A lullaby will
almost invariably soothe a restless infant, and most children old enough
to distinguish and articulate groups of tones will make some attempt at
singing the melodies they have often heard. The average child begins
music lessons with evident pleasure.
It should be no more difficult to strengthen the musical instincts than
any other faculties. On the contrary, it too often chances that a child
whose early song efforts have been in excellent time and tune, and not
without expression, who has marched in time and beat time accurately,
will, after a period of instruction, utterly disregard sense of rhythm,
sing out of tune, play wrong notes, or fail to notice when the musical
instrument used is ever so cruelly out of tune. Uneducated people,
trusting to intuitive perceptions, promptly decide that such or such a
child, or person, has been spoiled by cultivation. This is merely a
failure to trace a result to its rightful cause, which lies not in
cultivation, but in certain blunders in music study.
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