Composer of "Because," "The Dawn," "I Hid My Love." etc.

One of the most difficult questions which can be asked of any artist is "How is it done?" "What is the secret of your success?" As a rule, there is no satisfactory answer possible, or, if there is, the artist cannot give it. But in this charming article with which she has favoured a representative of Every Woman's Encyclopaedia, Madame Guy d'hardelot, the well-known composer of "Because," "Sans Toi," "The Dawn" and "I Hid my Love" - to mention but a few of the many beautiful songs she has written - endeavours to explain how it is that she has succeeded so admirably in her art. Those who yearn to voice their musical emotions in adequate form will profit by her words

Let me begin by saying, and that very clearly and strongly, that it is no idea of self-advertisement which has induced me to consent to tell the method I adopt for composing my songs - if, indeed, it can be called a method at all. Every individual who does creative work must find out the method best suited to his or her means and requirements, and pursue it. My method has been described by someone as no method, but it is the only one I know, and it is because it may help other women who want to work, either in my own field or any other, that I have consented to talk about myself.

If I were to define my method, I should say it was the eminently practical and womanly one of sticking at it till it is done. Some people can begin a thing, put it down, and take it up again, without losing the continuity, or, apparently, diminishing the "fine bloom of rapture," with which they started.

I cannot. When I have once started, I must go on until I have finished. The conditions of my life are such that I can only work at night. Like other women who have domestic duties to do, I have a house to look after. Then, in addition, I am a teacher of singing, and my day is fully occupied. Part of my evening has, perforce, to be given to the duties of my home and an enormous correspondence, and it is when it is getting late, towards midnight, that I am able to settle down to the work of composing. Then everything is quiet. Sometimes, even then, they come to my music-room, and urge me to go to bed. I used sometimes to do so, but I found that in nearly every case it was a fatal thing to do, for I never could take up my work the next night where I had left off. I have grown wiser by experience, and now I go on until I have finished.

Do I write down the phrases as I compose them?

Never. It is the rarest thing possible for me ever to make a written note of a song while I am composing it. I sit at the piano, and sing it all the time I am composing. After I have had half an hour or an hour with a song, I can generally remember it perfectly for the purpose of writing it down afterwards. It is only when I have got everything so thoroughly complete in my head that I can sing the song straight through that I consider it finished. It is then that I write it down. When I have once written it, I invariably let it remain in that form, although, in revising it, I may sometimes change a few chords.

It is not only the air of the song which I settle once and for all in this way, but the accompaniment as well, for the accompaniment is born with the song.

It would be difficult for me to say how many songs 1 have begun and not finished, owing to the fact that I have been interrupted after having started on them. Still, there are songs which get finished after an interval, but very rarely. What generally happens is that I get the first verse easily, but I may have to wait for the second. I always like to have the second verse different from the first, and the third - if there is a third - a little different from the other two so as to get a climax.

When The Spirit Moves

It is these changes I may have to wait for. I find, however, that it is no use trying to "urge my Pegasus," as it was once vividly described, and, instead of forcing my inspiration, I just wait until the right mood comes, and then take advantage of it. This is the result of my temperament, and temperament must play a great part in creative work - at all events, in my creative work.

When I read a set of verses, I either feel that I can set them to music, or I put them away for good. I never can do anything to order. If someone were to offer me a thousand pounds to write a song in a given time, I should unhesitatingly refuse it, for I know it would be impossible for me to produce anything which would satisfy me, were 1 to force my inspiration.

This, I assure you, is not mere talk. It has actually occurred in my life. I once made a contract with a firm of American publishers to supply them with six songs in a year. The time went by, and I failed to send them a single song.

They wrote to ask when the songs were coming.

In reply, I begged them to let me cancel the contract, for I told them that, though I might send them notes written on paper, I could not send them songs. I wanted to carry out that contract, but it is impossible for me to force myself to write, and a year went by without my writing a single song. Yet people say I am a prolific composer. I have seen the statement in the papers, and it always annoys me when I read something about "the fertile pen of Guy d'hardelot."

As a matter of fact, I think 1 compose fewer songs than most people, for I rarely do more than three or four in a year, and 1 have not a single song at the present time put away in a drawer if a publisher were to come and ask me for one.

My reputation for being prolific I put down to the fact that I have been lucky in hitting the public taste, and publishing a certain number of songs which have "caught on," so that people remember them while they forget those which do not become popular.

The Public Task

The recipe for hitting the public taste is a thing which I am unable to give. I don't know it. I don't suppose any of us know it. If I knew it, I never would produce a song that failed to have this most desirable quality. Unhappily - or should I say happily? - I do.