Music as a Language: Lectures to Music Students

THE TEACHING OF DICTATION

So long as the work done in ear-training is in the very elementary stages the best form of dictation will be:

1. Ear tests, consisting of two to three notes at a time, which should be written in staff notation as soon as possible.

2. Monotone time tests, which should be quite short, as the constant repetition of the same note in pitch is irritating to the more sensitive ears in a class. This point is sometimes overlooked, with the result that only the less musical children get any real benefit from the tests.

By the time that children can sing at sight in the key of D major they will be ready to take down from dictation short melodic phrases in time and tune. A useful plan is for the phrase to be played over three times, the children listening carefully and beating time. They should then sing the phrase once through to lah, and write it down.

This method of dictation is more satisfactory than that of dictating a bar at a time, as it draws attention to musical phrases as a whole. Later on it will be found possible to dictate in the same way longer and longer phrases. Incidentally the memory is being trained as well as the ear.

When a class can take down simple melodies correctly it is time to begin two-part work. As a preliminary, get a child to play middle C on the piano, then to combine with it each of the notes of the scale of C major in turn. The class will decide which of these two-part chords are pleasant to listen to. Opinion is generally unanimous in favour of the third, sixth, and octave, which will therefore be the basis of the first exercises in two-part dictation.

Plenty of practice should be given in isolated examples of these chords, in more than one key, before the class attempts to combine time with tune. When they are ready for this, the work should begin with very simple phrases, with plenty of repetition to enable them to be quickly memorized. A later stage introduces the use of passing notes. It is better to play the exercise through first without these, and when it has been written and corrected, to play it again, inserting the passing notes.

At this stage it should be pointed out that all the notes of the scale are contained in one or other of these chords. This is a seed which, if well planted, will suggest the first principles of harmonizing melodies later.

We must now work at the three chords carefully. Begin by making the class sing them in arpeggio, and in a definite rhythm, so as to get precision. Each chord should be sung once very slowly, so as to get the notes correctly, and absolutely in tune; then twice more quickly, so as to get the feeling of harmony. This step is invaluable in its later results—a child will often be heard to sing different chords in arpeggio, when in doubt as to the chords to use in harmonizing a melody.

When the three primary chords are known the others may be added, together with the dominant seventh and the inversions, in all keys. This last step must not be hurried. The average class rarely finishes three-part chords in less than a year, and unless plenty of time is given difficulties will crop up later, when four-part chords are begun.

A later step is to make use of the position of the chord in a sequence—for instance, the child soon gets to notice that many phrases end with the progression subdominant, dominant, tonic.

We now come to the consideration of the dictation of four-part chords. These need not be sung in arpeggio. As a first experiment it will be necessary to play the chord to the class with each note doubled in turn, so that they may feel the necessity for doubling the best note.

This experiment is most valuable, as it gets the child away from the cramping feeling of keeping a rule merely because it is mentioned in a text-book.

Plenty of phrases with the primary chords in root position must be taken before the other chords are treated. For at least a year the class will not be able to write four-part dictation; the time should be spent in identifying the chords when played.

The chant form is the best for elementary work. It is very simple, and can be adapted to every sort of sequence. Passing notes, appoggiaturas, suspensions, &c., should be avoided at first. When the diatonic chords and their inversions are known the principal modulations should be studied. It will probably be necessary for the teacher to write her own tests, as there are very few books of chants published which contain enough exercises on the use of the easier chords.

THE TEACHING OF EXTEMPORIZATION AND HARMONY

In early days the art of melody was developed before that of harmony. The same plan should be followed in the general musical education of the child.

As every child possesses a voice, but does not in every case learn an instrument, it is clear that the fundamental training in music must be given through the use of the voice. The first step will consist in learning how to sing at sight and how to take down easy melodies from dictation. Parallel with this work the child should be taught to extemporize melodies, and to sing them.

