SCHOOL MUSIC.

Press, Volume LXIV, Issue 19463, 9 November 1928, Page 6

SCHOOL MUSIC.

DIRECTOR'S NEW SCHEME.

[THB PBESS Spoclal Service.]

WELLINGTON, November 8.

The most important step yet taken in the development of the Education Department's new scheme for musical teaching in the schools has just been made. This was the issue by the Department to all schools of Mr E. Douglas Tayler's scheme of school music related to life. .

The issue of this course means that Mr Tayler, Director of Musical Education, has at last completed the task of devising a complete syllabus of musical instruction for use in his work. The curriculum is novel, and commencing with breathing, speech and eartraining, proceeds through easy stages to the teaching of musical forms. Novel features of it are lists of musical numbers illustrating geography, literature, and history. Many poems set to music are given, and such things, as ancient Chinese, Hindustani, and Hebrew music, the song which Taillefer sang at the Battle of Hastings, hymns of the Reformation, and the; madrigals of Tudor days. The geographical" list is designed to illustrate how climate moulded the character of men and brought forth different music.

Already, says Mr Taylor, matters are improving. The appointment of musical instructors at the four teachers' train* ing colleges will improve the technique of the teacher, who will be better equipped to deal with the child.. The gr6at need at the moment is for the child to be able to sight-read, arid this can come only when the teachers, are adequately trained The foundation of the teaching to the children, is the nursery rhymes, the singing games ("Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush"), and the national songs. On these tne rest is built. A feature of the, present work is the manner in which the schools are purchasing gramophones with Departmental assistance. .Many hundreds _ have already been installed . In < addition, the Department is financing the acquisition of the dulcitone (a small piano constructed from tuning forks, which cannot go out of tune) for schools which cannot afford pianos. '