Musical training

“ In much that pertains to the art of music, the singer's training must include the same subjects that form the training of every musician. In addition to this general musical training, about the same for all students of music, each student must acquire technical command of the chosen instrument. This is necessarily acquired by practice on the instrument, whether it be piano, violin, oboe, or whatever else. In the same way, vocal technique is acquired by practice in actual singing. Practice makes perfect, with the voice as with everything else. ”

“ A beautiful voice is not so great a gift, unless its possessor knows how to employ it to advantage. The musical training that one receives from the study of an instrument is of greatest value. Consequently, I advise parents who hope to make their children singers to give them the advantage of a thorough musical training in either violin study or the piano. Much wasted money and many blasted ambitions can be spared by such a course.
A Good General Education of Vast Importance
The singer whose general education has been neglected is in a most unfortunate plight. ”

“ On the following visit to Chaumont I proposed to General Pershing that we form a music-school at which fifty bandmasters could get the most intensive musical training and discipline for eight weeks, to be succeeded by a new batch of fifty, etc., and at the same time forty pupils each in oboe, bassoon, French horn, and flügelhorn could get a similar training of twelve weeks on their respective instruments. ”

“ Jaques-Dalcroze took the view that technique should be nothing but a means to art, that the aim of musical education should be, not the production of pianists, violinists, singers, but of musically developed human beings, and that therefore the student should not begin by specializing on any instrument, but by developing his musical faculties, thus producing a basis for specialized study. This training could only be obtained by awakening the sense, natural though often latent, for the ultimate bases of music, namely, tone and rhythm. ”

“ More and more highly is the department of musical training esteemed by those who understand the work. All receive training in vocal music as a part of their daily school work, and would there were more with means to take instrumental lessons! ”

“ Musical education without them must inevitably be a failure.
Music study is many-sided. To make it truly educative it must be pursued from both theoretical and practical standpoints. It should include technical training which affords facility to express whatever a person may have for expression; intellectual training which enables a person to grasp the constructive laws of the art, its scope, history and æsthetics, with all that calls into play the analytic and imaginative faculties; and spiritual development which imparts warmth and glow to everything. ”

“ Finally, I learn the interpretation—the dramatic presentation. One gets so little help from the orchestra in modern works that many rehearsals are necessary. In some passages it is just like walking in a dark night. Only a true ear and thorough training can serve to keep one on the key or anywhere near the key. It is therefore highly necessary that vocal students should have a good musical training in addition to the vocal training. In most European conservatories the study of piano and harmony are compulsory for all vocal students. ”

“ Teachers lay great stress upon hand formation, with the object of getting the pupil to keep the hand in a perfect condition—a condition that is the result of a carefully developed habit. Why not develop the habit of noting the phrases in the same way? Why not a little mind formation? It is a great deal nearer the real musical aim than the mere digital work. The most perfectly formed hand in the world would be worthless for the musician unless the mind that operates the hand has had a real musical training. ”

“ The music aide should be able either to play the piano at sight or he should study one of the rapid systems of piano instruction for he will be called upon not only to accompany group singing but to assist visiting artists or talented patients.
Although a foundation in classical music is part of any good musical training, a musician who refuses to recognize the importance of popular music in American life is not suited to this work. If he has a positive dislike for popular music, he should look to other fields. ”

“ And therefore, I said, Glaucon, musical training is a more potent instrument than any other, because rhythm and harmony find their way into the inward places of the soul, on which they mightily fasten, imparting grace, and making the soul of him who is rightly educated graceful, or of him who is ill-educated ungraceful; ”

“ Unquestionably a love for good music, inspired during the formative period, is calculated to open unlimited possibilities, and ours could readily be molded into a musical nation if a firm foundation for musical knowledge and appreciation were laid in our schools. After the rudiments were mastered, it could easily be decided which pupils had a natural bent demanding special training. ”

“ A complete musical education, not only the special cultivation of the voice, was the goal. The plan of combining the preliminary training in vocal management with instruction in the rudiments of music continued to be followed as late as 1750. Many famous masters employed assistant teachers to perform the drudgery of the initial stages of instruction, considering that their own high degree of culture entitled them to deal only with advanced students. ”

“ There is one sort of art that requires not only a very rigorous and exhaustive training, but also an early commencement, and that is music, at once the most isolated and the most universal of arts. Exceptional gifts in the direction of music will have appeared in the schooling stage, and it is quite conceivable that the college phase for those who are destined for a musical career should have as its backbone a “grind” in the theory and practice of music, with languages and general culture relegated to a Section ii. ”

“ A student who takes every opportunity given to her during her year of training will not only learn how to organize the general musical life of a school, through the medium of ear-training and song classes, recitals, music clubs, &c., but will be ready and proud to show initiative in other directions. ”

“ It has lessened the cost of musical education many times over by training ten or a hundred pupils in a group as effectively, in many respects, as they could be trained by individual instruction. Group instruction has, perhaps, been the strongest leverage for the motivation of musical pursuits in the school. It has increased the pursuit of individual instruction on the basis of discovered needs, for example, in the mastery of a particular instrument for participation in the band or orchestra or in the development of a voice discovered in the group. ”

