Towson University - Tower Echoes Yearbook (Towson, MD)

Page 18 text:

THE TOWER LIGHT A Few Notes on Music AS any one of you ever stopped to consider what good music really is? Many people, especially we moderns, do not care about the music written by the great masters. We think only of the present with the hot-cha blues songs, the whirling tempo of the dance tunes, and the syncopating rhythm of the jazz music. The popularity of these songs lasts but a few days, then a new song catches the fancy of the modern public. On the other hand, however, the music written by the great masters has a lasting quality. For several centuries, this music has been sung and played, and yet it always seems to have that certain something which holds the interest of the public. The masters seemed to have put their Everything and their whole life's toil into their works. They really discovered new tunes and strove for originality. Today's writers, or rather composers, are vastly different in regard to their mode of composing. There is no originality whatsoever. A modern composer takes an old song, quickens the tempo, adds a few simple words and juggles the notes around a little, and presto, he has a new song-hit! This song-hit enjoys popularity for a little while and then a new one takes its place. I leave the question with you. Wlmich is the better type of music, the type which has lasted through centuries or the type which enjoys immense popularity for a short time and then passes into complete obscurity? CHARLES A. HASLUP, Freshman VII. 120 What Do You Think? HAT is your opinion of music? Do you like it, are you in- different? The great majority of us like it as far as we can understand it. Let's skim through the pages of history to find what various outstanding characters thought of this fine art. Confucius, the Chinese sage, claimed that he could tell how well a country's government was run just by listening to its music. Martin Luther is quoted as having said, I verily think, and am not ashamed to say, that, next to divinity, no art is comparable to music. There is deep meaning in the following lines of Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice where Bassanio is about to choose one of the three caskets: 12

Page 17 text:

THE TOWER Lzour Library and Librarian ,NEW face greeted us this year upon our first visit to the library. Yes, Miss Osborn, or Mrs. Odell, as she later became, is gone, and in her place has come Miss Hiss. Miss Hiss has had varied experience at teaching. She has taught in the schools of South Carolina and also in Maryland, both in the elemen- tary and high school departments. Her study for library work was done at Columbia. I was, in a way, already familiar with Miss Hiss, since she taught at the high school from which I graduated, but I never realized she was so shy about telling of her experiences . . . she just didn't seem to think anything she might say would be of interest. I'll wager that before the year is over we will find out many interesting things about her. We are fortunate this year in having several departments improved in the matter of books for reference use. There are a series of Smith- sonian Scientihc study books that should prove valuable to those students who are now, or who will later take science courses. Then, there are several dozen more of Meredith's Hygiene, of which we all know there was not enough last year. Smalley and Gould have been added to those growing lists of hygiene references. Among the fiction, Stars Shine over Alabama will afford several hours of pleasant reading for any interested. Dorothy Canfield Fisher has her latest book on the fiction shelves. There are many more new books, in all departments. just take a few minutes off some day and you will be surprised to see all of them. I'm sure the alumni have little idea of the growth of the library in the last few years. I wonder how many of us realize we have here at Normal the largest collection of books dealing with Education of any college below the Mason-Dixon Line. We wonder why such a spirit prevails in the library every day! It is not unusual to find every available chair and table space being used for some study. We wonder just how many books are checked in the course of a Week, or even a day. There is much about the library work at which we may wonder. There surely must be something intriguing about it. It seems to hold those who do such work under a spell. Certainly it draws a splendid type of person. By the time for the next issue of THE TOWER LIGHT we have been promised several good reviews of new books. Don't wait for THE TOWER LIGHT, read enough to make your own reviews. T. JOHNSON, Senior Sp. 1 1

Page 19 text:

THE TOWER LIGHT PORTIA: Let music sound while he doth make his choice, Then, if he lose, he makes a swan-like end, Fading in music . . . . . . He may win, And what is music then? then music is Even as the flourish when true subject bow To a new-crowned monarch, such it is As are those dulcet sounds in break of day That creep into the dreaming bridegroom's ear And summon him to marriage. John Milton wrote: Such sweet compulsion doth in music lie. Queen Elizabeth said she could shun melancholy by means of music of virginals. I've often wondered just exactly what George Eliot meant when she said, Music sweeps by me as a messenger carrying a message that is not for me. On the other hand, we find the austere Puritans emphatically against music. At one time, they sent a petition to parliament: A request of all true Christians . . . that all cathedral churches may be put down, where the service of God is grievously abused by piping with organs, singing, ringing, and trowling of psalms from one side of the choir to another, with the squeaking of chanting choristers. . X' However, we can't much blame the Puritans' attitude when we find that the average New England congregation knew only about five psalm tunes fwhich each person sang, nasally, in his own individual wayj . The following poem was found-written on a pew: Could poor King David but for once To-Church repair, And hear his psalms thus Warbled out, Good Lord! How he would swear. Overstreet says that music is what we would like life to be. Some time ago, I heard a man on the street say he never trusts anyone who has a fishy handclasp, or who dislikes music. Music is a beautiful art: to some people it is religion. You don't have to be a Wagner or a Galli Curci to enjoy it. It is as free as it is varied in its effects. It is a gift given us for our enjoyment. It is a splendid, worthwhile way to spend our leisure time. What do you think? EDWARD MACCUBBIN, Senior III. 13