The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1911-02-22
WHY GREAT SINGERS ARE
 SCARCE IN THIS COUNTRY
Well Known French Opera Singer Declares that Our Neglect of Piano Playing Is Responsible.

That the largest number of persons who can play the piano in Europe is responsible for Europe's amazing crop of opera singers sounds at first very paradoxical; should a pianist's name stand back of this statement the skeptically inclined would detect in it a desperate effort to promote the piano teachers profession.
 But the man who indulged in this apparent paradox is by his own con- fession a very mediocre pianist, all though very prominent in other fields of musical endeavor. He is no less an authority than Alfred Giraudet, for thirty years a singer at the Pars Opera, the creator of Mephistopheles in Gounod's Faust, Professor of Oper- atic Expression at the Paris Conserva- toire and at present head of the oper- attic school at the famous New York Institute of Musical Art.
 There was a time," the genial Frenchman said, "when I believed, as many Americans do, that there was some racial disability or maybe eli matic influences which would doom America forever to reach across the ocean for filling the casts of operas presented here. It was all nonsense!
 "I accepted call to this country as an experiment. without much en- thusiasm. and I shall come back next year with a good deal of enthus' 'asm, for I have found among my students wonderful voices, and I know there must be somewhere in the United which will be silent forever, The quarters of these budding songsters are terribly handicapped by the fact that they never studied piano playing, They lack facility in reading, they lack the rhythm, they lack the knowl- edge of tonality which European boys and girls acquire very young, at an age when it would be futile or detri- mental to sing.
 'I am amazed at the indifference girls, and especially boys, manifest toward instrumntal music. The Amer ican boy who can play an accompani- complishment. The result is that young men and women, who perhaps have voices worth cultivating do not discover that fact or discover it too late. after their voice has become harsh from singing ridiculous popular songs, or bowling in the college chor- us or otherwise. They cannot learn the melodies themselves, they cannot play their accompaniments and no one in their family can render them that service. Ignorant of the very first principles of harmony they sing out of tune, and many become dis couraged before having even tried to use their voice in a legitimate way
 Almost every proficient pupil of mine has been brought up in a musi- cal environment and could, if not ren- der difficult piano pieces, at least read any score.
 "The others might, in many cases, have saved their time and their money and my patience. Imagine the trying position in which singing teacher is placed when a young woman applies for tuition who has naturally a good voice, but has to be taught the notes of a tune as a par rot is made to memorize words, one at time.
 Lack of solid musical foundation makes a singer self-conscious and ex- pressOr1less. It is responsible to a marked degree for that horrible sen- sation known as stage fright which paralyzes the best singer and spoils his or her effects.
 "It is an unique experience to stroll along the streets of some European towns of a beautiful summer even ng From all the open windows come the strains of song. Members of the family take turns at the piano and many of those evenings of music at home have been the starting points of brilliant musical careers.
 Before even listening to pros- pective students voice, instructors in singing ought to greet the newcomers with the query: Can you, play the piano?''