ank and file of
Germans have no ear for key. That they listen well and perform earnestly
is perfectly true. That they respect music and give it proper attention
is equally true, but that they know the difference between a number
performed with no expression, with one or two instruments or voices, as
the case may be, entirely out of pitch, and the same number correctly
rendered, is impossible to believe by one who has watched them as
carefully as I.

Sousa once made the statement to the American Press that in his opinion
the American nation was the most musical nation in the world. He based
this astonishing belief, which was violently attacked by the
German-American Press, upon his observation of his audiences and by the
street music, even including whistling and singing. I agree with his
opinion with all my heart. In an American audience of the most common
sort an instrument off the key or improperly tuned will be sure to be
detected. It may be, nay, it probably is true, that the person so
detecting the discord will not know where the trouble lies or of what it
consists, but his ear, untrained as it is, tells him that something is
wrong, and he shows his discomfort and disapproval. I claim that the
ordinary American--the common or garden variety of American--has a more
correct ear than the common or garden variety of German. I claim that
the rank and file in America is for this reason more truly musical than
the same class in the German nation, although the German nation has a
technical knowledge of music which it will take the Americans a thousand
years to equal. For this reason an open-air concert in America is so
much more enjoyable both from the numbers selected and the spirit of
their playing, that the two performances are not to be mentioned in the
same day.

A criticism which the wayfaring man will whip out to floor me at this
point, viz., that nearly all performers in American bands are Germans,
will not cause me to wink an eyelash, for the effect of American
audiences on German performers has raised the standard of their music so
that I am informed by Germans and Austrians that the most annoying,
irritating, and insulting factor in their otherwise peaceful lives is
the return of a German-American to his native heath. They tell me that
his arrogance and conceit are unbearable--that he claims that Americans
alone know how to make practical use of the technical knowledge of the
German--that the Teuton gathers th