Quite little children will take pleasure in completing a musical phrase of which the first few bars have been given them. The procedure will be as follows:

1. The teacher writes two bars in C major, [2/4] time, on the blackboard.

2. The class sings it through twice, first using the Sol-fa names for the notes, then singing to lah.

3. Volunteers are then asked for to complete the phrase by adding another two bars. The more musical children in the class will at once respond, and their efforts will stir the ambition of the others. It will soon be a question of taking the children in turn, a few at each lesson—so eager will they be to 'express themselves' in melody.

The next step will be for two children in the class to extemporize the whole phrase between them, one taking the first two bars and the other the last two. The key and time should be varied as much as possible—keys a fourth or fifth apart should be used in succession, or the children will assume that any melody can be sung by them in any key, which is obviously not the case. A melody sung in C major, which uses middle C and high F, cannot be sung in the key of G major with the child voice.

The class will now find it quite easy to extemporize the whole of a four-bar phrase. Suggestions can be made by the teacher, such as:

'Begin on the third beat of the bar.'

'Introduce two triplets in the course of the phrase,' and so on.

When this becomes easy to them they will be ready to begin eight-bar melodies. At first the teacher will give the first four bars, and different members of the class will finish the tune. Modulations should now be introduced. The same procedure as before should be followed, until any child in the class can give the whole of a tune, in any given key and time, and with a given modulation.

Next comes the sixteen-bar tune, in which at least one modulation should be introduced. A good plan is to begin with the well-known simple form:

I. Four bars to the [6/4] [5/3] cadence.

3. Repeat the first four bars.

4. Four bars to the end.

Three children can be used for this, in the following way:

The first child sings the first four bars, the second goes on to the end of the eighth bar, then the first child repeats what she sang, and a third child finishes. This affords excellent practice, particularly for the first child, who soon learns to confine herself to a simple opening, as this must be remembered and repeated later.

Memory plays a much larger part in the power to extemporize than many people realize, and if this step in the preliminary work be conscientiously taken there will be abundant results later.

We now come to the important stage of extemporizing on the piano. It must be remembered that a very thorough foundation of the knowledge of chords has been laid by the ear-training work, leading up to the power to write down chords from dictation, and to sing them in arpeggio.

The first exercise will consist in playing a very simple tonic and dominant accompaniment on the piano, while a melody is extemporized with the voice. There is far more variety possible in this than appears at first sight. For instance, the sequence of the chords may run in any of the following ways, among others:

It is interesting to note the ease with which children will do this exercise, if they have been carefully trained in all the preceding work. 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. are soon added, and graceful little tunes will result.

The next exercise consists in the use of three chords, tonic, dominant, and subdominant; the melody, as before, being sung. At this stage it is wise to let the dictation work in the class take the form of phrases which can be harmonized with these chords, so as to accustom the children to use them. This gives invaluable practice in the first principles of harmonizing melodies, and should precede all formal treatment of the subject.

Another useful exercise at this stage is to let the children add a second part, either above or below a given melodic phrase. This will be the foundation of later work in formal counterpoint.

Other chords can now be added, and the children will be ready to extemporize short tunes, entirely at the piano, without the aid of the voice. To some people this may seem an easier thing to do than to accompany the voice, but experience has proved the contrary. The child is so accustomed to use the voice that it will at first be inclined to think of all melody as vocal, and will be a little troubled when told not to think about vocal pitch.

The discipline of these early restrictions is obvious, and cannot be over-estimated. It quite does away with the 'hymn-tune' style of early composition, which is such a trap to many amateurs.

Side by side with this work it is advisable to get the class to extemporize chants, under the same restrictions as have been put on the melodies, i.e. they will begin by using only tonic and dominant chords, then adding the subdominant, and so on. The double chant will give opportunities for more than one modulation being introduced at a time. This work will prepare the way for figured basses, and more formal harmony. The children will learn to avoid consecutive fifths and eighths because they gradually notice the ugliness of them, which seems a better plan than to learn to avoid them as a 'rule'.

The writer says:

'It cannot be emphasized too strongly that the current method of teaching harmony, whereby pupils are taught to resolve chords on paper by eye, quite regardless of the fact that 99 per cent. of them do not realize the sound of the chords they are writing, is musically valueless.

