The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1903-05-17
TEST OF A MUSICAL EAR.
Useless to Waste Time on Those Who
Can't whistle Correctly.
washington Post.

washington Post.
''The fact that I was never able to whis-
tie a tune correctly saved my dad many
dollar and spared me many a useless hour
of hard work when 1 was a boy said a
middle-aged Washingtonian. Il grew up
over In old Georgetown, and when 1 was a
boy or nine my father got 1t into his head
somehow or another that l should learn
how to perform on the violin. That was a
short time before the civil war. My sisters
were all being educated In music two of
them on the piano and another on the harp,
and my father determined that 1, the only
boy, should not go without musical train
ing, and he chose the violin for me.
"At that time there was living In George
town a brilliant Irishman, man Of SUI
perior education and accomplishments, who
gave lessons on the violin, of which he was
as perfect master as ever / heard per-
form. He was some sort of a political refu-
gee, and he disappeared from Georgetown
as mysteriously during the war as he had
arrived there. To this man my father took
me when he decided that / should take up
the violin. The Irishman. handsome. pre-
maturely-gray man, with a bluff way of
speaking, sized me up, and then ne said
to me:
II was abashed; but l told him that
thought I could.
ANY sort of a tune that you KNOW
We'll, | puckered up my lips and went
ahead; Ben Bolt was popular AIR , on the
The Irishman listened until l had finished.
and then, shaking his head, he turned to
my father. 80 r
should be imposing upon your credulity as
we'll as upon your generosity If L accepted
this boy of yours as violin pupil. for he is
absolutely lacking in a musical al. ear ;n,,raa
How do you make that out?' inquired
my father, bit miffed.
Because said the Irishman, he can
not whistle correctly. That Is the very best
test of which 1 know anything. A boy. or
girl, or man, woman, who cannot whistle
q plain tune properly, without cluttering
the piece with false notes, has no business
to attempt to learn music-it is sheer idle
ness. Proper whistling is of the ear. OF
course, but it is instructive, and 1t infalll-
bly, denotes the musical sense. The boy
who whistles incorrectly will never learn to
play correctly, no matter how much teach
ing he gets, nor how hard he works. He
may master the mere mechanics or play.
ing, but ne can never oevelop the mus'cal
sense, which Is innate, inherent, Unborn. l
charge, you know, 81 for violin lessons
Well, 1 could take this boy and go on
teaching him, but | should be doing you
wrong and subjecting the lad to needless
and hopeless endeavor. / never knew the
whistling test to fail. Your boy would
never learn how to play the violin even
acceptably.
1.-The mans frank and nonsordid way of
expressing the matter convinced my dad or
his squareness, and he thanked the Irish
man for his candid judgment and brought
me away.
There is no manner of doubt that that
Irish violin teacher was correct in his opin-
ion. applied the test to my own large
family of children when they were growing
UP. When they reached the age at which it
was proper to start them off in music.
chose the ones that. according to my wife's
opinion, could whistle a simple tune with
perfect correctness could not act as judge
myself, because not only can not whistle
a tune properly, but 1 can't even judge
whether anybody else is whistling an air
correctly. Those of my children whose
whistling performances were SO grotesquely
inaccurate that my wife had to put her
fingers in her ears after they began to
whistle, decided to give some other ac-
complishment than music and those that
could whistle correctly / had take up vari-
Gus instruments; and until they all went off
and got married, 1 had a houseful of pretty
clever musicians