OUR STORY

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 7, Issue 9, 24 September 1943, Page 6

OUR STORY

OVERLOOKING BEAUTY

"How stupid," I complained to my instructor, "how very stupid to play this simple exercise over and over again. It sounds just as if 1 were beating on a tin pan." "I thought that you would like that exercise," he answered, with a faint smile. "Ii like beauty and rhythm " 2 argued, "but not tum-tum-tum —as this ite." Just for a moment the man, who had taught my fingers their first exercises,, and had followed me through the years of my musical education, loo'ked at me in a strange way. "I thought," he said presently, "that you were one of my pupils on whom the beauty of this exercise would not be lost." "It is the dullest, most unattractive lesson that I have ever had," I told him without flinching. "I am sorry," he said softJy, "for you are not the musician that 1 thought you were. The exercise is beautiful." "Why don't you play ft?" I ask' ed. "Perhaps you can do something with it, but I doubt it." Ii had always loved to listen to my teacher play. He played with a feeling that few -muisicians possessed,. but I was in no mood to be fooled at the moment. The thing he was to play was an exercise that seemed of. little account for either finger work or harmony. My teacher sat down at the piano and let his hands fall lightly on the keys; then suddenly the exercise which had seemed but a series of hi/deous noises to me began to break on my ear soft, sweet and very harmonious. I recognised the tune that he was playing as the same thing I had. played over and over, but the beauty, the rhythm, and the harmony that he drew from that same exercise filled me with awe and wonder. It was one of the loveliest things I had heard. "How did, you do it?" I asked. "How?" he asked gently. "You can only draw beauty from any musical instrument by feeling beauty in your heart. And that," he added, as he took his leave, "applies to everything in this world. You either see and feel the beauty that lies around you, or you overlook it completely." I realised the truth of his statement as I thought it over again and again,, and from that day on I have been a different creature. The dawn of the morning, the noonday sun, twilight and the night have held a different meaning for mo. Music, human voiccs, the song of birds, the singing winds and the singing riUs, the desert waste, the raounains, the seas —everything that is beautiful has appealed to me. And, my music carries a weight of sweetness for which I am deep y 'grateful, and yet I know that I wouid never have perfected the s'kill with which I play had it not been for the man who saw the beauty of things around, him and unselfishly imparted his wisdom to others.