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“ Let us suppose that a new mistress is taking a song lesson with a large class of children, who have the reputation of being troublesome to manage. On entering the classroom it is a good plan to go straight to the platform, without speaking a word to the children on the way, whatever they may be doing. From this vantage ground the teacher should look the class over for a few seconds, still without speaking. There is nothing more impressive to a restless class than the sight of a mistress not in the least disturbed by their doings, yet taking everything in. ”

“ When a class of children has arrived at the stage of being able to extemporize a tune of sixteen bars, in any given key and time, and introducing given modulations, it is quite ready to begin the more formal study of composition, and to be initiated into the mysteries of form. Hitherto the experiments of the class in this direction have been chiefly spontaneous; the teacher has of set design left the child who is extemporizing as free as possible, but the time has now come for a new 'window' to be opened in its mind. ”

“ CHAPTER XI THE TEACHING OF TRANSPOSITION
A great many musical people will not take up the subject of transposition seriously, because they have no idea of the lines along which to work. They all agree that the knowledge would be most useful to them, especially from the point of view of song accompaniment, but the path seems to be beset by so many difficulties, and the results of their first attempts are so pitifully small, that they generally give up all hope, and all effort. Then again, some of the books published on the subject are not very helpful to the average student. ”

“ It is impossible to over-estimate the importance of securing plenty of experience in teaching classes of average pupils of all ages, under expert supervision. Many an apparently promising teacher has come to grief in the first post taken, because the knowledge gained has been too theoretical, and has not been checked by class experience with really average pupils. The question of discipline is an easy one with an individual pupil, but in class work it assumes a different proportion. ”

“ A preliminary talk should be given on the need of form in music. It must be pointed out that we cannot be intelligible without it, that it is not enough to have a language at our command; we must have shape in order to convey our ideas to others. The child should realize that the great artists in all the arts are under the same necessity as the youngest beginner in composition. Inspiration must be embodied in a definite form, or others cannot share the vision of beauty. ”

“ Hitherto she has been receiving food, clothes, money, education, help in her difficulties, &c., and now, Fate waves a wand, and the child who has been the centre of interest in her home and in her school has to learn to give—and to give generously—as others gave to her.
For the real teacher is never paid for all she does. Her salary is not augmented in proportion to all the extra help she gives to the backward or delicate pupil—to the hours of drudgery, outside school hours, willingly given in order to be prepared for every eventuality of school life. ”

“ Sixty years ago no girl was considered educated who could not play the piano a little. Since then a reaction has begun to set in. The standard of playing has gone up to such a degree that parents are often heard to say that their child is not musical enough for it to be worth while to teach it an instrument. This is a pity. Music is used so much in our daily life that we cannot do without our 'average performers'. The soldier marches best to a tune, the sailor heaves his anchor to a song, the ritual of all forms of religion needs the aid of music ”

“ It is a useful lesson to get a class to criticize all original tunes when played by the young composer. For one thing, the criticism of our contemporaries often carries more weight than that of our elders; and for another, the practice arouses the critical faculty, and teaches the children to listen keenly, for they have not the written tune in front of them. ”

“ What we want, if we have an educational end in view, is not so much to give the few musical children in a school the opportunity of gaining experience in playing in public, and indirectly of showing their progress to an admiring audience, but we want to give every music pupil in turn the same opportunity. ”

“ At this stage it is absolutely necessary for those of the class who are musical, and who wish to give a little extra time to music, to go through a course of strict harmony and counterpoint; endless time will be wasted if they do not do so. The work will be very much lightened because of the foundation already laid, for, without knowing it, the children have been doing a little free counterpoint for some time, when they added vocal parts to a given melody, and their knowledge of practical harmony will make it possible for them to take many a short cut in the formal work. ”

