when I was
a girl of eight, my mother used to play the Mozart violin sonatas with
me; I heard all the music I possibly could hear; I was taught harmony
and musical form in direct connection with my practical work, so that
theory was a living thing to me and no abstraction. In my home town I
played in an orchestra of twenty pieces--Oh, no, not a 'ladies
orchestra'--the other members were men grown! I played chamber music as
well as solos whenever the opportunity offered, at home and in public.
In fact music was part of my life.

[Illustration: MAUD POWELL, with hand-written note]

"No student who looks on music primarily as a thing apart in his
existence, as a bread-winning tool, as a craft rather than an art,
can ever mount to the high places. So often girls [who sometimes lack
the practical vision of boys], although having studied but a few years,
come to me and say: 'My one ambition is to become a great _virtuoso_ on
the violin! I want to begin to study the great concertos!' And I have to
tell them that their first ambition should be to become musicians--to
study, to know, to understand music before they venture on its
interpretation. Virtuosity without musicianship will not carry one far
these days. In many cases these students come from small inland towns,
far from any music center, and have a wrong attitude of mind. They crave
the glamor of footlights, flowers and applause, not realizing that music
is a speech, an idiom, which they must master in order to interpret the
works of the great composers.

THE INFLUENCE OF THE TEACHER

"Of course, all artistic playing represents essentially the mental
control of technical means. But to acquire the latter in the right way,
while at the same time developing the former, calls for the best of
teachers. The problem of the teacher is to prevent his pupils from being
too imitative--all students are natural imitators--and furthering the
quality of musical imagination in them. Pupils generally have something
of the teacher's tone--Auer pupils have the Auer tone, Joachim pupils
have a Joachim tone, an excellent thing. But as each pupil has an
individuality of his own, he should never sink it altogether in that of
his teacher. It is this imitative trend which often makes it hard to
judge a young player's work. I was very fortunate in my teachers.
William Lewis of Chicago gave me a splendid start. Then I studied in
turn with Schradieck in Leipsic-