The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1906-08-22

IN a trenchant article In Appleton's for
September, John Philip Sousa, the
March King, strikes from the should
er at automatic music. He says in part:
"sweeping across the country with the
speed of a transient fashion In slangs or
Panama hats, political war cries or popu-
lar novels, comes now the mechanical de-
vice to sing for us song or play for us
a. piano. in substitute for human skill, in
telligence and soul
.sThere are more pianos, violins, guitars,
mandollns, and banjos among the work
ing classes of America than in all the
rest of the world, and the presence OF
these instruments in the homes has given
employment to enormous numbers OF
teachers who have patiently taught the
children and Intoxicated love for music
throughout the various communities.
Fright here is the menace in machine
made music! The first rift in the Lutte
has appeared. The cheaper of these in
struments of the home are no longer be-
ing purchased as formerly, and all be-
cause the automatic music devices are
usurping their places.
And what is the result? The child
becomes Indifferent to practice, for when
music can be heard in the homes without
the labor of study and close application,
and without the slow process of acquiring
a technic it will be simply question OF
time when the amateur disappears en-
tirely and with him host of vocal and
instrumental teachers, who will be with
out field or calling.
"A recent writer in the London Specta-
tor believes that tho exclamation of the
little boy who rushed into his mothers
room with the appeal: % mamma, come
into the drawing room; there is man
in there playing the piano with his
hands, is far less extravagant than many
similar exercises into the domain of
humorous and human prophecy He states
from observation, that music has been
steadily declining in Great Britain as
factor in domestic life, and that the In
PRODUCTION of machine made music into
the household is largely helping to assist
In the change.
"Under such conditions the tide or
amateurism cannot but recede, until there
will be left only the mechanical device
and the professional executant. Singing
will no longer be a fine accomplishment;
vocal exercises, so important factor In
the curriculum of physical culture, Will
be out of voguel
''Then what of the national throat? Will
II not weaken? What of the national
chest? Will it not shrink?
when a mother can turn on the phono-
graph with the same ease that she. APP
mill oh
her baby to slumber with sweet lullabys,
or will the infant be put to sleep by ma
chinery?
1.-THE country band. with its energetic
renditions. its loyal support by local mer-
chants. its benefit concerts. band wagon,
gay uniforms, state tournaments, and the
attendant pride and gayety, is apparently
doomed to vanish in the general assault
on personality in music
I'm the prospective scheme of mechan-
ical music we shall see man and maiden
in a light canoe under the summer moon
upon an Adirondack lake with a grama-
phone caroling love songs from amid
ships The spanish cavalier must aban-
don his guitar and serenade his beloved
with a monograph under his arm.
"Shall we not expect that when the
nation once more sounds its calls to arms
and the gallant regiment marches forth.
there will be no majestic drum major, no
serried ranks of sonorous trombones, no
glittering array of brass, no rolling OF
drums? In their stead will be huge
photograph, mounted on a 100 H. p auto
mobile, grinding out The Girl Left
Behind Me-, Dixie and The Stars and
Stripes Forever
How the soldiers bosonas VIII swell at
the thought that they are being led into
the strife by a machinel And when In