proof it would
A much There are contint ntal to-
" both in France and Germany wi
practicing is prohibited BY law, ext
f., at certain stated hours. For a Ia
ell, aud enyiable portion of mankind
remedy against the evil lies in get
- used to musical sound, and so un,
= scious of it.-Nineteenth Century,
noanitals in London,