Raise Your Child to Love Music

"If only half the money spent on holiday gifts went to buy music records for the little ones!"

Between us and the meaning of the feast lies a deep gulf.

We glut our children with toys and with foods that stuff their stomachs and their whims, and we do not give them even a little artistic nourishment, a little merry music.

Samir went to the market with his mother on the eve of the feast, so that she might buy him his needs and his toys. When they entered the toy shop and he saw the unparalleled rush to buy toys, he thought to himself: if only half this money were spent on buying records for the little ones. And he asked his mother, seeking to understand:

Why do we not put aside half the money we are going to spend here, to buy music records that suit the spirit of the feast?

— Do you think you would find what you want?

— I think not; but the absence of this kind of music comes of no one's asking for it. If people sought it out, this music would be found at once.

And Samir is entirely right. Why do we not take the lesson of little, quick-witted Samir, who understood a child's requirements because he is a child — and the master of the house knows best what is in it?

I want, and am proud, to take the lesson of your words, Samir; and two years from now, God willing, I shall take my son by the hand and go to the record seller and buy him the merry, well-tuned pieces that may perhaps awaken in him the love of musical taste.

For the little ones there are colors of every kind in the world of music: from folk songs to merry tunes, Western or Eastern — for music has neither creed nor nationality — to joyful wordless melodies, all of which quicken them and polish their taste and their true understanding of art.

If we buy them "sonatas" of Mozart, there will thrill in their breasts the pride of movement, the love of innocent merriment, and a wide sense of release.

If we buy them Beethoven's Bagatelles and play them to them with deliberation and skill, we create in their small souls that realistic view of life, so that they become neither giddy nor pessimistic — and Beethoven has a realistic stamp that best expresses the middle states.

If we buy them a Lied of Schubert, we open before them fields of delight in heavenly strains and lofty melodies; all the vulgar tunes are routed before them, and they no longer relish anything else.

And if we buy them a Menuet of Chopin, we teach them how to keep the stamp of their own personality and not attempt to change colors — that is, if we explain to them that Chopin begins his music and ends it with one stamp and one color.

And if you wish, let there be, along with the Menuet, some of the easy "waltzes," so that we train them to follow the composer's idea through all its stages, especially with Chopin, where it has kept its true color. A child cares about what the great do, for there is in his soul an inborn love of imitating them. And in this field — the field of music — there is a double benefit for the little ones, for they come to understand music little by little. And if we join this explanation to a few remarks about the composers, we increase their eagerness, for words about the musician — a living being — strike differently from words about music. This is a novel way of endearing music to the little ones.

Tell them that Mozart played his famous "sonata" for the first time when he was six years old, and they will long to hear it, and it will fix itself quickly in their minds. Or tell them that Chopin showed his genius when he was ten years old, when he astonished his teacher: the teacher came one day into the music room and heard him playing something the teacher had never heard at all. He said to him: Whose piece is this, Frédéric?

He answered: Guess, master!

And he played it over again. The teacher tried once more.

Chopin answered: If you will permit me, master — it is mine. This is an encouraging example for children, that they may stay humble however far their genius reaches — knowing that pride kills talents while they are still in the cradle.

And who can tell the effect of these pieces? Even if they did nothing in them but widen their horizons toward a new world of which they had known nothing! Our child is molded, from his earliest years, to flee from his reality, because his reality is painful and sad. If the advancement of countries were measured by the quantity of toys bought, we should carry off the palm of victory; but if we measure our country by the standard of the advanced nations, and pass, at feast time, by the bookshops or the music stores — then we are still at the rear of the caravan.

Let us teach them how to face life as Beethoven faced it; let us arm them with hardiness and strength while they are small, and so make them like the great.

It is all very fine to say to a child: your late grandfather was brave and daring, and your late grandmother was clever and energetic — but their grandfather and grandmother are something ordinary and near at hand to them. Whereas if you say to your child: be diligent and strive, as in the story of Mozart I told you yesterday — he knows that Mozart rose high, and therefore he too can strive to reach the like; and this striving breeds in him a desire to listen to his music. Thus we shall have hit two birds with one stone.

This is some of the feast's inspiration. May we all profit by it, and profit our children. And may its inspiration be a new opening for us and for our little ones.