7 6 in detail in practice is a necessity for productive work. For instance, perhaps the pupil is directed to play with a looser hand, wrist, and arm ; he tries to do so but fails. Why ? Because notwithstanding he began loosely, he soon degenerated to the old habit of constricted tension, which would not have been the case had he loosened his muscles at the beginning of each measure, if it is a piece or etude, and if a scale, at the turning-points at each end—that is, as he ascends he loosens his muscles ; also when he begins to descend. Then, too, he is to make a business of this one thing, play for loose-ness. This putting off things shows itself in neglect to consult the dictionary or encyclopedia, or to read mus-ical works at hand. But, worst of all, is the fatal lack of practice in families where there is no set and fixed hour for daily practice—an hour which is held sacred to music. THE subject of music is always an interesting one to the musician, and is becoming more so to the dilettante. Music has come to stay ! You believe it ? What are you going to do with it ? Is it of any practical value to mankind ? What is the nature of this value ? Is it in-tellectual in its scope or merely emotional ? Once begin, and the questions are endless in their coming. If music has come to stay, should we not make the most and the best of it? WE means everybody—e. g., music in the home, in the school, in the concert-hall, in the sanctu-ary, in our hearts. Aye, no wonder it has come to stay ! We meet it everywhere. Why should it be exiled when it plays such an important part in every phase of life ? It will never be exiled, for it is more and more being recognized as a great factor in culture and art. IT is odd that the word nervous, in English, has two entirely opposite meanings. When we say of an author that he has a nervous style, we mean that it is strong ; when we say that we feel nervous, we mean that our nerves are weak. The sensibility to outward excitation in the nerve-substance is a sign of life, but if this sensi-bility becomes greater than a certain degree fixed by the fiat of nature, it is a sign of disease. Trembling of muscles, irritability of emotion, a tendency to run into eccentricity, all with slight provocation, are signs of enfeebled and deranged nerves. No one in the world— not the general commanding a battle, not the watch-maker, not the surgeon dealing with life and death, not the painter—should have a steadier nerve than the per-forming pianist. Your body is as much your instru-ment as is the piano before you and under your fingers. You must take care of it like one in training for ath-letics, and the laws of pure air, cleansing water, good, moderate, well-cooked food, properly taken, gentle, regular, well applied exercise, abundant sleep, and total freedom from the corrosions of vice are as necessary to the musician as to any man in the world. The alcohol viper, "th e serpent of the still," as Hawthorne calls it, is a dread enemy of the executive, the didactic, and the creative musician. As to coffee, the opinions of physi-cians differ. One virtuoso, Eugen d'Albert, is against it and even against meat. So stanch a vegetarian and total abstainer is he that when a gorgeous banquet was once given to him at the St. Nicholas, in Cincinnati, by forty-two of the musicians of the city, he touched neither wine, nor coffee, nor meat. WE would call attention to the notice in regard to the next meeting of the Music Teachers' National Associa-tion, to be held in Cincinnati, O., in June. President Gantvoort and his corps of officers are hard at work, and report that the prospect is thoroughly encouraging. We repeat again what we have said before, that the Association is worthy the financial support of a member-ship fee from every teacher in the United States, and the personal support of attendance from every one who can possibly go to Cincinnati at that time. —Finding fault with a fellow-musician is only a roundabout way of bragging on yourself. TH E ETUD E Roman' s Morf c i n Atomic . WO^E^i RS TEACHERS. MBS. CLAEA A . KOBN. As it is generally conceded by progressive people that women produce the best results in music teaching, it would seem at first as if this matter required no further discussion. Why is it, though, that they instruct so well, when their actual knowledge is frequently limited ? There are manifold reasons why women should be more successful pedagogues than men in the training of young people ; as, setting aside all questions of nature and temperament in the female sex, there is the broader issue of the earliest training of womankind. Girls are taught from infancy to make much of small things. They are exhorted to be fussy in the care of their clothes, to be squeamish in point of morals, to be particular about good manners, and, in fact, to observe carefully every minutest detail in the development of their char-acter and education. In a boy, almost everything goes. He is restricted in the most vital requisites, but, in general, is allowed full scope in the growth of his animal qualities. A boy may yell and scream because "boys will be boys," but a girl who yells and screams is " shocking." A boy may damage his trousers with impunity, because it is averred that the most spirited and "wild " boys produce the best men. A girl, however, whose skirts habitually come in aggressive contact with nails and fence-rails is a tomboy, and deserving of the severest censure. When the mother of the household feels indisposed, the girl child is expected to be solicitous about her physical comfort, whereas the fond parent is quite satis-fied if her boy inquires periodically as to her welfare and runs the errands. Housekeeping is, in itself, an aggregate of little duties. The perfect housekeeper is not the one alone who can bake a sumptuous pie and set an exquisite table, nor the one who can produce ravish-ing gowns with her own hands, but it is she who has also a searching eye for the stray speck of