THE PLACE OF MUSIC

Evening Post, Volume CXXVIII, Issue 44, 21 August 1939, Page 4

THE PLACE OF MUSIC

PART OF EDUCATION

The monthly social meeting of the Wellington Music Teachers' Association at the Pioneer Club on Saturday evening took an interesting form, as Dr. C. E. Beeby, Assistant Director of Education, addressed the large number of members present on "The Musician as a Teacher." He was introduced by the president, Mr. Stanley Oliver. I Dr. Beeby said that he felt he could not do better than go back to Plato. Music to the Greeks had a rather wider meaning than it had at the present, just as gymnastics covered dancing and the arts of the body. The Greeks regarded music as the very basis of education and not as something tacked on to education when the children left school. When a system of general education was introduced into i England during the nineteenth century, music and art, as well as gymnastics and physical training, were left out. !lt was not for a long time that music was brought back into ■ the school again, and when it was, it was in a very different form. Music and art i were charged for as "extras." They should not be "extras," for music and i-the arts gave life its significance. How did it happen that music slipped in this way out of the educational system? The fault lay in part with the schools and in part with the musicians. There was always a tendency in any of the arts which began as simple human expressions, that the I technique became more and more com- | plicated. Concentration upon technique might make fine musicians, but it did not always make fine teachers. Music was' a simple and direct thing that welled': up out of everybody. Techniques : were devices which sophisticated- persons used to convey sophisticated -meanings. The first thing in teaching was to make the child really feel music fundamen tally, the rhythm first, and build on the something that was there already, not to dam up the expressive side until the technique was obtained. Secondly, as far as possible, it was good to begin with a whole situation, not one that was broken up, but a situation that could be made more and more complicated as the teaching grew. Dr. Beeby illustrated his remarks by producing works of art by children of from six to nine years of age, in which self-expression was predominant, the technique to come afterwards, although in some cases traces of quite well-de-veloped technique were evident. At the conclusion of Dr. Beeby's remarks, Mr. Oliver expressed a vote of thanks for the very interesting and instructive address. A group of pianoforte solos by Madame Betts-Vincent were much appreciated These were "The Bird pf Popular Song" (York Bowen), "Jig" (Frederick Austin) ."Etude in D Flat" (Scriabin), "Le Gibet" (Ravel), and "Etude in F Sharp" (Stravinsky). Miss | Alma Clegg, accompanied by Mr. Stanley Oliver, gave a very finished performance of a group of songs, which included "The Soldier's Wife" (Rachmaninoff), "The Sailor's Wife" (H. T. Burleigh), "I Love the Din of Beatiny Drums" (Norman Peterkin), and "The Cry of Rachel" (Salter).