THE ETUDE JANUARY, 1920 Single Copies 20 Cents VOL. XXXVIII , No. 1 The Psalm Singers Three Centuries Ago EVER Y now and then some musical wiseacre points out that we cannot possibly be a musical people because our Puritan forefathers abhorred music. Then this pessimistic thought gets the impetus of print and it is passed on from musical club to musical club like a row of tumbling dominoes. Papers are read upon it and club members yawn and nod and seem pleased to have it settled at last, one way or another. As a matter of fact, that famous voyage of the "May-flower" was made endurable for many of our forefathers because there were "several musicians aboard." We have this on the written word of one of the voyagers. Picture yourself, if you can, starting out to spend the winter in an unknown uninhabited country, where death lurked and all life was to be a terrific struggle. You are to spend weeks in a little vessel crossing the North Atlantic in October. Wouldn't you have blessed these musical folk who, from the quaint speckled pages of Ainsworth's Psalter, sang those cour-age-giving words of God, first sung by King David. The music heard at such a time must have swung itself into the soul of the nation. They were beautiful hymns of Inspiration. Let no one cavil at our musical beginnings. "Palma Non Sine Pulvere' "Don't expect the palms unless you can put up with the dust of the race," that is, in substance, what the old Latin proverb means. The dust of the race in musical success is often fine, penetrating and very disagreeable. It is impossible to make it enjoyable at times no matter how much some enthusi-astic optimists may prate about it. Once we asked a great pianist how he came by such pearly scales—scales that were the admiration of thousands at his recitals. "Easily," he replied, " I came by my pearly scales through playing about one hun-dred miles of them a year for ten years." Piano technic is ths race track upon which the races are run. The trouble is that so few are ever willing to even try to raise the dust. Strike a New Pace PAC E is a habit. You can mope along at a slow speed or you. can quicken your step and form the habit of going twice or three times as fast until you have established a new pace by habit. The change may be made in one or two weeks and if you have any life purpose worth while which enables you to fill your time you will find that you can get over twice as much ground with hardly any more perceptible effort. Progress in piano study or almost any other kind of study may be accelerated in much the same way.' Of course nothing should be sacrificed for thoroughness, soundness or accuracy, but many students are what the actors call "slow studies." They have never attempted to speed up and strike the pace enabling them to 'keep up with others in the great race. The result is that they never "get there" or that they get there so far behind all their competitors that they are virtually failures. What New Year thought can we give you better than the conviction that pace is a habit, and that it lies within the province of almost everyone to strike a new pace—do things a little better, a little quicker, so that he may have more time for real leisure and more opportunity to help others in the world. Music in Politics THE jollity of "Trial by Jury," with its melodious plain-tiff, defendant, jury and judge, has amused thousands. Gil-bert's inimitable wit and Sullivan's jingling tunes are hard to forget. Naturally, the European cartoonists have had a happy melee in picturing the musical Premier of Poland, Mr. Pader-ewski, but Mr. Paderewski is by no means the first musician to hold an important State post. As long ago as 1696, the Abbate Steffani, an able composer and one time the Court organist at Munich, and later Capellmaster at Hanover, became a fine diplomat and ambassador. In tlie youth of Bach and Handel, Steffani's operas were considered second to none. His orches-trations were very rich for the time and church music was very highly regarded. Yet this musician and priest (later a Bishop) was considered one of the most astute statesmen of the day. The present Lord Mayor of London, Sir Edward Cooper, is an enthusiastic musician. For over twenty years he sang in the choir of St. Paul's Cathedral. He is chairman of the Royal Academy of* Music, Vice-President of the Royal College of Organists and Master-elect of the Musicians' Company. Lloyd George, the greatest of British Premiers, the brilliant, patient, tactful English master of the situation during the whole war, is a devoted lover of music. He reads the tonic-sol-fa notation readily and loves to sing the tenor part at Welsh gatherings. To be Welsh and not to love music, is as inconceivable as to be Italian and not love chianti. Music Education for the "Masses" A supERCiLLious British essayist once wrote: "America is the only land without Masses," this upholstered brick inti-mating that having no masses we could not possibly have any aristocracy. Such a state of literary snobism is detested quite as much in England as it is in New York. In America we all like to feel that we are akin to both the masses and to the aris-tocracy, and thank the Lord most of us are. We find our aristocracy in the masses. Taking America by and large— excepting the little social cesspools of our large cities—the aristocracy of brains and honest work is still the basis of our economic society. This is also true in England, and the great broad spirit bred of the war, makes the mother country more democractic than ever. The working men and women of England—that is the real workers who honestly want to work and rise by their work, are "strong" for education. The Workers'' Educational Association in London, for instance, has accomplished wonder-ful things. Its interesting field includes music and the arts. It has 14,697 members, and is constantly growing. It conducts classes, study circles, lectures, educational propaganda, etc. The London Musical Herald in commenting upon this profitable work notes that "The essentials of a college or a university are neither land nor buildings, but groups of students associating together for purposes of study under the tuition of competent teachers." This is merely another way of expressing, the oft-quoted remark about the great New England educator, Mark Hopkins, " A log, with Mark Hopkins on one end and a student on the other, is in itself a university." The following is the classification of workers among the 3,000 and more music students receiving instruction under the "W . E. A.," as it is called in London: Clerks and telegraphists, 626; teachers, 308; textile, 235 ; domestic, 193; engineers, 177; shop assistants, 160; miners,
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