From the time he was a boy, Tracy Y. Cannon (1879-1961) identified himself as a musician. "I am a musician because I just had to be one," he said. "The desire started when, at the age of five years, I received a toy violin. From then on my love for music was insatiable.

“All through my boyhood days I had so much love for music that I never missed an opportunity to hear it. When I was in my teens and worked with the hay and grain in the fields on the Cannon Farm, I could hear and see, mentally, entire operas that came out of my imagination. I was thrilled with what I heard and saw. Never has this love and desire for music left me."

At the age of fifteen, he joined the Tabernacle Choir and sang under its director Evan Stephens. When Tracy was sixteen he was appointed choir leader in his ward. Feeling handicapped because he could not play the organ, he became a student of John J. McClellan, who taught him piano, organ, and harmony.

His mother, Caroline ("Carlie") Young Cannon, a daughter of Brigham Young, recognized her son's passion. "Trace," she said one day, "if Brother McClellan thinks you can succeed as a musician, your father and I will give you our permission for you to become one." With that encouragement, he began practicing five hours a day. Later, recalling that point in his life, he said, "May I say here that a clear-cut objective held firmly in the mind is the first law of success."

Pursuing his dream, at the age of eighteen he enrolled at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor and there studied music for two years. He worked hard, rising at 5:15 each morning and retiring at 9:30 p.m., but not before reading a chapter of scripture.

Tracy had to fight discouragement, in part because of a problem with his eyes. Returning to Salt Lake, he even thought of giving up music as a career. In 1901, after the death of his adoptive father, George Q. Cannon, Tracy was called on a mission to England, where he served for three years. During the last year, he received the sad news of the death of his mother. "I have never seen a selfish act on her part," he wrote in his diary. "I only hope that we children may follow in her footsteps, and if we do, blessed shall we be."

Upon his return, he was again faced with the question of his profession and again he was discouraged. But John J. McClellan assured him that he could teach "without a very great strain on my eyes," and so he opened a studio and had enough students to provide for his basic needs.

In the fall of 1905, he married Elsie Riter in the Salt Lake Temple. Somehow, he made arrangements for financial support so that the couple could leave soon after their marriage to spend a year in Berlin. Tracy's values come across in this statement in his diary:

At Berlin, he studied under the great master teacher Alberto Jonas. His plans were to study not only piano performance but also music theory. He wrote:

His studies continued through 1906. Elsie's mother and two sisters traveled to Berlin and, joined by Tracy and Elsie, took a tour of Germany, Austria, Italy, Switzerland, and France. They visited art museums and attended concerts.

From the beginning of their marriage, Elsie had suffered from bad health. In May 1907, living in Germany, she passed away. Grief-stricken, Tracy accompanied her remains back to Utah. Elsie's parents were very kind to their son-in-law. Thinking this is what Elsie would have wished, they urged him to continue his music studies in Germany, and assisted him financially.

So he returned to his studies in Berlin. In January 1908, he went to Paris in order to study with the famous organist Alexander Guilmant and to take lessons in orchestration from Albert Roussel.

Then a wire came from Salt Lake City offering him a job as organist at the Congregational Church. Tracy cut short his studies in Europe and returned home. His job with the Congregational Church paid only thirty dollars a month. So he also gave private lessons. In 1909, he was sustained as an assistant Tabernacle organist. From April to October each year, he gave recitals twice a week. His daily schedule included three hours of organ practice each morning.

In 1911, Tracy married Lettie Taylor, who went on to have seven children. It was a happy, busy family life.

When a conservatory of music opened in Salt Lake in 1917, first known as the Latter-day Saint School of Music, Tracy became a member of the staff, teaching piano, organ, and theory. In 1923, he spent the summer in New York to study with the renowned Italian teacher Pietro Yon. He became a member of the Sunday School general board and a member of the Church Music Committee. I

n 1925, he was named director of the music school, now called the McCune School of Music and Art. Five years later, overwhelmed by his many responsibilities and suffering from eyestrain and migraine headaches, he resigned as Tabernacle organist (succeeded by Alexander Schreiner) but continued as director of the McCune School for another twenty years. For several years, he was a much-loved bishop of his ward.

When Tracy Y. Cannon died in 1961, it was estimated that 17,000 ward and stake organists and choristers had received training in the program he had established through the Church Music Committee. I was one of those who so benefited through a series of classes in conducting taught in my Idaho stake by Tracy's nephew Clawson Cannon.

On 6 June1937, Tracy was interviewed over KSL radio on the subject of Latter-day Saint music. Responding to the question of what opportunities in music the Church offered to its members, Cannon described the training and participation in singing in each of the auxiliary organizations, with priesthood and ward choirs offering further opportunity.

"Everyone who has a desire to sing has opportunity to participate with some organized group and receive musical training," Cannon said. This radio interview provides an interesting glimpse into Church music programs in 1937.

The interviewer was a twenty-six-year-old (almost 27-year-old) man by the name of Gordon B. Hinckley. He was a newlywed, having married Marjorie Pay just five weeks previously.

About this same time, Tracy Y. Cannon, now a widower, having lost his dear wife Lettie in 1935, met a woman twenty-three years younger than he. Her name was Carol Hinckley, and she became secretary at the McCune School. In 1943, she finally succumbed to his proposal and they were married in the Salt Lake Temple, followed by what Carol called "nineteen of the most wonderful and rewarding years of my life." Carol was an older sister (or half-sister) of Gordon B. Hinckley.

It is not unusual to hear a young person say they wish to serve the kingdom or dedicate their talent to the Lord. Such service can take many forms, and one does not denigrate any calling or any activity that sustains life, helps others, and glorifies God.

For certain kinds of contribution, however, preparation, the learning of skills, the development of mastery, even the acquisition of credentials are required. Sculptors, painters, musicians, writers, dancers, actors, photographers, cinematographers, practitioners of other crafts — today there may be no single path to success in these and other areas. But many, looking back a century and more, will find a kindred spirit and a model in Tracy Y. Cannon.