MUSICAL COURIER	January 4, 1923
MUSIC AND PUBLIC EDUCATION
By GEORGE H. GARTLAN
Director of Music in the Public Schools of New York City
AN INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC DEPARTMENT
A Complete Account of the Instrumental Music Study in Rochester, N. Y., as Conducted by Jay W. Fay
is a junior and a senior orchestra and a band, and in each school there ־is a free activities period in which therej is a band club, and orchestra club and a violin class: These clubs are practically full rehearsals, supplementing the regular after-school rehearsal of the organization. I shall present an analysis of the Washington Junior High School as a typical unit of the system.
This school has 148 pupils receiving instrumental instruction, grouped into a senior orchestra of ninety members and a junior orchestra of fifty, a selected little symphony of twenty-seven, now studying the Military Symphony of Haydn; an orchestra club of fifty-one, a band of forty-four, a band club of forty-four, and a violin class of eight. All organizations rehearse once a week for one hour after school or in the free activities period, except the little symphony which meets every other week for one hour. The violin class is an experiment in semi-vocational training and meets three times a week for one hour sessions. The orchestra plays every week at assembly, and its members are presented with insignia for faithful service. The work is in charge of two junior high vocal instructors, assisted this year by the supervisor in person. The junior high work is of enormous importance in establishing the right relation toward large group activity and in inculcating loyalty and enthusiasm which will furnish the senior High School orchestras and bands with members ready to cooperate to the fullest extent in genuine musical achievement. Last year these organizations played 128 times, 111 in and seventeen times out of school.
The two Senior High schools have each a junior and a senior orchestra, a large orchestral group made up of the two combined, and a band. Each unit rehearses one and a half hours once a week, thus giving all pupils three hours a week after school. Band members complete the time required for credit by rehearsing with one or more of the four bands on Saturday morning. Thus all the Senior High School work is outside of school time, and being partly prepared work, due to the necessity of home practice, membership and eighty per cent attendance in either band or orchestra entitles the pupils to one-quarter credit a term, sixteen credits being required for graduation. This means that by being in both organizations and attending at least eighty per cent of the rehearsals for four years, a pupil can secure one-quarter of his graduation points in instrumental music, instruction furnished by the Board, after school hours, and without expense to himself. The training given is in playing the best music, often of genuinely symphonic proportions, an artistic attitude is cultivated, and regularity of habits, loyalty and unselfish service to the school are developed to a high degree. The band and orchestra are an integral part of the school life, playing at assemblies, school plays, games, graduations and representing the school on many occasions. The East High School which I shall take for a concrete example has 102 pupils taking instrumental instruction. It has a senior orchestra of thirty-three, a junior orchestra of thirty-three, and consequently a combined orchestra of sixty-six, and a band of forty-four. Each organization has officers and insignia, and is recognized by the student council. 'The band and orchestra give one or two joint paid concerts a year and turn in the proceeds to the •student treasury.
SUZANNE GALLIEN
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[This article is a continuation of the article which appeared in the issue of the Musical Courier under date of December 28. As stated in that issue, we consider the subject of instrumental music of vital importance at this time, and it is essential that this message of success be carried in full to all supervisors who are facing problems of a similar character.—The Editor.]
Just as the method of class instruction gives the greatest incentive at a certain age (and we have teachers in Rochester who proclaim class instruction superior to private), so does the school orchestra and band offer much of great value to the pupil both musically and in the building of his character........
We have in Rochester thirty-four teachers, not counting teachers of piano classes, over which I have no supervision, and excluding two teachers supplied by the Continuation School to teach English and mathematics to part-time music students, as required by State law. These thirty-four teachers teach 176 hours a week to 1,245 pupils, each of whom receives from thirty minutes to ten and one-half hours a week, free of expense to himself and almost entirely outside of school time. The cost of this instruction is in round numbers $15,000 per annum, which makes the per capita cost of instrumental instruction twelve dollars a year. The teaching force includes one supervisor, two other men teachers on full time, four vocal instructors in charge of junior high school music, who give a part of their time to bands and orchestras, eleven professional musicians engaged at a uniform rate per hour, three cadets, advanced pupils supplementing the work of the professional teachers, and thirteen special music teachers in the grammar schools, who have charge of the grade school orchestra, and in some cases of violin classes. The Board of Education has by gift of Mr. George Eastman, who has contributed enormously to the musical opportunities of Rochester, 426 instruments, costing $28,775, which are lent out to acceptable pupils on a bond which makes them responsible for their care and safe return. There is also at the central music office a large library of band and orchestra music, carefully selected and catalogued, which is lent out to the schools and upon which valuable data is being collected as to its utility in public school work. You can readily see that the administration of these 426 instruments and the teaching in class, band, and orchestra of their players, together with the 800 others who have their own instruments, has led to a large and carefully organized department, which I wish to describe to you in some detail.
First, the candidates are selected from those who apply when notice is given of a new distribution of instruments. These candidates are placed in a class which is taught music notation and certain technical features of music reading preparatory to instrumental teaching, and during the term of this class, which lasts about ten weeks, the idlers and the incompetent are weeded out as far as. possible. It goes without saying that this method is employed for the instruments which are owned by the Board. In other cases the pupil has but to present himself when the classes are formed, and he is accepted. His stay in the class depends upon faithful attendance and reasonable progress.
The actual work of instruction begins in the grade schools with violin teaching. Pupils are taken from their regular classes and assembled in groups of from ten to twenty under a visiting teacher who has made a specialty of class teaching of violin. At the same time a grade school orchestra is formed, largely composed of violins and piano with an occasional trombone, drum, or flute. To this orchestra are admitted the new violin pupils when they are sufficiently advanced to handle the simplest grade of orchestra music. These little orchestras are considered preliminary training schools in ensemble playing leading later to more mature organizations, where we find fuller instrumentation and the ability to play more pretentious compositions.
To make this more concrete, here are the facts for one grade school. No. 23—Forty-eight pupils receive instruction in instrumental music. There are four violin classes, thirty-seven pupils in all, meeting three quarters of an hour each once a week, and rotating so as not to take the pupil out of the same subject but once a month. The orchestra includes eleven violins, one cello, one flute, one clarinet, one cornet, one trombone, trap drums, and piano, and meets once a week for one hour’s practice in school time. It plays at assemblies, at parent-teacher meetings and the like, and at graduation exercises. During the last school year this orchestra played twenty times in public, fourteen times in and six times out of school. Of the forty-eight pupils, twenty-seven have three-quarters of an hour a week of instrumental instruction, ten have one hour, three have one and a half hours, four have three hours, and four have four hours a week, the latter taking classes on Saturday mornings in a department to be described later.
There are in all fifteen grade school orchestras, with two more in union schools, drawing on both grade and High School pupils. Fourteen of these are taught by regular vocal teachers with orchestra experience, and involve no additional expense to the Board, except that the music is furnished from the central library; two are taught by professional music teachers at the rate mentioned above, and the other is taught by one of the two men on the annual payroll. It is customary to to depend in large measure upon violinists privately taught to make these orchestras a success, but we have in Rochester at least one thriving orchestra numbering twenty-eight, every member of which is a product of public school class teaching, and whose playing was the sensation of a great demonstration at the close of the last school year.
The next unit in the school system is the Junior High School, of which there are three in Rochester and a fourth to be opened next year. This will practically reduce all grammar schools to six grades and take away the first year from the Senior High Schools. In each Junior High there
48
Edwin Hughes
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ROXAS
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