Frank Herbert Tubbs

“ Are not we becoming new-fashioned? Are not we becoming so keenly alive to the intellectual that, unless we watch phrases and periods, theses and antitheses, sequences and cadences, melody against melody, we have no satisfaction in music. Then we run from music to music trying to hear some new thing, until we become almost unbalanced in mind. We become hyper-critical, sensitive to faults, irritable over remissnesses, until those conditions become a part of our disposition, and the musician becomes the crank. That is musical debauchery and I contend that that will shorten the life of any man. ”

“ A noble thought, an association with the pure in art, and beauty in poem, story, song, sky, flower, but leads us to another even more beautiful. Each touch of beauty, of docility, of refinement, expands that line of our ego, and we feel ourselves raised, drawing nearer and nearer that great Mind, and keeping us more and more in that grace which passeth all understanding. The end must be success in our plan. Mental growth means more power to grasp and wrest from circumstances and the world itself, successful prosecution of the plan which ambition framed. ”

“ Emotion in itself is beautiful, but like fire and water, if it once becomes the master, wastes and destroys. Emotion, aroused by imagination and directed by intelligence, serves to give taste to all musical rendition. One without heart is non-satisfying as a singer. Be he ever so intellectual, his singing is cold. Intellect alone, unaided by heart, is like polished steel—cold, brilliant and dazzling. ”

“ The measure of the music gives time to concentrate the thought contained into its most powerful form. The rhythm and vibration which accompany music and singing, enhance the power of thought. Whenever we sing in the true spirit of the sentiment uttered we send out shafts, so to speak, of pure thought. Not one of those is lost. It lodges somewhere, and as all good can never do harm, our good thought, sent in song, must do good to those who come within our influence to receive our good shafts. A singer who uses music for vain display loses the opportunity for good. ”

“ The very association about us makes mind keen to rapidity of action, speaking from incisive thought. A plodder stands back while the brilliant man moves to the front. By the plodder is meant he who is willing to go slowly. By the brilliant man, he, though he may not have more native talent than the other, has by calling to his aid those commanding elements of success, moved surely and therefore swiftly, through the perplexities of every existence, to the front. Every thing which cuts off wastefulness of time becomes a weapon with which to fight perplexities. ”

“ The individuality is then asserting itself and it is then that the pupil needs the skillful and firm hand of the master. The keen clear judgment which comes from experience is worth to the pupil more than the cost of many lessons. The life is planned then. It is a time of bending the twig; the tree grows that way. The wrecking which is so often seen arises because the pupil changes to a teacher who does not understand the case. The new teacher must study it all over. Before that can be done the pupil is spoiled and disappears, disappointed and disgusted. ”

“ The past becomes a stepping stone and if you have cleared the ego of your own body, you will rise again. Like draws like. The new friends, the new town, the new music, the new activity will lend you their aid to go higher. Clear yourself at each step of the weight brought on by body and circumstances will seem different. "God helps him who helps himself." Those who would pull back are by our very inertia cast off. We rise to success. ”

“ Music of the intellectual kind is the only music which can have ennobling influence upon the human mind and keep it in equipoise. The dance, the sentimental, the pleasing, has its place I admit. But to the musician that which lacks the scientific, lacks everything. How many of us care to attend a concert, an opera of the light vein, or that of a brass band, as perhaps we once did? That pretty, catchy song, let it be sung ever so well, has lost an awakening influence upon us. ”

“ The human machine breaks down. Then we shall think of Emerson and Wood as unsafe leaders. Time has his work, but he works in such deliberation and in such ever-changing form that were he one who could feel fatigue, he need not feel it. Time is from eternity to eternity. Time does not occupy a human machine. The music teacher does. Many a teacher has toiled beyond his strength this year. Many will next year. Who will take thought for himself and break loose, if but for a few weeks, and postpone the time of breaking down? ”

“ Metaphysics is a science—and that science which deals with the most real and tangible. It deals with phenomena. It deals with mind itself. Now, mind is tangible and real. It is that part of us which came from the Creator—was from the beginning—has no end—and is in these bodies of ours for a time only. Which from this definition, is more tangible? Mind or body? There is no longevity to mind. From eternity it came—to eternity it goes. No measure can be applied to it. Body, that which we see and handle and in which we believe mind to reside, is quite another thing. ”

“ Every thought has its sure influence. Every thought of envy, hatred, jealousy, of crimes, accidents, misfortunes, sorrows, our own or those of others, is an evil. It takes time out of life and saps life-activity. Supplant it with pure and good thought. Health, brightness, pleasure, art and beauty are subjects which lift. Upward, upward, toward heaven! That must be the student's mental attitude. Enough would drag down. Cast the down view away. Look up and go up. You do not study for the purpose of going downward. Upward again to the top—and you must do it by having your thought good and pure. ”

