Music education in America, what is wrong with it? What shall we do about it?

Contents

CHAPTER PAGE PREFACE . i it Ts RAT. pe MT I RED fag 1

I Tse Backerounp or American Music Epvhg a eee a ee er nares | II Tue Sponsors or Our Music-Traininge .. Ql Ill Music-Treacuine in Exementary ScHoors . 42 IV Mosic-TEAcHING IN SECONDARY ScHoots .. 177 V Mousic-TreacHiInc IN CoLLEGES ..... . 109 Wie Oniwon Gren CLUBS. . 2 2... ew 1465 VII Music in tHE Community. ....... . 168 Pie eee es ke eas es ks w ow 188 pee ny ee a. 198 INVER Serie OC te, . 204

Preface

LixE many other college teachers of music, the author of this book has become increasingly aware of the fact that music education as administered in this country is far from accomplishing what we have a right to expect of it. Thousands of persons are engaged in the profession of music-teaching, immense sums are annually expended for the maintenance of music in schools and colleges, large and powerful organizations of music supervisors meet from time to time to discuss better methods of instruction; and yet the American “people” grow in musicalness much more slowly than is warranted by the outlay of energy, time, and money. ‘The fundamental cause of this lack of advance-

ment toward an appreciation of music by the great body of our people is to be found in the absence of a logical and continuous plan of music education based on the highest standards. Everyone who teaches music, and particularly those who have to do with the training of adults, must be impressed by the fact that the continuity which exists in other branches of education and which insures normal progress from elementary vu vill PREFACE schools through higher institutions is lacking in music instruction. For example, college students about to undertake the study of music as an adventure in self-cultivation are usually found to have but little grasp of musical technique and to be deficient in a knowledge of the simpler classics. But more alarming than this is the indifferent attitude displayed by many young people toward music. This attitude is wholly incomprehensible until one has made an examination of the aims, methods, and material of modern American music education. For music is beauty, and a love of music together with the will to have a part in it is as natural to the average human being as sleeping or breathing.

We cannot ignore the foregoing facts, because they are self-evident. With the past we can have, perhaps, no great quarrel, for we as a country have been too young and too much occupied with the externals of life to concern ourselves much with music except in its superficially pleasurable aspects. Moreover, we have thus far escaped defeat, oppression, and such other experiences as seem to produce in nations a veneration for beauty and a desire to express it, not necessarily in the work of skilled composers,

PREFACE ix but through the simple channels of popular eloquence. With the present and the future, however, we must concern ourselves, if we are to bring our people in large numbers to a real understanding and love of music. Education may do its part, but only through a well-considered, progressive plan honestly and skillfully administered, without hope of immediate result. A national sense of beauty cannot be artificially stimulated, nor is it infectious; the citizens of Philadelphia or Des Moines will not awake on Sunday morning to discover that as a result of having been exposed to ““Music Week” they have “caught’’a love of music. But wise teaching together with the inevitable chastenings and revelations that history visits on every member of the world’s family will eventually invoke those musical powers which we unquestionably possess in large degree.

Therefore, while we need feel, perhaps, no humiliation over our past, certain present facts cry out to be heard above the din of our perpetual self-congratulation; and it is only in facing these facts, with all they imply, that we can so shape our education that in due course we shall x PREFACE take our place among the great musical nations of the earth.

There are, of late, promising indications that American music-teachers are becoming aware of the fact that the harvest is woefully small in view of the great size of the field, and the extent of its cultivation. The addresses and published writings of prominent supervisors in the public schools show clearly that the trend is toward music rather than machinery. In this progress, a number of private schools and certain enlightened public-school systems have had a large part. We have but begun to move forward, however; and in some important particulars, such as the consistent use of good music, we are still highly deficient. We do progress, nevertheless, and this book, not a history nor a theoretical treatise, but a plain record of fact and experience, is written in the hope that a statement of our musical condition, together with suggestions for the future, based on our peculiar needs and the experience of older nations, will help to advance more rapidly those ideals of — music education which are only now becoming articulate here.

Parts of this book are expanded from lectures

PREFACE xi which I have given on the subject of music education; notably sections of Chapter VII, which are drawn from an address delivered in 1922 before the Playground and Recreation Association of America, and afterward published in the official magazine of that organization.

I am greatly indebted to my colleagues in the Graduate School of Education at Harvard, Mr. Thomas W. Surette, and Mr. Augustus D. Zanzig, for advice and varied assistance. Also to Professor Edward K. Rand of Harvard, and to Miss Marjory P. Herrick, for invaluable assistance in the preparation of the text.

