Spirit and Music Part 4

Apparent exceptions will at once spring to mind, and we may ask why musicians as a cla.s.s do not stand out specifically as more spiritual than their fellows. There are many reasons. Not all musicians pursue their calling with insight and understanding: mere perfunctory performance has the effect of influencing in the direction of the commonplace and the casual, and music is never the sole influence at work, and not always the chief. The character is the result, on balance, of ALL the forces that have played their part, just as the annual balance on profit and loss account represents the net result of all the transactions that have taken place. Unless the spiritual forces at work in an individual's life outweigh the material, the net result will still be on the side of the latter, even though he may have had music in his soul.

When we look at the adolescent of to-day, particularly the town-bred youth of from sixteen to twenty years, we may well ask what opportunity he gets for the expression of any theme of beauty, or for any impression of the like. The mind has a kind of breathing motion, as have the lungs: it takes in, stores up and a.s.similates, and then expresses.

Education must allow for both processes. But our youthful friend has left school, and is probably engaged in some more or less strenuous work which brings him into the closest contact with grown men. From these he derives most of his inspiration: much of it is highly coloured, and some of it is certainly degrading. He does not read, and so knows nothing of the inspiration of literature, and the past is to him a closed book. He comes across nothing artistic, and he hears no concerts. He never goes to church, and you can see him by the thousand loafing about in any large town on a Sunday. "The modern townsman... has forgotten the habits and sentiments of the village from which his forefathers came. An unnatural and unhealthy mode of life, cut off from the sweet and humanising influences of nature, has produced an unnatural and unhealthy mentality, to which we shall find no parallels in the past. Its chief characteristic is profound secularity or materialism. The typical town artisan has no religion and no superst.i.tions: he has no ideals beyond the visible and tangible world of the senses."[20]

[Note 20: W. R. Inge.]

There is, however, one thing that our young friend does: he sings. We see him, in company with three or four of his fellows, marching along the street singing the latest music-hall ditty, with all the approved music-hall inflections and mannerisms. Sometimes the group will be accompanied by one of their companions on a mouth organ, and occasionally they will attain to the dignity of two-, or even three-part singing. Now and again we find them "throwing back" to the days of Hucbald the Fleming, and running their harmony in a kind of diaphony a fifth below the melody. But they sing because they like to sing. The idea naturally suggests itself that if more firms and works would a.s.sist in making provision for bra.s.s bands, string orchestras, and choral societies among their employees, the music would prove to be a humanising agency of the greatest value. Especially would this be the case if some of the higher officials of the firm, not even excluding the directors, would join on a footing of musical equality with the rest.

The aloofness of cla.s.s is a potent cause of misunderstanding, but Art knows nothing of social distinctions. If we knew more of each other we should probably fight a good deal less, and it is just here that the power of music might be used in healing fashion.

On one occasion in a suburban district, outside a branch of the Y.W.C.A.

on a Sunday evening, we stopped to listen to some excellent part-singing, and we could not help thinking what an educative influence it would surely prove in the lives of the music-makers. We could wish that such opportunities were more generally available. The provision of Munic.i.p.al facilities, which would cost very little, would probably be a most sound investment. But everything would in such case hinge upon the conductor: mere perfunctory work at the husk of music would quickly d.a.m.n any such scheme. In addition it would do definite harm by creating a permanent distaste for music in the minds of those who first were attracted. Something has, of course, been done in the way of providing organ recitals and so on, but we are here suggesting that the working cla.s.ses should be provided with the chance of being their own music-makers. The use of a room, a fee to the conductor, and possibly a small grant towards the cost of music would be all that was necessary, but who can tell what might be the result in harmony and good feeling?

Folk dances, and the singing of old folk tunes, as taught in the elementary schools, are of great value. There is a grace and poetry of movement about some of the children thus taught, which is engaging in the extreme. Nor can this be without its reflex action upon the mind of the child. When taught to move easily and to express fluently in pose and gesture, the child will have acquired some tendency towards a corresponding facility of expression in other directions. According to the songs chosen the singing itself provides outlet for the emotions, and stimulates imaginative play. The prosaic life and surroundings of the slum child are sufficiently deadening, and the new mental pictures thus given are in the nature of windows opening on new vistas of life.

