[EDITOR'S NOTE.-Mr. Bowman has conceived the unique idea of writing a scries of kindly letters of advice and instruction to a real boy with limited home advantages, but with unlimited ambition. In order to make sure that he is addressing a real boy. Mr. Bowman is writing to just such a boy as he himself was. the counterpart of the bo*y of to-day. In other words, lie has vitalized his material by recalling his own youth and remembering his own difficulties. Now. after a wealth of experiences he writes back to the boy of other days, telling him just what he should know to avoid difliculties and win success. The boy in question resides in country district in Vermont. He is ten years old and shows a great liking for music. Tpon the advice of his uncle (in this case Mr. Bowman writes as the boy's uncle) the boy is sent to a nearby academy, where he comes under the tuition of Miss Procter. The uncle writes to Miss Procter, who replies that she is very glad to avail herself of the advice of a metropolitan teacher. The first four letters of the series are picturesque and filled with sound, interesting advice. In the fifth letter, with which our series commences, Mr. Bowman commences his messages upon particular points in pianoforte study. Teachers and students will find the following comments upon position at the piano of immediate and practical use in their work.]

BIOGRAPHICAL INTRODUCTION.

(In introducing this series a short biography of Mr. Bowman may be interesting. Edward Morris Bowman was born at Barnard, Vermont, and spent his childhood in sight of the green mountains. At ten the family removed to Canton, N. Y., where he was educated at the Canton Academy and the St. Lawrence University. Later he began his career as a musician in Minneapolis. Thence he went to New York to study piano with Ur. William Mason, and organ and theory with John P. Morgan At the age of 18 IT-won the position of organist of the Great Organ at Old Trinity Church, New York, in a competition. Later he became a foremost teacher of piano and one of the leading organists of St. Louis. Xext he went to Berlin to study with Franz Bendel (piano). August Haupt (organ). Eduard Rhode (organ), Weitzman (theory). In Paris he studied organ with Edouanl Batiste and Alexander Guihnant. In London he studied organ with Sir Frederick Bridge and with Sir George Macfarrcn (counterpoint) and Edmund H. Turpin (history and aesthetics). In 1881 he was the first American to pass the examinations of the London Royal College of Music. This he did at a day's notice. Tn 1883 he organized and in conjunction with many leading musicians founded the American College of Musicians, of which notable organization he was president eight terms. He has been president of the Music Teachers' National Association five terms and has held many other positions of honor and responsibility. For ten years or more he has been a member of the Executive Hoard of the Y. M. C. A. of Brooklyn. Since 1887 Mr. Bowman has resided in New York, where be has made a successful career as a teacher, organist and church musician. He organized the Baptist Temple Choir and Orchestra (200 members). This he led for ten years, thereafter becoming organist and conductor of the now famous Calvary Baptist Choir, of New York (Dr. McArthur's church). In 1891 Mr. Bowman followed Dr. Ritter as Professor of Music at Vassar College. Here he raised the department to a col'egiate basis u'.ui established the chair of music. His best-known published work is "Bowman's Weitz-inan Theory," a comprehensive treatise on harmony and counterpoint. Prof. Bowman is best known to ETUDE readers as a disciple of the late Dr. \Villiam Mason, with whom lie was upon the most intimat-terms as a friend and co-worker for many years. In addition to many excellent suggestions from his own rich experience, this series will contain expositions of Dr. Mason's immeasurably valuable ideas. Professor Bowman is American to the core, genial, and gifted with that sound common sense which has brought the teachers of our country to the front in the ranks of the world's educators.

This series was originally published in the American Encyclopedia of Musfc, but will appear as a separate book.-Editor of THE ETUDE.)

My Dear Nephew:
I was glad to receive your letter. It was not quite so full of detail as 1 would have liked, but it was pretty well done for a boy of ten. By "reading between the lines." as we say. and by being able to make "a Yankee guess" at the rest of it. I shall have the whole story before me. Here it is:

