Scan 31
Musical Courier 1902-03-05: Vol 44 Iss 1145, 1902
86 lines. Read by computer on 21 September 2026. Printed page 32. See the scan on archive.org.
1Berlin Branch Budget
3German Headquarters of The Musical Courier,
4Berlin, W., Linkstrasse 17,
5February 20, 1902.
7In pursuance of a subject which I have treated several times in this paper, I should like to reproduce here an article which I published elsewhere not long ago. For want of a better name we might call the sketch
9"Types of Berlin Teachers."
11So well did young Mayburn sell refrigerators and zinc-lined bath tubs on commission, his many friends thought his mind a prey to overwork when he announced that he would give up business and thenceforth devote himself to the study and practice of music.
13"True," argued Booth, "you play the piano rather well for a fellow who has never studied, and you compose pretty waltzes and all that, but those are accomplishments, my boy, merely accomplishments, of the kind that make you a parlor hero, but nothing more. Who ever heard of a fellow with brains—that is, able to average thirty-five refrigerators and bath tubs per week—going into the musical business? You need a vacation, old man."
15To all such speeches Mayburn had but one reply. "You don't understand," he would answer; "I am ambitious. It is because I play 'pretty well' that I should like to play better, and it is because I have written only waltzes that I should like to compose something more serious. I feel it in me, and I shall at least give myself a chance. Then I won't have to spend the balance of my life in vain regrets."
17Young Mayburn was energetic and decisive in everything he attempted. Once resolved on a certain course of action, he followed it systematically and perseveringly. He bought a second class ticket and sailed for Germany.
19There were three well-known teachers in Berlin, Professor Uptodate, Professor Oldfogy, and Professor Virtuoso. Not knowing which of these to select, Mayburn concluded to try them all, and to select as his permanent guide the one whose method seemed most intelligible and progressive.
21Accordingly our hero soon presented himself at the studio of Professor Uptodate, and being informed that the learned gentleman was even then giving instruction, sat himself upon the familiar uncomfortable chair to be found in the waiting room of every studio and doctor's office, and gazed with respectful curiosity at the many strange pictures that covered the walls.
23There were pictures of piano actions, of skeleton hands, and of queer, complicated machines and implements that Mayburn had never seen before, and whose uses he could not determine; then there were charts of all kinds, covered with figures, lines and circles; anatomical diagrams of the nerves, tissues and muscles of the hand, and finally many framed documents, which, on closer inspection, proved to be patents for various inventions of Professor Uptodate.
25"Not only a musician, but also a man of science," mused Mayburn; "he should fill the bill."
27Just then the inner door opened, and the famous pedagogue came forth, bowing out a vacant eyed female pupil.
29"Ah, my dear young man, what can I do for you this afternoon?" he asked in English, turning to Mayburn.
31Quickly the latter explained the object of his visit, and Professor Uptodate led him into the studio, where stood a grand piano and a number of the machines, the pictures of which Mayburn had seen on the walls of the outer room.
33"We can have our first lesson immediately," said the learned man, sitting down before a low table, on the other side of which he placed a chair for his new pupil.
35Mayburn felt much relieved at not being asked at once to play. He had been debating in his mind between Godard's Second Mazurka and Mayburn's "Valse Sentimentale." The question had not been entirely settled when the professor dispelled all immediate anxiety.
37"Place your hands in mine," he requested.
39Professor Uptodate proceeded to press and knead those members until the young pianist was uncertain whether he had applied for piano instruction or for massage treatment.
41"You have a normal hand," announced the savant, "and I think that after a five months' course of proper physical training I can place you at the piano. This may seem rather a long time to you, but in the end you will find that the correct way is always the shortest. You beginners have not an inkling of the intricate construction of the hand, fingers and wrist; nor of what infinite patience and knowledge are required to develop properly the many muscles and nerves on whose control depends a perfect technic. Do you know how many bones there are in your wrist?"
43Mayburn replied that he did not, and then, when the professor looked surprised, hastened to add that he had "always supposed there was one—that is, one bone in each wrist."
45Professor Uptodate remained unmoved, and, merely raising his eyebrows, answered: "Listen; there are these bones; the scaphoid, the semilunar, the cuneiform, the pisiform, trapezium, trapezoid, magnum, unciform, metacarpal, first row of phalanges, second row of phalanges, and third, or ungual, row of phalanges."
47Mayburn looked at his wrist very respectfully, and said he was surprised.
49"Indeed, you may well be," assured Professor Uptodate; "that is a thing which very few pianists know."
51"Do you suppose Rosenthal and Paderewski know it?" asked Mayburn, who, as has been already remarked, was of an eminently practical turn of mind.
53"They do not," returned the great teacher; "and I may safely say that if they did—if they were to take only a three months' course of my method—they would play twice as well as they do. Now, how can a person play octaves who does not know what bones there are in his wrist, nor their separate uses, nor their relation to one another?"
55"But Rosenthal's octaves——"
57"Yes, they are rapid, I know, but not correct, my boy; not based on scientific principles. He has a fine wrist, a wonderful wrist, and my one regret is that I was not allowed to train it. What a wonderful octave player I might have made of Rosenthal!"
59With a deep drawn sigh Professor Uptodate reached for a little wooden instrument that looked like a glove measure and adjusted it to Mayburn's right hand.
61"This is an anthropometrical instrument, constructed on the lines laid down by Lombroso and Bertillon. You know who they were?"
63"I know very little of the Italian school of music," answered Mayburn, meekly. Professor Uptodate looked surprised, but he made no comment.
65"These measurements will aid me in determining your degree of temperament. At the next lesson I shall ascertain your cranial proportions, which will reveal to me the receptivity of your hands. Sort of an inverse system, isn't it?" asked the Professor, chuckling.
67"I should say it is," answered Mayburn, without any intention of sarcasm, however.
69"Now, young man, let me ask you if you know of what your muscles are composed?"
71"I used to know, but it's so long since I went to school I—I guess I've forgotten."
73The look on Professor Uptodate's face signified as plainly as words: "You, who do not know of what your muscles are composed, would be a pianist?"
75Mayburn felt the silent reproach, and shifting uneasily in his chair, he asked: "Of what are they composed?"
77Professor Uptodate ignored the question entirely, and propounded another, to wit: "Have you ever heard of protoplasmic nuclei and the perimysium?" Mayburn had not, and he felt very much ashamed.
79Professor Uptodate gazed at him very sharply, and asked slowly and deliberately: "Then I suppose you do not even know the difference between striated and non-striated muscles?"
81Utterly crushed, Mayburn was compelled to admit his absolute ignorance, and for the first time he fully realized what an enormous distance lay between him and the musical Parnassus.
83"I can read at sight and transpose," he stammered. "and I have absolute pitch, and I can play chromatic thirds up and down with my left hand, and——"
85"Tut, tut!" broke in Professor Uptodate, "those are minor accomplishments, of use only when scientifically
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