A Trip to Music-Land. By Emma L. Shedlock. With twenty
illus- trations by T. King James. (Blackie and Son.)—The difficulties of teaching the important clement of time, and the value of notes and signatures, in music, form a great obstacle to all young beginners. The authoress, by weaving those rudiments into the meshes of a fairy web, has endeavoured to lighten the impedimenta laid on tyres at the outset of their musical career, with what success we will leave the teachers, "who complain of the drudgery of the earlier lessons," to decide. For ourselves, we must confess that, although we have been entertained by the cleverness with which the subject has been handled, and admire the ingenuity which appointed Musical Notation to be photographer, Prolongation, surgeon, and Tie, governor, of the State prisons, to King Harmony, yet there are many pages which remind IIS more of Hamilton than Hans Anderson, and the chapter on Gallia's notation, in the chesse. method, is an arithmetical puzzle. We earnestly hope that Progress will not come to the Music-land throne with Reform as his prime minister, until our eyes are incapable of reading scores. The most successful parts of the book are those which treat of the metronome and the different tempi, and the illustration of staccato, legato, accent, syncopation, and emphasis, which are explained more lucidly than ever we remember to have seen. The pictures are very comical, and will, we fear, have a greater attraction for young learners than a good deal of the matter to which they are appended.
Previous page