Your teacher told you to "sit on the stool." Then she told you the names of the notes on the staff and of the keys. That means that she placed you at once at the piano and in the first lesson expected you to begin to play from the printed page-probably with both hands and possibly in two clefs. 1 have known even this latter to be attempted. And, poor little boy ! you are required to practice on the few things a teacher can explain in one lesson ''four hours a day!" Well, the old saying is, "Misery loves company!" I can sympathize with you. my child, for I. too. had to practice four hours a day when I began, and even on the Fourth of July when all the other boys were shooting off firecrackers and nigger-chasers, I had to ''do" two of my regular four hours. There T sat on that old stool, my feet scarcely touching the floor, and daily ground out two hours before school and two hours after, school on a few dry exercises and "amusements!" I have watched the horses working a treadmill-you have seen them at home, running the threshing-machine-and, in foreign lands, 1 have seen the "stock" into which the necks, hands or feet of people were thrust in order to punish them, and the sight has usually reminded me of the "amusements" I "enjoyed" when I began to take piano lessons. Since becoming old enough and experienced enough to know that such treatment of the childmind was inhuman and positively dangerous. 1 have long felt that i ought to ask the music papers and others to warn teachers and parents against such demands Mine was not a rare case. History is full of similar instances. Beethoven, for example, was whipped lo the piano and compelled to practice long hours, m the hope of making a prodigy player of him.

Now, let me tell you as simplv as 1 may. just what your teacher should have done in your first lessons.

First, you and your parents, as well as your teacher, should know that the hand and arm of the pianist is the most wonderful machine in the world. In delicacy, swiftness, variety in movement, and, in proportion to its size, in the power possible for it to exert, there is no machine in existence at all worthy of comparison with the hand and arm, or what w ma}' call the "play-ing-machinc" of the pianist. This being true, it follows tnat great care should be taken so to tram everv part of the playing-machine that in the end it will have at command a perfect touch and tecbnic. Yon should know that it is very easy for this machine to form habits which, if correct, will help you to make very rapid progress, but which, if not correct, will always be a hindrance to your progress, or will possibly prevent your ever becoming an artistic player. It is. therefore, extremely important that right habits should be formed at the very beginning. Now. what d<> I mean by "right habits?" Here is the list. Read it carefully and study what I say about each. Then get your teacher to hell* you to establish these habits :

I. Correct position and relation of the body and of the arms to the keyboard.
II. Correct position of the hand and fingers.
III. Correct movements of the arm, hand and fingers.
IV. Correct nervous and muscular conditions of every part of the playing-machine, whether moving or not.

You will notice that I say not a word here about playing music; that is. reading notes and playing them on the keyboard. My reason is that there is much to be done by the beginner before being allowed to go to the piano or to play music. Tt will take you two weeks or more to prepare to go to the keyboard, either the keyboard of the practice clavier (a practice instrument with a piano keyboard, emitting clicks instead of tones, by the use of which certain features in piano-technic may be mastered in a fraction of the time usually required at the piano), or that of the piano. But whatever the length of time it may take, you are positively not to try to read the notes, with the intention of playing them on the piano, until such time as you shall have established to a considerable degree of firmness correct habits with regard to the four points in the above list. You are to do this first work, not at the piano, but at the table. There will then be no keys to strike or other things to confuse and divert your mind from the foremost thing to be done at this time.

Point I.-Seat yourself at a table or stand of the same height as a piano keyboard. Shape your hands like Fig. 1 and place them on the table so that the tips of the thumbs will lie on the table about three-quarters of an inch from the edge. This will be from the tip of the thumb back to the root of the nail, or a little more (Fig. 2). With the hands in this position on the table, as if yon were about to begin to play, your stool or chair should be at such a distance from the table that the hollow of the elbows will be on a line with the front of the body. You can test this by placing a, cane or yardstick, or some such thing, so that it will rest in the hollow of the elbows and just touch the body as it crosses from one arm to the other (Fig. 1). This distance of the body from the table (or keyboard) will permit the arms to hang easily and without effort from the shoulders, and to pass freely from side to side in front of the body. Next, the height of the seat should be so regulated that the top of the arm, from the hollow of the elbow to the wrist, will be horizontal, or on a level with the second or middle joint of the middle linger.

Point II.-Study Figure 4 of the hand. The joints where the fingers are attached to the hand are the "first joints," or commonly called "knuckles" (A). The first joints should be held, as seen in the cut, slightly higher than the wrist and slightly higher than the ''second joints" (C) of the fingers. Thus, the position from the first joints (A) forward to the second joints (C), and backward from the first joints to the wrist-joint (B), will slope downward somewhat each way.

