Music Talks with Children Part 4

Further on Ruskin says: "If stone work is _well_ put together, it means that a thoughtful man planned it, and a careful man cut it, and an honest man cemented it." [34]

Likewise in these things one can see what is cla.s.sic--work out of the heart and well done, and that comes from a thoughtful, careful, honest person.

CHAPTER IX.

WHAT WE SHOULD PLAY.

"But blessings do not fall in listless hands."_--Bayard Taylor._

We already begin to understand what the cla.s.sics are. Year by year as our interest in the beautiful increases, we shall gain more definite knowledge about cla.s.sic art. That which is cla.s.sic will begin to announce itself in us. Our own choice indicates our taste but does not always indicate what is best for us. And one of the purposes of art is to improve the taste by setting before us the finest works; in these, by study, we find beauty with which we are unacquainted. Thus we enlarge our capacity for it.

Because we are born with taste unformed and untrained you can at once see the reason for gradually increasing the tasks. They are always a little more difficult--like going up a mountain--but they give a finer and finer view. The outlook from the mountain-top cannot be had all at once. We must work our way upward for it. Hence you will observe in your lessons that what was once a fitting task is no longer of quite the same value because of your increased power. But about this especially we shall have a Talk later on.

When one has heard much music of all kinds, one soon begins to understand that there are two kinds commonly chosen. Some players choose true music with pure thought in it, and do their best to play it well after the manner called for by the composer. Their aim is to give truthful expression to the music of a good writer. Other players seem to work from a motive entirely different. They select music which is of a showy character, with much brilliancy and little thought in it. Their aim is not to show what good music is, but to show themselves. The desire of the first is truth, of the second is vanity.

Now, as we examine into this, and into both kinds of music, we discover much. It proves that we must work for the best; for the truthful music, not for the vain music. As we get better acquainted with true music we find it more and more interesting--it keeps saying new things to us. We go to it again and again, getting new meanings.

But the showy music soon yields all it has; we find little or nothing more in it than at first. As it was made not from good thought but for display, we cannot find newer and more beautiful thought in it, and the display soon grows tiresome. True music is like the light in a beautifully-cut gem, it seems that we never see all it is--it is never twice the same; always a new radiance comes from it because it is a true gem through and through. It is full of true light, and true light is always opposed to darkness; and darkness is the source of ignorance.

From all this you can now understand the quaintly-expressed opinion of a very wise man, who said: "In discharge of thy place, set before thee the best example."[35] That means whatever we strive to learn should be learned from works of the best kind. In the beginning, we cannot choose wisely the best examples to set before ourselves; therefore it is for us to heed what another wise man said: "As to choice in the study of pieces, ask the advice of more experienced persons than yourself; by so doing you will save much time." [36] You thereby save time doubly. Later on in your life you will have no bad taste to overcome--that is one saving; and already you know from childhood many cla.s.sics, and that is another saving. What we learn in childhood is a power all our lives.

You can see plainly, now, that both in the choice of pieces and in the manner of playing them, a person's character will come out. We saw in the last Talk how character has to come out in writing. Only a very common character would select pieces written entirely for a vain show--of rapid runs, glittering arpeggios, and loud, unmeaning chords.

Worse than that, such a choice of pieces displays two common people,--three, in fact: A composer who did not write pure thought from the heart; a teacher who did not instil good thoughts into the pupil's heart; and yourself (if really you care for such things) who play from a vain desire to be considered brilliant.

A player who devotes the mind and the hands only to what a meaningless composer writes for them is not worthy of any power. With our hands in music, as with the tongue in speech, let us strive from the beginning to be truthful. Let us try in both ways to express the highest truth we are able to conceive. Then in art we shall, at least, approach near unto the true artist; and in life we shall approach near unto the true life. Every mere empty display-piece we study takes up the time and the opportunity wherein we could learn a good composition, by a master of the heart. And it is only with such music that you will, during your life, get into the hearts of those who are most worthy for you to know. Out of just this thought Schumann has two rules now very easy for us to understand:

"Never help to circulate bad compositions; on the contrary, help to suppress them with earnestness."

"You should neither play bad compositions, nor, unless compelled, listen to them."

We now come to a really definite conclusion about the compositions we should play and to an extent as to how we should play them.

The heart, the mind, and the hands, or the voice, if you sing, should unite in our music; and be consecrated to the beautiful. Consecrate is just exactly the word. Look for it in your dictionary.[37] It comes from two other words, does it not? _Con_ meaning _with_ and _sacer_ meaning _holiness._ Thus devote heart and head and hands _with holiness_ to the beautiful. This is very clear, I am sure.

It is also worth doing. "With holiness" describes _how_ to play and really _what_ to play. A composition which has been born of a true man is in thought already consecrated. He has heard it and felt it within himself. Daily you must get closer and closer to these messages and meanings. And are they not already more _luminous_ to you? And do you remember what we said luminous means?

CHAPTER X.

THE LESSON.

"All people value most what has cost them much labor."

--Aristotle.[38]

It is true that music is beautiful and that it gives us happiness and comfort. But, nevertheless, music is hard to learn _for every one_; harder for some than for others, but hard for all. It is well and best that it should be so. We appreciate most highly that which we labor for earnestly. Just imagine if every one could sing or play merely by wis.h.i.+ng it! Then music would be so common and so much the talent of all that it would cease to give us joy. Why? Because one gained it by a wish. That is not enough. From this can we learn to understand the great secret of it all? I think we can. Let us see! The secret is this: Music is a joy because it takes us out of ourselves and we work hard to get it. Music teaches us what a wonderful power there is within us, if we will only strive to bring it out. Education is good for us for this same reason. As you learn more and more about words, you will see more in this word Education.

