That is the one great danger of self-study. You must have some sort of guide. The best, of course, is a good teacher— barring that, a paper like TH E ETUDE , or a library of the right kind of musical books. It is the aim of TH E ETUD E to guide many students who have not the privilege of a good teacher along the right road or as near the right road as possible. There is no way in which this can be accomplished better than by studying the lives of other great masters, especially those who were strongly auto-motive. These you will find over and over again in TH E ETUDE , and if this journal gives you nothing else but that, it will prove an immense aid. Let us turn for a moment to the career of that most remarkable American of his times—Benjamin Franklin-r-who, of all men, was among the most auto-motive. Fortunately, he has left us in his own autobiography some idea of how he worked. Stu-dents of the English language often point to Franklin's clear-ness, directness and simplicity of style as a model. Franklin tells how he got a copy of the third volume of The Spectator (Addison and Steele) and studied and studied and studied this work, imitating it time and again, making his own conclusions. Really, it would pay any music student to get hold of a copy of that remarkable autobiography and see how Franklin worked, even when no longer a young man, to improve him-self in the language in which he eventually became a master. Is the Waltz Dead ? ETUD E readers know Dr. Oskar Bie through his masterly History of the Pianoforte. In a recent article in the Sang und Klanz Almanch he foresees the death of the waltz in the onrush of the modern dance, which he in turn infers is merely an in-terpretation of the times. "The tendency (Bild) of the dance has changed more in recent times than that of any other art," says Dr. Bie. "The dance is one of the most powerful forms of expression of our times, because it offers the freest channel for expression." He then indicates how the dance is so intimately related to the other arts: "It gives motion to the plastic arts, grace to the pantomimist, meaning (Inholt) to music, and to paint-ing thousands of changes of position and costume." "An epoch has just ended in one form of society dances. The waltz is dispatched to oblivion. It ruled supreme for one hundred years, from the end of the eighteenth to the begin-ning of the twentieth centuries. It belonged to the romantic period of the simple, pretty steps of couples who moved lightly and gaily around the ballroom. It was the most complete ex-pression of the unperverted, erotic relationship of the. sexes in the conventional bonds of society." Then Dr. Bie goes on to tell how a whole train of dances from South and North America have dismissed the waltz, not merely from the standpoint of supplanting it with different steps, but bringing in a different mental attitude, brought about by the times. "As the minuet was representative of the feudal culture which preceded the French Revolution, so the waltz is representative of the period of romance which we have just passed." We have always had a great respect for the judgment and critical wisdom of Dr. Bie, but we feel very strongly that he is utterly mistaken about the waltz and the end of the period of romance. It is easy to perceive how anyone living in Germany during the past five years of suffering and privation would become pessimistic, but, Dr. Bie, romance will never die; the world of men and women still is a world of beauty, trust, con-fidence and nobility. Do not be deceived by the cosmic fog which has enveloped the times. It will rise and God's sunshine will once more smile for all mankind. Pure, exalted romance, the romance of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett, of Robert Schumann and Clara Wieck, and thousands and thousands of other happy, "genuine" young folks the world over will be just as true and noble in the future as in the past, and with it the dance of romance—the waltz— will become more widespread in its use. Friends in Art MAN Y of the most beautiful friendships in history are those made under the spell of art. The thought that one is working with one's companions toward a common goal, will-ing to make the sacrifices that art demands, willing to find just as great jo y in the triumphs of friends as in your own, brings about one of the most ennobling bonds given to man. Liszt and Chopin, Schubert and Vogel, Robert and Clara Schumann, Mendelssohn and Sterndale Bennett, Verdi and Boito, Mendelssohn and Hensel, Paderewski and Ernest Schel-ling, Grieg and Percy Grainger—all friendships that have brought beauty to the life of the friends as well as to art itself. Musicians are supposed to be hopelessly jealous of each other, to be incapable of working together without coveting all the glory and fame that should come to both. This is true of the little musicians, just as it is true of petty men the world over. If you would know the measure of a man's soul, this is a wonderful test. Can one know the real joy of working in his art without some fine, close friend to share the delights? Art is rarely solitary. It requires sympathetic companionship. If you are wasting your days without friends you are not getting all from your art that you should. Make friends. Barriers THE student of Greek, Hebrew, Russian or any other lan-guage which has an alphabet different from the Latin letters used in writing English, experiences at first very great diffi-culty in acquiring the alphabet. At first it seems as though an impassable barrier had been erected. Then suddenly it all seems to pass away and progress becomes rapid. Music is full of such barriers. The first that the student encounters is the simple trick of making the right hand move in one direction while the left hand moves in another direction. This is no sooner dismissed than some other barrier c.rops up. Success is largely a matter'of how many barriers one has the persistence to surmount. What is the barrier ahead of you now? Are you passing it in good season, or are you waiting for it to get out of the way? It never will get out of the way—you will have to pass it. Dominating Teachers ANYON E who has done no more than even very fragment-ary reading of the modern works upon psycho-analysis knows the danger of trying to dominate a young child. Yet there are still many teachers of music who imagine that good teach-ing consists in making the youngster understand that the teacher is a kind of pedagogical Caesar, whose every move-ment must be watched and obeyed. Such teachers are merely gratifying their own desires to rule and advertising them-selves as pedagogical incompetents. The good teacher's main thought is that of leading the child to develop himself. Except in the case of a child with very unruly or recalcitrant disposition it is never desirable for the teacher to even attempt to dominate. When we have heard certain teachers command-ing—yes, fairly roaring out corrections to their pupils, we cannot help smiling and remembering the case of "Captain" Jack Bonavita, possibly the greatest lion-tamer of history. Bonavita would enter his den of twenty-seven full-grown lions, put them through their outlandish performances, concluding with a tableau in which he lay down on a heap of them. During the entire time he was in the huge cage he never uttered a word of command. Yet a teacher will bellow at some sensitive pupil who has merely put the thumb upon a black note. We have little patience with people who have uncontrollable tempers, especially teachers of this kind. Mr. Benno Moiseiwitsch tells of Leschetizky's classroom explosions. Leschetizky was a great teacher in spite of such perform-ances—not because of them.
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