STUDIES MUSIC IN SPARE TIME.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 3193, 12 April 1911, Page 7

STUDIES MUSIC IN SPARE TIME.

EDISON AT SIXTY-FOUR

Thomas A. Edison recently completed his sixty-fourth year, and he celebrated it, as he has most of his birthdays, by working three-quarters of the day. He was particularly busy on this particular day, says a New York contemporary, not only declining an invitation from Mrs Edison to go on a little outing with other members of his family, but refusing to take time to go to his home, in Llewellyn Park, foi luncheon. Instead, he had a snack sent down to his laboratory. Hie inventor conceded something to tlie day by putting a bright carnation in his buttonhole. A reporter reminded him that two years ago he announced he had given up active work. “I did,’ said .the inventor with his ready smile,, “but that was only the things I didn’t care to do. There are still a great many things 1 care to do, and I Seep doing them.” “Agreeable work never hurts anyone, and I am no exception to the rule. So long as I can do what I like to do I expect to keep my health. I was a business man for half a century, and now I am merely having a good time.” Mr. Edison’s good time consists in experimenting with one invention or another, always with the definite purpose of making some specific improvement. . “It’s nice to hear that the public is interested in my health,” said Mr-. Edison. “My body and I are still keeping at it for about eighteen hours a day, and I am very glad to say that it is seldom that I get tired. “When I have any spare ‘time I study music. You will be surprised to learn that, but- it is true. When I was young I was denied the opportunities to develop myself along aesthetic lines, but now lam doing more of it. Last night I waded through several hundred compositions. Of course, I did not execute them. I have a machine that does that for me. I am investigating the construction of music, and have found, to my surprise, that there is very little originality in it. All the waltzes are nearly all the same, and the fact is that musical composition is full of plagiarism. Most of the writers of music .merely take old themes and work them over, "but Beethoven is one who escapes that’charge. His compositions will always live.”