Chapter VII: Ambition

"Character is the internal life of a piece, engendered by the
composer; sentiment is the external expression, given to the work
by the interpreter. Character is an intrinsic positive part of a
composition; sentiment an extrinsic, personal matter only."

=Christiani.=

VII.

AMBITION.

The very first question to ask of an applicant for vocal lessons is "what is your ambition?" By that, I mean, the teacher should know at the very start what purpose the pupil has in study, or if he has any purpose. The intention of the pupil should make a difference in the consideration given to the pupil in the matter of voice trial. If an applicant says he wishes to sing in Opera and the teacher sees that he lacks all capacity for such high position, he should frankly say so; if the applicant says that he wishes to learn to sing well that he may have pleasure in his own singing and give pleasure to his friends, that should be taken into account. Such person, provided he has any voice and musical instinct, can reach the height of his ambition and his study should be encouraged.

The first visit of an applicant to a teacher is a most important event in the life of the pupil. The importance of it is not appreciated. To very many persons it marks a change--a veritable conversion--in their lives. A mistake made by the teacher with regard to the future of the pupil is a serious matter. That visit gives the teacher his chance to plan his treatment and is akin to the diagnosis of the physician. The pupil places himself in the hands of the teacher as thoroughly as does the patient give himself over to the physician. The case assumes importance from this fact. Responsibility by the teacher is assumed. The musical future of the pupil is in his hands. It may be for the good of the pupil that he found his particular teacher and it may not be.

"What is your ambition regarding your music?" is the safeguard of the teacher. Knowing that, he can have a basis for examination and a ground for promises to the student. In the large cities, teachers are troubled with that which would be very amusing were it not for the sad part of it. Students of music come from the smaller cities and from the country and begin a series of visits to the different studios for the purpose of selecting a teacher. Everyone seems to recommend a new teacher and the student calls upon all. The result is surely disastrous to the pupil. He or she is left in doubt as to whom to go for study. The different promises made, the compliments paid, the hopes of ambition raised, are all enough to unbalance the judgment of older heads than those who usually seek the music studio. When a teacher is finally selected, it takes a long time to settle down into confidence in him so that the best result can be obtained. I said it would be amusing to the teacher were it not sad. I have known persons to boast that they had had "as good as a lesson" from the different teachers visited. I even know men who are teaching voice culture and singing in this city who claim to teach certain methods, and all they know of those methods is what they picked up in the interviews which they pretended were to see about arranging for study. As if any man of experience would give (or could give) his instruction in a talk of ten or fifteen minutes! The men who have ways of teaching which are so good that they bring valuable renown are too shrewd to be caught in any such way as that. What shall be done about such persons? Nothing. Let them alone. They die out after a time. Were there any way to prevent other people from following their example it would be a most excellent thing. But as society is made up, as long as the flash of a piece of glass passes for the sparkle of a diamond just so long will the cheater spring up, flourish and disappear.

A question more to the point is "How can the racing from studio to studio be stopped?" I frankly say that I do not know. Generally I avoid bringing up a subject which has not in my own mind reached solution. I can suggest remedies if not cures.

By writing about it some little help may be given the student. The remedy--nearly all city teachers have some special branch, a branch in which they obtain satisfactory results. One succeeds in Italian Opera, another in Voice Culture; one in Rudimental Study, another in Oratorio; one has many pupils in church choirs, another forms delightful classes of society pupils. "What is your ambition?" Find that teacher whose general reputation is in that which you want to do and be, and commence study with him. A very few lessons with that teacher--say ten lessons--will tell the student whether he is the right teacher or not. Probably the teacher will prove satisfactory. If not, by that time--acquaintance with the teachers of the city will permit more certain selection, the second time. "But," say you, "those ten lessons have cost something." True, but they have not cost half as much as it costs to settle an unbalanced mind.

To return to the first question, what is your ambition? Has it ever occurred to you to wonder what becomes of all the music students--how many are there? Who can tell? One teacher boasts of having given four hundred vocal lessons last month; another caps that by claiming five hundred. Allow for all exaggeration, and say that these teachers (and thirty or forty others had as many students at work) had all they could do. They had from thirty to fifty pupils under study. What is to become of them, and how many ever amount to anything? The teacher has responsibility. He who receives every person who applies, especially if he tells him what a good voice he has and how well he can sing after a term or two, borders very nearly upon the scoundrel, or else the fool. If he thinks he can make a singer out of every person who comes to him he is the fool; if he flatters a person whom he knows can never become a singer, he is a scoundrel. He who is wise will find out the desire of the applicant and tell him frankly whether or not he can reach the desired goal. If he thinks it cannot be done there is no objection to his pointing out some other channel of musical usefulness and advising him to enter that. If the applicant has no aptitude for the desired study the only honest course is to tell him not to waste time and money on his voice. Any conscientious teacher feels a shudder sometimes over the responsibility of his position when the thought comes up "what becomes of all the music students?" We can ask "what becomes of the pins?" and have the question answered. The material of which they are made can be supplied anew. "So," say you, "will new pupils come." But those who are now studying must be made something of. The day they begin study a new world opens to them. Is it for good or ill? That remains for the teacher to solve. Every true teacher improves every pupil who studies with him. Some of them will become good singers and fine musicians. These are the ones most talked about and the teacher finds pleasure in the added reputation which they bring, but the others have the right to demand that they shall be raised to a higher plain of life because of their music lessons.

