Advice to Students.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 6 September 1938, Page 4

Advice to Students.

In a burst of candour not usually expected from famous men who address young people on how to get on in life, Mr Percy Grainger, the famous composer-pianist, recently told students at the Melbourne University Conservatorium that when he was a boy he was far too lazy, and that was the reason why he was a bad pianist now. Students, however, quite clearly did not believe that Mr Grainger was a bad pianist, nor that he had been lazy to any noticeable degree. When he was a boy, said Mr Grainger, he had been far too fond of lying on the floor eating bread and jam and reading Grove’s “Dictionary of Music and Musicians,” instead of taking his mother’s pleas to heart and practising. Then, in more serious vein, Mr Grainger advised students that if they contemplated study abroad they should not go before they were mature. They faced the possibility of a long, difficult, uphill struggle if they were to be successful, and otherwise they would be swamped by the peoples of Europe.