Why We Love Music

by Carl E. Seashore

MUSIC FOR YOUTH

During the present century most extraordinary progress has been made in the provision of musical facilities for youth by the recognition of music as an academic subject, by the early and vital training in the grades, by the development of group activities in voice and instrument as a dominant extracurricular activity, by the motivation of training through opportunities for public performance and contest, and by the popularization of music through phonograph and radio.

Up to the end of the past century youth had had no significant opportunities for music in the scheme of things. Music had to come through the taking of private lessons, often a drudgery without regard to likes or dislikes. The approach was purely technical. The mastery of the scales, though technically significant, was not inspiring to the emergent musical mind and did not reveal the vast vistas of opportunity for self-expression in music. Music lessons were limited to those who could afford to pay for them. Few people had heard any good music. It had no significant status in the program of public education. Youth had no chance. Music for youth has been discovered in the past forty years.

Music, an academic subject. When music gained recognition on a par with the three R's in primary and elementary education, America entered on a new era. National music organizations of teachers developed. These began with the slogan, "Music for every child at public expense." Realizing the futility of making every child musical, they modified this slogan to, "Music at public expense for every child in proportion to his natural ability." The market was flooded with educational music books and systems. Time for musical training was set aside in the regular curriculum of the schools. It was recognized that only a person who has musical ability and training can teach music effectively. Scientific principles from other subjects were adopted. Specialized training for musical supervisors was provided in teachers' colleges. Teaching was improved. Groups of children were segregated into vocal and instrumental organizations, both for curricular and extracurricular activities. Instruments were furnished at public expense. Credit for music gained current coinage on a par with history and chemistry. The introduction of principles of educational psychology led to selective admission and elimination and gave the teachers a basis for the administration of praise or blame in achievement. Few public school subjects can point to a similar epoch-making stride. These achievements today give youth a chance in music.

Orientation in the grades. For the musical life of youth at and soon after the high-school age, the training in the grades was most significant, and that, in turn, was rooted in a national awakening to the possibilities and the responsibilities of music in the earliest years in the home and the kindergarten. This awakening was strengthened by the recognition given art in general. Music early became associated with the speech arts, the dance, and other games. The development in the graphic and the plastic arts, though slow, was somewhat parallel with music for these early years. In the eight years in the grades there developed a process of selective opportunities for the pursuit of music so that freshmen entered the high school as a group fairly differentiated on the basis of abilities, opportunities, likes and dislikes, and ambitions for music.

This differentiation had a twofold effect on the high school: First, the elimination of pupils who, on various legitimate grounds, did not qualify for musical training at public expense at this stage and, second, the beginning of specialization for those who had previously found themselves or who at this stage made a happy decision. Thus the development of music in the high school has followed logically on the early development of music in the grades, and in like manner the development of music at the college level is now beginning to follow the development of music in the high school.

Group activities in voice and instrument. Youth is the age of learning by doing. This principle has been implemented in high-school education by the development of group activities, both in theoretical and in practical music, both in the curricular and in the extracurricular activities. Throughout, the emphasis has been on action. Instruments are supplied at public expense; opportunities are given for participation in programs of entertainment; and a stimulus has been climaxed by the introduction of local, state, and national contests for groups and for individuals.

The adoption of the principle of group instruction at this level has had many significant advantages. It draws large numbers of pupils into group activities for the social value of the activity in itself and for the social value of participation in public life. It has lessened the cost of musical education many times over by training ten or a hundred pupils in a group as effectively, in many respects, as they could be trained by individual instruction. Group instruction has, perhaps, been the strongest leverage for the motivation of musical pursuits in the school. It has increased the pursuit of individual instruction on the basis of discovered needs, for example, in the mastery of a particular instrument for participation in the band or orchestra or in the development of a voice discovered in the group. The individual instruction has thus been motivated and made to fit into particular niches in the musical groups or in the choice of vocational pursuits in society.

Contests. The development of contests both in individual and in group performance has had a profound effect on the development of music in youth and is destined to serve in large part as a clearinghouse. Educators recognize many drawbacks in the plan of contests. Preparation for the contests requires excessive time and highly trained teachers. A contest becomes an occasion for the revelation and the objectifying of differences in individuals and groups. It involves some little expense. It tends to discourage the pupils who cannot qualify.

