GETTING JOY OUT OF MUSIC

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22391, 11 April 1936, Page 4 (Supplement)

GETTING JOY OUT OF MUSIC

"Some students despair because they have to play musio within the limits of their technique," wrote Hendrik Willem van Loon recently." "They want to play Beethoven concertos at once. They want to become virtuosi over night. To such I would say, 'Be patient!-' You do not abandon learning to read because you cannot be an Otis Skinner or a Katharine Cornell. Get exhibitionism out of your head. Study music for the same reason that golfers play golf. Those who play it because it is good for their health or good for their business usually drop some day at the tenth hole, with heart disease. Those who do it for the sport they find in it are the ones who get the most from it. Otherwise, it is merely something tagged on to the regular daily job. "I actually get a Kind of intoxication from playing a Bach fugue. There is a thrill to it 1 cannot describe with words. For me, this is reason enough to study music. It makes my life fuller, more interesting, more fascinating. Not for anything would I give up the aWhty to flav. So long as my fingers can move shall expect to have the irreplacable joy of playing."