Why We Love Music

The question "When should music education begin?" is now coming to be "How should music education begin?"; because we now recognize that music should play a large role in the first five years of child life.

Soon after six the child enters school. 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. The approach to music is following new avenues involving diversified action, creative imagination and thinking in music, recognition of individual differences, freedom for individual expression of musical feeling, opportunity for sampling various avenues of choice in expression, the association of music with play, dance, and dramatic action, opportunity for hearing music at the child's level, avoidance of the fostering of a narrow precocity, and recognition that there is music everywhere—in speech, in play, in nature.

Parents who now aim to provide private lessons for formal training in some aspect of music must lay their plans in the light of all these facts which have come into view so strikingly in the school. They must understand and evaluate the significance of this movement in the school, the new status of music, the new role of private instruction in music, and the availability of a private teacher who can dovetail with these new facilities and responsibilities. In the hope of giving some helpful suggestions in regard to this planning, I wish to present some psychological considerations which are, at the present time, reconstructing the theory and practice of private lessons in music at this age.

A broadened conception of music. In Chapter II I pointed out that children coming out of a favorable music situation in the home, the preschool, the kindergarten, and other school and playground activities have attained rather astonishing achievement. Let me repeat, for emphasis:

"During the first six years there should be no formal musical instruction; but by the end of that period, the musical child should have gradually acquired a sense of appreciation for musical sounds, pleasure in self-expression in musical intonations, confidence in his ability to compose a tune, some proficiency in singing and good speech, and some degree of satisfaction in free playing with an instrument."

This achievement now accomplished in many preschool communities presents a challenge to the primary teacher and the supervisor of music in the public schools. And, where pupils come without such preparation or background, they must begin from scratch and offer a substitute for it in more concentrated form.

Private lessons should be built upon this background and designed to carry this type of program forward during the next four years with progressive enrichment of opportunities on the basis of talent thus revealed and with these types of activity as a goal in the beginnings of formal training.

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 other hand, the ideal of the school situation which I have pictured will play happily into her hands by furnishing a background for a systematic study of voice or a particular instrument.

In this procedure, the child's interest may well concentrate around a single instrument. Furthermore, we are just awakening to the fact that voice development should begin in this period. New techniques for the development of a beautiful voice are coming in, and are adapted to this age. They should play an important role in this orientation period, and the child's interest may concentrate around this, as well as around an instrument, especially through the association of artistic forms of speech with song.

The analysis of talent. Music educators are coming now to a recognition of the principle that musical education, public and private, should be given in proportion to the possession of natural talent and in the direction for which the most favorable indication is found on the ground of specific talents. Such talents reveal themselves through the daily activities of the schoolroom, where the alert teacher understands their significance and directs them wisely. There are certain basic abilities which are favorable to a musical life. Some of these can be measured accurately with the Seashore Measures of Musical Talents in a revised edition now available through the RCA Victor agencies. They are concerned with the senses of pitch, loudness, time, timbre, and rhythm, together with tonal memory. These may be given individually to children between the ages of six and ten if administered with good judgment and the child is not required to write the answers. However, if the teacher is trained in the musical analysis of talent and the critical observation of children's behavior, inceptive achievement, and interests in the musical situation, it is possible to proceed without instruments, since the teacher will know what to listen for and will be competent to observe with sufficient accuracy for the purpose in hand. After the fourth grade, "measures of talents" may be given either as individual or as group tests. They may furnish a key to the most natural development of musical type; such as, the tonal, the dynamic, the temporal, or the balanced types, on the basis of degree of responsiveness to each of these factors as well as on other specific adaptations for voice or instrument. The teacher who has such concrete facts in hand will observe and plan the child's development more critically. Every private teacher should have a conception of the significance of individual differences in talent, and might well utilize measurements of this kind in the studio. The progressive private teacher should also be able to serve parents in an advisory capacity on such matters.

It is not necessary that the teacher should be an expert in testing; but it is essential that she should understand the nature of musical talents and have the sort of insight into child life which has been developed so splendidly in recent scientific studies of child behavior, especially with reference to the recognition of natural abilities, the early fostering of these, the devising of effective motivation, the awarding of praise and blame, and the setting up of standards of achievement recognizable by the child. It is, furthermore, reasonable to demand that the teacher herself should present a good voice in song and speech, have some proficiency and ingenuity in the manipulation of simple instruments, and feel deeply the love of music.

Group instruction. The old-fashioned piano lesson was at fault in various respects. First, time was taken to tell the pupils, individually, the elements of musical notation; second, the main function seemed to be to make the pupil "get" his lesson; and third, the child was expected to acquire a love of music through the technical approach. These things are now changing. The pupil now coming from the respectable primary school already has acquired the elements of sight reading, both from ear to eye and eye to ear. Any new element in notation can certainly be picked up incidentally as needed, without waste of time. The position of the teacher as a taskmaster is also disappearing. True, that eliminates many a pupil, but probably without much loss to the musical life of the community. The child comes to the private teacher already motivated with a feeling and urge for music. Musical achievement is no longer counted in terms of the number of lessons taken.

The function of the teacher is far more to motivate than to teach. The thing that counts is how long and faithfully the pupil works to acquire the proficiency which can only come through practice. What can be taught in one lesson should suffice for several times as much practice as is ordinarily expected. Better than having the teacher crack the whip for many periods would be to give the time available for lessons to the pupil for practice and use more remunerative rewards, even a percentage of the teacher's fee, to encourage self-help in a larger assignment through adequate practice.