'In no other language than that of music would it be tolerated that the theoretical rules of grammar and syntax should be so completely separated from the actual literature from which they are derived, that the pupil should never have perceived that there was any relation whatever between them.

'Another very common result of the neglect of an aural basis for harmony teaching is that students who can pass a difficult examination, and write correctly by eye an advanced harmony exercise, are often quite unable to recognize that exercise played over to them on the piano, or even to write down the notes, apart from the time, of a hymn or a tune that they have known all their lives.'

The whole chapter in this memorandum is well worth reading.

The final stages in the teaching of extemporization will consist in:

1. Expressing a given idea in musical form, e.g. a march, or a gavotte.

Although these last stages may be thought to be beyond the power of the average child, experience has proved that it is not so, provided the previous work has been carefully graded, and that none of the early steps have been omitted or hurried over.

THE TEACHING OF ELEMENTARY COMPOSITION

A wise musician has drawn attention to the fact that music has a more important educational function than any foreign language, being a common language for the expression of emotion, imaginative power, and rhythmic feeling. He went on to say that, as a training, it is of use from the very earliest years, and for all classes of the community.

If we agree with this view—and it is encouraging to note the increasing number of those who do so—we must so organize the musical education of children that a time comes when they will be ready to 'express themselves' in music in the same way in which they can express themselves in their native tongue.

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.

For a time the child now has to learn to select a musical form, then to choose a musical thought which can be fitly expressed in it. It will seem a cramping process after the freedom of extemporizing, but the child who loves the work will willingly submit to the discipline. It cannot be too often impressed on the young teacher that children as a whole like discipline. They despise those who are indifferent to it, and give a ready submission to those who expect it, provided they feel sure of an underlying sympathy.

The dance forms, together with very simple fugues and contrapuntal studies, and a few 'free' exercises in songs and short pieces, will be as far as the majority of children will get in the study of composition. But there will always be a few in each class who will be eager and able to go farther, and to begin the study of sonata form. For such children, and certainly for all teachers of music, there can be no better text-book than Hadow's Sonata Form, published in the Novello Primer Series. This book is often described as 'more exciting than a novel'! Somervell's Charts for Harmony and Counterpoint are also most valuable, and will save the necessity of a text-book in these subjects—at any rate for the beginner, who works under guidance.

The cure for these lapses is to insist on the tunes being sung before being written. The old unconscious habit will then assert itself, and the little tunes will fall into shape.

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.

After a little practice quite good criticisms will be given by children. They will notice such points as a weak scheme of keys—undue repetition of the chief melody—a clumsy modulation—a trite ending —an over-laboured sequence—a tendency to borrow ideas from others, and so on.

This training will be of the greatest possible value to them later on in the concert-room. As a writer in The Times once put it:

'The vague impressions which are all that many people carry away from the concert-room would be replaced by definite experiences.

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. Some of them seem to start with the assumption that the student is very musical, and can do a great deal by instinct. They therefore give only the roughest directions. Others begin sensibly enough, but leave out so many steps in the work that a student may be forgiven for throwing them aside in despair.

Now there are three chief reasons why the musician would do well to study transposition:

1. For the purpose of song accompaniment.

2. As an aid to committing music to memory, especially that written in a form where different keys are used for the presentment of the same material.

3. As an infallible test of a sound 'general' musical education.

The first exercises in transposition will be very simple—any child of seven or eight years old, who can sing at sight, and take down ear tests, in the keys of C and G major, can be expected to do them. They consist in:

1. Singing any well-known hymn-tune, or simple melody of the Folk Song type, using the Sol-fa names of the notes. It should be sung phrase by phrase, until every child in the class is sure of the correct notes.

2. The children should now go in turn to the piano, and each play a phrase of the melody, first in C major, then in G.

It is important to emphasize the fact that the tune must be well known to them, or an extra difficulty will be introduced.

As the children learn more and more keys, these tunes should be transposed into them.

By the time that the class has begun the study of three-part chords the transposition will become more and more interesting, as sequences of chords can now be transposed. When the first steps in extemporizing on the piano are begun, the transposition advances by leaps and bounds. The children will be delighted to play their little tonic and dominant accompaniments in every key—to change from major to tonic minor by flattening the third and sometimes the sixth of the scale.

