Showing papers in "Music Educators Journal in 1959"

Music in the Medieval and Renaissance Universities

Abstract: GARTEN. By Rose Marie Grentzer and Marguerite V. Hood. (Evanston, Ill.: Summy-Birchard Publishing Company), 1958. This is a comprehensive book, a rich source of music and musical activities for the kindergarten child and teacher. Record albums (78 rpm) have been produced from the contents of this book by Bowmar Records of Los Angeles. The opening section \"Music in the Kindergarten\" is a brief and very practical introduction to music and music activities for the kindergarten child. This introductory section reflects the practical and successful experience the authors have had in music and the teaching of music to children. In addition to the general treatment of music in the kindergarten found in the opening section, specific teaching suggestions are. offered with a great many individual songs. Help of this nature, offered on the page with a song will certainly be appreciated by teachers. This is far more than a song book or another music book. It presents a complete, natural and integrated approach to the musical development of the child. The child sings, participates in a variety of appropriate rhythmic activities, plays simple instruments, listens quietly to music and is encouraged to participate in music creatively. The material in the book is presented under topical headings meaningful to children of this age. They should do much to sustain the interest of the small child and at the same time create an atmosphere for learning. Music in the book is related to the child's interest in the home, school, community, play and make believe, farm and ranch, holidays and special days, science, song plays, etc.

Student Teaching Evaluation

Abstract: 1 content knowledge Can explain complex ideas from subject area in a way that students can understand. Answers questions and demonstrates inquiry skills appropriate to the subject area when unsure of an answer. Understands but can't explain some complex ideas. Is willing to say, \"I don't know.\" Explains the basics, but gets stuck easily. Is flustered by not knowing. Asserts incorrect information. Will make up something instead of not knowing.

Music with children

Abstract: • An early childhood music program for 3 to 7 year olds. • An environment where children discover music in a natural way through games, songs, rhymes, movement and rhythm instruments. • An environment where children can develop a sense of in tune singing, and melodic skills, ensemble playing, reading and writing of melody and rhythm and even eye coordination! • A program based on the philosophies of Hungarian composer and educator, Zoltan Kodaly, as well as the methods of Carl Orff.

What Music Cannot Do

Abstract: “I have to agree, whether I want to or not” … “Per- sonally, I oppose giving space to negative thinking” … “At least one can admire a music educator sane enough to look at his profession without ro...

Japanese String Festival

Abstract: The film and tape were impressive. Huge numbers of Japanese children were playing from memory violin music ranging up to the level of the Vivaldi and Bach double concertos. Aside from the sheer weight of numbers and the appeal of cute tots performing seriously, the outstanding features for the string specialist were these: (1) There was not a poor left hand position or bow arm visible in the entire group. (2) Intonation was good and pleasing tone was modulated expressively. In short, this was not just mass playing of 1200 children from 5 to 13 years of age-it was good violin playing! I arranged for Mr. Mochizuki to show his film and speak to my classes and to appear before the Ohio String Teachers Association meeting in Oberlin in May of 1958. These appearances aroused considerable interest in the Japanese string movement; the film has since been shown at Interlochen, Los Angeles, New York, Toronto and other places. One Ohio string teacher, John Kendall of Muskingum College, saw the film in Oberlin and became so interested that he went to Japan in the summer of 1959 to investigate the teaching that produced such remarkable results.

Learning and the Teacher

Abstract: GARTEN. By Rose Marie Grentzer and Marguerite V. Hood. (Evanston, Ill.: Summy-Birchard Publishing Company), 1958. This is a comprehensive book, a rich source of music and musical activities for the kindergarten child and teacher. Record albums (78 rpm) have been produced from the contents of this book by Bowmar Records of Los Angeles. The opening section \"Music in the Kindergarten\" is a brief and very practical introduction to music and music activities for the kindergarten child. This introductory section reflects the practical and successful experience the authors have had in music and the teaching of music to children. In addition to the general treatment of music in the kindergarten found in the opening section, specific teaching suggestions are. offered with a great many individual songs. Help of this nature, offered on the page with a song will certainly be appreciated by teachers. This is far more than a song book or another music book. It presents a complete, natural and integrated approach to the musical development of the child. The child sings, participates in a variety of appropriate rhythmic activities, plays simple instruments, listens quietly to music and is encouraged to participate in music creatively. The material in the book is presented under topical headings meaningful to children of this age. They should do much to sustain the interest of the small child and at the same time create an atmosphere for learning. Music in the book is related to the child's interest in the home, school, community, play and make believe, farm and ranch, holidays and special days, science, song plays, etc.

The recorder : its traditions and its tasks

Abstract: GARTEN. By Rose Marie Grentzer and Marguerite V. Hood. (Evanston, Ill.: Summy-Birchard Publishing Company), 1958. This is a comprehensive book, a rich source of music and musical activities for the kindergarten child and teacher. Record albums (78 rpm) have been produced from the contents of this book by Bowmar Records of Los Angeles. The opening section \"Music in the Kindergarten\" is a brief and very practical introduction to music and music activities for the kindergarten child. This introductory section reflects the practical and successful experience the authors have had in music and the teaching of music to children. In addition to the general treatment of music in the kindergarten found in the opening section, specific teaching suggestions are. offered with a great many individual songs. Help of this nature, offered on the page with a song will certainly be appreciated by teachers. This is far more than a song book or another music book. It presents a complete, natural and integrated approach to the musical development of the child. The child sings, participates in a variety of appropriate rhythmic activities, plays simple instruments, listens quietly to music and is encouraged to participate in music creatively. The material in the book is presented under topical headings meaningful to children of this age. They should do much to sustain the interest of the small child and at the same time create an atmosphere for learning. Music in the book is related to the child's interest in the home, school, community, play and make believe, farm and ranch, holidays and special days, science, song plays, etc.

