Showing papers in "Music Educators Journal in 1972"

Music in Special Education

Abstract: The Crane School of Music, with its strong commitment to educating music teachers, is an ideal setting to develop the skills necessary to successfully work with students who have special learning needs. The Concentration in Music in Special Education provides the best opportunity for students to develop these skills through specialized coursework and hands-on experiences. Music Education students enrolled in this concentration will:  Learn strategies for teaching students with a wide variety of learning needs and disabilities in the inclusive classroom.  Explore creative ideas for adapting instruments for students with physical disabilities.  Gain the knowledge needed to teach in a self-contained special education classroom.  Teach general music lessons to students with special needs in a self-contained classroom as part of the practicum experience.  Explore music technology that is designed to make musical experiences more accessible for students with special needs. The concentration contains coursework in the following areas.

The Ethnomusicologist: By Mantle Hood. New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company 1971. 386 pp. Illustrations. Hard cover, $14.50

Abstract: A rapidly changing world is bringing about a new music curriculum in our elementary and secondary schools and colleges. No longer can the students' musical experience be confined to the art and folk musics of the Western world. Asian, African, and numerous other ethnic musics, available via record, radio, television, and live performance, are claiming the attention of the young. This expanding interest places a responsibility on the teacher to \"keep ahead\" of the students. For authentic, reliable material and information about the music of the world's peoples, it is the ethnomusicologist, who has collected and studied the music in situ, to whom one must turn. In The Ethnomusicologist Mantle Hood gives an enlightening survey of the discipline and emphasizes its humanistic values. He regards music in its universality as a vital expression of mankind, but he recognizes the diversity of musical systems and styles. In most readable prose the author takes the reader along on his field trips to Bali, Java, and Africa, explaining the specialist's problems and methodology in capturing the essence and meaning of a native music. Chapters dealing with transcription, notation, and the classification of musical instruments transport one into the ethnomusicology laboratory where further descriptive and analytic studies are pursued. The chapter on \"Field Methods and the Human Equation\" stresses the importance of the relationship between the collector and the native musician. The chapter on \"Field Methods and the Technical Equation\" gives practical advice and information regarding photographic documentation-preferably with motion pictures-sound recording with notes, and the two media of communication, speech and music. \"Music is inseparable from the cultural context-as distinct from its social context-and it both affects and is affected by the context.\" It is in this overall view that Hood regards music in its relation to society and culture. Although the book is addressed to ethnomusicologists and prospective students of the discipline, it will open the eyes and ears of those musicians whose training and experience have been limited to Euro-American music. One cannot read the book without wanting to learn more about the many musics of the world's peoples. The volume is generously illustrated with photographs, charts, and three seven-inch, long-playing discs of music examples that supplement the text.-Willard Rhodes, President, International Folk Music Council, Department of Music, Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada.

John Cage: Edited by Richard Kostelanetz. New York: Frederick A. Praeger, Publishers, 1970.237 pp. Illustrations, chronology, catalog of Cage's compositions, discography, bibliographies, index. Hard cover, $12.50, soft cover, $4.95

Abstract: If John Cage could have chosen the content and shape of the first critical study that would enter the world about him, he could not have done better than this documentary monograph. For the most part, Cage is allowed to speak for himself. Many of the selections are his own work, and this culling together in a single, easily available edition of many of his unpublished writings and those published before as newspaper articles or as program notes is one of the important contributions of the book. Only one selection (\"The Future of Music: Credo\") has appeared in the earlier collections of his writings, Silence and A Year from Monday. The articles in the book that are written by others are all sympathetic and, with few exceptions, descriptive rather than analytic. Even in these, Cage seems to be speaking for himself, since he is presented by others as if from his own point of view. Although no single side of Cage is explored comprehensively in the book, the many facets that are introduced convey a view of the whole man that is clearer and more complete than the impression one can gather from Silence and A Year from Monday. In Kostelanetz's monograph one glimpses Cage as teacher, expert in mushrooms, gourmet cook, calligrapher, poet, critic, raconteur, composer, college student, high school orator, aesthetician, and social philosopher. The book opens with a 1966 conversation between Cage and Kostelanetz, covering a diversity of musical, aesthetic, and social topics, and closes with Kostelanetz's \"Random Remarks,\" which is in part a summary description of Cage and his predilections and in part a critical essay especially devoted to A Year from Monday. In between, the selections are arranged chronologically. Despite Cage's own preference for what Kostelanetz calls \"fortuitous happenstance\" in art and life as opposed to cause and effect relationships, there is an emphasis in the book on the sequential pattern of the composer's development. The chronological arrangement of the volume is mirrored by the internal organization of various articles: one by Henry Cowell takes up Cage's music from 1932 to the year of the article, 1952; Kostelanetz's \"Random Remarks\" traces Cage's changes as a composer; the notes by Cage on his earlier pieces for the twenty-five-year retrospective concert in 1958 lead the reader from 1934 to 1958; a chronology records the events of the composer's life; and a catalog presents his music by date of composition within instrumental categories. From all this, one gets a sense of the linearity in Cage's evolution as a musician and aesthetician and of the step-by-step consistency of his path. His early interest in writing for percussion and his insistence that all noises are musical sound led to his search for a structural principle other than the hierarchy of pitch relationships and to his belief in each musical event as separate and independent from those surrounding it. His musical events-percussion sounds-were not characterized primarily by pitch but by their timbre and dynamics and by their duration and the duration of the silences between them. Form depended on the pattern of durational relationships in the piece. His experiments with percussion timbre progressed to the prepared piano and the transformation of this single instrument into a complex body of percussion sounds. His interest in chance compositional procedures had roots in his earlier concept of the independence of each musical event: since the events did not have particular sequential places within a system, the composer could attempt to loosen his intentions and manipulative power over them. From this application of chance processes to composition, it was a short jump to Cage's belief in the necessary inclusion of chance in performance to free the player from his accustomed foreordained control. Another early assumption-that any sound is musicalprompted Cage to gradually include TEACHER'S LITLE HELPER