There is a sense of freedom and power in such work, to which the class will readily respond. They soon realize that certain melodies 'only sound nice' in such and such a key, and in this way the foundation of a 'colour sense' will be laid. Also, apart from the question of the key in which a melody sounds best to a child, another point comes into notice. The child cannot sing certain notes in certain melodies unless it keeps within a certain range of keys. This teaches them something. The point has been referred to in the preceding chapter.

Altogether it will be seen that the study of transposition is opening a new window for them into the fairyland of music.

And the time comes when a child will sit down to the piano, and will extemporize quite happily either in F major or in F[#] major, whichever is suggested. Such work is well worth any initial trouble taken—it is a combined process of ear and mind which has a far-reaching educational effect.

The last stage of all in this work consists in transposing at sight from the printed page. Hitherto the ear and the mind have been chiefly employed, but now the eye must be trained to do its share.

It is found useful to make children say the names of the chords aloud when they are beginning this sort of transposition. The habit sets up a connecting link between the various faculties in use, in some curious way. The eye can help by noting the intervals between successive notes in the various parts, and especially in the outer parts. It sees the general drift of the piece before the mind comes into play—the coming modulations and so on. In fact, it is not too much to say that it is best, in certain musical phrases, to rely on the eye alone, e.g. rapid decorative passages, which are not always easy to analyse at first sight.

GENERAL HINTS ON TAKING A LESSON IN EAR-TRAINING

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. Unless the proposed scheme of work is checked by what is done in each lesson, there will be difficulties later.

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.

Another fault to avoid is monotony of tone—we need 'modulations' in speaking just as much as in music, and a class is keenly, though often unconsciously, susceptible to this. A change of position is helpful. The voice of the mistress will brighten at once if she comes down from the platform and walks about a little. But she must never turn her back on a class when actually telling them something. Musical people, who have not the same experience in such matters as the ordinary teacher, constantly do this, and will even hide the greater part of a blackboard when pointing to notes of a tune.

In beginning a lesson the maximum effort will be gained if communal work be taken before individual, i.e. sight-singing before dictation, extemporizing, &c. The reason for this is obvious, a certain momentum is thus generated, which is impossible later, when the force has been diffused.

In starting the tune the tonic chord is played, and the teacher beats a whole bar, together with a fraction of the next if the tune begins on an off-beat, before the class takes it up.

Do not tap time when beating: it cultivates a habit of inattention on the part of a class. Nor should the teacher beat time when the class is doing so, unless for a moment, to correct an error. One reason for this is that if the time signature be anything but [2/4] or [6/8], the teacher's arm moves in a different direction in certain beats from that of the class facing her, and this is most confusing.

Never correct a mistake by singing the right note yourself. This would be teaching by imitation—as we teach a bird to sing a tune—not teaching by method.

Remember that we are not aiming at artistic performance in a sight-singing class, so do not hammer away at a tune until the performance of it has reached your ideal. If you do, your aim is 'performance'—not sight-singing.

In writing notes, either on the blackboard or on manuscript paper, it is not necessary to fill up all the space between the lines, as is done in printed music. If children are allowed to do this, they will spend a long time over their exercises. Teach them to turn all tails of notes up which are written on lines or spaces below the third line, and down for those above. The direction of the tails of notes on the third line itself will depend on the context. These directions refer, of course, to the writing of melodies. It is often necessary to remind even grown-up students that accidentals must be placed before the note affected, not after it; also that a dot after a note which is written on a line must come on the space next above, not on the line itself. Children often forget that the leading note in a minor key invariably carries an accidental.

Again, it is only the inexperienced teacher who thinks her class has been badly taught by her predecessor. Many a student in training is inclined, after the first lesson with a new class, to come to the distracting conclusion that the children know 'nothing'. This generally means that, after the holidays, the former work needs a little revision before new work is begun.