But let us look at the other side. In the state of Iowa, for example, the state-wide contests, which have been conducted for about the past ten years, have done far more than anything else to vitalize music education in the high school. Four years ago I became acquainted with a group of ten girls who came from a little town three hundred miles away. They had not placed in the contest; they had had no chance. I supposed that this contest would be the last that we should see of them, but the next year they appeared in a body—happy and optimistic, in a fighting mood—and won honors. I asked how they accounted for their success, and they said, "When we got home and reported that we had had no chance in the state contest, the commercial club of our town raised a purse and employed a teacher to come into the high school and train us in music." When the commercial club goes into its pockets in the interest of putting music on the map in its community, music is beginning to function in that community.

Nobody cares to tune a fiddle for four years; but, if he has the opportunity to play a tune, he will gladly keep the fiddle tuned. This fact has been shown on a large scale as a result of the contest plans. Not only have the final local, district, and state contests become goals, but every daily practice has gained an objective and is a topic for social conversation. The contests have made each participant critical of his own performance and the performance of the group and have also made each ambitious for improvement. They have raised standards of selection in musical material. They have resulted in the giving of higher musical education to large numbers of gifted persons whose talents would not otherwise have come to the serious attention of parents or educational interests. The methods of judging these contests have been greatly improved in the direction of offering encouragement where encouragement is due without discouraging more modest attainments where they are indicated.

Educators used to think that football was the only thing that would arouse enthusiastic support in the field of avocational activities for youth; but, as I have witnessed the attitude of high-school pupils in training for musical contests, heard reports of the attitudes of the parents and the backers, and watched the culmination of enthusiasm at the annual contest, I can say that there can be, for youth, as substantial enthusiasm in contests of music as there is in football. In other words, the youth of the state have entered into music in the spirit of play, with determination to train well, play hard, and win if possible. Enthusiasms for a center of interest in public and in private have been found in this music.

The hearing of music. Within the past forty years, also, America has for the first time begun to hear music, good, bad, and indifferent. When the first phonograph came to our city, the host at an evening reception furnished music in a mysterious way. He had installed the phonograph in a niche curtained off in the hallway so that the direction from which the sound emerged was difficult to detect. He played three or four songs by a male quartet, which were richly applauded by his audience on the supposition that he had stationed a male quartet somewhere in the house. Music had come into the social group in a mysterious way.

Throughout the foregoing discussion I have stressed musical performance because action is the way of youth, the way of education, and the way of any preparation for the listening mood and critical attitude. The development of the opportunities for listening has, of course, been unparalleled[unparalleled] in the history of the world. The masses are given the opportunity of hearing good music. Many have taken the attitude of sneering at the music offered by phonograph and radio on the grounds of quality of rendition and of choice of type; but it is safe to say that what is offered is what people want, and there is some basis for saying that to a great extent what people really want is what is good for them. On the other hand, the furnishing of music at all levels has unquestionably had the marked effect of raising the American level of musical appreciation step by step. People can be educated to listen, and in a marvelous way the radio has really taught people to listen. You cannot learn to swim without going near the water. Radio has had the effect of discouraging some persons from the development of musical skills in performance, because they realize that what they can hear is so superior to anything that they can do. On the other hand, radio has stirred the musical interests of the masses into appreciation of the possibilities of music at their respective levels and not only has made them whistle the tunes but has encouraged them to participate in various modes of performance. Listening to the "canned" music has certainly gone far to develop the ability for listening to legitimate music on the stage.

Some years ago I had the privilege of being the guest of the city of Copenhagen for a week. Among the entertainments offered by the city was a grand opera. The invitation came in the form of a large, beautifully engraved card of marked distinction and good taste. Attached to it was the actual ticket to one of the best seats in the house, and the price printed on this ticket was, in American money, twenty-three cents. It can be said almost literally that, when grand opera is played in Copenhagen, people of all classes come out and tend to listen with appreciation and more or less discrimination. The people have been educated to hear music. It has been brought down to their level. Therefore music functions in the social and home life of that city. Music of a very high order furnishes the entertainment in the parks and the public halls. That tradition is fast coming to this country, and the effective training of our youth will do much to hasten the day.