Music Education in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics

Abstract: One may question the ultimate end or purpose of music education; for, obviously, it is an instrument which the government uses to solidify the people in their nationalistic and political feelings. Nevertheless, music has a very definite place in the curricula of their elementary and secondary schools. It is a planned part of the total curriculum. Perhaps a brief statement or introduction to school organization is germane to an understanding of the music program. Children start to school at age seven and are entered in the first class (grade). In the rural areas of the Soviet Union, there are only seven-grade schools whereas the cities and towns have ten-grade schools. For six days a week pupils attend these schools, the vast majority of which are on double sessions. The curriculum in the schools is highly standardized. All children in a particular grade study the same things at the same time and are expected to learn at the same rate since Soviet educators assulne that all children learn in the same way and at the same rate. They do not admit that children have individual differences. Furthermore, lessons and lesson plans are prepared and taught in generally the same manner by different teachers. Thus, all children are exposed to essentially the same curriculum. To fully grasp the total music program, one must be cognizant of educational media other than the ordinary elementary or secondary school. Common schools play a big role; but amateur circles and special music schools also enter into giving music education to students.

School Building Planning for Music and Drama

Abstract: The author is head of the music department and chairman of the division of fine arts, Western Michigan University, Kalama- zoo, Michigan. He was chairman of the MENC committee which was responsible...

Some Comments by a Choral Conductor

Abstract: HE PAST quarter century has seen a breathtaking expansion of significant choral and instrumental activity in our schools. Those of us who have had opportunity for travel or who have attended regularly conferences of the Music Educators National Conference and the Music Teachers National Association have thrilled to the increased number of schools participating in this musical activity and have noted with pride the eagerness and musical responsiveness of our young people. But there is still much to achieve. In this respect, the report of the 1957 Choral Committee of the MENC Eastern Division is challenging. This report points up, with a forward look, some of today's weaknesses in the choral area in our schools. It concludes in part:

Judgment Day is Coming

Abstract: F EW teachers-and far fewer parentswould deny the fact that pupils in the lower grades like music, but when these same pupils graduate into junior high school they start to rebel against music. At this point adolescent freedom in expressing their own individual ideas lets them be vocal about their conditioned dislike for music in general. Yet even though this is well known, music programs go on year after year building bigger and better prejudices against music. The situation is so bad that if more time were granted for the music program in many schools it would mean that more pupils would learn to hate music. Jack, who has been the ideal music student all through the elementary school, suddenly asks, \"Why should we have this lousy music stuff anyway? My father didn't like music either. He thinks we need more time for the regular subjects. Music won't help me make any money when I have to start making a living. If there is any time left over, we should have more sports.\" With the building program and Sputnik pressures on tax-payers there is going to be a lot of honest and sincere questioning of the music program. Music teachers will have to produce more than peppy bands and big shows to justify their existence. Fine slogans alone will not serve. A program that can be defended as sound practice will have to be developed. A genuine philosophy of music's value and purpose in life will have to be established. The answer will have to be found to Jack's question of why do we have music. Music education as practiced may have defeated itself by its failure to use a constructive philosophy based on its true values. Music is an interpretation of life which is emotional and appeals to the senses. Science, in contrast, is an interpretation of life which is addressed to the mind and deals with facts. Music teachers by some strange perversion have decided to teach their subjective art as if it were an objective science: so many eighth notes make one whole note. Music education should be dealing with sounds and with the exultation of the spirit. Music owes its very existence to its emotional and aesthetic qualities rather than to its intellectual content. Physical and spiritual regeneration should be one of the foremost goals. In psychplogy there are many studies dealing with the effects of music on work and fatigue. It has been found that in arousing aesthetic emotion music generates energy. Music also tends to increase the amount of work that one can do and it tends to alleviate fatigue. Sometimes it seems to overcome fatigue entirely. A point should be made of the fact that physically, music is both stimulating and subduing. Music is conducive to play. Music stimulates moods and aesthetic emotions. Music gives a chance for imaginative program building, day-dreaming, escape reactions, creative play in the field of musical imagination and free associations accompanying music. Music may be responded to as a purely sensory stimulation. The structure of the music may be the means of stimulation. We may well steal a line from Hamlet and say, \"What a treasure hadst thou.\

Reflections from Atlantic City

Abstract: Paragraphs about the Meeting of the American Association of School Administrators in Atlantic City, February 14-18, 1959

The Place of Music in a Technological World

Abstract: You may have heard of the advice given the Reverend Smith. Young bachelor that he was, newly out of seminary, eager to be effective in his first pastorate, he found himself completely tongue-tied as a pretty young Sunday School teacher urged him to say a few words to her class of wriggling six-year-olds. As he ended his stammering excuses with the pleading question, \"But what can I say ?\" a solemn and sympathetic little girl rose and answered: \"Pleathe, Mithter Thmith, why don't thuh jutht thay 'Amen' and thit down ?\" It occurs to me that we could consider such advice in the two quite different sentences which follow, the first one being: It would be a very simple and easily rationalized action in today's climate of demands for scientific education and increased emphasis upon the so-called \"solid\" subjects, for musicians simply to bow their heads, fold their hands, say \"Amen,\" and sit down engulfed by their defeatism and suffering from their lack of faith in their own art. The second sentence: If we believe that music is one of the values of our world, if we know why we believe this and if we do not choose to throw away fifty years of professional growth, then this is most certainly not the time for musicians to say \"Amen\" and sit down!