In taking a fairly advanced class a teacher is often worried because there is not enough time in a single forty-minute lesson a week to touch on all of such subjects as chords, cadences, extemporizing, transposition, &c., in addition to sight-singing and dictation. It is certainly quite impossible to do so, and this is one of the reasons for apparently slow progress. But there is, however, a good side to the difficulty, for such work ought not to be hurried, and it is well to leave a little breathing space between the references to it.

Teachers are sometimes heard to speak with regret of the high spirits of their classes, which lead to restlessness. But we should never regret force in a child, and we must realize that all pent-up force needs a safety-valve. It must be our business to direct such force into safe channels. Keep the children really busy, give them plenty to do, and there will be no cause to regret their vitality.

THE TEACHING OF THE PIANO

It is impossible, within the limits of a chapter, to do more than dwell on a few practical points connected with the teaching and organization of this work in a school. As was said in the preceding chapter, the ideal for all young children who are about to learn the piano is that they should first go through a short course of ear-training. If this be done, the progress in the first year's work will be about three times what it would otherwise be. If the ear-training be done along the lines suggested in earlier chapters, the child will have been taught to sing easy melodies at sight, she will have approached the question of time by means of the French time names, she will have learned to beat time with the proper conductor's beat, to find notes on the piano, and, what is more important, to know these notes by sound, in relation to fixed notes.

In this way some of the processes which a child goes through in beginning to learn the piano are taken one at a time, in company with other children, and are therefore not hurried.

From the very first she will be taught to analyse a piece before she begins to play it—she will find out the key, time, cadences, sequences, passages of imitation, modulations, &c. If the melody be within the range of the child's voice she will then sing it, beating time as she does so. After these preliminaries it is only a question of technique to learn to play it. The last stage will consist in learning the piece by heart. The day has long gone by when it was considered a sign of exceptional musical gift to be able to do this. All experienced teachers know that, provided a child is having its ear trained by some such method as that suggested above, it can learn a piece of music by heart almost entirely away from the piano. That is to say, instead of the wearisome repetitions which were formerly necessary before a piece could be played by heart, it is possible, directly the technique is mastered, and in many cases before this is done, to learn the piece away from the piano. The benefit of this is obvious, and the nerves, both of the player and of the unwilling listeners, are the gainers.

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; we need it, not only in the pageantry of our processions, but in the solemn crises of life and death. For these purposes artists of the first rank are not necessary.

Every child, however apparently unmusical, should be given its chance, at any rate up to the age of twelve years. During this time, the stress should be placed, for the unmusical child, not so much on perfection of technique, but on the ability of playing easy pieces really well, and to read at sight such things as duets, song accompaniments, &c.

If, in addition, the children have joined an ear-training class, they will, at any rate, be intelligent listeners for the rest of their lives to other people's playing.

Schäfer (3 vols., published by Augener).

Hilliard (5 vols., published by Weekes).

Somervell (2 vols., published by Augener and Weekes respectively).

Taylor (1 vol., published by Bosworth).

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. Another plan is to establish a lending library, each child to pay 2d. or 3d. a term.

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.

And to what conclusion does this lead us? Surely this—that these giants in music recognized the necessity for every performer of their works to express themselves through the music, subject to the broad conditions laid down by the composer. As Hegel said: 'Music is the most subjective of all arts.' And is it not true that it is this constant necessity for personal interpretation, so strongly felt by the majority of artists, which gives the permanent interest to music?

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'. Such musicians do not appear to see that such an attitude is 'idolatry' pure and simple. They have not pondered the well-known anecdote of Brahms, who, when asked by a singer whether his interpretation of one of his songs was 'the right one', answered: 'It is one of the many hundred possible interpretations.'

It is a good plan to arrange a short recital every term in a school, at which from twenty to twenty-five pupils should play at a time. Such recitals should not exceed more than 1-1/4 hours in length. Nothing is more wearisome to the outsider than to listen to amateur performances which stretch out to two and sometimes to three hours' length. If the above plan be adopted, no child will be able to play more than one short piece. A mistress who is ambitious for the success of a few specially gifted pupils will sometimes suggest that a recital shall consist of the performance of two or three of these only, and that each pupil should play more than once.