“ Do not cease in the efforts to bring others into musical work, but let your effort be tempered with discretion. When you hear a person sing who evidently enjoys it, whose face beams with pleasure, and whose voice pleases her hearers; when, in a word, you hear one who has a voice, and has intelligence enough to understand himself and his music, then learn if he has given serious study to music. If not, urge him to see a master at once. Do not, however, when you hear a person labor through a song, with act painful to himself and everybody else, urge him to go a teacher, "and learn how." ”

“ There is no reason why one should not have other ambitions, but the highest ambition which one can have is to make himself a musician of the highest and best kind. The whole journey toward becoming such is pleasant. Whoever goes but one mile along the road has his reward, and each additional mile brings its additional reward. Anyone can have this ambition in his study, and he who is most faithful and has the most intelligence will make the most progress and do the best in a given time. ”

“ The hands have wandered aimlessly, the feet have tapped the floor, the watch has been looked at a dozen times, the hat taken off and put on again, the card-case opened, half-looked at, and shut, and each act, with twenty more, has been repeated again and again. It was waste activity. It must be overcome. Nature never intended you and me to be wasteful. These actions of mind, brain and body, are useful in their places, but we misuse them, using up strength and power. Night comes and we are tired out, or think we are, which amounts to the same thing. ”

“ These we see with our physical eyes and call the object, man. We incline to think if these parts are comely, well shapen, strong, beautiful, the possessor may march on to success. "Trust not to appearance." Were the body the root of all things, or of especial worth, the race would be to the swift, the fight to the strong. But that seen, felt, heard, is not the real self. ”

“ It is an easy matter to settle into a rut and to follow certain lines. These wear themselves out. New ways of imparting time-honored teaching, although they may not change the principles of teaching, must be constantly sought. They will only come to mind by keeping the thought in the highest realm of intellectual possibility to that teacher. One who contemplates with restful care, in that higher realm, the beautiful in music, the way of influencing mind, and the most direct way of causing students to attain that which they need, will ever renew his method of teaching. ”

“ The superficial reading or skimming, shifting of thought through the thousand objects which come before the mind gives the unrest and through it, the fatigue. Stop the unrest, and let rest abound. Rest comes through definite change of work. The man who leaves his office, rushes to mountain and farm, sees new scenes, faces, customs, eats new food, rides, fishes, swims, climbs and dances, is the one who comes back rested. There has been no unrest, but radical change. ”

“ Whatever we do to increase our appreciation of music, to make us better able to make music, and to add to the charm of life of our own circle, is profitable. The good of it comes to us every day, and in addition it prepares us the better for that higher life to which we are all hastening, because it makes more beautiful the soul. The ambition to study for music itself is, then, the best ambition to have.
The majority of those who present themselves to the city teacher wish to sing in church choirs. ”

“ Love, a powerful attribute of the ego, first circles in the home, then expands into the circle of friends, then reaches the business, society, the world. One begins by caring for the want of a hurt bird or other pet. He ends by raising and healing mankind. One quietly slips a few pennies into the hand of an unfortunate. He ends by being a philanthropist. One speaks a kind word. He ends by raising the fallen. These, you see, touch upon sympathy, helpfulness. ”

“ A teacher cannot do better for himself and his work than to occasionally close the office door and sit quietly by himself for a half-hour. At such time crowd out the thought of all work, all planning, all worries, and all demands. Bring the mind as nearly as can be into inactivity. One will find in the hour when work is resumed that more of value will flood into the mind, he knows not from whence, than he can catch and apply in a great many hours. How many of us have times of refreshing. ”

“ The sensitive man in his reply shows how fortunate the critic is in his shooting. It is not easy to bear the remarks of a harsh critic and it is much harder to draw from them any good lesson. (Whether one may draw a lesson from criticism is not open for remark at this writing.) Yet, when one gives serious thought to the criticism which seems so cruel he will learn that no one has been hurt by it except the critic himself. He has lowered his thought from a high plain and has made his nature, thereby, coarse and uncomfortable. ”

“ We have reached the place when we can feel that he who has no love of music suffers an infirmity akin to the loss of sight or hearing. We have also reached the belief that everyone must cultivate the musical faculty. We are passing through this life to one beyond and he who raises himself nearest the perfect man, best uses the span from birth to death. ”

“ Yet more narrowly would we draw the line which surrounds our activity. One must make the most of his force and strength. In the case of every man, woman and child living there is enormous waste of power. Much more is wasted than is used. We have in years past stood beside Niagara and thought if that power, apparently going to waste, could be used for moving machinery it could run the mills of the world, forgetting, or not knowing, that, in getting to the Falls, we wasted enough mental and physical force to run our human machinery for a week. ”