“ For the purpose of teaching ear-training, without instrumental work, a high degree of musical gift is not necessary. Any one who is fond of music, sympathetic with children, and willing to work, can manage the course of work necessary before being able to teach classes up to a fair standard. ”

“ It must always be kept in mind, however, that this training is for the mind and the æsthetic sense, and that the bodily motions are for the purpose of giving children an exact sense of rhythm. Too great stress cannot be laid on the necessity of always using good music. Furthermore, I wish to avoid the pitfalls that are spread at every hand in the form of schools for self-expression in which children and adults are taught so-called “æsthetic” movements to music. Æsthetic dancing is one thing; a musical education is another. ”

“ Follow out the idea that singing is an exercise pure and simple. Let your friends understand that you are not impressed with your vocal ability, but that it is simply a form of exercise you take with religious regularity. Naturally if you can secure the opportunities associated with a musical education you are to be congratulated, and musical training largely devoted to vocal culture is far more valuable in its influence upon physical and mental powers than when limited to instrumental work. ”

“ Is rhetoric or oratory superior to literature? There is no such thing as teaching violin or piano-playing and teaching music. If the violin or piano teaching deals with poor music which the pupil practices several hours a day, no lessons in musical history, theory, form, or æsthetics can counteract the effect of that constant association. We cannot advance without leaders. We look to the training schools for them. And these schools cannot expect to supply them to us unless they so conduct their teaching as to develop in students a love and understanding of the best. ”

“ A drab picture is drawn by comparing the number of those who, through high school, have had the privilege of good training with the number of those in the best social groups of our cities today who actually contribute, and take pleasure in contributing, to the musical life of the community and to their own personal moments of leisure. Here is a challenge to adult education: a challenge to find and encourage self-expression in music in adult life. Nevertheless, a strong argument can be made for musical education even if it functions only during the period of adolescence. ”

“ Composers and teachers were without exception graduates of the choir schools; a musical education could not be obtained elsewhere. Music study had indeed no other purpose than to train students in the music of the church. Instruction in counterpoint and composition was not undertaken until the students had mastered the rudiments of music and had also received their vocal training in the sight singing classes. Every musician was a singer as a matter of course. ”

“ Students who do not have a teacher daily, should have a member of the household play the exercises in ear training and correct the mistakes. If no member of the household is musical, the student should co-operate with another student.
Each exercise should be thoroughly learned before proceeding to the following exercise. It may be recognizable and properly intonated at once or it may take several sittings. The pitch A at 435 is the standard for orchestral tuning and is recommended to the student for a fundamental. ”

“ But while a well-trained voice may be used in a chorus without serious harm, the girl who knows nothing about placing her voice, and is prodigal in the use of it, may find chorus work most injurious.
Many ambitious young women save money with the aim of attending a musical college. This is an education I never advocate, for I believe in individual training. No student can attain the best results in a class where personal supervision is a matter of perfunctory duty. ”

“ With regard to music, every child should begin to undergo a simple course of ear-training on the sol-fa system as elaborated and taught by McNaught, because the faculty of so learning is lost—atrophied—by the age of twelve or fourteen. But, beginning early—as early as possible—every child, ‘musical’ or not, can be trained, just as every child, ‘artistic’ or not, may be taught to draw accurately up to a certain point. ”

“ Upon fear being expressed that her price, double that of other teachers, would limit her class, she said her pupils having her voice as a model could learn in half the time required for those who had only the tinkling of a piano to imitate. Though she believed singing should be taught by a singer, a tenderness for her own experience made her insist that the best way to begin the musical education was by having the pupil learn to play the violin. When she heard a songstress extolled for rapid vocalization she would ask: "Can she sing six plain notes?" ”

“ Singing by ear spontaneously and without technical instruction, but rather for the joy of doing it, and for the formation of the taste on good models, is the proper beginning of all musical education. Such experience, coupled with proper rhythmic exercises, constitutes a real basis, not only for sight-singing, but for performance on any instrument. No child should be admitted for possible credit in pianoforte playing or be allowed to enter violin classes until so prepared in singing and in rhythm. ”

“ There may be some ground for the belief that students are apt to fall into bad vocal habits while singing in the chorus. But this risk is entirely avoided by the teacher having his pupils sing in his own chorus, under his own direction.
Another important feature of the musical education is the hearing of good music artistically performed. Vocal students should be urged to attend the opera and the orchestral concerts. They should become familiar with the different forms of composition by actually hearing the masterpieces of music. ”

“ The outlook for the future is wholly inspiring indeed; and no musician need fear that in taking up public school music he is entering upon a field of work which is too small for one of his caliber. The only question to be asked in such a case is whether the teacher in question is big enough and is sufficiently trained along musical, general, and pedagogical lines to handle this important task in such fashion as to insure a result commensurate with the opportunity. ”

“ In music, the gifted girl may be a teacher, or may appear in public as a player or singer, or she may combine teaching with public appearances. Teaching music has been systematized to a marked extent. Many young musicians who teach are engaged on the staff of the conservatory or academy where they obtained their instruction. Musicians who appear in public generally possess, along with musical ability, a more or less impressive personality. ”