“LET CHILDREN STRUM”

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXI, Issue 18503, 15 September 1934, Page 15

“LET CHILDREN STRUM”

GIRL MAKES HER TUNES

ILLUSTRATING IDEAS

A little girl, “so small that she has to be lifted on to her music stool,” who can improvjse a perfect little tune illustrating any idea put to her was described by Dp, Percy Buck, King PLdward Professor of Music at London 1 niversity, when he spoke at the Oxford course in music teaching. “I cotilrl bring her here if she were pot too small to be taken from her mother,” said Professor Buck. “If I s:pd the word ‘snowflake’ to her she would play a dainty fragment on the top notes, and if I said 'elephants’ she would rumble about in the bass. Her father is a workman at Woolwich Arsenal. “If your children enjoy strumming on the piano, let them,” lie continued. “There is great fun in it, and when you get fun into music you have gone a long wav. Many hoys can compose tunes after very little tuition, but very few girls can. That is because boys are more inquisitive than girls. They want to know how a thing works. ♦“Every year at Harrow I have not had the slightest difficulty in organising a complete concert on which every note in the programme hud been composed by boys at the school.”