Teaching Music.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 879, 4 January 1889, Page 4

Teaching Music.

THE NEW KINDERGARTEN SYSTEM. It may perhaps seem superfluous in these days to dispute the well-worn axiom that there is no * royal road to learning. ’ Wo read how, in olden times, a prince might have his ‘ whipping.boy,’ and so be punished vicariously for his own ill-learnt task ; but the fact remained that, spite, of the strokes borne by another, the said task must still be mastered if the lesson it conveyed were to benefit the royal scholar. And now, as then, the path to be followed in the pnrsnit of knowledge is no ‘ king’s highway,’ level and smooth, from which every stumbling block has been removed. There is many a ‘ hill of difficulty ’ over whioh the tender childish feet must climb, many a * slough of despond to be waded through and * valley of humiliation ’ crossed before the final goal is reached j But, despite these, the teacher who loves he* work will strive to cheer the little pilgrim on; the thorns can be brushed aside by a skilful hand, the resea made to bloom along

the way* the dry bones of sdience and his* torio facts may be clothed in a garb of graceful imagery, and object lessons may present in tangible form many things that would remain incomprehensible did not sight aid the aenae>f hearing. Those who know how valuable an aid a model is, will appreciate in no slight degree the invention recently patented by Miss May Huddlestone, by which she undertakes to teach the first rudiments of music to her little pupils in such a manner as to combine play with real work. ‘ As a teacher,’ she Bays • one of the saddest schoolroom sights to me is a little drooping head, and tears falling on the key-board,’ and it was not improbably the memory sf her own childish tears that led to the development of an idea that it should be a real boon to every elementary music teacher. Knowing how much more readily children learn to remember that which they can handle, it occurred to her that if the lines and spaces, the names and value of the notes, the rests, &0., could be shown to them first as models, in a tangiblo form, instead of appearing as bewildering black marks and signs on a white page, there would be a distinct gain in the rapidity with which the child would acquire familiarity with them before being brought actually face to face with a printed sheet of musio. Ihis idea was speedily tested. During a visit to the country of some length, where no piano was available, Miss Huddlestone tried the novel experiment of giving her first music lessons to two little pupils upon the diningroom table, by the aid of peastioks and an apple. The sticks represented the lines upon and between which the notes were to be laid ; the apple, divided and subdivided a certain number of times, supplied the notes in their varying value. These lesßons were so thoroughly enjoyed that considerable progress was made by the children, and the interest they evinced induced their teacher to have a set of models made which would be both more convenient and more lasting than peasticks and apples. The use of these models is explained in a small sixpenny brochure, containing the first few lessons. The models themselves are extremely simple. In one compartment of the box we find ten straight rods which fit into a grooved frame. These represent the lines. The right-hand sign, or treble clef, and the left, or bass clef, are laid in tbeir places at the beginning of the staff, and rods laid athwart divide it into bars ; then come six balls, one entire, and five others divided into two, four, eight, sixteen, and thirty-two equal parts, to represent semibreve, minim, oroohet, quaver, semiquaver, and demisemiquaver. There are also models of Bharps, flats, naturals, rests, dots, letters, figures, and all other signs used in music. One set of these models can be used by two or three children, but similar sets on a larger scale may be obtained for class-teach-ing ;in the latter, by means of an easel and board -on which the modelß are hung, not laid, the teacher can demonstrate her lessons to any number of pupils at the same time. It only remains for mo to say that her system has been carefully examined and approved by many eminent authorities in the musical world, and among the testimonials received is one from the popular director of the Royal College of Music.—Alice Isaacson in Queen.