Louis G. LaMair Statement About Personality

Louis G. LaMair, President, American Music Conference, with the Penny-Owsley Music Company, Los Angeles.

 "Personality is the product of our native being, as it is molded and developed by the experiences and the influences we meet through life. When we are shunned by playmates after a fit of temper, we learn that temper doesn't pay. When generosity is repaid with the warm thanks of someone we like, we learn that it pays to be generous. 

But the wise person seeks for more than just the accidental and casual experiences that mold personality. He goes out of his way to find those things that mold a good personality...that leave one a bit stronger, a bit more capable of copping with the events of life.

Of all the personality-molders, music has always been one of the best. It brings to us the best thinking and feelings of history's most creative minds. It enables us to feel and to think the great noble thoughts these men had. Just by listening or by playing their notes for ourselves, we can enable our minds and our personalities to grow to their highest level - and to retain some of that growth.

 

Music can be one of the most uplifting of all forces for molding personality. It is like a great bird that soars over a mountain top. It is free, and not limited by our everyday horizons. It becomes the spirit within us that fights the commonplace and the dull. It sings in our souls - and caresses our hearts. Sometimes it cries out within us with an ecstasy of joy and sometimes it is dark with sorrow. It is all of life as we live it or as we want it. And though it leaves us when we stop listening or playing, it is ever with us, for the whole thread of human experience runs through it!"