What becomes of all the ambitious youths and maidens who study singing? Only one or two now and then amount to very much in professional life. Thousands attempt to be "Patties," but who has reached her height? Some one is at fault that this is so. Whatever belongs to the singing teacher, let him assume, but let him keep in mind that there is something to guard in the future. Over in Milan, ten years or more ago, while a student there, I met a great many Americans who like myself were there for study. I was told that at least two thousand American young ladies were there. Probably more than half of them expected to become successful singers in grand opera. How many successful singers in grand opera have appeared during the last ten years? A very few surely. What has become of the "ninety and nine?" Of that, say nothing. I saw the wretched lives they were leading at Milan--most of them--and advised, nay, begged, that they would go home to America and do anything for a living if they must work, rather than to stay there. Taking in washing would be much more ennobling than what some of them were doing. Whose fault was it that so many were there, and that so many are there all the time? Teachers of singing here at home must sooner or later realize that they did it. How, when, or for what purpose? Well, much might be said which will not be. Had an honest expression of the belief regarding the possibility of gratifying the original ambition been given, very much of the wrong done could have been avoided.

One of the reasons why many people try to learn to sing is because some one has urged them to do so. The person who arouses the interest in another does a necessary act, and yet there should be a good degree of caution used in the matter. This article will be read by thousands who are now students, and as the aim of the magazine is to educate, let us see what word can be formed in the idea of this paragraph, which will make students better able to use judgment in inducing others to study. Do not cease in the efforts to bring others into musical work, but let your effort be tempered with discretion. When you hear a person sing who evidently enjoys it, whose face beams with pleasure, and whose voice pleases her hearers; when, in a word, you hear one who has a voice, and has intelligence enough to understand himself and his music, then learn if he has given serious study to music. If not, urge him to see a master at once. Do not, however, when you hear a person labor through a song, with act painful to himself and everybody else, urge him to go a teacher, "and learn how."

Well, reader, "What is _your_ ambition?" Have you any? If not, get one pretty soon. I would say that before another sun sets, you should have a settled purpose in your vocal study and follow that purpose to a definite end. That matter settled you will do more than ever before. It is a matter which _you_ must settle. Others may suggest and advise, but you must decide it, yourself. I would not continue study without a fixed purpose. A poor purpose is better than none. Shall I tell you of some of the ambitions which students have, and say a word about them? Perhaps you will get a useful idea from that. The best use of lessons in music is that you may know music and how to use it for pleasure wherever you may be placed. This means that the study should be for education itself and not for the financial return which the study may bring. Study for the culture of a beautiful art--for the improvement of the mind, for the refinement which comes with associating with that which is pure. When one tells a teacher that this is his ambition, he will in many cases find that the teacher wishes him to work for something besides. A church choir is something of that sort. There is no reason why one should not have other ambitions, but the highest ambition which one can have is to make himself a musician of the highest and best kind. The whole journey toward becoming such is pleasant. Whoever goes but one mile along the road has his reward, and each additional mile brings its additional reward. Anyone can have this ambition in his study, and he who is most faithful and has the most intelligence will make the most progress and do the best in a given time. People who have little or none of that which is called musical genius can so develop that talent which they possess that they will be accounted musical. Those who have more can do almost anything. The class of persons who study with this ambition is larger, proportionately, in small cities than it is in the large ones. It is a fact that people are, in many small cities, better educated in music in which they can participate individually, than are the people of large cities. The students enter for long periods of study and follow those studies which do them the most good. With them the ambition to be musical and to have a good musical education is upper-most in mind. It is the best ambition to have. Even if no other use is made of the study, that education well repays one for all the time and money devoted to it. The choicest moments of life are while directly participating in music, or while engaged in that of which music is the accompaniment. Our association with friends in their homes and in our own is sweetened by music; our tired brains are rested at the concert, the opera, and the theatre; our seasons of deepest devotion and greatest spiritual delight, when we are at the house of worship are made more holy because the sacred words are beautified by music. Every act which can be looked back upon even to the child days, when the little songs of the school children were ours, has its embellishment of music. Whatever we do to increase our appreciation of music, to make us better able to make music, and to add to the charm of life of our own circle, is profitable. The good of it comes to us every day, and in addition it prepares us the better for that higher life to which we are all hastening, because it makes more beautiful the soul. The ambition to study for music itself is, then, the best ambition to have.

The majority of those who present themselves to the city teacher wish to sing in church choirs. The reason is plain. There is some chance for financial return. There is also on the part of many a certain sense of duty to the church which they wish to fulfil by participating in its services. There are many things to be said on this whole subject and when such things are spoken it should be with no uncertain tone. The ambition to become a church singer should be held within certain bounds. The path to become such and the gratification which comes from the work accomplished are not such as most persons think they are. Of course the study to become able to sing in a church choir is altogether delightful. To prepare the voice so that it can be used as a means of interpreting the best church music is the best part of voice culture. Tones of good power, pure quality, evenness, and fair range, are absolutely necessary. No greater pleasure comes into voice culture than the training to be able to do just such work. Then the music of the church is satisfying. There is more to it than the light music of the parlor or light opera, more that appeals to deep feeling, more with which we can arouse our hearers.