Such suggestions should be frowned at.

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.

Pieces played at such recitals should invariably be by heart. The nervous pupil may possibly break down at her first appearance, but she will be quickly succeeded by a more confident player, the little victim of 'nerves' will be soon forgotten, and the experience gained in this way is invaluable.

Before a recital a rehearsal should be held in the same room in which the recital is to take place. Few people seem to realize the immense difference made to children by a change of environment at such a time. The pupil who will play her piece on the piano without one mistake to her mistress, and in the room to which she is used, will often be troubled at playing it on another piano, and in another room.

A child was once known to break down in an evening recital, and when asked the reason, said: 'I have never played that piece before with a candle near me, and I didn't like the shadows on the piano.'

This sort of remark gives a real insight into the child mind.

Another small point may be mentioned. In the lessons just before a recital the mistress should go to the end of the room in which the lesson is given, while the child is playing her recital piece, in order that her supporting presence near the child may not be missed at the recital.

Partly owing to lack of time, and partly because some pieces will not be ready, a certain number of children will not be able to play at the school recital. Such children should be gathered together at the end of the term, and should play to the mistress who organizes the work. In this way they too will gain experience, and a little focus will have been made for their work.

We must add one final suggestion. Each music mistress should keep a register, in which she notes not only the names of her pupils, the times of their lessons, absences, late arrivals, &c., but an exact list of all the work done by them, with dates. This is invaluable, not only for gauging their progress, but as a means of quickly ascertaining their work in musical literature. 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.

SUGGESTIONS TO STUDENTS ON LEAVING A TRAINING DEPARTMENT

In finishing a course of training along the lines we have been considering, it is well to take a bird's-eye view of what has been done.

In all communal work the results fall roughly under two heads:

1. The getting of new ideas, and of new ways of presenting old ideas.

2. The development of character, due to the mixing with fellow students and with those who are directing the work.

So far as the actual work is concerned, stress has been laid on the following:

1. The necessity of considering music as a language.

2. Various methods for teaching in accordance with this idea.

3. The principle of the inclusion of the work in the regular curriculum of schools, with class treatment.

Many students have experienced considerable difficulty at first in doing themselves what they have seen children do, who have been trained along these lines, i.e. to write down two-, three-, or four-part exercises in dictation, to transpose at sight, to extemporize without hesitation at the piano, &c. The feeling of working against time, of examinations to be passed, of discouragement at apparently slow progress, has possibly produced a state of mental indigestion, and the only cure for this is Time, the universal doctor.

The student is now at the point of entering a new sphere of work. The instrument has been sharpened. How is the application to be directed? A word of warning is necessary. The young and enthusiastic teacher, fresh from the inspiration of a year's work with those interested in her development, is too often apt to be over-rigid in enforcing a new presentment of ideas.

'This way, or no way!' is her cry.

An arrangement far short of the ideal must often be accepted, with a courteous protest, but it will assuredly be modified later by the authorities when the teacher has won confidence by arousing the interest and enthusiasm of the pupils, and by showing good results from the lessons.

Has not every new presentment of every subject in the school curriculum been greeted with the same chorus of depreciation at first? Why should music, the latest arrived of the subjects on the regular curriculum, fare differently?

Remember that the head of a school has often to keep in mind, not only his or her ideals in education, but the wishes of a governing body and of the parents.

A short demonstration of work done under imperfect conditions will often throw a flood of light on the aims of an enthusiastic teacher, who has been struggling in difficult surroundings. 'I had no idea you were doing all this with the children' has been the admiring comment of more than one former unsympathetic critic, and conditions are at once altered in a generous spirit.

And, finally, she must be always working at something to do with her own music, for directly she ceases to put herself, from time to time, in the attitude of the learner, she will cease to be a sympathetic and stimulating teacher.

It is a good plan to keep a musical diary, in which our own progress and that of our pupils is recorded, together with notes on current musical events—concerts attended, and so on. Such a record is most useful for reference, and for encouragement in dark hours, when it seems impossible to re-establish a lost sense of proportion.