They suggest views that could come to the child mind in perhaps no other way. The finer type of patriotism can be encouraged by such songs as Parry's "England" (John o' Gaunt's Verse), and the more spiritual element by the same composer's "Jerusalem" (words by Blake); while as an example of the imaginative scene we might mention Dr. Wood's "The Knight's Tomb." Regarding the simpler type of song, we recall the case of an Inspector of Music in Schools who was moved, almost to tears, by the rendering of "Will ye no come back?" by a cla.s.s of children who had been taught by a truly inspired instructress. A dull teacher, and there are too many, does frequently damp and quench the fires that should be fanned; and the personal element is an enormous factor in the situation.

The mental and intellectual value of music should by no means be overlooked. The mental alertness developed by sight-reading is of much importance. Some children are slow thinkers, and react lethargically: as a cla.s.s, country children are mentally much slower than town-bred youngsters. A city child quickly has to learn to look after himself, and to make his own decisions on the spur of the moment, and consequently his mental processes are more fluent than those of the b.u.mpkin type. But anything that can be done to accelerate this reaction time is so much added to the efficiency of the individual. Sight-reading, we believe, possesses a special value in this direction. Singing at sight is also a means of developing the co-ordination of the various faculties. There are numbers of people who know things ought to be done, and yet fail to do them. In the case of sight-singing, the mental picture has to be immediately translated into action, it is the essence of the proceeding.

The child is thus developing not only the mental faculties, but is also acquiring increased power of regulation and co-ordination, through the training of the faculties of the cerebellum.

It is now becoming generally recognised that the interest of the young in music may be expressed in intellectual and emotional enjoyment, and not only instrumentally and vocally. In other words we realise that good listeners and appreciative understanders of music are, in their way, as essential as executants. "Shocking as it may seem, hundreds of children 'learn music' for the length of their school life and never hear a masterpiece, and indeed, hear no music at all except such as their own untrained musical sense and half-trained fingers can compa.s.s."[21] In increasing measure the teaching of music appreciation is coming into vogue, and as an aid to this the piano-player and gramophone are demonstrating their value. The slogan of the musical advance guard is "a gramophone in every school." Teachers who are competent to give first-cla.s.s expositions of the cla.s.sics in schools are naturally few and far between, and it would be impossible for even the first-cla.s.s, with the best will in the world, to cover a range in any way commensurate with that which can be reached mechanically. Therefore the mechanical piano-player with a constant change of rolls, and the gramophone with its ever-increasing list of records, are adjuncts to education which are at present only in the stage of small beginnings. They possess drawbacks and disadvantages, of course, but these are far outweighed by the many solid points that tell in their favour.

[Note 21: Percy Scholes. "Everyman and his Music."]

The standard of musical accomplishment to be found in the various schools is of very wide range. In the elementary schools there is a certain uniformity of scheme, if not of achievement. But in the Public Schools, and in the preparatory schools which act as feeders to them, there is no uniformity of scheme, and the range of achievement is from a very great deal to just nothing at all. Too much depends upon the individual outlook of the Headmaster. If he be musical, then the music prospers: but if he be not interested in the subject, then the music languishes accordingly. This is not rational. Either music has its value as an educational subject, in which case it ought to be in the curriculum independent of the vagaries of the Headmaster for the time being; or else it has no educational value, and should never be there.

Whims in such a matter are out of place: but they are nevertheless too often a deciding factor. In many schools music is frankly regarded as a nuisance, a sort of frilling that is inappropriate to the rigid texture of education. It touches the emotions, and the Public School man has a horror of being even so much as suspected of having emotions.

The average net result is that music has been tolerated rather than encouraged, and most often the boy who elects to study music has to do so at the expense of his playtime. Cla.s.s singing is sometimes taken in the regular school hours, but more often not. The consequence is that it is frequently regarded as a grind and a bore: an att.i.tude scarcely conducive to any appreciation of its inner significance. Again, the influence of the Music Master is of extraordinary importance: his subject is identified in the boy mind with himself, and if the master be not respected for his own personality, then the music suffers in precisely that degree. A fine influence can be trusted to make itself felt in every circ.u.mstance, though perhaps battles may have to be fought before victory is achieved, and if the musician has grasped the fundamentals of his Art, and realises that it is not so much himself as the spirit that works through him, then the work that he can do both for music and for his little musicians is beyond all price.

