xed
notes.

In this way some of the processes which a child goes through in
beginning to learn the piano are taken one at a time, in company with
other children, and are therefore not hurried.

When the time has come to begin the piano, the child should join a
_class_ for this for one year. Such a class should not exceed six in
number. During this time she will add to her knowledge the first
principles of fingering, will play easy exercises for fingers, wrist,
&c., and will learn a few easy pieces and duets.

From the very first she will be taught to analyse a piece before she
begins to play it--she will find out the key, time, cadences, sequences,
passages of imitation, modulations, &c. If the melody be within the
range of the child's voice she will then sing it, beating time as she
does so. After these preliminaries it is only a question of technique to
learn to play it. The last stage will consist in learning the piece by
heart. The day has long gone by when it was considered a sign of
exceptional musical gift to be able to do this. All experienced teachers
know that, provided a child is having its ear trained by some such
method as that suggested above, it can learn a piece of music by heart
almost entirely away from the piano. That is to say, instead of the
wearisome repetitions which were formerly necessary before a piece could
be played by heart, it is possible, directly the technique is mastered,
and in many cases before this is done, to learn the piece away from the
piano. The benefit of this is obvious, and the nerves, both of the
player and of the unwilling listeners, are the gainers.

A little thought will show that it should be no more difficult for
average children to learn a piece of music by heart in this way, than
for them to learn a piece of prose or poetry by heart. The initial steps
are exactly the same--the language has to be known, and it is then a
question of memory, and memory alone. Who would think of learning poetry
by heart by the process of repeating it aloud a hundred or more times?
Yet this is what was formerly done in the case of music.

Sixty years ago no girl was considered educated who could not play the
piano a little. Since then a reaction has begun to set in. The standard
of playing has gone up to such a degree that parents are often heard to
say that their child is not musical enough for it to be worth while to
teach it an instrument. This is a pity. Music is used so much in ou