THE ETUDE Summer Activities of the Music Teacher By Mrs. Noah Brandt Page 45J+ JULY 1920 "Debussy! Ah, what a rare genius—my greatest friend in Art! Everything he wrote we went over together. He was a terribly exacting master. Few people in America realize what a transcendent pianist he was. The piano seemed to be thinking, feeling, vibrating while he was at the keyboard. Time and again we went over his principal works, note for note. Now and then he would stop and clasp his hands over his face in sudden silence, repeating, 'It is all wrong— it is all wrong.' But he was too good a teacher to let it go at that. He could tell me exactly what was wrong and how to remedy it. When I first sang for him, at the time when they were about to produce Pelleas and Melisande at the Opera Comique, I thought that I had not pleased him. But I learned later that he had said to M. Carré, the director: 'Don't look for anyone else.' From that time he and his family became my close friends. The fatalistic side of our meeting seemed to interest him very much. 'To think,' he used to say, 'that you were born in Aberdeen, Scotland, lived in America all those years and should come to Paris to create my 'Melisande!' "As I have said, Debussy was a gorgeous pianist. He could play with the greatest delicacy and could play in the leonine fashion of Rubinstein. He was familiar with Beethoven, Bach, Handel and the classics, and was devoted to them. Wagner he could not abide. He called him a 'griffe papier'—a scribbler. He thought that he had no importance in the world of music, and to mention Wagner to him was like waving a red flag before a bull. It is difficult to account for such an opinion. Wag-ner, to me, is the great tone colorist, the master of orchestral wealth and dramatic intensity. Sometimes I have been so Wagner-hungry that I have not known what to do. For years I went every year to Munich to see the wonderful performances at the Prinzregenten Theater. "In closing, let me say that it seems to me a great deal of the failure among young singers is that they are too impatient to acquire the 'know how.' They want to blossom out on the first night as great prima donnas, without any previous experience. How ridicu-lous this is! I worked for a whole year at the Opera Comique, at $100 a month, singing such a trying opera as Louise two and three times a week. When they raised me to $175 a month I thought that I was rich, and when $400 a month came, my fortune had surely been made! All this time I was gaining precious ex-perience. It could not have come to me in any other way. As I have said, the natural school—the nat-ural school like that of the Italians—stuffed as it is with glorious red blood instead of the white bones of technic in the misunderstood sense, was the only pos-sible school for me. If our girls would only stop hop-ing to make a debut at $1,000 a night, and get down to real hard work, the results would come much quicker and there would be fewer broken hearts." No, I Did Not "Hate Her" By May Hamilton Helm AN "ad" for a certain brand of mechanical music asked in big type "Didn't you hate her—that music teacher who took so much of your play time?" etc. The sum of the argument (? ) set forth was that as you couldn't then play the great things, it was a waste of time to try to learn, since perhaps after all, you weren't a genius and never would learn them, but that if you were too lazy to develop your own talent, you could buy the recorded efforts of others who had "wasted" their play time in becoming artists. To one teacher—"Miss Lizzie" T. Smith—I owe an eternal debt of gratitude for unfolding the portals of a paradise that, without her, I might never have entered. She wasn't an "easy" teacher! To keep within sight of her ideals required one's best efforts, but as Arthur C. Benson said (of the poets' teaching) she made the thing appear so desirable and beautiful, one was willing to do all the hard work necessary to attain it. The phonograph is, as old-timers expressed it, a God's blessing to those who, in those years of grace (from seven to twelve years of age), lacked opportunity to cultivate their own gifts, and in other articles I have urged parents and teachers to do all they can to "save the babies" in music, since no amount of music applied externally can take the place of that which springs from the depths of one's own being. There is great consolation to true music lovers in the thought that real art— the joy of doing things beau-tifully—cannot be suppressed. Nature attends to that. TEACHERS and pupils, particularly the former, will find it very profitable to review their entire reper-toire during the summer months. By studying from the music any faults which may have unknowingly crept in will be discovered and the opportunity to im-prove and develop the conception is also of great value. At the close of each season teachers wishing to go to the seaside or to a summer resort should gather interested pupils, form a party, and devote there a few hours daily to different musical activities, such as afternoon musicales, musical history, etc. The teachers should, during the summer months, gather all concert programs performed by artists dur-ing the season and cull from them the compositions that appeal to them,, pieces which may assist them in their work for the coming year. A certain amount of time each day should be de-voted to complete relaxation from music and all other cares and responsibilities, as this insures a fresh mind and body for the coming season. Lectures and summer sessions at the different uni-versities are fine for students who have not the means nor the time to study during the winter. This is so inexpensive as to be within the reach of nearly all students. THE problems confronting the piano teacher of to-day are of a deeper and more serious nature than those which existed even a decade ago. The constant study and experimental research of many of our modern virtuosi in the field of beauty and variety of tone and touch have developed and classified many movements and means of keyboard approach which the