In one Public School with which we were closely acquainted the standard of music was extremely high. The "Head" had his own ideas, which occasionally came out in unexpected guise. For example, every Sunday morning there was a choir-practice before Chapel for the non-singers.

This, of course, is a contradiction in terms, but an effective procedure in reality. All the boys who were not in the choir had to attend a practice for the musical part of the service, while the choir had the privilege of a free time. There was no grievance about this, and it was taken simply as a matter of routine. Further, in addition to the usual Shields that were won and kept for the year by the various competing "Houses," for cricket, football, sports, cross-country running, etc., there was a "House-singing Shield." This was competed for by the various houses, each of which had to put up an S.A.T.B. (four-part) choir. The compet.i.tion consisted in the singing; of a compulsory glee, chosen by the authorities some months in advance, and a voluntary part-song selected by the competing choir. Both were to be sung without accompaniment. If the house-master happened to be musical he generally undertook the training of the choir: but if he were not, then a head boy took it on. The standard achieved was, as a rule, remarkably good. At the time of which we speak there were five competing houses in a school of some two hundred boys, and this means that in the school there were five complete four-part choirs capable of singing an unaccompanied part-song. Practically every boy belonged to one or other of the choirs, for marks were added to the total in proportion as the number of boys singing rose, as compared with the total number in the house.

We cite this case from our own experience in order to show what has actually been accomplished in the way of fostering the love of music in one Public School. We are aware that this standard would appear entirely visionary to the authorities of some other schools: there are some to whom the idea of one choir singing in two parts seems more than is practicable. But when music is recognised as an integral part of education, as it used to be in Greece, then we may look forward to a different standard indeed. We may also recognise that unless education itself pays some attention to the emotional and feeling side of life, it is leaving neglected an element which has no little to do with national stability and sanity, since these can only be grounded upon the manifestation of spirit in love and service.

CHAPTER X

THE ARTISTIC TEMPERAMENT

"Conventions mean very little to the artist, because conventionality arises either from mental laziness or fear of what others will say and think. Moreover the true genius must ever have the capacity to feel deeper love and emotions than the man in the street"

Eaglefield Hull

We frequently hear the "artistic temperament" referred to in ordinary conversation as if it were some kind of a vice, a mental aberration or a disease: and it is certainly doubtful whether those who so casually discuss the subject have any clear idea as to what const.i.tutes this particular equipment. That no great work of artistic merit can be accomplished in its absence is more or less tacitly agreed, but it may be interesting to consider in what this essential basis of artistic success consists.

We have before pointed out that the function of an interpreter is to act as a link between the spiritual and the material: he is the prophet to reveal the otherwise hidden message. The interpreter is the artist, and the artist is the interpreter. The ability to come into contact with the finer things, tangible or intangible, is simply a capacity of response finer than normal. A trained sense-perception is more acute than a non-trained: and quite apart from training there are very wide divergences in the innate range of activity of the various senses.

Again, keen interest and attention tend to make a particular sense more alert, and even to extend the boundaries of its response. A man who is particularly interested in some maiden's voice or footstep will be able to make correct distinctions which simply do not exist for anyone less actively interested in that particular lady. Concentration enables any sense to become more acute. This increased acuteness naturally gives its possessor the power to receive impressions which would otherwise escape record. In the sense of not being usual, this acute sensitiveness of the artist is thus an abnormality: but it is only a variation in the direction of progress, for the whole story of the evolutionary climb up life's ladder is one of ever-increasing sensibility and response. The artistic temperament is thus, in essence, a phase of evolution somewhat in advance of its day.