ARCHIBALD 'T. DAVISON.

Harvarp UNIVERSITY, JUNE, 1925.

ance and harmony . . . and what sh of music, if not the love of beauty?” —

Chapter One The Background Of American Music Education

EDUCATION is the residuum of national character. It shows more plainly than does anything else exactly what a country holds to be the real issues of life. To this principle America is no exception. Although she is lacking in the length and variety of experience which most other nations have enjoyed, her national physiognomy is as individual as that of France or England, and her education mirrors quite as clearly her measurement of values.

Yet when we attempt to isolate our principal American characteristics, we are faced with a difficult task, for in the mere matter of the extent of our territory we are as a people disjunct. We embrace wide varieties of climates, by which the inclinations and actions of men are markedly affected; and between sections of the country remotely situated from each other, there is bred a rivalry which in its intensity might exist between two nations. We are, besides, a blend of so many races and possess such a diversity of inheritances that we lack that racial cohesion which expresses itself in terms of a single trait. We have no dominant characteristic like the English solidity or the French vivacity. There is no name, even, by which we may call ourselves—save “Americans”—that does not give offense to some section of our country. So rapidly have we grown through immigration, and the sense of being part of us is so much a matter of quick assimilation, that newcomers on Tuesday disparagingly characterize Thursday’s arrivals as “foreigners.” With the World War arose immediate need of fusing together this multitudinous array of inborn prejudice and acquired opinion. No one would deny the necessity for the heroic efforts which American leaders made in attempting to achieve solidarity of purpose, nor can we be blind to the many benefits which, as a nation, we reaped from them; but they resulted in establishing the more firmly an ideal of citizenship which has led us into melancholy errors, political, moral, and educational—an ideal too often expressed in an affirmation of the infallibility and supremacy of our country in every field of human endeavor.

Conceit is not a fatal fault. We are still a child among the nations, with quite the same characteristics and tendencies as are likely to invest the youngest child of any family—a child whose material prosperity makes it an easy prey to the temptations of boastfulness. Our habit of selfpraise represents a phase of our national development and we shall doubtless outgrow it. But the by-products of conceit must indeed concern us gravely. Our revolt against discipline and our disregard of law grow largely out of a pervading impression that no one has the right to tell us what todo. We readily come to regard our particular achievements as all-important, and we too often glorify them as ideals in themselves rather than for the good they may accomplish. Such ideals are speed, size, wealth, and mechanical efficiency. Exaltation of means over ends, and individualistic impatience of constituted authority, are the attitudes of immaturity; they betray a brief experience of life; but they lead us, none the less, all of them, into sorry errors, and nowhere more so than in education.

For example, our confidence in the power of wealth leads many of us to assume that because we spend gigantic sums of money on the training of youth, our systems of teaching are better and the results more desirable than those in other countries. Our success in certain branches of education—and it has been considerable—is not due, however, to any financial outlay, but to the knowledge and wisdom of a few leaders.

Our reverence for skill and efficiency too often leads us to conceive of excellence in performance as the goal of music education; and we forget that, however tentative and unsuccessful active participation may be, it yet has great value as a means of self-expression, and serves as the best approach to appreciative and intelligent listening. The same spirit has made of us a nation of onlookers. We scorn to be beginners and incompetents, preferring to sit in grand stand or stadium, applauding the achievements of some professional athlete, rather than to refresh our own bodies and minds with exercise. It were better to take part ourselves in almost any sport than to be content with only vicarious indulgence in physical exercise. No one will deny that there is in doing a thing oneself, even badly, a creative joy, a physical, mental, and emotional release that no mere looking on can ever yield.

Now this predilection of ours for exceptional skill, and its corollary, our willingness to “let the other fellow do it,” which have proved very nearly fatal to the democracy of American music through our almost exclusive surrender to the domination of paid singers and players, appear again in our devotion to devices like the graphophone, pianola, and radio. The really devastating feature of these is their absolute impersonality. Life in its most stimulating aspects is made up of the activities of individuals, not of machines; and in art, which expresses life more fully than any other means, we are content to do away with the human variable in favor of a mechanical, impersonal agent. One of the fascinations of the presentation of a masterpiece by a great artist is that the interpretation and performance change with each rehearing. It may be that the singer or player rises, upon occasion, to greater heights than he has yet known; or that the interpretation of the moment may be better suited to the mood of the listener. What actor or preacher would consent to reduce his eloquence to a mechanical norm? Would he not feel that some accent or gesture, dictated by inspiration, might not at a moment lead him to surpass previous effort and to fire imagination as he had never before done?

