SCHOOL MUSIC.

Press, Volume LXIV, Issue 19363, 16 July 1928, Page 2

SCHOOL MUSIC.

MR DOUGLAS TAYLER'S

PLANS.

NEW BOOK ISSUED.

[THE PRESS Special Service.]

WELLINGTON, July 14. i A big advance in the work of musical instruction in schools is being mad* , this week wift the free issue to all schools of Mr E. Douglas Tayler 8 specially-written "Scheme of School Music Belated to Human Life. This work, on which Mr Tayler has been engaged since he discovered the need of a uniform scheme of instruction for the guidance, of teachers, is specially prepared for New Zealand, and is extremely comprehensive. J.t contains a detailed syllabus of instruction in singing, speech, rhythmical movement, ear-training,' musical invention and appreciation and its application ranges from infants to senior pupils, special use being made of the gramophone. A feature of the book is that a large part of it is devoted to a graded list of songs, arranged according to their difficulty, and .two special lists of music with literature (in which the teacher may find musica settings of verse by a big list of poets), music with history, which contains reference to Roman and Greek music, Viking Songs, the Battle of Hastings (the song of Taillefer), the song that was sung to Coeur de Lion when he was imprisoned, the Barbary pirates, the various periods of English and French historv and even American, on to the Great* War ("Army Marching Songs ). Another section is devoted to music with geography, which shows how the temperament of various peoples has been expressed in music and gives a list of national songs. For practically all of these gramophone record references are given, and over 600 of the 2400 schools in the country have availed themselves of the Government subsidy to purchase gramophones. The great need in the country at present, stated the Director of Musical Education to-day, is for the tuition of sight-reading, and this can spread throutzhout the Dominion only as the teachers who have received instruction spread through the land. In the past there has been practically no systematic musical instruction to teachers, save at Wellington, and for a while at Dunedin, but now two special lecturers have been appointed and are in the country, a third is on his way to the Dominion, and a fourth (for Dunedin) will be here before the year is out. The key positions will then be secured and the work will begin in earnest. . , The child is entitled to know certain kinds of music; they form part of its inheritance, said Mr Tayler. These are the singing games, the nursery rhymes, the folk songs and the national songs. With these any system of musical education must begin. Then, too, it must be given speech and ear-training, and the idea that music is something apart and merely to be taught must be killed. To combat this the Director of Musical Education has commenced a system of allowing the children themselves to compose songs. To the uneducated musically, this may sound absurd, but it is really a simple matter and has been hailed by the children themselves with huge delight. For months past the "Education Gazette" has contained a couple of songs each month, these being compositions of the children in class. The latest, one from the children on Stephens Island, is so good that Mr Tayler has written a pianoforte accompaniment

for it. He had to alter only three notes in the song, which is called "Somebody," and which he considered too good to miss. The words of these songs are usually taken from the "School Journal," though there has been one of the oases of the words being specially written; the melody is written out on the board by the teacher in sol-fa and is made up .in class. Mr Tayler's own method is to read ovor the words, note the rise and fail of the voice in the reading, and make a "graph" of this rise and fall upon the board, and then have someone suggest a tune. One of the handicaps which the system of graining faces is the great isolation of some schools. There is the case of one school so far removed from the centres that the pupils were apparently tone-deaf. They had never heard one note of music. But the handicap may be overcome, it is hoped, by the use of broadcasting to send out singing lessons and examples of music. Much remains to be done, and it will really be the next generation which will show the full results of theVnew system.