Alma Webster Hall Powell

“ This temperament, unlike that of Germany under tragic conditions, must either die in despair or recover quickly. It is ever in short runs between sobs and a jest, ever in fiery moments and merry half-hours, ever child-like at heart, yet marvellously gifted, beauty-loving and sentimental. Italy might not live through a “Thirty Years War,” but with the inspiration of the right leaders, she might create a new Roman Republic, under the forceful stimulus of oft-relieved bursts of enthusiasm. ”

“ The very latest operatic works of French composers are exhibiting a mad desire for an expression of a national Music, which looks more like an effort to root out the musical supremacy of Germany, than like a plan to establish a genuine progression in French art. France would like to have a Music all its own, be it ever so ugly, distorted, or bizarre. ”

“ The beat of the pulse and the measure in Music are similar rhythmic expressions, but the close relation of one to the other has heretofore been ignored. Yet groups have a pulse; history has a pulse; the phenomena of the physical universe have a pulse; all life manifestations are demonstrations of pulse action.
What becomes of the countless millions of musical sound vibrations sent into space by the orchestral performances in a great city? Are they all impotent, reaching only to the auditory organs, and dying there? ”

“ The human voice will come into its own again, when the over-excited modern mentality shall have calmed itself down to the normal. The orchestra will shrink to its diminutive and correct position, as a mere suggestor of the harmony which supports the voice, and the emotions of life will find their true relief in accentuated rhythm, soothing melody, and noble harmonies. France is still passing through, and she certainly will not come out of, her transition period with the thing she is now trying to call “Music.” ”

“ The establishment of musical departments in colleges will never be able to meet this crying need. The majority of the institutions which depend even in part upon tuition-fees received from their pupils, reach the least needy of our people, and sometimes the least talented. Where the industrial shoe pinches the hardest, there is where the national social or political danger lies, and there is where the need is greatest. Where the social pressure is most felt, there is formed a mine of musical diamonds. ”

“ The undoubted fact that Music is not confined to the human species, but is a part of bird and other animal life, is strongly indicative that there is something more in Music, than its apparent pleasurable quality, and that beneath its array of superficial forms, there must lie some great fundamental necessity for its existence and functioning. ”

“ There are indications that universities adopting Music into their lists of studies, recognize the need of Music’s closer touch with scientific courses. If Music is ever to outgrow its swaddling clothes of sentimental and frivolous superficiality, and mere amusement conception, it must clearly manifest its scientific dignity, and its inseparable connection with physics, sociology, biology and psychology. It must take its place among those studies which encourage scientific tests and lifelong research. ”

“ No wonder revolution knocks at the door! The government is giving the eye-openers in its free educational plan, so aiding the disturbance of human rhythm by sensational newspapers, noisy streets, high prices and too quick life, yet closes the door to free musical instruction which would tranquillize the mind, and restore equilibrium of pulse. ”

“ The rapid rise of our national power, the enormous strides in public education, and the incredible multiplication of stimuli upon every side, twisted and stretched our national nerves until we now see ourselves confronted with an abnormal type, which must soon find its normal calm in rhythmic pulse action, or else go to pieces under the strain. Nowhere have we any outlet or re-establishing agency, except in the dance, and in such cheap shows as permit of but a partial relief. ”

“ MUSIC IS A HUMAN NEED, INCREASING AND DECREASING WITH SOCIAL PRESSURE.
The tendency of a group in each stage of human development, is to produce Music fitting the character of the social disturbances of its time, and communities which most fully meet this need of rhythm by national culture of Music, tend to preserve for longer periods, the serenity of the public mind. Thus it will be seen that national control and support of Music may be assumed to be a national duty. This control and support will aid in the preservation of a healthy state of the public mind. ”

“ Norway’s population is scarcely equal in number to that of one of our medium sized American cities; hence her figures represent a true love and care for Music, and the products of her musical genius fully justify the support accorded. She holds her own in musical protection.
Denmark has enriched our American life with the strong free blood of the North, and her Music, with its sweet sadness, has left its impress upon American musical culture. ”

“ Sweden sets a splendid example for the United States, since despite a comparative lack of wealth, cold climate and seeming cheerlessness of environment, she nevertheless nourishes the lovely flower of national Music. ”

“ Approaching modern times, let us see what role was assumed by Music in the tribal life of the early Germanic races. In those times of war excitement, when tribes fought like wild animals, and the war spirit held full sway, the Germans on their march to battle, helmets decorated with the heads of animals, their big bodies clothed in the simple sagum, chanted their war songs, and kept up a rhythmic beating upon their shields. ”

“ It is a matter for surprise and deep regret that the United States Federal Government should show a lack of interest in musical education. But our young country is not likely to remain for long behind smaller lands. Our hope is secure in the fundamental generosity and wisdom of our national mind, which now squanders vast sums upon musical diversion, but spends nothing at all for the free musical education of its gifted citizens.
We have in this country a strange mixture of races and of ideals, all contributing something of Old World conditions, and combining to form a new type. ”

“ Then there is the evidence of organic sympathy which establishes that liking or disliking for certain Music, according as the mean motion or the rhythm of the Musical sound vibrations, correspond to a similar combination of motions and rhythms in our own systems. And is not the affection for a rhythm similar to our own, stronger than is our liking for one dissimilar? Can a dogmatic emotional [20] type experience a true affection for, or feel a sincere need of, ragtime ditties? Could Italy in the early part of the Nineteenth century feel affection for the Music of a von Weber? ”