I once had a graphophone record of the Lord’s Prayer and the Twenty-third Psalm. The declaimer’s resonant voice and significant inflections charmed and fascinated me, and I played that record many times. Eventually, however, I began not to hear the great words of prayer and faith, but to listen for the oratory which overlaid them, and so missed the ideas which the words conveyed. But when one day I heard a clergyman recite quite simply and sincerely the Lord’s Prayer, I suddenly realized how destructive it is to attempt to circumscribe beauty and truth within mechanical bounds. And if this be true of words, even of such words as constitute the Lord’s Prayer, how much less desirable is it to put limitations upon music, a language above words! ‘This, then, is perhaps the chief objection to mechanical means in music; that the element of personality is almost wholly lacking; for, of necessity, the composer is restricted to a single, unvarying conveyance of his ideas, while the performer is unconditionally committed to a rubber disk or a paper roll, with never a chance of rising to a higher eloquence or a more mature interpretation. No matter how many times one had heard Kreisler play the

Bach “Chaconne,” one could never be inattentive to either violinist or work, because each performance is a new esthetic chance which may reveal unsuspected beauties not previously uttered with such eloquence. And wherever these mechanical appliances are used—in the schoolroom, the church, or the home—there is absent just that vividness, that human interest which comes only with a “live” performance.

All this is not to discount the undoubted value of the graphophone under certain circumstances, but merely to call attention to its overuse. Because it makes music so much more skillfully than we can, we have allowed it to deprive us of one of the greatest of human joys.

Yet the graphophone gives us excellent dance music; it may sometimes be used effectively in education; and it supplies us at all times with that element which is meat and drink to us, namely, sound. Perhaps it is the restlessness of our time, or the absence of common interest, or the unattractiveness of mere conversation that makes the average company seek a background for even the simplest occupation. A circus must be a three-ring circus, for one ring cannot possibly provide enough excitement. When we eat, we must have physical motion in the form of music accompanied by dancing and cabaret performance. Even the sacramental acts are not in themselves sufficient, but must be reinforced by music. Music used to seem an impertinence at communion and during the moment of the marriage ceremony, but we have become so accustomed to doing everything to music that nothing now appears complete without it.

Certainly this is not an age in which great effort is made to stimulate the popular imagination. Every newspaper story is fully illustrated, even to a cross showing the exact location where the event in question happened; moving pictures are amply provided with explanatory interruptions; each piece of music must have its story or its message; even the Bible must be reduced to the language of the day. We are growing into imaginative poverty, dependent on exterior stimuli as substitutes for mental and, particularly, for imaginative activity. Hence we dread silence, or even the fringes of it, as represented by quiet talk and solitary occupation, and we take refuge in a background of sound, which relieves us of the burden of talking or thinking seriously. And here surely is one of the most cherished uses of pianola and graphophone, that they supply us with that necessary “going-on” which is an inevitable part of our waking hours.

But the fascination which bodily skill and mechanical perfection have for us, and our passive enjoyment of them, are not the only attributes which lead us into educational fallacies; there is also the fashion which we have for appraising the excellence of a thing in terms of size, concluding that, because it is the largest in the world, it is therefore the most desirable. The largest hall may have wretched acoustics; the largest organ may contain faulty construction, yielding a hard and unsympathetic tone; the largest chorus may sing lifelessly and without effect. Nevertheless, the mere magnitude of a violin orchestra of five hundred school children greatly pleases us, regardless of its musical excellence, and a group of a thousand people casually gathered into a park in the name of “community singing” will, no matter how and what they sing, or whether they sing at all, be far more widely heralded than a group of two hundred singers who meet regularly to practice good music.

How unwise is the substitution of the mass for the small and efficiently trained group was never more amply proved than by the conduct of singing in our army during the war. On all sides we were being told that every agency must be exerted to its full limit to prepare American soldiers for service. Other nations had devoted much care to the question of military singing, and evidence of its value, supplied us by armies both hostile and friendly, was not lacking. Obviously one of the primary needs of the soldier was prompt and accurate physical co-ordination; here at hand was music, the readiest and most effective means of gaining such co-ordination. But we proceeded to ignore that highly valuable fact, preferring to view the whole problem of army music bidimensionally: first, as an amusement; and, second, as an outlet for the emotions. Now under certain circumstances the value of singing by mere crowds is undeniable, but we were faced with the particular problem of getting ready in short order a vast body of men, who must be disciplined to undertake a vitally important task. The Y. M.

