It is found useful to make children say the names of the chords aloud when they are beginning this sort of transposition. The habit sets up a connecting link between the various faculties in use, in some curious way. The eye can help by noting the intervals between successive notes in the various parts, and especially in the outer parts. It sees the general drift of the piece before the mind comes into play—the coming modulations and so on. In fact, it is not too much to say that it is best, in certain musical phrases, to rely on the eye alone, e.g. rapid decorative passages, which are not always easy to analyse at first sight.
A word of warning must now be given. Those who attempt 'short cuts' in this work will certainly come to grief, unless they are born with the faculty—undoubtedly possessed by a few—of being able to transpose by a sort of instinct. Such people are fortunate, but it is not our present task to attempt to guide them. We are concerned with the average child, taught in fairly large classes, in the ordinary school curriculum, and with only a very limited amount of time at our disposal.
CHAPTER XII
GENERAL HINTS ON TAKING A LESSON IN EAR-TRAINING
All those who teach ear-training should keep a book in which they write on one side of the page the proposed scheme of work for each lesson, and on the other the actual work done. All sorts of things may happen in the course of the lesson to upset the proposed scheme. The children may find the new work easier, or more difficult than was expected, a question from a child may suddenly reveal a piece of ignorance which necessitates a digression—every teacher is aware of the 'unknown quantities' in class work. Unless the proposed scheme of work is checked by what is done in each lesson, there will be difficulties later.
Again, each lesson must form a definite link between past and future lessons. It is often a temptation to a teacher of initiative to draw attention to a new aspect of the subject, in which she happens to be specially interested at the time, when the previous work is not in a fit state to be left, even for two or three lessons. Something happens to make her realize this, and the new piece of work is hurriedly left—suspended in mid-air, as it were—and is not referred to again until an accident recalls it to her mind. Such teaching certainly has the charm of novelty to a class, but we must remember that one of the faults of childhood is an undue readiness to pass on quickly to learn 'something new' before the previous work is secure.
In taking a lesson the teacher should aim at speaking in her ordinary voice. Inexperienced people sometimes imagine that it is necessary to shout when speaking in a fairly large room. But provided the voice is clear, and the articulation good, a low voice carries just as well as a loud one, and certainly produces a greater sense of repose.
Another fault to avoid is monotony of tone—we need 'modulations' in speaking just as much as in music, and a class is keenly, though often unconsciously, susceptible to this. A change of position is helpful. The voice of the mistress will brighten at once if she comes down from the platform and walks about a little. But she must never turn her back on a class when actually telling them something. Musical people, who have not the same experience in such matters as the ordinary teacher, constantly do this, and will even hide the greater part of a blackboard when pointing to notes of a tune.
In beginning a lesson the maximum effort will be gained if communal work be taken before individual, i.e. sight-singing before dictation, extemporizing, &c. The reason for this is obvious, a certain momentum is thus generated, which is impossible later, when the force has been diffused.