The Kansas City sun. (Kansas City, Mo.) 1908-1924, 1916-07-01
A. Jack Thomas, Bandmaster, U. s. A

More than two centuries of conttin-
uous constructive progress have been
required to bring music in America to
its present state of scientific develop
ment, for time alone can produce men
of genius and inspiration necessary to
produce great art. OF all the arts,
music is admittedly the last to devel-
op in any given civilization; but one
would hardly be justified in inferring
from this that the degree of perfec-
ton exhibited in the music of any
given nation depends necessarily on
the higher or lower state of civiliza-
ton to which that nation has attained.
Composers, like poets, are the chill
dren of their times, and are greatest
when they most wildly reflect the
dominant spirit of their race and age.
AS a race of Afro-American people
we have al eminently original and
constructive faculty. This is strong
ly marked, and when the rapid civil
izing and developing processes, which
we are o undergoing. shall have
given us more leisure and broadened
III perceptions to the extent of en-
abling us to see in the cultivation of
the arts in general, and of music in
particular, one of the noblest fields
for the exercise of human energy, we
can confidently hope to see the Afro
American composer take a place in
the world of music commensurate
with that which has been won by the
late 9 Coleridpe -Tavlor
The true problem of a treatise on
Art may be thus expressed:
That it should transmute the most
thorough and comprehensive knowl-
edge of art into the consciousness
and sensibilities of the student, and
Immediately incite her or him to art
istic activity.
Neither abstract knowledge nor
technical instruction can ever secure
artistic culture, or even prepare the
way for it; both are opposed to the
essence of Art; and it is the foult of
the old teachers that they have not
/ risen above this unartistic tendency,
or been willing to depart from it. As
the achievement of the artist born of
his own free, truth-pervaded mind, is
not an abstract thought, but an en-
bodied spirit, united in as intimate
and inseparable a unity as the soul
and body of man, so must the science
of Art continually strive after the
most living and impressive truths,
from which it should lead the way to
holder and more joyous achievements.
BoBth, however, should be accompa-
MED with that certainty, reposing on
the convictions of experience, and
that ardent desire for new achieve
ments and progress, which, in my
opinion, are the conditions and char
acteristics of a true artistic life.
This principal, in connection with
contemplation on the essence of Art,
matured by observation and artistic
activity from an early youth, strength
ened by a view of the historical de-
velopment oof Art, and by the grow
ing appreciation, of the most intelli-
gent and continually enlarging expe-
rience-this principal is still my law.
That the interchange of theory and
practice, of law and liberty, of form
and essence, of melody and harmony
still, as formerly, called contraries,
though in reality united-may become
more living, animated and fertile of
results, was my principal aim in the
work forthcoming.
l would gladly offer to younger
teachers (also such matured one who
will be benefitted) or to such as have
not yet had opportunity for extensive
experience, aan intimation of my
method of teaching; certainly not
with the presumption of being able to
say anything new or important, but,
as a duty, unassumingly to impart
what / have to others of my race.
Precisely here, howver, is the insult
ficiency of all writing to supply the
place of immediate intuition most
strongly felt. Not books, but life ed
ucates; and only when life is quick
ened and wrought on by life can
books perform their mightiest and
most beneficient office, namely, to
unite the experience an intelligence
of many lives; to give support and a
rallying point, so that every isolated
existence-always most limmited in
its immediate activity in relation to
the whole-may not forever perish;
that every worker, unadvised and un-
questioned by the mute past and pres
ent, may not be forced either to be-
gin his or her task anew, or follow
in the gloomy path of transmitted
usage, in order to be not wholly with
out support. Often and long enough
has the want of this reciprocal action
of doctrine and life in our artistic
science made itself most painfully
felt. There are those among us who
are obliged to see teachers attempt
ing, with words and books, to form
artists or connoisseurs, while theil
W examples proved them to b.
wanting in the least skill for compo
! sition; and, IN the other hand, Their,
| are composers who venture to neglect
if noto treat with disdain, every peda
! gogic, psychological, or other assist
ance, even to explain the science o
own skill in execution. The forme
are easily recognized by their defic.
ency; not so the latter, unless the,
! may be classed under the category @