“ We say, 'by the majority of artists', for now and then we meet an artist who seems to have strayed from the path of beauty, and who is devoting his energies to an ascetic determination to keep alive one particular interpretation of a composer's work, or works; who dictates these interpretations to his pupils, and who talks of other artists who feel the bounden duty of self-expression through the said works as 'outsiders', and 'not in the cult'. ”

“ Now, those who have studied the question of the teaching of music in accordance with modern methods have realized that music provides a language, which should be used primarily for self-expression and intercourse with others. The whole of life depends on the expression of ourselves in relation to the community. 'Self-expression is a universal instinct, which can only be crushed by a course of systematic ill treatment, either self-inflicted or inflicted by others. ”

“ Such teaching certainly has the charm of novelty to a class, but we must remember that one of the faults of childhood is an undue readiness to pass on quickly to learn 'something new' before the previous work is secure.
In taking a lesson the teacher should aim at speaking in her ordinary voice. Inexperienced people sometimes imagine that it is necessary to shout when speaking in a fairly large room. But provided the voice is clear, and the articulation good, a low voice carries just as well as a loud one, and certainly produces a greater sense of repose. ”

“ The fundamental work should be taken in class, not at an individual lesson, and should be compulsory for all children. We do not inquire whether a child is gifted in languages before we teach him French, and we must not ask whether he is gifted in the language of music before placing him in the music class. Again, short frequent lessons are more beneficial to the young beginner than longer lessons at greater intervals, for, as a new 'sense' is being opened to the pupil, a long lesson produces an unhealthy strain. ”

“ All those who teach ear-training should keep a book in which they write on one side of the page the proposed scheme of work for each lesson, and on the other the actual work done. All sorts of things may happen in the course of the lesson to upset the proposed scheme. The children may find the new work easier, or more difficult than was expected, a question from a child may suddenly reveal a piece of ignorance which necessitates a digression—every teacher is aware of the 'unknown quantities' in class work. ”

“ It is, alas! a day of examinations, and with the many little books of studies and pieces which have to be got up for outside examinations there is a serious fear of the systematic education of a child in classical musical literature being interrupted, or, at any rate, put on one side for a time. Such a book makes it possible for the mistress to keep a definite scheme of work in view for each pupil, and the busier the mistress, the more she will need some such aid to her memory. ”

“ To the favoured few real creative power comes by instinct, but to a great many a small degree of this power can be given by education, and in this way an extra outlet is possible for self-expression. The child should be trained when quite young to think in terms of music, in the same way in which it is trained to think in its mother-tongue. ”

“ In the teaching of 'pieces' music mistresses should bear in mind that children must, from time to time, revise those which they have finished. Nothing is more irritating to a parent than to be told by a child that it has 'nothing to play' to a visitor. The mistress who is anxious to get a pupil on as quickly as possible often overlooks this point, and an entirely wrong impression is given of the child's progress to the parent. ”

“ The children, without knowing exactly what has happened, will feel different, and will be pliant and easy to manage. Directly the mistress is conscious of this change of atmosphere she can start the lesson. But she must now gradually merge her personality into that of the class—she must work with them, not outside them. It is difficult to put this idea into words, but all real teachers will see the meaning. There is no driving force to equal that which works from within a community—not from without. ”

“ To begin with, the teacher of songs must have real personality; and if she does not possess this by nature, she must do her best to develop what she has. She must be full of vitality, she must understand children, and, above all, she must be genuinely fond of music, in such a way that she cannot do without it. The last qualification often implies a certain sensitiveness, which finds a difficulty in accommodating itself to a workaday world, where people have little time, or inclination, to study the 'moods' of others. ”

“ It is not necessary for a teacher to conduct the songs all the time during the lesson, or the fact that the class is expected to watch the baton tends to make them rigid in their attitudes, and therefore, to a certain extent, in their singing. The best results are obtained when a class stands to sing. Some well-meaning teachers forget that the children have probably been sitting in their class rooms for the greater part of the morning, and are only too glad to stand for a change. ”

