USICAL WORK IN PREPARATION.

"For several months, Mr. Justin Holland, who has long
enjoyed an honorable fame as a teacher of the guitar, a
performer upon that instrument, and a successful musical
author, has been engaged upon a book of instruction for the
guitar. The work was undertaken at the suggestion of Mr.
J.L. Peters, the widely-known music-publisher of New-York
City, who has purchased the book, and will publish it at
once; Mr. Holland having so nearly finished it, that the
first portion can be put to press immediately. The work was
sent on to New York some time since for Mr. Peters's
inspection; and he submitted it to several other prominent
musical critics and guitarists, all of whom expressed
themselves highly pleased with it. Mr. Dressler, of 'The
United-States Musical Review,' published at New York, says,
'I have carefully and thoroughly examined this new method
for the guitar, and must confess that it is already, in its
present state, the best in this country,--the most thorough,
explicit, progressive, agreeable, and satisfactory work ever
written in this country or in Europe.' Higher praise than
this a book could not receive. The method is very elaborate,
and contains many points not heretofore touched on in works
of the kind. Mr. Holland's abilities as a composer of music,
and his skill as a performer upon the guitar, render him
pre-eminently qualified to write such a work; and supplying,
as it will, a want long felt, it will achieve popularity at
once, we firmly believe."

Some time after the publication of the method just mentioned, the
Messrs. Brainard engaged Mr. Holland to write a somewhat similar one,
but smaller in size, for them. This they issued in 1876, it being
styled "Holland's Modern Method for the Guitar." Although smaller in
size than the first one, it is regarded as the best method for
beginners that has as yet been produced.

It may perhaps be interesting to those possessing a scientific
acquaintance with the guitar, as well, indeed, as to the general
student of music, to learn how this accomplished author acquired the
power to so clearly--more clearly than it was ever before done in
guitar books--explain the method of producing on the guitar the
_harmonic tones_. Writing a friend, Mr. Holland thus speaks of this:--

"When, in writing my first book, I