With regard to the wish to serve the church by our vocal powers, it may be said that while that is laudable, it is one that disappears very soon after one has the chance to put it into practical use. The wish is a bit of sentiment, and there is nothing like the practical to dispel sentiment. This brings us to a consideration of the choir and whether the ambition to become a choir singer is worth anything or not.

In small places the choir singer is at once a person of some note. That note which the position gives has a value. The country choir becomes a sociable club (although composed of only four persons) and the friendship which each has for the other is a thing to be prized. Country choirs generally practise enough to have the voices blend and to have the singing good. There is some pleasure in singing in such a choir. But does it pay, financially? In some places it does, and he who is in a paying position in a country choir has the best place of any one in choir work. How many, though, of those who go to the teacher with the ambition to study for the choir would feel contented to take such a place as that? No, they want a place in the city choir, and at large salary. Have they ability enough to fill such position, and could they hold the position if they obtained it? The competition for choir positions in a city like New York is very great indeed. Let it be known that a vacancy is to occur in any church choir and hundreds if not thousands of applications are made. Only one person can have the place. The work of selecting one person out of the many applicants begins. It is at this point that the student feels the sentiment regarding singing in church begin to disappear. She feels that she is not being given a fair chance. She supposes that that which would give her the position is good voice, good singing and a good character. As sad as it may seem, she is decidedly wrong.

That which is wanted in most city churches is "style" in body and dress, a comely face and vivacious manner. If the applicant lacks these she may as well not try, no matter what her musical acquirements may be. In fact, there are many singers in church choirs of New York and Brooklyn who haven't the least claim to be singers at all. Then regarding pay for choir singers in these cities. There is very little money in it. Salaries have been reduced and there are always those content to take the places at the lower figure. The majority of singers in these cities get less than $300 a year. Deduct from that the cost of car-fares, extra clothing, and the little incidentals which count up, and not one half of that amount remains as income. That does not pay to work for. The time and labor used in earning it could be better used in something else. A better money return could be had from that time in a dozen different things by any person who has ability enough to become a singer in a city church on salary. Nor is the possibility of obtaining a greater salary in later years to be taken into account. If an increased salary does come increased expenses come with it. Even if, after years of waiting, the student makes herself a fine singer and is competent to take a high place, she finds herself set one side for a fresh face and a new voice. That is a picture which is not pleasant; but which is true to life.

One may ask if there is no work in choir or church for which one can prepare himself and which will be pleasant and desirable. Yes, in two directions;--first, when one is so trained that she is very desirable as a solo singer--one who can sing sacred songs well--she can find a position in which she has this and no other work to do. She then avoids competition, because her fame attracts the church to her. She has no long and trying rehearsals and she can be an artist as well as a church singer. But how many years of study this takes! Is your ambition equal to it? The second line of pleasureable work is, that of the choir-leader. Unhappily for singers, in most of the city churches the organist is made choir-leader; even in the vested choirs of the Episcopal church. This is not well for the choir or the church, but we must take things as we find them. When one is competent to superintend the music of the church and can find a choir to take charge of he is a happy singer. These two positions--of professional choir soloist and of choir-director--are the only satisfactory ones in the large cities.

In connection with this it may be said that if one wishes to take a prominent position as concert singer it is almost necessary that he should hold a church choir position. At least he needs that until his fame as a concert singer is great. Managers of concerts in various sections of the country ask the very first thing, "Where does he sing?" If he is connected with a city choir he is placed. The choir gives him position.

Concert singing is the field most widely opened and most easily filled of any to which a singer can aspire. Every year the concert field broadens. The so-called "grand" concerts of the last generation have disappeared, and that is better for the singer. Concert singing is more thoroughly a business and it is one worthy the ambition of any vocal student. Not that it is always pleasant business--what is, for that matter?--but it is something which can be entered upon on business lines, and one can make a place for himself in it. His first work is, of course, vocal and musical preparation. He should begin as soon as he can sing well enough to appear before an audience at all, to sing whenever and wherever he can get the chance. This is for practice and not for pay. No one ought to expect pay before he has sung at fifty or sixty entertainments without pay. He must have that amount of practice on his audiences. If he has improved his opportunities his name will be known by the time that period of experience is over and he can then begin to demand a small fee. The smaller the better for him. He can then begin to send his name abroad as an applicant for more remuneration. Step by step he can improve in ability and increase his income. It is a work to which all can be directed. It takes years to make any goodly success at it. Three years are needed to make a good beginning, but when one looks back over a life, three years of preparation do not seem long.

With regard to singing in opera and theatre a word can be given at another time. An outline of what might be said is this:--grand opera is very limited, and only few can become opera singers in grand opera; light opera presents a good field for the gratification of ambition, under certain conditions; the theatre presents a good field for vocalists to those who feel inclined to enter theatrical life.