Books › The Violin: How to Master It, 1880 › scan 15
Scan 15
The Violin: How to Master It, 1880
6 lines. Read by computer on 23 September 2026. No printed page number was found. See the scan on archive.org.
1the evil popularity it enjoys. It is soulless, and thoroughly unsatisfying. It excites our wonder, never moves our heart. It is brilliant and metallic—transient as the love of a heartless woman, and showy and false as the glare and tinsel of a theatrical transformation scene. Yet if any one has daughters, the question never seems to arise, "What instrument shall we set them to study?" It is taken for granted that there is but one instrument for a young lady—the pianoforte, and to that they are drilled as soon as their little fingers can stretch a fifth. The violin, so pre-eminently suitable for them above all others; so full of soul and sweetness, and every kind of weird power that is to be found in music—so fitted for the display of every grace of arm, wrist or body—is never thought of. All this must change, and the violin step forward to its proper place as the leading instrument for either sex. I rejoice to notice that the truth of what I have here laid down is yearly becoming more known and understood; and the spectacle of a young lady carrying her violin-case and music along the street, or playing in an orchestra, is so common as to be no longer the subject of rude staring or wondering remark. Where there are more daughters in a family than can get conveniently to the pianoforte for practice, it is becoming no uncommon thing for the outsider to be set to the violin, when, as a matter of course, this majestic instrument, when combined with the pianoforte, at once steps into its place as monarch of all, by lending some of its soul to the inferior instrument. Let this go on and increase, and music—one of the chief sweeteners of existence—will receive a marvellous impetus in development. And if the violin has its difficulties compared with the pianoforte, it has also its advantages. The music for it is all written in one clef, and the student has only one stave to read instead of two—a difficulty of the pianoforte which some distracted young ladies never surmount. Not so often is the mistake made of setting boys to the pianoforte, unless they show such a defective "ear" as to make the mastery of the violin a hopeless task.
3The Age at which to Begin.
5Given a sharp "ear," however—that subtle ability to detect unerringly a false note in its minutest shades—boyhood or girlhood is the time to begin the study of the violin with every hope & success. From eight to twelve, or even later
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