News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1895-01-24
THE STUDY OF MUSIC.
Shall Children BE Made to Study Music
Talent or No Talent?

Talent or No Talent?
In the matter of music children may |
be divided into three classes-those who |
have ability and industry combined,
those who have ability without industry,
and those who have no native ability
whatever. 1t is with the last two that
tho problem has to do. For the children
of gift and energy smooth path Is
clearly marked out.
Some Of tho most rarely gifted chill
dren are determinedly lazy i'll early
youth. Such musical natures are re-
sponsibility too often let go to shipwreck
because of want of proper insistence that
they shall work. Parents make up their
minds it is no uso to drive them; that
despite all their ear and taste they can
never be made to do anything Efforts
on their behalf are relaxed just at the
very point when little strength OF
authority might have secured proper
development of tho child's powers. 1t is
an absurd decision that all children des-
tined to become anything i'll musical
way will have the natural disposition to
work. More than half probably will not,
and one Of the most miserable Of art
cruelties is perpetrated in overlooking
their musical possibilities simply be-
cause they are idle. Such children
should have their path imperatively
chalked out for them, and it should be
seen that they walk it. If they show
an aptitude for any particular instru-
ment, they should be made to practice
it, not to q strict degree at first, but by
steady stages until it ceases to be Ia
Dor. To impose on their little ardent
natures too severe a technical ground all
at once is perhaps as disastrous as utter
neglect would be. They must be care
fully handled Systematically. Let child
who has the capacity to work up be-
tween lessons three etudes but hates and
breads to do it, be given one instead.
There now como the children who are
apparently without any talent, who
can hardly detect the difference between
one tone and another. One of two things
is usually done with these-either, hav-
ing no talent, they are put under
pressure of study to constrain them to
| develop one or after brief trial they are
given up as entirely hopeless. The best
method of dealing with these children
is seldom resOrted to and lies midway
between. Away far down in the most
tuneless child's nature there may lie
germ of music unsupported by every
body else and undiscoverable to the
- 4 n
passed tho ago of studS This little
germ can DO killed outright in early
youth, and when it is killed it is usual
ly the piano that does it. If all chill
dren, talent or no talent, were instruct
ed in early youth in the theory of music,
were grounded in the figures of nota-
ton Just as they are in the figures CT
arithmetic, at whatever period of life
this little germ disclosed itself, they
would be able to encourage it by their
technical knowledge, instead of feeling
that it is too late, and altogether use
less, because they are theoretically ig-
norant of music.
There has rarely been child born to
) whom an education in rhythm and the
| GIOEU VI tHO IlllO w COuIuOl III u9AO"A
mathematics have not proved of imme-
diate help even i'll other branches. All
children should receive at least this, If
productive of no present results in the
field of music itself, innumerable cases
,, of precedence 90 to show that there is
no possible foretelling when it may be-
come productive. Many taste has been
known to blossom in young people attel
hearing q number Of operas and con
certs, and the ear has unexpectedly beer
{ opened to the beauty in variety of tone
{ Take the child of no talent, teach il
e theory if only as good mental exer
} else, and teach it rhythm II only as al
s aid to harmony in poise and movement
n then let tho car come if it will, there
t will be method, of use also i'll other di
e rections, ready to support it. Under II
s circumstances can it be we'll to neglec
this theoretio musical education, which
o never taxes tho patience as does a use
r less and monotG nous practice, and whici
J. will prepare tho child, should musica
d environment develop talent later, t.
r utilize it from the first The abov
e voices tho opinions Of some Of the hes
It musical authorities as reported in Har
l. per's Bazaar