dust that will languish in the unobserved corner, who will see to it that the kitchen stove is peerless in point of polish, whose beds present an uncrinkled aspect of downy cov-erings and clean counterpane, and whose windows are bright and not streaky. As it is the average mother's ambition to train her daughters into good housewives, she teaches them almost from birth to be observant of trifles and to be painstaking in their care. It stands to reason, then, that when a woman feels called upon to devote herself to music teaching, this habit of Umsicht, as the Germans say,—this seeking for small imperfections with a view to their better-ment,—will manifest itself in her life-work, and will prove a great advantage to her. She will see instinc-tively all the tiny pitfalls into which the young student is bound to stumble, and will be patient in assisting the novice into safe channels. She will be kind in manner and gentle in explanation, and not too lofty to dilate a number of times on questions that prove difficult of comprehension to her young charge. Women, by virtue of their early education in self-control, are very rarely given to exhibitions of violent temper in teaching ; and the point that is more impor-tant still is that no subject seems to them too small for serious consideration. The average man is striving from boyhood to achieve one decisive aim—all side issues are trivial to him. This makes him a noble creature, but a poor teacher. WOULD it not be a good idea for our club managers to try to get letters from the prominent women artists, such as Melba, Nordica, Mme. Eames, Fanny Bloom-field Zeisler, giving some of their ideas on the work which clubs might do, and on the special fields which women should take up? The experiences of these women, most of whom attained their present high posi-tion only by dint of hard, persistent, and unstinted de-votion to the art they had chosen, should be replete with the most valuable suggestions for the young and ambitious students who are members of clubs through-out the country. No matter how talented one may be, no matter how great be the energy which one may have, no matter how intense the enthusiasm with which one may throw himself into his chosen field, the experiences of others who have sought and attained success give the bases for real, successful work. By reading what others have done and have suffered, one becomes in-spired and strengthened, is guided over obstacles and helped through difficulties. We throw out this sugges-tion to the officers of the various clubs. THE local committee for the coming biennial session of the Federation of Music Clubs, to be held in St. Louis, May 3d to 6th, will provide entertainment for all delegates, including officers, directors, and chairmen of committees. For visiting members arrangements have been made with hotels for special rates. The West End Hotel, $2.00 to $3.00 per day, American plan; Beer's Hotel, $1.00 per day, European plan ; Grand Avenue Hotel, $3.00 per day, American plan, are all very con-veniently located. The list of clubs belonging to the Federation has been very greatly augmented of late, and a wide-spread in-terest and enthusiasm is noted. A notable feature is the application for admission by the Liebling Club, of Rockford, 111., which consists of forty children between the ages of ten and fourteen. This club is now in the third year of its existence, and makes its special province of work the stimulation of an interest in good music and true art in the younger members of the community. Every club in the Federation is invited to send a rep-resentative. A BEADING of the "Members' Book " for 1898-99, published by the Amateur Musical Club of Chicago, gives a great deal of interest. Miss Katherine D. Kriegh, 304 N. State Street, is the Secretary. The work of the club is divided into three parts: General Concerts, representing the best talent of the club, to which all members are invited ; Active Member Concerts, alter-nating with the General Concerts, at which a short pro-gram is given, papers are Tead with discussions, and refreshments served; Artists' Recitals. Among the specially notable programs of the past season we note these: On " Beethoven's Fifth Symphony," with illus-trations, by Mrs. Theodore Thomas ; on "British Song Composers," by Mr. Wm. Armstrong ; on " Wandering Ballads," by Mr. H. E Krehbiel; a recital by Henri Marteau, the violinist, and Mr. Walter Damrosch's lectures on "Tristan and Isolde" and " Parsifal." The Club has an active membership of 231, with a total of 484. ONE of the women teachers of Nice, France, believes that she has found a way to dispense with sharps and flats in musical notation, by using seven lines for the diatonic succession, the intervening spaces being used for the other notes which make up the chromatic scale. Thus C, D, E, F, etc., will each be represented on a line, C-sharp or D-flat, D-sharp or E-flat, coming on the spaces. It is, perhaps, not too much to say that it is doubtful if the system will find favor. All music is printed in the accepted notation, and a radical change is not likely. Still, our present system is the result of a very gradual growth, and we have no right to assume that Yankee ingenuity and German plodding earnestness may not work a change for the better, and toward a desirable simplicity. LEBANON, MO., has an active club which does not restrict membership to women. There are between thirty and forty members in the club. A glance at the programs shows, however, that, as in church work, the women are doing the largest share of the work. It may be that in some of the smaller towns the women who have the interests of music have hesitated to attempt the organization of a club for fear that a large enough membership could not be secured. There is no reason why a musical club should be restricted to women alone in such a case. Better a club composed of both women and men than none at all.
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