MUSICAL MATTERS.

Feilding Star, Volume XII, Issue 302, 19 August 1916, Page 4

MUSICAL MATTERS.

VOICE CULTURE AND THE PIANO.

Mr G. It. Turner, who teaches singing on the Italian method as placed ou a scientific basis by the celebrated Manuel Garcia, announces in another column vacancies for a few pupils. In this country, owing probably to Ihe strenuous life of our forefathers, the art of singing, so common in the Old Country, .is not generally cultivated. With tiie conquest of the forces of Nature, moro leisure will be found to devote to the arts. From time immemorial tho British —though .not now considered a musical nation —have sung, both prince and peasant. In the very early days, tho man who could :not sing was disgraced. Thus tho earliest, known British poet was found hiding his head in the cowsheds while his fellows sang in turn round the fire after their day's work. "What doest thou here, Caedmon ?" a voice came to him. "I hide here because I alono cannot sing." Then said the voice, "Sing, Caedmon; sing of the glory of God and the wonders He. has made." After this, runs the story, Caedmon sang so that his fame travelled even to the Abbess Hilda, of Whitby. She sent for him, and had the words of his songs written down. Now, more than a thousand years later, we can read those songs, or poems.

Tho spirit which drove Caedmon to hide still survives, and the English peasant sings over his glass of ale after his day's work; tho English mother sings as she goes about her duties; the English school sends forth bursts of sweet song, day after day; nnd no English village is too small to have, its choir of boys and men.

That spirit should lie encouraged in New Zealand. Each one who learns to sing "ualurally, accurately, and tunefullj* should form a centre from which radiates song. It is needful to learn to sing chiefly in order to .-lose any had methods unwittingly acquired. As our singers .increase, the children with whom they come .incontact will copy them. Thus in time New Zealand, so often called "God's Own Country," will become a Homo: of Song.

Mr Turner, is an enthusiast in his art, and it is a more important one than is sometimes realised. The_ effect of singing on children, especially young children, is incalculable. Children are imitative and that is whyl correct singing is so important. A few singing mothers or fathers mean singing children.