13
MUSICAL COURIER
June 7, 1923
MUSIC AND PUBLIC EDUCATION
By GEORGE H. GARTLAN Director of Music in the Public Schools of New York City
THE USE OF THE REPRODUCING
PIANO IN APPRECIATION CLASSES
An Account of the Work in the High Schools of Birmingham, Ala., and the Effect on Music Education
class, the most striking example being the Rachmaninoff program, when of the nine numbers listed, six were familiar to the pupils •before we started special work on this program. A few weeks ago we had Bauer there for a concert, and I do not hesitate to say that aside from the professional musicians, the students from the appreciation classes took more away from that recital than anyone else in the audience for they brought more to it. They knew from study and repeated hearing every number of a program which consisted of a Bach Partita, the Sonata Ap-passionata, the Schumann Papillons, the Chopin C sharp minor scherzo, the Liszt etude in D flat, a Schubert Impromptu, and the Saint-Saëns Etude in waltz form; scarcely what one would call a children’s program. And just here I would like to mention what might be called a by-product of the appreciation classes. These students go to a concert not because the performer has been sensationally advertised, not to criticize, but to hear and enjoy beautiful music. Think what that spirit spread through the mass of the people could mean to music in America 1
Blind Composers’ Works Widely Used
The collection of songs and piano pieces composed by blind English composers, which have been made known to this country under the auspices of J. Fischer & Brother, are fast meeting with acclaim by music reviewers as well as by the teachers, singers and pianists who are using them.
No emotional appeal to a sympathetic public was intended in first presenting this edition to the English public. The compositions were chosen for their true merit, for their beauty, and in some numbers because of the musical idealism which they attained and sustained. The two English gentlemen—H. C. Warrilow, F. R. G. O., director of music, and Edward Watson, music publications advisor—did not count upon the curiosity these works subsequently created as soon as they came off the press. And the curiosity has not been in vain on either side of the water because of the definite value of the works. They are natural and full of fresh, spontaneous melody; they are characterful, and doubtless much that they have to say is a result of a beauty in the mind and soul imagined and never seen through material eyes.
Bori to Summer in Spain and Italy
Lucrezia Bori, of the Metropolitan Opera Company, will spend the summer in Spain and Italy. Miss Bori has completed her season of opera in Havana and, in addition to her appearances at the Metropolitan this season, has been heard in recital in Cleveland, St. Paul, Denver, Washington, Toledo and many other cities in the past year.
Dreamin’ Time Proves Popular
Dreamin’ Time, published by J. Fischer & Bro., is one of the most popular Bayou songs offered to the public today. It.was recently sung at the song recital of Minnie Carey Stine, on May 15, and is used often by Kathryn Browne, of the Chicago Opera, with its equally successful companion piece, Ma Li’l Batteau.
from and how they are being used. They are not asked to memorize the form. Rather do they absorb it through constant use, so they come finally to hear it without conscious effort. It is well to guard against considering this following of the form as a stunt, and to keep before the class always the idea that the end sought is the appreciation of the symphony as a whole. For all knowledge of form is worse than useless unless it serves as an aid to *he enjoyment of the music.
The course of study for the appreciation classes is not rigidly laid out but follows in fairly regular chronological order all of the great composers from Haydn to the moderns, a number of representative things from each composer being selected for study. The method employed in teaching depends on the type of music to be presented. All stories are avoided unless the composer’s intention has been definitely shown by title or program, the object being always to put as little as possible between the child and the music. As the very life of the work is to keep the students interested, it is necessary, when the classes are large, to have variety in the music taught. Taking as an example my own classes this semester, the largest of which has a registration of eighty-five and the smallest sixty-five, it is obvious that there are various tastes to be considered. As all of you know, the average high school student does not immediately burst into ecstasies over the beauty of a Beethoven sonata. He must be won to it by repeated hearing and increased familiarity. And in the meantime he must be given music with a more immediate appeal, which still does not fall below the standard you wish to set. In my own work I have found pieces which are strongly rhythmic and not too long to have the most certain popularity. The Chopin Polonaise in A flat is an unfailing favorite, being described by one boy in the very vivid phrase, “Gee, that’s a knockout !” Though not quite the language one expects to hear used in speaking of Chopin, it told more surely than any stock expression could have done that he had really felt the tremendous thrill of the music.