Any departure from the normal, even though it be in the forward direction and carrying with it certain privileges, yet entails its disadvantages. The man who breaks out is generally made to pay pretty dearly for his temerity: but, if there were none to advance and thus break out, civilisation itself would stagnate and there could be no progress. The artist, the dreamer, the visionary, the poet, the genius, these all are the advance guard of humanity. As such they frequently receive the pioneers' scanty reward, but their eyes are scarcely fixed upon mundane munificence, already their scale of values is a spiritual one. But it is just these delicate, sensitive folk, susceptible to the gossamer impulses that would never even ruffle the surface of the average man's mind, who are open to the urge of spirit and responsive to its "drive." So they answer to the helm and steer out into the unknown, while the more sleek, comfortable, and well-fed do not so much as guess that there has been any impulse at all. "H'm," say the corpulent, "why can't they leave well alone and be comfortable?" But it is no part of the great plan that the wheels of progress should ever slow down, it is much more to the point that they should be made to turn more quickly.

Spirit is the force behind evolution, the force that makes the acorn unfold into the oak, and it is the urge of spirit which compels man to unfold his own divinity.

The artistic temperament, then, is the super-sensitive, and by this very virtue it creates its own difficulties. The artist is too responsive, too widely responsive unless he knows how to safeguard himself. Nature herself in her thousand moods plays upon the sensitive mind: she moulds it with her beauties, leads it out into the open with the call of the wild, or terrifies it with the grandeur of her anger. The artist replies to the appeal of beauty, but is seared with the degradation of ugliness or the sordid. He is thrilled with love, and wounded to the core by hatred. He responds to praise, but is depressed by sneers to a degree which the ordinary man is unable to comprehend. Thus his daily life is pierced with a thousand exquisite emotions to which your well-fed plebeian is stranger indeed. He lives on more exalted heights and yet sinks to inconceivably greater depths. Life truly consists more in our wealth of impression than in the length of our days, and therefore the artist lives at greater intensity, and consequently with a greater nervous wear and tear.

This sensitiveness is more easily moved to tears, since it is in essence more feminine than masculine, being more a matter of the heart than the head: but because of this element of the feminine it partakes more of the magnetic temperament than the electric. It possesses to a greater degree the capacity for holding on. Thus the sensitive artist, for the sake of his ideal, will peg away at the forlorn hope, and, sustained by the spirit, may bring off the thousand-to-one chance. He has the capacity to endure to the end, while the man without this "drive" will weigh things up, eventually playing for safety and, incidentally, comfort. Our friend of the artistic temperament will be acutely sympathetic, and thus an easy prey for the importunate: he may even give everything away and so have nothing for himself. The world will furnish him with countless opportunities both of great joy and bitter grief, so the readings of the temperament-chart of the artist will be apt to resemble the variations of a barometer when changeable weather is about.

Genius is thus as a rule variable to the verge of the irrational.

Erratic as it may seem to the ordinary person, the vision of the artist is often inherently near the truth. His sensitiveness enables him to see this "more of truth," even if it becloud his vision occasionally with mundane perversions. He possesses his own standards, and when these conflict with the conventional it is convention that must be sacrificed.

Thus the conventional mind brands the artistic temperament as immoral.

But morality is not absolute, it is conventional and relative: we do not, as once, punish the sheep-stealer with the gallows nor the heretic with red-hot irons, for our standards have changed with the years. So also do they vary with our locality: what is right in this place is wrong over the border. The vision of the artist sees beyond the formularies to the substance, and so he is prepared to brave criticism for his stand upon what he knows to be true.

Love and beauty call to him with other meaning than they bear to the prosaic and self-satisfied, and so he answers to the call of affection when perhaps it would have been better for his peace of mind that caution and prudence should have held sway. But again it is an open question whether the man who follows the gleam, with inspiration to beckon him, does not come nearer to the truth than the man of calculating caution who sums up and weighs. Sometimes crabbed age awakes to the realisation that the c.o.c.ksure aim of youth is on occasion nearer to the mark than the aim directed by cold intellect, plotted out on a diagram, and worked out correct to three places of decimals. It is perfectly possible for the cautious and orthodox pedestrian to spend so much time and effort in dodging the dangers of life's path, and in endeavouring to keep off the gra.s.s, that he makes no solid progress. On the other hand, the artistic temperament lives in the world and is not ent.i.tled to follow its own laws where those conflict with the interests of others. The mere possession of this type of temperament involves its Bohemian owner in many difficulties which do not beset the path of those who fit into the routine of life as they find it. Certainly it is advisable for the artist to temper his ways with discretion, for genius is altogether too apt to make a meteoric blaze and end up in a fizzle.

