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Scan 12
The Violin: How to Master It, 1880
12 lines. Read by computer on 23 September 2026. No printed page number was found. See the scan on archive.org.
1advantages in knowing both, which only they can realize who have mastered the two. For mere instrumental music, however, nothing more simple, nothing better than the old notation has ever been devised; and nothing as perfect for all kinds of music exists.
3CHAPTER II.
5The Books to Use and Where to get Them.
7A long road, which happens to have so many windings in it that its length is not seen at a glance, never appears so wearisome as one that is straight as, say, the Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington. Mastering the violin is travelling a long and at times trying road; but if the stages are so judiciously planned that the whole of the difficulties to be surmounted do not appear at once, the task not only becomes easy, but a continued and fascinating pleasure. This thought I throw out in passing on to the choice of a violin school.
9DAVID'S VIOLIN SCHOOL.
11It is true that no violin school has ever been given to the world so masterly, and so calculated to foster a pure and classical style, as "David's Violin School," but this is not a book for a beginner. It begins with the simplest elements of music and instructions, certainly; but as it embraces the whole range of violin playing, it is like setting a young traveller to face a long, straight road to put this in his hands. In addition to this, the studies are so severe, so absolutely painful in many cases to perform, that the book tends to chill rather than excite ardor; the student begins to shirk his lessons, the great book is gradually neglected, and often finds its way to the obscurity of some dusty shelf, where after a while may be found also the violin and bow with which such a promising start was made. Still another objection I might advance to the early use of this noble work. David was so rigidly classical—pure and cold as a marble statue—that he could not descend to waiving a point, and remorselessly begins his pupils with the natural key, C. This necessitates the pupil
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