BELLS AND DRUMS

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 78, 29 September 1930, Page 7

BELLS AND DRUMS

FOR TINY TOTS

EDUCATION VENTURE

SEARCH. EOR TALENT

Bells and drums for tiny tots are the latest American educational innovation.

opportunity to reveal their musical talent will be given child' en in experimental music classes at Teachers' College, Columbia University, Peter _W. Dykema, Professor of Music Education at the college, has announced in the "New York Times." Classes are to begin this month, wjth the opening of the regular summer session, and close in August.

This : will be tho third year of the classes, which offer without tuition charges an extensive programme of music education to elementary and high school pupils. Their scope has been widened, Professor Dykema said, to include children in the upper grades of high school, as well as babies of pre-kindergarten age.

The small children will get instruction sd as to bring out their talents if they show creative ability, and to ground them in musical appreciation if they have not. Songs will be sung to them, and they will be taught to produce music with toy instruments, rattles, bells, drums, and triangles. For the older children there will be advanced, classes in rhythm, choral singing, Song singing, reading of music, class lessons in piano.and in ochestral and band instruments, appreciative listening to music, orchestra, and band ensemble, making instruments and creative music to play on them. Music history will be studied, and there will be special training in chamber music, and 6tring, brass, and wood quartets.

ENCOURAGING TALENT.

Children with creative talent will'be entrombone, and violin. Young virtuosi will couraged to compose for the piano, clarinet, have opportunities for individual performances at regular school assemblies, and they will also be taught to take their places in group performances. i . ; A feature of the programme is the stress to. be made on rhythmic expression to music along the lines followed by Isadora ijuncan and her disciples. An instructor will play the piano, and the children, dressed in gauzy coloured costumes, will respond to the music by appropriate * movements of the body.

The youngsters will be encouraged to express themselves freelyand instinctively, but there will also be instruction in controlled expression. Every note of the music will have its-particular accompaniment from-tho arms and legs, and the children will,learn to respond to the structure as well as the spirit of the music.

EMOTIONS TO BE TRAINED,

Professor Dykema believes tho public schools place too much stress on mental development,, and leave almost untouched the emotional life of the children. The education of the future, he said, must devote much more time to cultivation of the arts and the experimental classes at Teachers' College are intended to point out the most fruitful methods for teaching music to children. . "Our intention is to supply the child with the advantages of a musical father and mother," he explained. "The child who cannot sing usually comes from homes where the parents cannot' sing and do: not understand or appreciate music. !A..\ widespread"^programme along the lines being followed in these special classes ■would greatly reduce the number of unmusical children who are coming up from the lower grades of our public schools. "This year we will take for applicants any child who can walk. Our plan is to give the musical child a chance to blossom, arid the fact that these children appreciate the opportunity has been amply proven by. the radiant.'joy of the youngsters who attended classes last year and the year before. ■" ;■'■■/■" . : -'V.

TASTES TO BE DEVELOPED.

'■Too often our city school children are repressed in-their instinctive groping toward musical - expression by inadequate schoor programmes. Their brains are developed, rbiit they are given nothing for developing ■ their tastes, nothing to_ bring them comfort • and artistic relaxation in the leisure hours of their adult life. They accept the work given them there an a chance to -play. It is not school at all, but a joyous vacation." Applications from parents bave been flooding the music department at the college !for the last, month. Several examinations are being used to reduce the number of applicants to 200, which is allthe department can handle.