The third phalange, that is to say. from the third or nail-joint (D) to the finger-tip, should be held perpendicularly; that is, straight up and down. If the first and third phalanges of the fingers are held as directed, the second or middle phalange of each will take care of itself. Xo attention to that phalange will he needed. The important thing is to have the first and third phalanges right.

Figures 5 and 6 show very common and easily formed faults. In Figure S the nail-joints arc bent inward; the first-joints are not high enough, and the wrist-joint is too high.

Compare each of these three faulty points with the correct position as shown in Figure 1.

In Figure 6 the nail-joints are bent so far outward that the third phalange is not vertical and cannot deliver its stroke firmly; the first joints also are too low, and the wrist-joint too high.

Compare again these faulty positions with the correct in Figure 1. Strive to form your hand as in Figure 1. and thus avoid the faults shown in Figures 5 and 6, which surely would prevent your acquiring a good touch. A good touch marks one of the chief differences between artistic hand-playing and imitative machinc-playmg.

The thumb-joints should be slightly bent so that the third phalange will be parallel to the middle or third finger. (This, if placed on a key, would bring that phalange parallel to the key.) The thumb is to be trained to curve from the hand somewhat so that, with the hand in position, a pencil could stand vertically between the thumb and the index (or second) finger. Furthermore, the hack of the hand should be so held that the first joint of the fifth finger shall be fully as high as the first joint of the second finger.

Point III.-Correct Movements. Ah! this is something to talk about! T think that you have had enough for toHlay. and that 1 had better begin a fresh letter about Point III, so that when we tackle it together our minds will also he fresh. Just as I ticked that last scntenc? off on the typewriter, my friend, Mr. A. K. \ irgil, famous as a teacher, came into my studio and we had one of the familiar chats about piano-study which we have had so often for the last twenty years or more. He lias worked out a series of exercises in shaping the hand for piano-playing, which I wish yon to learn and to practice. Therefore I am sending to you a copy of his Foundation Exercises, Xinth Edition, on i>ages 11 to 1?. of which you will hud clear directions what to do. Ask Miss Proctor to help you thoroughly to understand the exercises and to see that you do them right. Keep it up until you hear from me again, which will be in three or four days. For the present, T wish Miss Proctor to devote about half your lesson-period to the table exercises and the other half to ear-training, and to reading and writing notes, rests. etc. (Ask Miss Proctor to order a music copybook for you. Kvery dealer has them.) From the very start, your ear must he trained to hear and judge of tone as to its pitch, length, power and quality. Your ear must be trained to hear and to memorize the tune or melody in a short series of tones, and, from this easy beginning, to gradually lengthen th" series until the longest melodies are readily memorized. From hearing and memorizing a series of single tones, you will be able by and by to do the same thing with two or more melodies that move together, as in a duet, trio, etc. Finally, you will master chords and music that proceeds in chords. Every variation in pitch, in tone-length and every shade of difference in the power or in the quality of the tone must be heard and heeded by von. The degree of skill and delicacy to which the car ma'; be trained is reallv wonderful. Artistic puuio-playing demands the utmost development in ear-skill. You must begin this training while you are yet a child. Year by year your skill will improve, until the performance of a great symphony or music drama will unroll before vour musical mind like a lovelv tone-panorama. That will be a wonderfully beautiful experience. Another great advantage that ear-training will give you will be the ease with which you will learn to play your pieces from memory.

A well-trained ear listens intently, closely; close attention is the secret of quick memorizing. A beautiful and varied quality of tone is due to a beautiful and skilful touch. That kind of touch comes only from a well-trained, attentive ear. Therefore listen to every tone or combination of tones. I am sending you a copy of C. A. Alchin's "Far Training for Teacher and Pupil," so that Miss Proctor may begin that part of your work at once. Another excellent book on ear training is Heacox's "Ear Training." If .Miss Proctor gives class-instruction in elementary theory, tliat is to say. the science of music, as in note-reading, note-writing, time, rhythm, keys and keyboard, and in ear-training, you will do well to join such a class. Certain knowledge can be acquired as well or better in a class and at less cost.

In my next letter I shall try to tell you about correct movements. Both of us will need all the brains at our command, 1 to explain and you to understand. Maybe we had better, in the meantime, "eat grape-nuts." Your affectionate uncle,

EDWARD

P. S.-Give my regards to Miss Proctor and ask her to please .suspend your practice on the piano for a little while until we can prepare you for it by means of the table exercises for shaping the hand and learning correct linger movements.