The possessor of the artistic temperament is frequently deemed unreliable and capricious, and to a certain extent this is true. It is the sensitiveness first to one impact and then another, the susceptibility to the manifold forces that play upon the individual, which turn him now in the one direction and then in the other. He is lured and led by this, and then by that. Yet at times he is capable of the greatest concentration: immersed in his subject he may even forget the outer world and omit to eat his dinner, or perhaps like the philosopher he may eat it twice.

It is, however, quite possible to cultivate some of the advantages of this temperament and to restrict the disadvantages. It is not necessary, for example, that anyone should be at the mercy of every transient impulse: this involves an enormous waste of energy, as would the voyage of a ship which should suffer itself to be blown hither and thither by every pa.s.sing breeze. We only respond to that to which we are mentally attuned, and our minds pick up out of the welter of errant thought only those which correspond to the note we sing. This, then, suggests that by attuning the mind to certain things we automatically throw it out of tune with conflicting ideas. The successful artist, as a rule, is one who has learnt to render himself oblivious to distractions, and so is enabled to concentrate his attention solely on the work in hand. The artist who will be permanently unsuccessful is the one whose enthusiasms attract him first to one thing and then another, never allowing him to remain absorbed by the one thing long enough to bring it to a satisfactory issue. Auto-suggestion applied to this point of inculcating response to certain things, and immunity from the influence of others, is an easy and extremely practical help.

One characteristic of genius is an extreme fertility in making mental a.s.sociations. A central object comes into mind, and immediately the mind of the genius, by contrast, comparison, a.n.a.logy, inference, and imagination, weaves around it a wealth of possibility: the dull-witted man sees the same, but his mind travels no farther than the actual vision. The quick mind supplies the apt repartee, while the dullard thinks of the appropriate reply next morning--if at all. The disadvantage of the latter mind is that it does not work easily, the danger of the former is that it may work too easily and get out of control. Where the central control does not suffice to keep a strong hand upon this easy-running mental machinery, it may quickly merge into eccentricity and possibly into madness. The insane show this same tendency to rapid, but irrelevant, a.s.sociation which lands them in incoherency: they make, or indulge in, a.s.sociations which no normal person would allow. A genius is only a genius while the necessary selection and control over these a.s.sociations is retained, when this is lost the genius pa.s.ses into that insanity to which it is so closely a.s.sociated. The same conditions and remarks apply to the artistic temperament, which itself is a mark of possible genius.

The artistic impulse is essentially creative, and in this it demonstrates its relationship to the question of s.e.x. It is well recognised that many of the inspirations of genius in the various forms of Art have come at a time when the artist was in the throes of the gentle pa.s.sion. This "love neurosis," as the cold specialist dubs it, is in essence a condition of exaltation, and therefore of exceptional sensitiveness. Need we wonder, then, that our artist-friend makes perhaps more frequent excursions than the humdrum individual into the realms of amorous exuberance? By nature he is more susceptible to the influence of the finer emotions, and he will find a thousand graces in the curve of an arm or the turn of an ankle, where, were you to appraise such in cold blood, there might be after all little enough to rave about.

It seems probable that the inspiration of the opposite s.e.x in the artistic direction lies more in this mood of exaltation than in any specific influence. In the exalted condition there is the greater capacity of response to inspiration from outside ourselves, and also from within. Under all circ.u.mstances we are being played upon by the waves of the sea of thoughts in which we daily live, and therefore inspiration from this outside source is somewhat of a commonplace. But under certain conditions one can undoubtedly be inspired by one's own greater (subconscious) mind, which contains as treasure all the lore of its own experience, and probably a good deal more beside.

