Then along about the time the novelty of parenthood began to wear off a bit, the old vow came back. And one evening I spoke out with a suddenness that surprised me, “Beth, I’d give a hundred dollars if you could play something—a piano, violin, banjo, ukulele—something, anything.” Beth looked so hurt I was immediately ashamed of myself, so I said no more, and the matter dropped, as I thought regretfully, forever.
About three months later I got home early one night, and I heard the old dead piano come to life—sounded good, too, first a little jazzy piece, then a sweet plantation melody. “Company to supper; I wonder who?” I thought; and I crept to the parlor door to see. There at the piano was Beth playing, and the two kiddies beating time. She saw me, and stopped, “Oh,” she cried, “I’m so sorry!” “Believe me, I’m not,” I shouted, and I grabbed the whole family up in my arms.
“But, Jim, I wanted to wait and surprise you when I could really play. I’m learning fast, but it’s only three months since I found out”—“Found out what?” I said. Beth began to cry. “I know!” Jimmy, Jr., piped up, “Mother found out the way to learn music just like I am learning to read in school—only lots easier.”
Well, that little musical party lasted all the evening. It was a howling success. When the kiddies had gone singing to bed, my wife showed me the marvelous new method by which she had learned to play in three months’ spare time.
Jimmy Jr. had told the truth; the method was so simple and easy that any one at all from 8 years up could learn by it. By this method the U. S. School of Music, the largest in the world, has already trained over three hundred thousand people, teaching the playing of any musical instrument almost in the same way a school-child learns to read. But very much faster because older children and grown people have better trained minds, and know how to study and think.
When first learning to read you look at every letter separately and spell out every word, c-a-t, m-a-n. Later you do not see the letters; you see the words as units, “cat,” “man.” By and by longer words become units to you, and you find that whole expressions, like “up the steps,” “on the train,” no longer are seen as separate words, but immediately, at one instant, without spelling, without thinking words, you see each expression in the unit form.
This skill in seeing in units develops until you see and know as units hundreds of long familiar phrases; and it is even entirely possible, if you wish, to easily increase your reading speed four or five times the average, grasping paragraph thoughts complete, sensing a whole page instantly, recognizing every part, registering and remembering all, with your pleasure exactly the same as the slower reader.
The same easy understanding and complete enjoyment is similarly a part of the new way. The alphabet of music follows the alphabet of language. Each note is a letter, and playing is practically spelling the notes together correctly. The first note on the staff above is F. Whether you sing or play, it is always F. The four notes shown above are F-A-C-E, easy to remember because they spell “face.” Certain strings on mandolin, certain keys on piano, certain parts of all instruments, are these same notes. Once you learn them, playing melodies is a matter of acting what you see.
And here is where “familiar phrases” come in—the “big secret.” It is so simple you probably have already guessed it. The “familiar phrases” of music are its harmonies. Just as you instantly recognize the countless phrases of speech, so the relatively few of music are quickly a habit with you. You play almost before you realize it—and every step is real fun, fascinating, simple, interesting, almost too good to be true.
Remember, neither my wife nor most of the 300,000 other musicians trained by this method knew anything about music. Beth mastered the piano; she could just as easily have mastered anything else. Jimmy, Jr., is now taking up violin, and my daughter is learning singing. Right at home, no costly teacher, no classes at inconvenient hours, no useless study and practice. No numbers, no tricks, no makeshifts. But instead a sound musical education learning by notes. The intricacies of music reduced to a most amazing simplicity able to develop the inborn talent, which is a part of every person on this earth.