April 19, 1923
MUSICAL COURIER
66
Atman & Co. photo.
MRS. HARRIET AYER SEYMOUR,
founder and president of The Seymour School of Musical Re-eduation, which method is revitalizing the work of thousands of music teachers and students.
Teachers’ College, Columbia. On March 21 two of her artist-pupils, Marguerite Finch and Margaret Craig, gave a recital at the school.
A summer school session is announced, beginning early in June, and will undoubtedly draw pupils from all over the country who desire to familiarize themselves with the Seymour Re-Education system.
Fine Concert Course for Washington
T. Arthur Smith, Inc., of Washington, D. C., of whicn T. Arthur Smith is president and Guy A. Ourand vice-president, announces the following artists _ for the ninth season of the Star Concert Series, which begins in October: Mme. Schumann Heink, contralto; Paul Kochanski, violinist; Pablo Casals, cellist; Alexander Siloti, pianist; John Charles Thomas, baritone; Ruth St. Denis, Ted Shawn and the Denishawn Dancers, and a soprano whose contract restricts definite announcement until September.
Among the many attractions also under contract by this office are the Philadelphia Orchestra, the New York Philharmonic, Chaliapin, Zimbalist, Pavlowa, and Samaroff.
“VAUDEVILLE FURNISHES THE BEST FIELD FOR
ROUTINE EXPERIENCE,” SAYS MARGERY MORRISON
her, being whether music artistically presented in an entertaining manner for the general public should not be considered as worthwhile as those dreary, dry-as-dust recitals (whose name is legion) given in approved, orthodox and well-papered concert halls. Your own Frank Patterson, in a recent editorial, asks pertinently: ‘Which is really better —this amusing and entertaining music of Whithorne, whose music possesses the element of entertainment, taboo in all
prize competitions, or the dreary dust heaps of--------------
and------------? The only people in the world who think
that music must be dry to be worthwhile, are the judges who hand out the prizes.’
“And in the appended article, spontaneously contributed on the occasion of our appearance in the California capital, you will see that we are doing pioneer work in arousing public desire for real opera.”	S. B.
Seymour School Activities
Readers of the Musical Courier have already become somewhat familiar with the theory and practice of Harriet A. Seymour’s plan for Musical Re-Education as embodied in her various published works and her teaching. Briefly, Mrs. Seymour found that her experience as a teacher brought her into contact with many pupils who were advanced technically—“physically,” so to speak—but had very little understanding of the music they were able to perform. It seemed to her that such pupils needed to be taken back on the mental side of their work to the very beginning and taught over again, re-educated.
This has been the basis of Mrs. Seymour’s work, and a valuable work it has proved to be—none more so. Gradually^ with the preaching of this gospel, people are really coming to see that the fingers are not everything, that a musician may be apparently proficient without being really so, and that this fictitious ability was likely to fall down under the test of teaching. What Mrs. Seymour does is to teach her pupils to be real musicians, just as musicians who come from the families of musicians and are raised in the atmosphere of music are generally real musicians.
There is a great difference between the one and the other. Music is so much more than the ability to play an instrument, or the ability to answer a few examination questions. It is even more than the ability to solve harmonization problems. For it often happens that students can do written work without having the least idea how what they write sounds. It is the mental side that is lacking, and the mental side that Mrs. Seymour lays stress upon. She sees to it that her pupils, children or adults, feel and hear and think all of the music they write or learn or perform. It is a great work. Persisted in, as it is being persisted in by Mrs. Seymour, her associate, Marshall Bartholomew, and their many assistants, it will in time materially improve the musical standing of America.
In addition to writing and teaching and directing a school, Mrs. Seymour also has time to spread her ideas by playing and lecturing. Recent appearances have been at the Art Alliance and the Music Teachers’ Association, Philadelphia; the Women’s Clubs of New York and Washington, and
“Vaudeville furnishes the best field for gifted young artists desiring routine experience, and the vital touch of huge audiences,” says Margery Morrison, musical director of the Dorée Operalogue, which has been on tour since Labor Dajc
“Since there'are so few opera companies where one may obtain routine and since audiences are marvelous educators I would unhesitatingly advise artists—not students, mind !— to try a season’s experience in the two or three-a-day houses. Any artist who has played the standard circuits knows there is no loss in status or prestige but an immeasurable gain in breadth of line and point of view that must humanize his art. Army audiences taught many of us that there is a great public which demands and appreciates the best music when rightly presented. If the art or the artist’s personality were not big enough to interest—‘thumbs down’ was the unerring answer. And there is a growing public in
ORPHEUM BILL EN ROUTE TO FRESNO, CAL.
On the right of Margery Morrison is Harold Hansen, the young tenor, whose exceptionally fine voice is one of the features of the act, and at the end is Mme. Beatrice Bowman, prima donna, whose singing of the Bell Song from Lakme is winning sensational success.
these vast houses where vaudeville and movies vie with each other, which appreciates and has a growing demand for really fine music.
“Yes—it must often be modified from the traditional presentation—sometimes with real gain for the content; and the verve and vitality required to put over a one-hundred per cent, performance is not easily found. Far from losing caste from vaudeville connections as in former days, it should be. considered an asset in a singer’s favor, for the audience is unexpectedly exacting and the artist must pass an acid test in essentials. Just \vhat constitutes those essentials is again a test for the calibre of the audience.
“Charming Marguerita Sylva has published an open letter on this subject; the crux of the matter, as I understand
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Factory and offices Ninth Ave., Hudson and 13th Streets, New York	All courses will continue during the summer. SUMMER MASTER CLASSES under the direction of AUGUST FRAEMCKE, Piano Dent. ; HANS LETZ, Violin Dept.