MUSIC FOR CHILDREN

Evening Post, Volume CIX, Issue 143, 20 June 1925, Page 6

MUSIC FOR CHILDREN

In most children there is a great national love of music. They delight to sing and whistle; they will follow a band for miles, and their school singing lessons are their happiest hours. Unfortunately, this natural love of music is not always guided and directed as it should be. For each opportunity the children have of hearing the best in music they have dozens of opportunities of listening to the trashy. So they often grow up with the idea that jazz is the best that can be had, and that classical music is something boring, reserved for the people the Americans term' 'highbrows." If Mr. Bernard Page is supported as he should be, his proposal to give organ recitals for children should prove most helpful in correcting the balance. When the proposal was discussed by the Education Board, one member appeared to fear that the City Organist would make his recitals too severely classical for the little ones. We do not think there is any danger of this. There is much classical music with those qualities of melody and rhythm which appeal to the child, and Mr. Page may be trusted to so combine entertainment with instruction that his audiences will be delighted as well as benefited. The movement is indeed one which deserves the warmest support, for it is a practical effort to correct the jazzing tendency of the times, to give the children now an interest in beautiful music which they will retain all their lives.