Page 658 OCTOBER 1920 THE ETUDE From all of which the inference may be drawn that from Rubinstein one could learn a great deal in his lessons, but as a player he was a dangerous model; while Liszt played as he taught—and he actually taught or advised the use of modern means of expression. Rubinstein's freedom was one of conception, while Liszt's was merely a freedom of execution. At this point it should be proper to refer to the pianist Chopin (1809-1849) (sic) (young girls should refrain from calling him "Shopen") because he, of all players since Philipp Emanuel Bach, made the largest advance in piano technic, as we see it reflected in all his composi-tions—not to speak of their beauty and originality. He must have been a great pianist, indeed, but the frailness of his physique prevented that powerful display of his skill which is necessary to impress a large audience; his playing must have suffered by its over-refinement. In private circles he fascinated and entranced his rapturous hearers, but in a large, public hall he never achieved that full measure of success which he so richly deserved. It is quite possible that to his contemporary public the dif-ference between his over-refinement and the imperious masterfulness of his friend and admirer Liszt was too great. IN these days, when throughout the length and breadth of this land so much is being done for the uplift of music by municipalities, which furnish free organ re-citals, free band concerts, and excellent supervisors of music who cultivate the singing of good music in our schools; by public libraries which loan phonograph records and rolls for the player-piano as books are loaned; by universities and normal schools which furnish good concerts to remote villages at the lowest possible price; by individual musicians who so often give their services for the good of the cause; the time seems ripe to ask: What is the average American home doing to raise the standard of music? In homes of the well-to-do, in homes of wealth, in fact in all walks of life we often find that the purity of the home is considered in everything except music. Pianos are littered with all sorts of musical trash, both vocal and instrumental. Mothers who exercise great care that their children read no undesirable books will allow them to sing songs of the vaudeville theaters, many of which are frankly "suggestive," and to spend ANY student of harmony who observes the chord rich-ness of an exercise must be struck with the unlikeness between the text-book exercise and any equal number of measures of music by a classical composer. It seems as if the harmony text-book delights in offering samples of chord succession which are as rich as a Christmas plum pudding and as powerful as a compressed yeast cake. A" page of Mozart Sonatas, for example, runs on serenely measure after measure from fine to common chords on the following degrees of the scale 1, IV, V, with an occasional II and VI thrown in for exciting adventure. What is suggested by these two unlike methods of procedure ? Principally this : The harmony text-book (none sins more than another, for they are all more or less alike) presents phenomena for our observation, rather than (to change the figure) words for our speaking vocab-ulary. With this matter in mind it will interest the student to play his Mozart and Haydn and observe how few, comparatively, are the different chords em-ployed. W^hat a vast amount of effect is secured by the weaving of the simpler triads into melodies and rhyth-mic patterns. And here is the point; there is beauty of melodic outline, or curve, and an entrancing variety of rhythmic designs, and it is from this rather than from the varying harmonic fundaments that we derive pleasure. To the student who has never done it, there is much revealed by the simple exercise of reducing a classic to a succession of chords. They are invariably few, aston-ishingly few. But they are vital, truly alive. They move, they pulsate with a joyousness of vigor that is the essential embodiment of the simple lines of struc-ture building into beauty. Then note in what a multitude of ways the classic composer can present a triad or seventh chord. He does not need the whole array of chords, for his genius permits him to do the most astonishing things with little Another pair of pianists must be mentioned here, al-though I do make the anti-climax with natural reluc-tance. One of them was Bülow (1830-1894), that bundle of vitriolic sarcasm. He was originally a jurist and, therefore, a worshiper of the "letter" (the veriest an-tithesis of Liszt and Rubinstein). He was a "peda-gogic" player. His recitals were "piano lessons," show-ing how absolutely correct things can be done and unconsciously demonstrating at the same time that all the correctness in the world can never be a substitute for inspiration. He had a phenomenal memory and, of course, all the technic which his repertory required, but no surplus of it to which to resort in case he had been granted that mysterious "something" which is known as "the divine spark;" that spark which was also missing in Tausig (1841-1871), whose enormous technic was, after all, insufficient to procure for him a large fol-lowing among those who were not technic-mad. The divine spark! How weak a word for that which it means to convey! The French call it "the holy fire" (le feu sacre), which expresses it much better and comes much nearer suggesting to the mind the re-splendent heavenward blazing, illuming flame of genius which was the all-explaining, all-justifying gift of heaven to Liszt and Rubinstein. their practice hours playing "Rag-Time" and "Jazz" while their lesson remains untouched until it is about time to go to the music teacher. Why make the piano, the most conspicuous point in the main room in your house, a kind of social cesspool? If you had paid $1,000 to build a hothouse, would you purchase poisonous weeds to fill it? The songs of childhood are always remembered, and the influence of a song may be felt throughout a life-time. What do you want your child to remember—that which uplifts or that which degrades? In the musical life, as in the spiritual life, there is no standing still; we are climbing up or we are sliding