teacher of ten years ago left entirely out of his technical pro-cedure. Then, too, the teacher of to-day realizes that if the student is to have genuine musicianship, sensi-tive hearing and mental control, he—the teacher— must take the time, in the piano lesson, to see that the pupil thinks and hears correctly. It is no longer suf-ficient to recommend a teacher of Theory, however competent. These obligations, coupled with the un-fortunate . prevalence of half-hour lessons, makes the duties of the teacher of advanced piano playing a com-bination of such system, speed and intensity as is de-manded of few men in any profession. The beginnings of technic have changed little for many years. The modern teacher knows how to do these things more quickly than of old, but the student cannot play the classics that he MUST study without definite finger control. After this is gained, the work for tonal variety and control must follow, else the pupil is excluded from the fascinating field of experi-ment of how to express his own feeling for musical beauty. He must be made to understand, from the first, that he is never to play for himself, but that it is his duty and responsibility to catch the mood and idea that inspired the master-works he so loves, and to translate them into such simple and direct terms of musical beauty that no audience can fail to feel them with him. There is i p form of keyboard approach, however extreme, which has been made the basis for some so-called "Method" that is not worthy of serious study. Rotary movements, arm weight, finger pressure, finger and wrist attacks at various angles, upper arm and shoulder movements, playing with high or low wrist, key surface or key bed sensations—all are beneficial and add to the tonal vocabulary of the student. The use of the three pedals, with which our modern grand piano is equipped, has become as much a part IT seems to the writer that the letter C for common time could well be dispensed with in these times of simplifying speech, etc. Why bother the child student with the letter C at all? Would not \ answer every purpose? In our catechisms of music we are taught that \ is also common time, and yet one never sees the sign C prefacing time as in the case of f time. Secure a graded catalog of new music, as it is nec-essary to keep abreast of the times. No teacher should confine himself to the same works each season, as progression means success in music, as in every other walk in life. Ensemble music is a great recreation, and is in-valuable to both student and teacher. Secure a compe-tent violinist, and improve your sight reading during the summer. Teachers and students remaining in town, can take week-end trips to the country, where music is generally foremost among the recreations. Other days can be spent swimming, golfing, playing tennis, etc. Teachers too occupied to teach History of Music during the winter, can form classes for that purpose during the vacation. These sessions are better out in the open air, and can be held either at the park, across the bay, or in the woods, under the trees. Children, especially enjoy a picnic, and if the History of Music is studied in this way, it becomes a pleasure as well as a study. Last, but not least, keep cheerful and mingle with as many artists as possible, as interchange of ideas is a necessity, and one that cannot be depreciated. If you can do even a few of the things mentioned you will find yourself in a splendid frame of mind for the new season. of technical training as was the scales in days of yore. Particularly is this true of the "Sostenuto" pedal, which is only beginning to be understood and valued by pianists. It can be said, both truthfully and thankfully, that piano playing has lost much of its austerity in recent years. In the past it was hardly good form for a pianist to move his audience to tears, as—for instance— Bauer frequently does to-day. This was the province of singers and violinists. This letting down of emo-tional bars has had an immediate response from the music-loving public, and piano playing was never so popular as now. Hence the modern piano teacher must realize that emotional beauty and the foundation there-for have become a part of his daily task. This sort of study does not mean, in any case, that an easier or less disciplinary form of technical mastery is suggested. On the contrary, it was never so neces-sary that severe, concentrated work be given to the training of the pianist's hand as it is at the present time. In the epoch of piano teaching which, happily, has nearly passed, technic and music were kept well sepa-rated. There were supposed to be a number of years of mechanical training, only, which were to be fol-lowed—some time in the dim and hazy future—by the study of music and the art of its expression. Many an earnest and talented student has become so enamored with his first period of study that he has forgotten the second, and ended his career without one glimpse into the promised land of musical beauty. We all need "more technic," and should never cease to work for it; but life is soon over and the works of the masters are inexhaustible. If music and mechanics are not treated as separate things, but are made one and dissoluble from the beginning, there is then a chance that the pianist may absorb a few of these master-works well enough to attempt to translate a few of their mystic and wonderful beauties to others. It is this problem that the modern piano teacher is seeking to dissolve—with what success the next genera-tion must decide. (From an address made at the convention of the presidents and past presidents of State and National Music Teachers' Associations.) Is one term more explanatory than the other? If anyone can write a reason for keeping the letter C at all for common time, I would like to know it. I find it much easier to teach whenever possible, that is when that letter C does not "butt in," to use a slang expression. Music and Mechanics By Allen Spencer Why Use the Letter "C" in I Time? By Maud H. Wimpenny
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