C. A. and other agencies were attending most efficiently to the mere “crowd” and amusement aspects of music. Why did not our government, which went so far as to employ trained musical workers, conduct its program in a scientific manner instead of duplicating the work of such organizations as are mentioned above? One can only speculate that our government thought it knew more about this branch of military work than other governments, and so devoted itself to the “mass’’ idea, to the neglect of much else that was important. In any event, three aspects of the case escaped us to a great extent: first, that any really valuable employment of music involves discipline, and much could have been done to improve co-ordination by drill in rhythm, both with and without singing, and by investing song leaders with the rank of army officers; second, that good mass singing is the result of the union of small groups which have been separately trained, just as good company or battalion drill is dependent on good individual drill; and, third, that a wise ordering of the musical program not only would have brought about better co-ordination in individuals as soldiers, but would have so influenced our men that the hosts of those who returned to civil life after the war would have borne an abiding love for music and a desire to participate in it.

All these things were accomplished to some degree in camps where officers were far-seeing and where the song leaders had the requisite knowledge and enthusiasm. In one camp, at least, where the government song leader made use of only folk songs and good marching songs, the enthusiasm for them was so genuine that not once did a soldier ask to have sung those pieces which were in vogue elsewhere in the camp; and if frequency of request, and spirit in performance, are criteria, the most popular of all was a song the mention of which as a possible camp song had been greeted with derision by a number of camp song leaders, namely, the Netherlands folk song, the “Prayer of Thanksgiving.”

A committee of citizens made conscientious ca vigorous efforts to improve the quality both of the music and of the instruction, but the government program was so circumscribed by an eagerness for results which could be measured in terms of thousands of men singing on a hillside, and by disbelief in our soldiers’ desire to sing anything other than cheap songs, that “official” singing by the army may be said to have had only the most superficial results. Here we failed, as we so often do in other departments of education, to ask ourselves whether or not the thing we were doing was, regardless of its benefits, the best thing to be done.

Our American love of the sensational has also its effect on our attitude toward music. We take more interest in personalities than in artistic achievement, and we are devoted to the unusual. Although a visiting orchestra, unless it be led by a virtuoso personality, will have difficulty in filling a hall, a singer or player will command crowds. A bass who can drop an octave below the written note at the end of a song, the soprano who can sing high D (high C is now too common ) or perform amazing vocal acrobatics, will attract a public such as many an artist cannot claim. Out of perhaps a dozen comments on the singing of a well-known chorus, ten will note the ability of the singers to begin without the aid of any pitch so given as to be heard by the audience, while two will remark on the program or performance. School children who become acquainted with music largely through the agency of the graphophone will often remember who played a piece, but not what that piece was, nor who wrote it. What value can a beautiful voice or extremes of range have, if the singer employs mediocre music or performs in an unmusicianly manner? What is the use of teaching a chorus to begin without a given pitch, when the time spent on accomplishing that difficult feat might be expended in improving the singing or in teaching the members more masterpieces? Is not the ultimate excellence of a concert tested by the music itself and by the quality of the musicianship displayed, rather than by the personality of the performer or by tricks which divert attention from the music to the singer or player?

Again, speed enters so largely as a factor into practically every department of American life that we have come to regard it as an end rather than as a means. Our difficulty here, as in the case of our glorification of mere size, lies in our lack of discrimination. Our labor-saving devices, our adding machines, our fast trains—these are indeed admirable, because they employ speed as a logical element in attainment; but to carry this principle to the extent we do in amusement “thrillers” such as the roller-coaster and the recklessly fast driving of automobiles, to say nothing of less strenuous fields such as art and business, ‘is prejudicial both to the health and to the happiness of the nation.

In music education this worship of speed is as indefensible as itis common. We constantly ignore the principle of “first things first,’ contenting ourselves with insecure and insufficient foundations, provided only we achieve a certain fluency in performance. In singing we make a fetish of “lightning” sight reading, and some instrumental teachers consider speed the sine qua non of successful playing, even holding a stopwatch on their pupils in an effort to make them better the “time” of a piece. Before we plunge a student into theoretical study, we inquire only incidentally into his previous musical experience; and we boast of the fact that our children are doing harmony exercises while the children of other nations are still drilling in the elements of music. But theoretical musical exercise is practically valueless when it ignores the fact that an intelligent study of harmony must be preceded by some years of ear and eye training, supported by a knowledge of music gained through active participation. To offer harmony in the last two years of American high schools is a mistake;

for the result is usually harmony which is merely mathematically correct, and such harmony is the emptiness of nothing. When organizing a class in violin-playing in the public schools, teachers often do not investigate a child’s musical fitness for studying the violin by testing the quality of his ear, but content themselves with ascertaining that the little finger of his left hand is of adequate length. Under the spell of our national quickness and cleverness we believe that we can leave out steps and eliminate processes, and still arrive at a full measure of education. No royal road to musicianship exists, however, and we shall not train our music students thoroughly until we put unnecessary speed behind us and adopt a methodical plan of music teaching such as has successfully prevailed elsewhere.

