Music school

“ A school of music was established in 1875, its pupils being drawn chiefly from the special students, who lacked preparation for the regular college studies and so were limited to the so-called 'accomplishments' of music and drawing, with a smattering of literature. As it became increasingly evident that the emphasis in the school of music was on performance—the development of highly specialized skill—and that the predominating interests in the college were intellectual rather than vocational, the school was seen to be out of place. ”

“ She secured representative talent in the various branches of music from the various European musical centres, thereby securing warm approbation of the institution from foreign musical artists and critics. The faculty now numbers sixty members; it contains artists notable for excellence in every branch of musical arts and pedagogy. General cultural studies, such as dramatic art, literature, and modern languages, are conducted with special application to their relation to music.
The Cincinnati Conservatory was the first to conduct a summer music school. ”

“ The proper study of Music includes so many of the regular public school studies, and so much of the elements of higher education, as Psychology, Biology, Sociology, Physics, Economics, Social Legislation, History, Languages, Literature, Physical Training, Self-Control, to say nothing of the mathematical studies included in such branches as orchestration, harmony, counterpoint, etc., that a model musical college would furnish an education and culture, far more beneficial to individuals and the group, than is offered by some of the present systems of education. ”

“ A nice time music teachers will have when ten hours' work a day will give them an income of 30s. a week! But what, if not music teachers, are the pupils of our four leading musical academies to become? The Royal Academy of Music, the Royal College of Music, the Guildhall School of Music, and Dr. Wylde's London Academy of Music must send out annually some thousand or two well-taught musicians who have nothing to turn to but teaching. ”

“ In this way the public schools have become foreshadowings of the conservatories and the university schools of music. In time the weak spot in our higher musical curricula, the course in 'musical appreciation' which so many idlers follow as a 'royal road' to a musical education (although it is found in none of the Royal Conservatories of Europe) , will have no excuse for being retained, for our high school pupils will already possess it in sufficient measure to pursue with zest the hard technical courses the mastery of which is necessary to the making of a real musician. ”

“ This point of view turns a large part of the job of the private music teacher over to the primary school where it is favorably developed; because only in the group activity and in the avocational attitude with the avocational atmosphere under technically qualified teachers can this program of musical education find its best fruitage for children in general. The private teacher is falling from her high pedestal of the power to cast the child's musical mind in the pattern of her own image within a limited musical skill at this age. ”

“ On the following visit to Chaumont I proposed to General Pershing that we form a music-school at which fifty bandmasters could get the most intensive musical training and discipline for eight weeks, to be succeeded by a new batch of fifty, etc., and at the same time forty pupils each in oboe, bassoon, French horn, and flügelhorn could get a similar training of twelve weeks on their respective instruments. ”

“ One of the greatest difficulties connected with public school music teaching is the inability of some of the grade teachers to teach music. The daily lesson is given by her. The music teacher visits each room once in two, three, or even four weeks. It is not necessarily the grade teacher’s fault if she cannot teach music well, because the training given her in the grade schools and normal school may have been quite inadequate. But teach music she must—as a part of her regular duties. ”

“ Knowing from personal observation the difficulties that lie in the way of American students, especially of young and inexperienced girls who seek to obtain a musical education abroad, battling as they must, not only with foreign customs and a foreign language, but exposed to dangers, temptations and disappointments, he determined to found in America a music school that should be unsurpassed in the world. ”

“ The program school of composers is the first school that has not merely tolerated but encouraged, elaborated, and rationalized the conviction of the unmusical that music is to be valued chiefly not for itself, but for something else. ”

“ It has lessened the cost of musical education many times over by training ten or a hundred pupils in a group as effectively, in many respects, as they could be trained by individual instruction. Group instruction has, perhaps, been the strongest leverage for the motivation of musical pursuits in the school. It has increased the pursuit of individual instruction on the basis of discovered needs, for example, in the mastery of a particular instrument for participation in the band or orchestra or in the development of a voice discovered in the group. ”

“ The standard literature of music in choruses, hymns, patriotic and national songs, selections from choral works, even the giving of cantatas, would fairly represent a public-school, not a college, course in music. It is not the function of public-school music to produce the finished artist, but to make for common standards of training in the democracy of art, of which our country stands in such great need. ”

“ It cannot be urged that the subject is finished in the elementary schools. Pupils in fact receive only an introductory training in vocal music. The whole field of instrumental music remains untouched. It seems the city ought to consider the question of whether the course ought not to be much expanded and continued throughout the high school period as an elective subject. ”

“ The reluctance of boys to sing the soprano would be amusing were it not, in the light of utterly false training, so pitiful.
School music is educational; its scope is controlled by those in charge. The public expects good educational, rather than show work, and employs those to supervise and teach who are supposed to know what good educational work is in vocal music. ”