“ The fact that men, in spite of all the great scientific discoveries, harden and fade with age, tends to prove that the human body has not been completely envisaged by any or all of them. We offer here a study which includes many of the abstract and concrete sciences but directed towards a new combination, i. e., tone and nerve, to be tested and quantitatively measured under the laws of motion instead of under the laws of perception and of appreciation. We take Music out of the field of ideals entirely, and place it upon a level with rhythm establishers, incident forces, and pulse fillers. ”

“ The wise among our well-to-do American parents now send their children to our public schools, in preference to private academies, knowing well the superior advantages thus gained. When it becomes known that National Schools of Music are on a par with State universities, offering the world’s best instruction and the very best advantages, then graduation from such institutions will be a matter of pride to anyone, rich or poor. ”

“ Music, a recognized but still undirected agent for rhythm maintenance, is sought and produced in accordance with the disturbance of a body politic or of a body individual. The musical products of a nation mirror that nation’s history far better than pen and ink can laboriously spell it out. Music reaches down into physiological and psychological needs, and tends to reestablish rhythmic equilibrium, whether applied to physical organs, or to members of a national body. ”

“ Music, as a human need, carries us deep into the secrets of life, and will in time open the way for a new science. Music is not the name for this new branch of knowledge, as the study would involve an exhaustive investigation of nervous reactions in their social and individual relations to sound vibrations. ”

“ The Dogmatic-Emotional type needs a music of its own, and never fails to produce it. The Rationalistic type, also needs its music, because its rationalism has not yet extended to an absolute perfection of equilibrium between dissipation and integration of bodily forces, and wherever abnormality of pulse exists, there musical rhythm is “needed.” Even were this theory of musical need not admitted, the genuine love of music constitutes a need. So intense a yearning, unsatisfied, cannot be beneficial to the human system. ”

“ The United States has not fallen into line with European countries in national culture of Music, but probably this is simply because the attention of our nation has not hitherto been called to Music as a health measure. Too much ink has flowed in describing Music as a diversion, as an amusement, as an ideal, as a superfluous luxury, whereas no greater physical and mental need exists, than the unconscious physical need of rhythm, the conscious physical need of Music. ”

“ All rhythm, however divided, is perfect motion. Rhythm, acting upon a disturbed motion, tends to impose its own motion upon the discord, if stronger than the disturbance encountered. This theory not only imputes a higher mission to Music than has heretofore been realized, but also accounts for phenomena [Pg 14] of organized sound vibrations, and for the craving of all human life for Music. This passionate desire for Music is an established fact, and it remains but to show the need of this inspiring sound stimulus, in order to place Music in the list of recognized national necessities. ”

“ The class of foreign labor arriving since 1883 is from the south of Europe, illiterate, fiery, adding another element of danger to our tense nationality, and still our blind government has not opened musical safety valves, for the steam that is fast rising to the bursting point. Our musical talent is of the finest order, but, not having any governmental aid in free instruction, is obliged to go to Europe, there to learn to compound a German, French or Italian medicine for an American disease, when our peculiar social pressure demands a particular American remedy. ”

“ In the home circles, the sentiment in music is strongly expressed. No true German will allow you to heighten the seat at the piano with a volume of Beethoven Sonaten. You cannot sit upon Beethoven in a loyal German house.
Even in the grand opera audiences of Germany, the public persists in manifesting a love for those musical ideas which awake emotions rather than cool critical judgment. ”

“ The Music-loving, and Music-needing Austrians will find the reason of their care of national rhythm in the sorrows of their history, for no other countries have suffered from the double tyranny of war and religion as have Austria and Hungary, whose emotions have been the harp upon which other powers have played continuously. ”

“ Humanity then must maintain its pulse in a rhythmic-stimulation-and-repose-for-distribution system. This can best be done by the greater exercise of the emotional nature, and by the indulgence of romantic ideals, for emotions are pulse-lifters, dragging the stagnant life motions up to a normal mean rhythm. The man or nation, whose pulse is kept most constantly keyed up to the normal, is the man or nation which achieves the finest results. Our four national examples, England, France, Germany, and Italy, demonstrate these emotional products. ”

“ Only the well-to-do may study Music in the United States and, strangely enough, our real talent often lies not in this class, but outside of this charmed circle, down among the elements of our foreign-born and the natives of foreign-born, whose ancestral nerves have been fed upon nationally provided musical rhythm. ”

“ The proper study of Music includes so many of the regular public school studies, and so much of the elements of higher education, as Psychology, Biology, Sociology, Physics, Economics, Social Legislation, History, Languages, Literature, Physical Training, Self-Control, to say nothing of the mathematical studies included in such branches as orchestration, harmony, counterpoint, etc., that a model musical college would furnish an education and culture, far more beneficial to individuals and the group, than is offered by some of the present systems of education. ”

“ The statistics given are intended merely to show what the various governments are doing along the line of national support of musical culture, and no comparison is attempted. Our States and cities are expending vast sums upon music. The contention of the author, however, is that State Musical Colleges will not produce a national type of music, and that the highest ideal rests in a Federal control of musical culture. When music can be regarded as a national need, and not merely as a social diversion, the Federal government may see its way clear to a Federal support of musical education. ”