However, the artistic temperament, with all that may be said for or against it, is a gift of the high G.o.ds, and while it does not of necessity imply a greater degree of spirituality and spiritual impulse than the normal, it does at any rate make this possible. The conditions are provided for finer work than is open to the majority, but so long as man has a measure of free will he is able to turn the use of his gifts upward or down. The freedom of the artist may of course degenerate into license, and the spiritual impulse may be turned to perverted ends.

There is a distinct difference between the truly spiritual and what may be termed the psychic: there are hidden powers and latent possibilities which the specially sensitive are beginning to unfold. But the danger is exactly on a par with that which up-to-date chemists and scientists foresee in the physical world. There are tons of energy, we are told, locked up in the atom of the physical world, and the scientist prays that mankind may not find the secret of unlocking that power until his moral sense is developed to such a degree as to prevent his using it for destructive ends. It is comparatively easy to stimulate the psychic side of our natures, but unless these powers be tuned by an accompanying spirituality to a high note, unexpected and even undesirable results may follow. The artist has taken a step forward in the exploration of a new realm, and new discoveries--even though he does not fully comprehend their import--are falling to his lot. The safeguard of the pioneer lies in his recognition of the spiritual nature of his quest: if he realises that he is making contact with a new realm of thought and idea, then he will rate his calling high, and not run unnecessary risk by pursuing it in any unworthy or selfish aim.

CHAPTER XI

"PURE MUSIC"

"We understand but little of music. The greatest masterpiece is but a signpost to that infinite realm of harmony, in which music is for ever included, and to the joy which awaits in its eternal unfoldment"

_F. L. Rawson_

The point has been raised in discussion--"Is there such a thing as pure music?" The question involved is whether music must necessarily convey any emotional message, or whether it may just be a concourse of sweet sounds signifying nothing. There are those who are prepared to lend support to the proposition on either side: but, inasmuch as the whole object of these pages has been to emphasise the spiritual message of music, our viewpoint would naturally lead us to take up a position in conflict with that of the "pure music" school.

The difficulty in all discussion, and particularly in such as this, consists in the fact of our own individual uniqueness. Little as we may realise it, our standards of judgment and criticism are purely individual and infinitely variable. Two people see a thing: put scientifically, the result of this is that each experiences a stimulation of the optic nerve. Apart from any differences arising from the varying powers of concentration and observation, the stimulus will be the same. But the next step in the process of seeing is the translation of this nerve-stimulus by the brain into a visual image: this can only be done by the awakening of a brain-picture which is already there--in short, by recognition. As the pictures already existing in the mind are compiled by the experience of the individual, and as no two sets of experiences can possibly be identical in all respects, it follows that the visual image awakened is a purely personal and unique one. The thing seen is variable according to the individual.

It is impossible for us to observe alike even when we are concerned with concrete objects: still more is it impossible when we deal with abstract subjects such as Art and Beauty. Hence arises the fundamental difficulty of discussion.

In the world of affairs we have arrived at certain understandings or conventional views which we generally accept, and upon this basis we proceed to argue as if our facts were facts--which which they are not.

We agree to regard a certain "colour" as red, although as a matter of fact it is neither a colour, nor is it red. Colour is merely the reflection of certain light rays transmitted by ether waves: our red object reflects the red rays of the spectrum, having absorbed all the others. But in the absence of light our object is no longer red, and colour does not exist. Had we generally agreed to call this colour blue, then it would be blue instead of red. The basis of any argument about colour must be some sort of convention of this kind to form a common meeting ground. The difficulty in discussion about music is that such a conventional basis of agreement does not exist.

Music may thus convey a message to one person and not to another: it may be "pure music" carrying no emotion to this man, and yet it may convey something peculiarly definite, to the mind of the other. The message is not a thing of which we can logically argue "either it is, or it is not": both statements may be true. Sound exists in the form of vibration, but if I am deaf I cannot hear it: it has no existence--FOR ME. The problem thus centres itself largely in the mind of the individual rather than in the question whether there is or is not a message and a meaning. Not only music, but the whole world is br.i.m.m.i.n.g over with messages and meanings which our dull senses cannot appreciate.

The folk who populate this globe are largely dead. They answer to such a limited range of interests and sensations that they cannot in any real sense be said to be "alive."