MUSIC.

Otago Witness, Issue 2085, 8 February 1894, Page 46

MUSIC.

Should every girl be taught to play ? This is a question tV.at often occurs to the mind, and especially to the mind maternal. Surely not, unless she have a talent for it and music be a pleasure to her ; but at the same time it is a talent that does not seem to develop till a girl is through the first drudgery of learning her notes and scales, and I think every child should learn till she be about 12 or 13, and if then her performance be a trial to listeners she may as well give it up. It is a real trial to those who love music to hear wrong notes and bad time, and when our ears are also' assailed by a voice out of time and tune a climax is reached.

What person that has been a sea voyage cannot recall tbe sounds that proceeded from time to time from the music saloon 1 The last voyage I made from the old country we had a lady on board whose voice was the nearest approach to a peacock's scream I have ever heard, and she sang incessantly. A friend of my own wrote to me the other day whilst on a P. and O. boat. He said : "Don't expect me to write a lacld letter, the heat is awful, and in the music saloon above me a lady is singing (?) Tosti's 1 Good-bye,' with what effect you may judge when I tell you the remark I have just heard a steward make to his chum, •My 1 Bill, there's them bloomin' cats on the tiles again 1 ' " |Now cannot one fancy how it must have sounded ! Music, one of God's most glorious gifts, to bo abused in such a way I

There is no doubt New Zealanders are a musical nation. Better teachers appear year by year, and children begin to learn earlier. If a child is to learn the piano at all it should begin not later than six years old : not to be bothered with its notes in tb.B book — that is too great a tax on the small brain — but a child may learn how to hold its hands in proper position, and may be given one or two simple little five-fiDger exercise?, so as to strengthen the fingers and make them lissome, and 10 miniates a day for the first six months is quite long enough for a lesson.

Music can give such pleasure in a family, and it draws brothers and sisters together in a wonderful way by providing them with a common interest. Anything that makes home evenings bright and keeps the boys in .at night is worth cultivating, and there are so many easy part songs published now, and songs with bright choruses, which may be soon learnt, and which will give pleasure in the home circle, that it seems a pity more musical talent is not cultivated.

PRIMUS.