Albuquerque morning journal., 1921-12-29

spent for music six hundred million
dollars a year, or approximately
thirty dollars family, and yet we are not
considered a musical people. Thirty-eight
per cent. of this six hundred million dollars
was spent for musical observation-disclosures
on different kinds of instruments. One
and one-half per cent. was spent for music
that is in book or sheet form and the rest
went for concerts and various other forms
Of musical entertainment To-day we spend
more than billion year.
The phenomenal increase of the use of
the phonograph within this last decade has
swelled the total figures to about double
what they were ten years ago. 1t has also
changed the proportion of the expenditure.
A much smaller per cent. is spent for musi-
cal instructions particularly by the aver
age family In these busy years youth has
no time for anything so mild as taking
piano lessons or learning to blow cornet
The traditional lessons which every son
and daughter must take" have almost dis
appeared. Most of us are mere listeners,
and perhaps in some ways 1t Is we'll that
we are.
Music is essentially social art. It had
its beginnings with the people, It was a
natural pastime, the expression of COM
mon feeling. Group singing to-day is in
teresting because each person is engaged
frr-the same activity and all share its pleas
ure. Singing when you are by yourself is
done to keep yourself company and not be-
cause you enjoy your own voice particu-
larly.
Group listening is social in its effect,
just as group singing is, but not to the
same extent. You can go to concert by
yourself and enjoy it thoroughly, but few
of us would elect to go to theatre alone.
To be sure you enjoy music very much
more when you listen with some one else
who enjoys it. The great role of music
in the church service is to arouse the So
cial spirit in the congregation quite as
much as to arouse the emotional attitude
Of worship.
Very few of us, relatively speaking,
choose music as vocation, and those who
do are too numerous for each to make
respectable livelihood. A few more choose
II as an avocation. The days of the old
singing school are practically past. We
must hunt out some remote rural district
where real community spirit exists un-
forced to find the sort of gatherings where
each man and woman sings with all his
heart and with all his strength and enjoys
it in the same degree. A few such places
are still to be found Even /, and / am far
from old, remember visiting AN old fash
ioned singing school, where the singing
master beat out the time with heavy
hickory ruler and gave the pitch on a
wheezy old organ, which was invited to
play. But how everybody did sing, and
what a good time everybody had! One
must search long and earnestly to find
these delightful events. To-day most of
us are hearers only.
People Don't Know Themselves,
Saying They Are Unmusical
Don't tell yourself and your neighbors
that you don't know anything about music
and are therefore not affected by different
kinds of music. Never tell them that you
hate 1t, that 1t disturbs you or that 1t bores
you. The chances are that you don't know
yourself as we'll as others do. Few people
do Above all don't tell your friends that
you like only one kind Of music and don't
want to hear anything else He will know
that you are musical dyspeptic.
Measurements have been made OF the
effect of various kinds of music on the
rate of heart beat, the pulse and on respirar
tion. These effects are not dependent upon
the amount of musical training you have
had. They are physiological responses to
A. IN fhnea
physiological effects there are certain
psychological effects which we commonly
speak of as feelings or emotional effects.
The people who say they know nothing
about music are often affected just like
the others. Music has similar effect on
both musical and unmusical people.
Some time ago the Edison Phonograph
Company created considerable stir by put
ting out mood and music chart. At first
1t was looked upon as fantastic notion.
Some of us thought that it meant nothing.
In other words, that it was sentimental
bunk" and that we only imagined what
we wrote down as effects from the music.
Others felt that, by divine inspiration, we
had been introduced to some supernatural
phenomenon. 1t is neither. 1t is merely
HedHS VI uclHouotIotiu6 ehc LaSt IhoS
music does have definite effect, and that
different kinds of music can thus be COM
pared It's chief purpose has been to get
people to think about music in relation to
themselves, and 1t has accomplished this
end admirably. The vast amount Of data
from the mood change charts are being
studied at the Carnegie Institute of Tech
nology at Pittsburgh. 1t is not intended
that this analysts of the effects Of music
upon the moods of the listener shall in any
way be interpreted from therapeutic
viewpoint. 1t is not our purpose to sug-
gest music as a substitute for medical
treatment or even as prominent aid to 1t.
Recently revival of interest in the use
OF music In connection with certain kinds