The most interesting work that we do is the preparation for concerts which are brought to Birmingham during the season. This gives point to the class, and makes the children realize more clearly what we are striving for. It also demonstrates to them the value of work already done, for there has not been a concert given in Birmingham this winter which has not contained music already studied in
[The following account by Margaret Lowry, director of music in Birmingham, Alabama, will be particularly interesting to class teachers and supervisors who are facing the problem of teaching music appreciation. We have expressed frequently the importance of the reproducing piano in relation to school music teaching, and the following will serve to illustrate our point.—The Editor.]
The time has passed when it is necessary to defend or explain the use of mechanical instruments in the class room, nor should they be looked upon as necessary evils.. When the best instruments and records by the great artists can be transmitted to the student, I can think of no poorer form of economy than the buying of inferior records. If the child is to be awakened to a love of the beautiful it must be done through beautiful models.
As both the talking machine and reproducing piano are a part of our equipment, and since there are so many things to be considered besides the instruments used, I fear that I shall wander from my subject rather frequently in giving this account of the plan which is being used successfully in the appreciation classes of the high schools of Birmingham.
For several years these classes were conducted m^ the usual way, notebooks and outside study being required. This work naturally attracted only the students seriously interested in music, the ones who needed this particular help least, since, if they did not get it from the school, they would make a real effort to get it elsewhere. Three years ago Miss Kitts, the supervisor in Birmingham, feeling that the appreciation classes were not filling as large a place as they might, changed the work so as to offer the greatest good to the greatest number. Under the present system all notebooks and examinations have been discarded and the effort is made to interest as many students as possible in this work. This has not meant a lowering of standards in any way, but rather a redirection of effort. Whereas the classes as originally conducted offered some of the advantages of a music school to a few special students, the present plan brings in from the highways and byways children who never heard of Beethoven and do not know what a symphony is. I am not by any means condemning notebooks and examinations, though they must always be unsatisfactory methods of measuring accomplishment. The child with the neatest notebook and the glibbest knowledge of facts may have missed completely the beauty of the music. A much truer estimate of what is really being done may be gained by careful observation of the pupils during the lesson period. For the teacher who cannot feel the enjoyment or lack of it in her classes and is not as sensitive to this as an artist to his audience should not be teaching appreciation. And if it is a question of reaching fifty children with examinations or three hundred without them, I do not think that most teachers will hesitate long in their choice.
The success of the work in Birmingham is made possible largely by the time allowed for it and the division of work among the teachers. There is in each high school a teacher employed for harmony and appreciation only, the vocal classes, orchestra and band being taken care of by other special teachers. In this way appreciation has the dignity of a real subject instead of being thrown in haphazard at any odd time that can be found for it.
The classes meet for two forty-five minute periods each week and that time is spent as far as possible in listening to beautiful music rather than learning facts. As I have said before, each high school has both a talking machine and reproducing piano, the talking machine being used for compositions for violin, voice, and orchestra, while the reproducing piano is utilized only for piano_ music. Aside from giving as nearly as possible the effect intended by the composer, this arrangement has the great advantage of opening up a much wider range of music literature to the teacher, and giving added interest and variety to the class. The instruments are employed not only during the lesson period but are also available to students outside of school hours. This extra work is not compulsory, but members of the class are constantly coming in to hear records in which they are particularly interested, frequently bringing friends who are not studying appreciation, one girl even having brought her mother to hear one of her prime favorites. And just before a concert the appreciation room is one of the busiest places in school.
It is, of course, necessary to teach all of the most usual forms and this is done with the greatest care and thoroughness. Beginning with the elementary principles of form as found in folk music, it is an easy step to a Haydn symphony. And I have found by experience that it is wasted time and effort to make great preparation for listening to a symphony. Let them learn to do by doing. Nothing could be simpler or clearer than Haydn, and it is surprising how easily they learn to follow with very little help. In introducing a symphony or sonata an outline of the form is placed on the board, all technical terms which cannot be clearly explained to every student being omitted. For this knowledge must be an aid and not an obstruction to the listener. If, for instance, the movement under consideration is in sonata form, the most important themes are played by the teacher before the music starts. After the record is put on one student often follows with a pointer at the •board, moving to each new section as the music reaches that point. The record is stopped frequently to test the way in which the pupils are following and various means used to help those who have trouble. The movement is taught first in small divisions, the exposition section being mastered before the development is taken up. In this way, when the development is heard the pupils are able to trace the working out of the themes, tell where they come