“ The outlook for the future is wholly inspiring indeed; and no musician need fear that in taking up public school music he is entering upon a field of work which is too small for one of his caliber. The only question to be asked in such a case is whether the teacher in question is big enough and is sufficiently trained along musical, general, and pedagogical lines to handle this important task in such fashion as to insure a result commensurate with the opportunity. ”

“ One objection that is made to the introduction of music into common education is the time that it would occupy, which, it is said, should be taken up with more useful exercises. But, waiving the circumstance, that this objection entirely begs the question respecting the comparative importance of music in education, we reply, that, were music and dancing a regular part of school exercises every day, as they should be, it would be no hardship to children to remain more hours at school. ”

“ It is impossible that the colleges should remain indifferent to these tendencies in the preparatory schools, for their duty and their advantage are found in coöperating with them. The opportunity has been most clearly seen by those colleges which have established departments for the training of supervisors of public school music. Such service comes eminently within the rôle of the college, for a disciplined understanding, a liberal culture, an acquaintance with subjects once unrecognized as related to music teaching, are coming to be demanded in the music supervisor. ”

“ Here the principles of educational psychology, now so effectively applied to other primary and elementary school subjects, have revolutionized the presentation of music. This has of course been favored by the recognition of music on the level of the three R's. Music has come to function in the school not only as something to be learned but primarily as something to be lived. Primary teachers are, or will be, trained specifically for this subject. The old conflict betweenbetween enthusiasts for rote singing, on the one hand, and for technical sight reading, on the other, is vanishing. ”

“ And now let me say that the most important and beneficial step any community could take toward improving its school music would be to secure a supervisor who is untainted by current American pedagogical theories of sight-singing, who will not attempt to teach little children something they cannot possibly understand, and who will use nothing but the best music from the kindergarten to the high [Pg 101] school. ”

“ So long as our normal schools lay too great stress on the technique of teaching music at the expense of the greater thing, just so long will our schools suffer. And it is easily possible for the normal school authorities to be deceived as to what is the best music, as well as by a brave showing of musical performance. ”

“ A student who takes every opportunity given to her during her year of training will not only learn how to organize the general musical life of a school, through the medium of ear-training and song classes, recitals, music clubs, &c., but will be ready and proud to show initiative in other directions. ”

“ It will be of use to you chiefly by reason of the curious list of writers on mediæval and antique music quoted at the end of the volume.
If you do not make a successful volume of your instructive “Talks,” something dreadful ought to happen to you,—especially as Cincinnati has now a musical school in which children will have to learn something about music. You are the professor of musical history at that college. Your work is a work of instruction for the young. As the professor of that college, you should be able to make it a success. ”

“ If this be true, then it is highly important that the teachers of music in these school systems shall be men and women who are, in the first place, thoroughly trained musicians; in the second place, broadly educated along general lines; and in the third place, imbued with a knowledge concerning, and a spirit of enthusiasm for, what free education along cultural lines is able to accomplish in the lives of the common people. ”

“ This is perhaps an extreme case, but the school-rooms in which the music lesson is a period of nervous strain for both teacher and pupils are numerous, and it is not strange that sometimes trustees question whether it might not be well to eliminate music from the list of public-school subjects. ”

“ In the eight years in the grades there developed a process of selective opportunities for the pursuit of music so that freshmen entered the high school as a group fairly differentiated on the basis of abilities, opportunities, likes and dislikes, and ambitions for music. ”

“ A discussion of these matters properly belongs in a treatise on public school music, and we can only state our belief here that, in general, the musical development of the children will be more directly fostered by practice upon choral rather than upon operatic works; and that extreme care must be exercised by the high school chorus director in handling immature voices lest they be strained in the enthusiasm of singing music written for mature adult voices. ”

“ We cite this case from our own experience in order to show what has actually been accomplished in the way of fostering the love of music in one Public School. We are aware that this standard would appear entirely visionary to the authorities of some other schools: there are some to whom the idea of one choir singing in two parts seems more than is practicable. But when music is recognised as an integral part of education, as it used to be in Greece, then we may look forward to a different standard indeed. ”

“ More and more highly is the department of musical training esteemed by those who understand the work. All receive training in vocal music as a part of their daily school work, and would there were more with means to take instrumental lessons! ”

“ During the second half of the nineteenth century the teaching of music passed in large measure from the hands of single, independent teachers into the direction of music masters associated in institutions for class instruction, which are generally known as conservatories, although this term in its European signification of a large, completely equipped and nationally endowed school of music is misleading. ”

“ A drab picture is drawn by comparing the number of those who, through high school, have had the privilege of good training with the number of those in the best social groups of our cities today who actually contribute, and take pleasure in contributing, to the musical life of the community and to their own personal moments of leisure. Here is a challenge to adult education: a challenge to find and encourage self-expression in music in adult life. Nevertheless, a strong argument can be made for musical education even if it functions only during the period of adolescence. ”