“ A human being imperfectly endowed with a sense of balance or rhythm is a danger to the community, and one who is entirely without this sense is spoken of as 'insane'.
In the training of the teacher it is well to call attention first to the rhythm of speech, before entering into that of music. Those who have had a literary education have already studied the metrical properties of poetry and prose. ”

“ But at the set performance nothing is more delightful than to see children rise, and, without any flapping of pages, or uncomfortable attitudes for seeing the words in a book, sing straight from their hearts. ”

“ Instruction in sight-singing should begin by teaching the staff notation through the Tonic Sol-fa method. Objections to this are sometimes raised by very musical people, who have no recollection of any 'method' by means of which they themselves learnt to sing at sight, and who therefore think their pupils can pick up the knowledge in the same instinctive fashion. Experience proves that this is very rarely the case.
With very little children it is well to keep entirely to hand signs and ear tests until all the notes of the scale are known, through their 'mental effect'. ”

“ Children should never be allowed to sing loudly, especially when very young. It is most difficult to cure the habit when once formed. Attention should be paid to articulation from the very first. A useful lesson is taught the class if, from time to time, half of them go to the end of the room, and, with closed books, listen to their companions singing a verse of a song which is new to them. ”

“ Grown-up students are usually very much slower than children at it, partly because they are inclined to be self-conscious, and to worry about the sound of their voice, &c. But the child who has been accustomed to sing at sight and to extemporize with the voice in front of a class is not in the least embarrassed at being told to go to the piano and combine a sung melody with a simple piano accompaniment. At first there will be a tendency to restrict the melodies to the actual notes of the tonic and dominant chords, but with a little practice passing notes, &c. ”

“ In the organization of musical work in a school it is of the utmost importance that there should be a central musical authority, responsible for bringing all those engaged in the teaching into touch with each other. ”

“ Children often forget that the leading note in a minor key invariably carries an accidental.
We must now say a little on the subject of revision. It is a fault of the young teacher that she often entirely neglects this, with the result that her class can only sing accurately at sight, and do dictation in, the last key learned. During the first few lessons in a new key it is certainly inadvisable to give exercises in the preceding ones, as the whole attention must be concentrated on the new tonality. ”

“ Pupils trained on other systems have sometimes been found incapable of singing melodies written in complicated time, even though they can beat time to the notes, giving the time names, without mistake. The same thing is noticeable in their instrumental work. This is due to the fact that one side of their training has been developed at the expense of the other—time at the expense of pitch. There seems little point in teaching a child such time-values as
when it can only read at sight in the key of C major! ”

“ At one lesson the teacher can give the hand signs and ear tests herself. At the next, one of the class can give the hand signs for the rest of the class, and the teacher the ear tests. At the next, a child can give the ear tests, and so on. An experienced teacher will find plenty of similar ways for producing new interest in the lessons, even though the actual amount of work done be necessarily small. Nothing is gained by hurrying over the initial stages of ear-training. ”

“ A music club is a great stimulus to the musical life of a school. A good plan is to arrange a series of short lectures on such subjects as the origins of harmony, acoustics, the chief difference between music of different schools and periods, &c., and to follow these by accounts of the lives and works of the great composers. Children are delighted to come to such meetings, especially if their aid be asked in illustrating the lectures by playing specimens of the music referred to. ”

“ As a child will need more than one such book in the course of her study, and as she cannot play the same test twice, a plan has been made in some schools for the music to be sold second-hand from one pupil to another, through the medium of a mistress, in the same way in which ordinary school books are sometimes passed on. This reduces the expense of constantly having to buy new books for sight reading. ”

“ When these exercises are finished, and a few scales and passages have been sung, the class should sit down while the teacher speaks about the new song to be sung. In schools where sight-singing is taken as part of the regular curriculum it is not necessary to work at this in the song class. In beginning a new song the chief thing is for the teacher to get the class to seize the spirit of it. If difficult words occur, they may be explained later, but it is absolutely essential that the children shall get hold of some idea which they can express in singing. ”