Indeed, our persistent ignoring of the experience of older nations has deceived us into thinking that we may devise our own exclusive traditions of music teaching. ‘This is not entirely reprehensible, because without experiment no progress is possible, but in America we alter both the substance and the name of accepted educational formule, never caring, in our self-satisfaction, whether or not the rest of the world understands what we are talking about. We take an academic degree which, with its foreign equivalents, has long stood for general cultivation, mental training, and the requirement of logic in its operation, and include in the preparation for it subjects like swimming, cheerleading, singing, and trombone-playing. Because under one of our systems of musical nomenclature the altered fifth of the scale is called “si,” we change the commonly accepted name of the seventh note of the scale from “si” to “ti,” although that note has been “si” for centuries and will probably always be “si” elsewhere in the world. In order to teach children the minor mode before they are able to understand it as it is actually used, we tell them that it is formed by beginning on the sixth degree of the major scale, advancing upward an octave without chromatic alteration. ‘This is manifestly false, for the minor mode ascending exists in no such form. The first note of the scale of A-minor is not the sixth degree of the scale of C-major, but the first degree of the scale of A-minor, a scale quite independent of C-major except in theory, and the ascending unaltered scale called by teachers of school music the “natural A-minor is in reality the Avolian mode, and if taught at all, should be so designated.

Now the national characteristics which throughout this chapter have been cited as influencing unfavorably the progress of music education are not, of course, exclusively the property of America, for all countries possess to a certain extent some or all of them. Nor would we, if engaged in attempting to catalogue with some degree of completeness this country’s qualities, pass over those which are primarily admirable. Our industry has not only placed us among the greatest of the nations in wealth and productivity, but has also yielded us scholarship of the first order; nor should we fear that the newer generation will fall short of intellectual aggressiveness and persistence. We are quick to seek new paths and efficient means with a zeal that ranks us among the leaders in educational reforms. As a nation we sometimes appear relentless in matters of international finance, but we are as individuals notably generous, giving with the utmost freedom to every needy cause. Above all we have a national sense of humor which is quite distinct from that of other nations. We are cheerful and optimistic, and if we take life at a terrible pace, at least we enjoy it and try to make others enjoy it. We are firmly loyal to the things we believe in and we work unremittingly for their success.

But even good qualities are often two-edged swords; and many of these excellent attributes of ours are only potential. Our industry, if it lead us to a narrow appreciation of our own achievements, is not the best kind of industry. Our generosity, which argues sympathy with another’s point of view, is not fully effective unless it be a fundamental of our national philosophy rather than a trait of individuals. Our readiness to adopt the new must be tempered by a respect for the old. Our loyalties are restricted unless they include every worth-while thing. In short, America is a land of promise rather than of fulfillment. But unless we honestly admit our failings and make some serious effort to overcome them, our educational advancement is bound to be slow, particularly in those subjects like the arts, which lie far from our main interests.

What effect our present philosophy may have upon our future course as a nation, or even what effect it may have upon education in general, is not for me to speculate. I am here concerned with only that part of our thinking which touches the life and progress of music; and the truths that spring from an observation of our national conduct of this branch of art may well give us pause. We could, if we would, learn much from those foreigners who come to make their homes among us. ‘To them our indifference to music is a mystery, and our musical inarticulateness a miracle; where Americans talk, these others sing, for with them talking is for the business of life, whereas music is a kind of common super-language wherein are expressed those feelings which transcend mere words. We ought to teach these newcomers our laws and customs, our speech and our efficiency; we ought to do all that we can to make them good American citizens; but let them, in turn, teach us the joy of music. In Heaven’s name let us not try to Americanize the arts. Let us rather look to the faults of our own education, remembering that the children of today are the fathers and mothers of tomorrow, by whom we shall be known either as a nation broad and wise enough to have cultivated art for itself, or as one still devoted to a mechanical and superficial ideal of beauty.