MUSICAL COURIER
30
June 28, 1923
MUSIC AND PUBLIC EDUCATION
By GEORGE H. GARTLAN Director of Music in the Public Schools of New York City
DAILY DRILL IN HIGH SCHOOL HARMONY
An Outline of a Class Lesson as Given by Frank E. Percival, Arsenal Technical Schools, Indianapolis, Ind.
Have pupils recite these scales and play them at the piano until all of them are familiar to the class.
Recitation 2. (Keyboard).
Explain chord and triad. Pupils then play a scale of triads in the above keys. Again the pupils recite at the piano, playing the scales of triads with the third of the triad and the fifth of the triad in turn at the top of the triad.
Recitation 3. (Written Work).
The class bring to the recitation the scales of C-G-D and A, neatly written. Also the scales of triads in these keys.
Ear-training. The teacher plays these scales of triads, the pupils naming the chord numbers—noting the difference between IV and C and distinguishing what tone is used for the top note.
Recitation 4. (At the Piano).
Harmonize a short three-measure melody in 4/4 time, using half notes. First explain primary triads. Our melody is E-F-E-D-E (I-IV-I-V-I). Notice that the first tone is the third of the chord). The pupil at the piano, using the right hand, plays the primary triads under each tone. What will improve this ? The pupil must strengthen this by giving his house a foundation. A bass is needed. He puts the root of each triad in the bass, doubling the root of the chord and has the melody harmonized for soprano, alto, tenor and bass. The foregoing four recitations are all from one lesson out of the textbook.
Recitation 5. (Written Work).
Bring to class the above exercise written neatly in ink, with the proper Roman numerals. Oral drill on the scales of C-G-D-A also on the primary triads. Establish in the minds of the pupils the vocabulary of I-IV-V, for instance I, C-E-G; IV-F-A-C and V-G-B-D. Why are they called primary triads?
Recitation 6. (Keyboard Work).
Class recites by playing the scales of E-B-F# and Cf. Use whatever time is left for review and listening.
Recitation 7. (Keyboard Work).
Using the melody given in Recitation 4, the pupils play this harmonized in the keys of G and D.
Recitation 8. (Written Work).
Bring to class, written, the scales of E-B-Ff and Ct. Bring to class the exercise given in Recitation 4 harmonized two other ways in the key of C, but using the same Roman numerals. First, this is done by starting the melody on the root of the chord, for instance C-C-C-B-C. The other way by starting the melody on the fifth of the chord thus: G-A-G-G-G, and so on.
I have given as a sample of Daily Drill, eight recitations. Just keep before you the fact that high school harmony is nothing more or less than class drill. I am perfectly aware of this year’s sentiment in the Conference, namely: “Beware of too much technic in school music.” In Wednesday morning’s Cleveland Plain Dealer I saw the headlines: “Speakers emphasize too much Do-Re-Mi. Our President in his Tuesday morning address said that “we must have more song-singing.” Dr. Snedden voiced nearly the same sentiment. But this sentiment concerns the mass of school children and has not to do with a specialized group of harmony students. I look upon a group of harmony students as I would upon a glee club group or an orchestra group assembled for a definite purpose. And I think, too, that harmony taught by drill consistently will bear better results—will become more interesting to the pupil as he grasps his subject. By drill, too, we avoid many pitfalls, such as the pupils not getting a thorough hold of the subject, getting discouraged and dropping out. Drill is not to become mere routine. It must be made interesting; it can be if the class is made to feel its responsibility.
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pathy with this opinion, but it must be remembered that the idea in presenting these papers to teachers is not to prove to them that this or any other method is the best, but merely to give the viewpoint of a teacher who apparently has had considerable success in doing work of this character.—The Editor.]
The place to begin the study of harmony is in the junior year of the high school pupil. Under the school drill as we have it in our school, two years of high school harmony is equivalent to one year of college or conservatory harmony. If the pupil goes away to school after his high school course, think of the time and money saved by his having had two years of high school harmony!
High school prepares the student for college English, mathematics and languages. It should prepare him for college music. Conservatories demand a high school diploma for entrance, but it is based in most cases upon academic subjects. Their requirement for entrance should be based as well upon music credits.
They can do it because harmony now is considered an essential subject in the music department of the high school. We no longer have to put out a dragnet to get up a harmony class. The student interested in music has his eye on the proper course for his musical future. One studying piano, voice, violin, etc., and ignoring harmony, “is like an uncharted ship.” We might compare him to the man who cannot read or write. He supports his family, he has a bank account, but not being able to read or write, he is uneducated. The music student wise enough to take up theory with his practical music studies, acquires musicianship.
The reason I use the word “drill” in harmony is, that your high school pupil is a student in the development period only. While he is at his most romantic age, he has as yet not arrived at the point where his reasoning powers will see him through and he is able to work out details.
In our high school harmony work we are preparing the ground as it were, doing pioneer work for the future student. His music through the grades has been singing, theory, appreciation, orchestra—all of it perfunctory as far as he is concerned. When he chooses harmony as a high school subject he is beginning to take his music more or less seriously, but he is not prepared to stand on his own feet, musically speaking. We cannot, therefore, take anything for granted but drill, and it is regular and consistent drill at every step of the way from the first recitation on rudiments, definitions, scales, intervals, chords and harmonizing. For the first semester is the critical part of a harmony student’s course.
The Daily Drill.
By way of explanation I will say that my paper concerns a class doing five recitations per week. And I would use the same method with any class regardless of the number of recitations. Also this paper has to do with the first semester’s work which takes us into inversions. Our high school harmony course is divided into four semesters thus: Harmony I-II-III-IV.
To quote again. In one of Mr. Gidding’s “Don’ts” he says: “Don’t teach one thing at a time.” He wasn’t speaking particularly of harmony, but how well this remark applies here in a semester’s work. Don’t drill six weeks on scales; don’t take another six weeks to teach intervals and chords; don’t use up the balance of your semester on harmonizing four-voiced harmony.
At the end of the first semester the pupil should be able be invent a melody, harmonize it for four voices (open or close position), using root position or inversion, play it at the piano in any key and be able to hear and distinguish any voice or tone when played by the teacher. In short he must be able to do this for ear, eye or keyboard.
Let us consider the type of daily drill that goes to make up each recitation, remembering that each lesson as outlined in harmony textbooks is too long and contains too much material for a recitation of forty-five minutes, for a class containing from twelve to twenty pupils. It is necessary to divide a lesson into from three to four recitations so that all the class will receive daily instruction. Below is a description of sample drill:
Recitation 1. Assignment (Keyboard Work).
First, play at the piano the scales of C-G-D-A. As
a pattern for all keys, use the white keys from C to C.
This is a typical major scale with steps and half steps.
[The following paper, Daily Drill in High School Harmony, was read by Frank E. Percival before the National Supervisors’ Conference in Cleveland, Ohio. Many supervisors doing this type of theoretical work in high school are not satisfied with the results which they are obtaining. This may be due in a large degree to the more idealistic type of instruction which up to the present has been given in secondary education. Mr. Percival is evidently of the opinion that the high school mind is not musically ready for much more than a theoretical presentation of the initial technical step. There are, no doubt, supervisors who would not be entirely in sym-
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