BY MINNIE OWENS.
ANY one who has ever sat for hours upon the conventional piano stool, a kind of huge revolving mushroom, realizes how uncomfortable a seat ninety per cent. of the piano students must put up with. Why cannot the furniture makers provide us with a piano chair or a bench and then induce the piano dealers to sell such a seat instead of the present one, which gives us about the same feeling of security as we would get if we were compelled to sit on a huge top?
If the modern box spring seat can he used for other chairs surely a suitable piano chair or bench can he devised without great difficulty. At present I insist upon my pupils’ using the ordinary dining-room chair, but a chair with a box spring that would lessen the jar upon the spine would be a great improvement. The dining-room chair gives the pupil a feeling of definite position. The little one does not feel as though he were perched upon a tottering church spire. But it is after all a dining-room chair in a parlor and if my patrons were not good natured they might object to its appearance. What is needed is a real chair—not a little spindle-legged thing that will weaken after a little wear, but a sound, well built, artistically designed piece of furniture. The back is not altogether essential, but it has been found advantageous in some cases. The difficulty of altering the height is far more satisfactorily solved with sofa cushions than by means of the squeaking screw found in the average piano stool.
