Girls' Column.

Wairarapa Standard, Volume XX, Issue 2073, 27 May 1887, Page 2 (Supplement)

Girls' Column.

A Fortune in a Voirth

The idea that one has a fortune in one’s voice lias worked much mischief; for how does a successful amateur picture herself when she contemplates an artist ? Not in the place she can reasonably expect to fill, singing at obscure concerts with small gains while continuing to study hard, in fact, learning her business, but coming forward in the first rank of vocalists who havo earned their laurels by years of toil and struggle. For such a position no amateur, however gifted, can be fitted. Experience is as much needed in the profession of a vocalist ns in any other line of business. The public, whose servant sho becomes, is perhaps the most goodnatured in the world. To a debutante it is always kind, to old established favorites constant, even enthusiastic, whilst they have a shred of voice left; but it is not eager to take a now singer to its heart. We are a commercial people, and the average conceit goer must be convinced that he is having the worth of his money to be satisfied. There are hundreds of well-trained singers who never come to the front at all, for the difficulty of getting a hearing increases eacli year. So do the qualities and acquirements necessary to enable a singer to keep her place when she has struggled into it. Beside possessing an exceptional voice, cultivated in the beat method, she must learn her business as an artist, a business in the highest degree tedious and complicated. An amateur chooses her own songs, or arranges for the performance of a work which specially suits her voice. An artist who has her way to make, on the contrary must bo ready to take up what is wanted by concert managers or by the fancy of public at the moment. She must study, not only all tiro standard musical works, but the important new ones as they are produced ; for, though she may very likely never have the opportunity of singing them, on the other hand, one of her bestchances of becoming known may lie in being suddenly called upon to take the place of a great singer who is indisposed. There is no mortification greater to a young artist than to be obliged to refuse such an opening because she is not ready with the work. How (o <»ct at It A teacher is a great thing, whatever you wish to learn ; hut if you cannot afford to pay a teacher, do not say that if is impossible for you to do anything. The teacher, after all, only shows you how to work for yourself, If you long to draw, got a pencil and paper, and copy what you can got to copy. Use the pencil, however awkwardly at first. If you have any talent the skill will come in due time. So, if yon have a musical ear, yon can do a great deal more untaught than one without this faculty can do under the best teachers. Read all you can on the subject you wish to study, and examine the work of others minutely ; above all practice, whether it be a flower, a landscape, a figure which you wisli to paint, a head you wisli to model, or embroidery you desire to do. Observation and patient practice are your best helps. It is not many years since a country lady, who had been quite untaught, modelled a beautiful woman’s head out of butter, because she had nothing else to model with, Benjamin West, one of the finest portrait painters of his age, began by drawing a portrait of his little sister in colored ink, paints and brushes having boon denied him. One celebrated violinist made a fiddle for himself to begin with and the mistress of a well-known school for embroidery ravelled out old scraps of carpet for her first work and copied a pattern from a chintz bed spread on a bit of old canvas bagging. Want of money, or want of lessons, cannot crush talent, if one feels a longing to do anything. Remember, Ido not say a longing to suif you can do this or that, but a real wisli to do it for its own sake. The way to do it is in fio at it at once. Nobody can teach you half as much as you can teacli yourself.

The Care of the Fiauo. la the hot Heather a piano should not be placed iu a damp room, or left open in a draught of air, for dampness is its most dangerous enemy. It causes the strings and tuning pins to rust, and the cloth used in the const ruction of the keys of action to swell, whereby the mechanism will move sluggishly, or often stick together. Continued dampness will also injuriously aii'oct the varnish, and raise the soft fibres of the sounding board, thus forming ridges. All this occurs chiefly in the summer season, and the best pianos, made of tlie most thoroughly seasoned material, are necessarily the most seriously affected by dampness. Extreme beat is scarcely less injurious. A piano should not be placed near an open fire or heated stove, nor close to hot air from furnaces. A piano should bo closed when not in use, in order to prevent the accumulation of dust, pins, etc., on the sounding board, and yet it should be opened occasionally, and daylight allowed to strike the keys, otherwise the ivory may turn yellow. An Indian rubber or cloth cover should protect the instrument from bruises and scratch.es. Moths may bo kept out of a piano by a lump of Camphor done up in soft paper, placed in the inside cover, A new piano should be tuned every two or three months during the first year, and at longer intervals thereafter. Arab Women ns Fighters. P’rom the earliest period of their history, the women of the desert tribes wore as celebrated for their skill with lance or bow, as for that bronze beauty which the composers of the quasidah or the moallakat were never weary of describing. Before Islam it was the boast of many Arabian tribes, as it was afterward of certain Tartar hordes, that their women cauld fight as well as the men; the Himaryites were among the most famous of these. All through those ancient Arabian poems, to which Mahomet is said to have referred as final authority for the meaning of certain words or phrases in the Koran, one finds many legends of Arab girls celebrated for their equestrianism, their dexterity with the seimetar, and even for the number of men they have overcome in single combat. Islam, by subordinating the women to the man, and destroying the idea of male and female equality, did much (o extinguish the warrior-spirit of the fair sex throughout (ho greater part of the Orient : hut in the Averts of Arabia and Not them Africa, something of thoseaneicut ideas prcvailsto the present day.