down. Which way are you going? I wish the readers of TH E ETUDE would start a cam-paign of musical house-cleaning which would teach the people to clean up the music room as they do the attic and back yard. In the average household there is more rubbish on the piano and in the phonograph cabinet than there is in the ash barrel. Don't permit the piano—an emblem of culture—to be laden down with cheap musical junk. material. He is enormously skillful in ways of pro-ducing simple tone groups. I think it was Dr. Goetschius who once spoke of the beauty of the Beethoven music, comparing it with an actual organic growth that takes place before the eyes, so to say. It unfolds like a marvelously beautiful, yet simply constructed, plant organism that burgeons as it reveals its growth. When the student has studied somewhat how the classic school composes, persistently saying much in few chords, it will pay him in terms of good musician-ship to ascertain what he can say with pencil and paper by spelling out everything he can imagine in terms of I (ii)-IV V(vi ) I. There are literally thousands of pages of good wholesome music written on this simple formula. Let him try his prentice hand at inventing rhythmic and melodic ways and means for saying things with these few music words. Not that anyone but himself and his immediate circle should see the fruits of his spellings. But let him dis-cover the economic possibilities that lie in so small a quantum of means. He might, for example, read Schu-bert's Organ Man to see what can be done with I and V over an organ point. Or, let him turn to the same com-poser's Hedge Roses to learn something of the magic and mystery that are to be coaxed out of tonic and dominant with side excursions into nearby keys (not chords). Nowadays, when the extremists offer our ears the tone mist of forty-eleven keys sounding simultaneously, it is like entering a serene retreat for a few days to turn into the cool aisles of Mozart, Schubert, and the rest of that goodly company, and to let the cacophony of the modernist world drop from our ears. And no less is it a blessing to turn the inventive mind away from an equipment of chords that knows no parentage and to test oneself in the ability to say interesting things in words of one syllable, so to speak. A Light Touch By T. L. Rickaby A LETTER just received contains the following re-quest : "Tell me how to acquire a lightness of touch in the least possible time." This is typically American! Why is it that so many young people are so eager to find "royal roads" and "short cuts" in their various undertakings? It is all the more surprising when it is remembered that philosophers and teachers of all ages have emphasized the fact that in art and literature, and in all other worth-while things, patient labor (intelli-gently directed, of course,) is the consideration of the greatest weight. Lightness of touch is inborn with some people; others may acquire it, but in such cases it will be more or less artificial. On the other hand, many never acquire it. Loud-talking, boisterous people will, in all likelihood, play loudly. Coarse-grained, brusque people (if any such play the piano at all) will not be apt to play lightly and delicately. One could scarcely imagine a young man who wore a green hat, purple necktie and a pink shirt producing ideal tones from a piano. So after all it is largely a matter of mentality and spiritual make-up. But it is also a matter of finger and muscular control, which may be secured by judiciously chosen and intelligently used exercises, and the best are those crystallized by Dr. Mason in his work Touch and Technic. Paradoxical as it may seem, lightness of touch is the offspring of strength and power—but strength and power under proper control. The immense Nasmyth hammer that flattens out a ton-weight mass of metal can be so controlled that it can be made to crack a hazel-nut without breaking the kernel. Finger strength must be developed to the utmost, but in addition it must be under complete subjection to the mind, so as to produce a light touch and the resultant softness of tone. Above all else, players must think lightness of touch, and heaviness will not be so difficult to avoid. After all a light touch is not a tangible product— something that can be paid for and carried away like a sack of peanuts. Practically every human being grows up, but not one ever knows just when the growing ceased. Each one, however, at some time realizes that he has grown up, but not till the process is quite com-plete. So it is with a light touch. All things being favorable we finally come to realize that we have ac-quired a light touch. But do not try to "attain it in the shortest possible time." Like the dawn and some other beautiful things, it comes gradually. We cannot hasten it by "taking thought." A Bunch of Keys By Abbie Llewellyn Snoddy HER E is a little game which combines fun and profit, and will help to interest pupils of almost any age in the (to them) ever-doubtful question of key-signatures. Cut from white cardboard fourteen keys, each four or five inches long. Number them plainly upon the ring end, draw upon the other end a small staff and write upon this the various key signatures, so: m When all are finished, pin them up in different places about the studio, and, having provided your pupils with paper and pencils, invite them to write down the cor-rect letter name for each number. Afterwards take down the keys, and, after shuffling them well together, let each pupil draw one and then play upon the piano the scale which has that signature. More advanced pupils may be required to write the relative minor as well as the major, and may extem-porize upon the piano a short phrase in the key which they draw. Renewed interest in both scales and key signatures is sure to follow such an afternoon. "Encore" in the way we use it has no authority. The French when they wish a performance repeated use the Italian "Bravo," if it happens to be a man they wish to recall; "Brava," if a woman, and for a group of £ ,»rformers, "Bravi." Does Your Piano Need a Scavenger? By Helen L. Cramm Speaking and Writing the Language of Music By Thomas Tapper
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