The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1916-09-12

+ born poets, they may also be born mu-
/ sicians and also, very similarly, that as 80
per cent of humanity soses all poetic
faculty during the years of early child
hood because of the artificial conditions
Of modern child life. so the very large
majority Of children lose their native
musical ability through lack of training
of the ear and mind during their most
susceptible period. Education should come
to the help of heredity to reclaim and
develop mans natural gift.
We are all born with ears and they are
formed for hearing as the eye is Tor see
ing; they are, moreover, capable OF near
ing far more and better than they are ae-
customed to doing. We carry them
around with us everywhere, but we really
pay very little attention to them we let
our children speak in a slip-shod, mus
tinct way and we listen carelessly. we
leave good talking and singing to the pro
fessional musicians and orators, Whlca is
Just as unrea sonable as to leave good see
ing to the professional artist ana poet
we are only just beginning to learn what
the normal ear is capable OF, for instance
in the matter of positive pitch--that IS,
ability to recognize and name musical
tones BY proper training this power may
be acquired, speaking very conseryatlVely'
by 50 per cent of normal children Chl-
dren who have been thought to be entirely
lacking in musical ability, some of them
apparently tone-deaf, after few months
of training are able to sing center r. on
demand and to recognize 1t when 1t Is
played or sung and they soon become
equally familiar with the other musical
tones.
Some children will of course, not az
duire positive pitch as quickly as others.
There are children who do not so easily
learn to write English from dictation asl
others; but do we therefore allow them 10
give up and say that they cannot be
taught? BY the time he is 10 or u, any
normal child can learn to write correctly
from dictation 500 words or more.
Now, taking every white and black key
on the piano there are only So. Given
fair chance and mind unmesmerized by
the idea that reading music and positive
pitch are difficult and require special
gift, child may as easily see mentally
the sign for any sound as he sees the
words that he hears you dictate to him
in English.
That the results of music study have
hitherto been so meager is due to paren-
tai Indifference and the faultiness of the
methods of teaching music. Teachers
have insisted that the child should not
be allowed to play the piano by ear,
claiming that this will ruin his musical
ear and make reading by sight Impossible
Fancy mother fearing that if her child
speaks English first by ear, he will never
learn to read i'll AS music is primarily
an art making it's first and greatest 1p-
peal through the ear it is unreasonable
to suppress the interest and initiative
which naturally appear first through the
ear and then, later on, by laborious ear
training lessons to try to get back the in
terest and power which we have ignored
e tod xnF n a
child's life.
Time and again, as I have said. have
taken children from families where there
was apparently no musical ability and
where the child himself was supposed TO
be utterly deficient in music. The stu
dent of heredty. I fear. would unhesitat- !
ingly have set down such child as nom
musical because of failure to inherit the
Yet this child, after being
educated in a natural manner has ac- !
quired positive pitch, has learned to
compose. to express his own feelings mu-
sically, and to analyze compositions which
would BATTLE many teachers.
The value of learning music is not In the |
number of pieces one may play. but in
the musical thoughts one can think. Real
music is self-expression and far from !
making the child self-centered, it should |
make him most sympathetic of the efforts
reverie or dream. has the keenest appre- !
ton of real composer
Every human being feels at sometime !
or other the need of music. but this nlu- I
sic which he needs is not the artificial
substitute which has usurped the place Of
the real thing. Music can be to each only |
what he is capable of hearing, feeling and
Therefore, when one sits |
at the piano and plays Beethoven SON
alta which one cannot think, cannot an |
alyze cannot mentally hear-plays Xxx
actly in the manner of the herr professor |
-one is exemplifying the parrot in music
and this is an unsatisfactory accepting !
of the unreal for the real, which gers us
nowhere Man is not the sum total of
his words, but of his thoughts, and It be-
hooves us to stop copying words, words
in music and to begin to think and to ex-
press ourselves y
An eventful occasion of the past week
was reception given by Dr. and Mrs.
It. w. Palmer on Thursday evening att
their home in Montevallo in honor of