instruments may be equally harmonious and pleasing when each is
skillfully played. So, in the course of time, the violinist becomes
almost, if not quite, as accomplished a player upon the cornet as he
is upon the instrument whose study first engrossed him.

And now a question--one which certainly should not admit of much
difference of opinions in the answering: Of two men, both possessed of
a natural talent and love for music, which would be likely first to
learn to play upon the cornet correctly and with pleasing
expression--the man who had previously learned the technique of violin
playing, together with the meaning and value of musical terms, or the
one who, without any knowledge of music or of how to perform, should
suddenly determine to learn to play a given instrument?


_2. Photoplay Writing Requires a Separate Training_

Apply the same reasoning to the question of who should _become_ the
most successful photoplaywright--the trained and experienced fiction
writer, or the ordinarily intelligent and imaginative follower of some
other vocation, who is suddenly struck by the idea that he could, and
filled with the determination that he will, write a photoplay. We
accentuate the word _become_ in order to emphasize the fact that even
the professional writer _must_ learn the _technique_ of photoplay
construction before he can hope to produce a script that will not only
be accepted by a film manufacturing company for production, but will
be produced exactly as he has written it, _without the need of drastic
revision or rewriting_. This, however, is very rare today.

This last point is important. While, as we have said, it is improbable