Every child, however apparently unmusical, should be given its chance, at any rate up to the age of twelve years. During this time, the stress should be placed, for the unmusical child, not so much on perfection of technique, but on the ability of playing easy pieces really well, and to read at sight such things as duets, song accompaniments, &c.
If, in addition, the children have joined an ear-training class, they will, at any rate, be intelligent listeners for the rest of their lives to other people's playing.
For all children, sight reading should form part, not only of every lesson, but of every day's practice. Many books for sight reading have been published, well graded, some of them beginning with little pieces in the treble clef only, and going on to advanced tests. The following are a few, selected from many other excellent ones:
Schäfer (3 vols., published by Augener).
Hilliard (5 vols., published by Weekes).
Somervell (2 vols., published by Augener and Weekes respectively).
Taylor (1 vol., published by Bosworth).
As a child will need more than one such book in the course of her study, and as she cannot play the same test twice, a plan has been made in some schools for the music to be sold second-hand from one pupil to another, through the medium of a mistress, in the same way in which ordinary school books are sometimes passed on. This reduces the expense of constantly having to buy new books for sight reading. Another plan is to establish a lending library, each child to pay 2d. or 3d. a term.
In the teaching of 'pieces' music mistresses should bear in mind that children must, from time to time, revise those which they have finished. Nothing is more irritating to a parent than to be told by a child that it has 'nothing to play' to a visitor. The mistress who is anxious to get a pupil on as quickly as possible often overlooks this point, and an entirely wrong impression is given of the child's progress to the parent.
We now come to the vexed question of the interpretation of music by children. An interesting point can be noted about the practice of the early classical composers. They were accustomed to give the minimum amount of indication as to tempo and general detail for the performance of their works.