It means to lead out _what is within us_. To lead music out of the heart becomes the object, then, of your lessons. One cannot drive music into you; it must be led out.

Where shall we look for music that it may be led out? Only in the heart. That is where all is in every one of us. But often in our hearts there is so much else, so much vanity, self-love, conceit, love for other things, that the music is almost beyond reach. _Almost_, but never entirely. In the heart of every one is music. But often it is deep, deep down, covered by these other things. The older we grow and the more other things we see and think about, the deeper and deeper down does the music get.

It is like heaping rocks, and dirt, and sticks on a bubbling spring.

The spring is down there, bubbling freely beneath it all, still striving to be as free and as songful as before; but it cannot. People may come and go, may pa.s.s near to it, and hear not one of its sounds; they may never suspect that there is such a thing ready to go on merrily if it could.

When is the best time to lead water out of the spring, and music out of the heart? Before other things begin to cover it. With music the best time is in the early days, in childhood time--_in the first days_. We shall hear those words many times. Then little by little the bubbling spring of melody gains its independence; then, even if other things do come in, they cannot bury the music out of sight. The spring has been led forth _and has grown stronger_.

Thoughtful people who have suffered in learning--all people suffer in learning, thoughtful ones the most--wonder how they can make the task less painful for others. It will always cause us sorrow as well as joy to learn, and many people spend their lives in trying to have as little sorrow as possible come with the learning of the young. When such people are true and good and thoughtful and _have infinite kindness_, they are teachers; and the teachers impose tasks upon us severely, perhaps, but with kind severity. They study us and music, and they seek out the work each one of us must perform in order that we may keep the heart-springs pure and uncovered. Further than this, they find the way by which we shall lead the waters of life which flow out of the heart-springs. They find the way whither they should flow best.

Often in the doing of these things we find the lessons hard and wearisome, infinitely hard to bear, difficult, and not attractive. We wonder why all these things should be so, and we learn in the moment we ask that question that these painful tasks are the price we are paying for the development of our talent. That is truly the purpose of a lesson. And the dear teacher, wise because she has been painfully over the road herself, knows how good and necessary it is for us to labor as she directs.

Let us suppose you play the piano. There will be two kinds of lessons--one will be for the fingers, one for the mind. But really the mind also guides the finger-work; and the heart must be in all. Your exercises will give you greater power to speak with the fingers. Every new finger-exercise in piano-playing is like a new word in language.

Provided with it, you can say more than you could before. The work for the mind is the cla.s.sics. These are compositions by the greater and lesser masters with which you form the taste, while the technical exercises are provided to give you the power, the ability, to play them. Thus you see how well these two things go together.

Year after year, if you go on patiently, you will add to each of these tasks; more power will come to the fingers and to the mind. All this time you will be coming nearer and nearer to the true music. More and more will be coming out of your heart. The spring will not only continue to bubble clearly but it will become more powerful. Nothing is so wonderful as that.

Do you know what a sad thing it was for the man not to increase that one talent which had been given to him? [39] Perchance you have also one. Then find it, love it, increase it. Know that every step of the way, every bit of task, every moment of faith is paid for in later years ten thousandfold.

If now we remember our Talk on Listening it will serve us. Did we not say then that the first duty of a listener is to the one who speaks for his good? Lesson time is an opportunity above nearly all others when we should listen with love in our attention. Yes, nothing less than that, because--how many times we have heard it already--putting love into anything, is putting the heart into it, and with less than that we do not get all we may have.

This Talk, then, is important, because it gathers together many things that have gone before, and hints at some to come. Let us give the last words to speaking about that. A lesson suggests listening; listening suggests the teacher, who with infinite kindness and severity guides us; and the teacher suggests the beautiful road along which we go and what we hear as we travel, that is the music of the heart; and the music of the heart has in it the tones about us, and the greater and lesser masters who thought them into beautiful forms. The masters are as servants unto whom there is given to some one talent, to others two, and four, and more, but to each according to his worth, to be guided and employed in truth and honor; increased by each in accordance to his strength.

CHAPTER XI.

THE LIGHT ON THE PATH.

"Let us seek service and be helpers of one another."

"Master," said the little child, "I am unhappy. Though I have companions and games, they do not content me. Even the music which I love above all the rest is not truly in my heart; nor is it the pleasure to me which it should be. What am I to do?"

And the master replied:

"There is a task, the greatest and severest of all. But a child must learn it. Thou must know _from the first days_, that all thou doest and sayest, whither thou goest, what thou seekest; these, all these, come from within. All that is seen of thee is of thy inner life. All thy doings, thy goings and comings, thy ways and thy desires, these are from within. And when all these things _are for thyself_ there is misery.

"Now there are many things which may not be had by directly seeking them; of these the greatest are two. The one is that which already has given thee sadness in the heart,--the Light of the Face. And the other is happiness.

"But there is a way in which these are to be found. Dost thou not know that often, even with much trouble, thou canst not please thyself? But always, _with little trouble or none_, thou canst please another.

"And the way is Service.

"Thou poor little one! Thou hast come with thy complaint of unhappiness; and yet thou hast all that is bright and rare; companions, and music, and a dear home. Dost thou know that there are in the world uncounted poor ones, children like thyself, who have not their daily bread? And yet there are many of them who never fail to say: 'Lead us not into temptation.' And they say this _without having tasted_ of the daily bread for which they have been taught to pray.