Activity is essential to success. He who stops, stagnates, and, like a piece of machinery, rusts to his death. If one stops, nothing is done; if one moves, something must be done. When a person engaged in music says he can find nothing to do and remains idle for any great length of time he is of no value to himself or music. The field of music is so great that there is always something to do, and nothing in which one engages will be unproductive of good. We all like to see the direct return in something which adds to our comfort or wealth as the result of every effort, and think the activity which brings no apparent pay is wasted. That is short sighted. Every effort pays in some way at some time, provided that it is honest and is directed by good motive. Anything, even if it pays only in experience, is better than stagnation.—Vocalist.
ATTENTIVE STUDY.
There is no royal road to the attainment of musical knowledge. Sometimes men have become rich on a royal line, because riches are sometimes inherited and subject to speculation. Not so with musical knowledge, for it is not subject to the laws of inheritance. It is an individual attainment, not transmissible, and is the result of personal application, research, and musical study.
There are very few, if any, persons who have attained great proficiency in the art of music who have not given ample time and careful study to it.
He who would become master of the divine art must himself first become a subordinate subject, and advance only according to the principles which govern a successful issue.
Study, practice, research, flavored with enthusiasm and seasoned by stick-to-itiveness, will make music of more than mediocre interest to you, and make you more than a mediocre master of it.
Musical knowledge and expert proficiency in the art pay handsome life-long dividends on the time spent in acquiring the same.—Record.
EQUALLY EFFECTIVE FOR THE PIANIST.
Silence during a song may be more effective than singing itself. Often it is necessary to give time for some expression to take effect in the minds of the hearers. Deliberately pause at such time. The contrast becomes in itself impressive. Generally, it is not well to begin the music which follows silence after the manner of that which preceded it. Silence, in most cases, becomes a dissociating element between two musical expressions.
We say that music is an instantaneous art; that the painter may erase and change to suit his taste, and finally leave his work on the canvas to be admired, while the singer must apply his art instantly and has but an ever fading memory on which to impress it. True, but he has resources which the painter and sculptor lack. Silence is such. Skillfully use it as an embellishment in art. Have you never tried it? Then try it now. One may captivate an audience by little effects which are perfectly right and proper to use.—Vocalist.