One of the significant advancements in private instruction for children of this age lies in the direction of class or group instruction. No effort is made to force all children into the same cast. Small groups are formed on the pattern of chamber music, taking children of matched abilities and interests and using music progressively adapted to their level. Many forms of class instruction have failed on the ground of the teacher's inability to use informal procedures in some form of project method. Duets, trios, quartets, all in the competitive and play mood, can accomplish great things, even with the youngest children. Few private teachers have awakened to a realization of the fine possibilities in that approach. This method is especially adapted to primary instruction in private music schools in which there are enough pupils to make competitive promotions from group to group. Most of the musical information and the motivated drill can be accomplished through the group. The recognition of this principle may lead to the development of extracurricular and private organizations under an inspiring teacher or group of teachers for private instruction.

Formal lessons delayed. The principal point I wish to stress is that musical education should not begin with formal lessons on one instrument. Except in the case of rarely-gifted children, such specialized instruction should come naturally after the general musical interests have been awakened and the natural abilities have been revealed. Technical private lessons for children in general should therefore be begun considerably later than has been customary. In this there is a threefold saving: First, except in rare cases, rigid technique of instruction can be responded to much more economically after the age of eight or ten than before. A ten-year-old will acquire more than twice as much in a single lesson as a six-year-old. This will apply even to the much "touted" necessity for early finger development. Second, during this period the child should have the freedom to try himself out spontaneously with diversified encouragement in the development of specific interests; and third, it will take the aspect of drudgery away from the music lesson. To these may be added the fact that this liberal procedure helps to give the child a feeling that he is living music rather than learning it. It involves the play attitude in the acquisition of an art. The attitude of feeling the necessity for hard work, which is a very real necessity in music, can best be cultivated formally after the age of eight or ten.

A sympathetic listener. Although circumstances may alter cases, facility in piano playing might well be regarded as a foundation work in the approach to other instruments. The child's preference for a particular instrument is generally childish and will change in the normal course of development. An analysis of case histories would make an interesting study on this point. The development of skills in a particular instrument should always be accompanied by opportunities for sharing the pleasure in this skill with other children and the presence of a sympathetic listener in the teacher and the parents. What the child of the primary-school age needs is more a sympathetic and critical listener than a task-driver. This type of approach will discredit the now so prevalent artificial ways of symbolizing music by attempting to force the teacher's affected and stilted imagery upon the child's musical mind, which may run naturally in much more effective channels. It is a notable fact that the great musicians who emerged as very precocious made their early and distinctive progress far more through freedom for self-expression than through instruction from the masters.

In brief, the private lesson to the child should pattern, at the child's age level, after the procedure followed in adult instruction in music at its best; namely, that of sympathetic and inspiring criticism and guidance rather than the dealing out of predigested pellets of interpretation and technique. The general attitude to be cultivated in the child should therefore be freedom for self-expression rather than mere willingness to absorb set tasks. In this attitude the problem of scales, exercises, and calisthenic techniques will come in the natural course of events without being forced.

Music lovers vs. virtuosi. One of the first essential steps in training at this level is to educate the mother to the notion that only in very rare cases will the child become a virtuoso or a professional musician, and that she has no right to pose as an exhibitioner. The normal child is richly endowed with powers for diversified development. By too early emphasis upon a "gift" it is possible to produce monstrosities and pathological temperament. True, a gifted child beginning, for example, by taking lessons at five and being effectively motivated, may produce extraordinary results before ten, but generally at the expense of a normal development of the child as a person. An ill-guided enthusiast can make of the bright normal child a mathematical freak or a contortionist before the age of ten; but who wants that for the welfare of the child? It is a form of human sacrifice. The time for intensive specialization should normally come after the age of ten. Parents and teachers should shun the development of precocity as they shun disease. Indeed, in ninety cases out of a hundred, excessive precocity is a form of disease, a distortion of the normal personality.

The goal in musical education in this period should be to recognize individual differences, natural capacities, and native interests and urges in their natural stages for the development of a well-rounded personality. We have long since abandoned the notion that every girl should play the piano. What we need to learn now is that we should not allow the musically-gifted child to die with all the music in him, and that the musically gifted should not be exploited. The middle ground is that all children who have musical ability should learn to love music and live it naturally, each according to his ability.

THOUGHT REVIEW

General Principles

(1)

Music should function early in the life of the child.

(2)

The primary grades should constitute a period of orientation.

(3)

By the end of this period talent should have been discovered and analyzed.

(4)

Voice training should be given a permanent place in all the grades for both boys and girls.

(5)

Music is a skill which should be learned and lived rather than be taught.

(6)

Wise motivation should replace much teaching.

(7)

Nomenclature, sight reading, and musical information should be taught in classes, not by individual instruction.

(8)

The principle of rivalry should be encouraged.

(9)

For most children formal music lessons may be begun most effectively about the age of ten.

(10)

Forced precocity and exhibitionism should be discouraged.

Questions to Consider

(1)

Why is development of the love of music the principal objective at this age?

(2)

What voice training, aside from rote singing and speech, should be offered in the grades?

(3)

Should the piano be favored as the first instrument?

(4)

Is it possible to have a primary-grade "orchestra"?

(5)

What is the function of achievement tests in music at this age?

(6)

What factors have been most effective in putting love of music into the public schools?

(7)

How can progress in music be enhanced by children's opportunities for performing among themselves?

(8)

Should any children be excused from participation in musical instruction offered in the primary grades?

Discuss These Situations

(1)

Here is a gifted young woman, well trained in music and in psychological and educational methods, zealously devoted to her art, who desires to establish a career as a private music teacher for children. Characterize her procedure in contrast to the procedure of her professional forbears.

(2)

Here is a young man or woman, similarly gifted, and well trained and critical. What pitfalls of prevalent tendencies in public-school music of today should he or she avoid?