The Rāgs of North Indian Music: Their Structure and Evolution: By Nazir Jairazbhoy. Middletown, Connecticut: Wesleyan University Press, 1971. 224 pp. Diagrams, music examples. Hard cover, $22.50

Abstract: more significant than those of the previous IFMC Journal. The Council, the editor, and the publisher are to be congratulated on an important contribution to ethnomusicology. Although space does not permit a total listing of the contents, some of the most valuable papers in the 1969 volume, in this writer's opinion, include a concise and informative history of the IFMC by Maud Karpeles, the Council's guiding spirit for a quarter of a century; \"The Value of Music in Human Experience,\" a \"think-piece\" by John Blacking; \"The Russian Protiazhnaia,\" a posthumously published paper by the late Viktor M. Beliaev, pioneer scholar in Russian folk music; and detailed studies of scale structure in Maori music by Mervyn McLean and in South and Central American Indian music by Luis Felipe Ramon y Rivera. Different aspects of folk music's role in contemporary society are investigated in several articles. The 1970 volume contains more papers of shorter length, most of which center upon the understanding of cultural change through music and the interrelationship between various music repertories and strata of music cultures in Western and non-Western societies. Of special interest are Balint Sarosi's \"Gypsy Musicians and Hungarian Peasant Music,\" Archie Green's \"Hear These Beautiful Sacred Selections,\" and Akin Euba's \"New Idioms of Music-Drama among the Yoruba.\" Indeed, the 1970 volume could well serve as a textbook for a study of recent change and adaptation in the traditional music cultures of the world. In this respect, a comparison with the early issues of the IFMC Journal is appropriate: The folk music scholar of the past lamented the demise of traditions that he regarded as stable until \"contaminated\" by Western and other outside forces; now, he recognizes that change has always been present, though often unrecorded, and tries to understand the nature of folk tradition through the transformations it undergoes today.-Bruno Nettl, Chairman of the Division of Musicology, Professor of Music and Anthropology, University of Illinois, Urbana.

Special Education Teachers Need a Special Education

Abstract: * When MENC adopted the slogan "Music for every child" some years ago, few of us realized it would ring with hypocritical overtones in the 1970s Music education serves many more kinds of children today than it did in the 1950s, and many of these children have learning problems Yet, what has been done in music education curriculums to prepare our teachers to teach these children? Too often, music teachers who suddenly find themselves teaching a special education class have had no preparation for this task We have only to talk with these teachers and to observe their classes to realize

Composing With Tape Recorders: Musique Concrete for Beginners: By Terence Dwyer. London: Oxford University Press, 1971. 74 pp. Illustrations, bibliographies, list of instruments and sound devices, glossary. Available in hard and soft cover

Abstract: \\Wlill@i TIllX using familiar music, such as pop tunes or folk songs. Apart from this preliminary exposition, though, the book is superior. Trifles such as the misspelling of \"impresario,\" the classification in the front cover chart of Berlioz as Classical followed by the reference to him as Romantic in the text, and the designation of Dvorak's \"New World\" Symphony as Symphony No. 5 only remind one of how high and uniform standards generally are. The bibliography is annotated and engagingly so. A listing of research articles and papers is an unexpected plus on the side of scholarship. A glossary and index carry the careful, competent preparation through to the end of a fine book, one 1 will happily set students to reading.-TIMOTHY F. CLIFFORD, Department of Music, Salem State College, Massachusetts 01970.

World Musics in American Schools: A Challenge To Be Met.

Abstract: This issue of Music Educators Journal raises the question: What, if anything, shall we do in our schools about the impact upon our people-especially upon our young people-of musics other than our own, now for the first time in history grown to mass proportions by the low cost of commercially available discs, many of them of excellent quality, and by the frequent well publicized tours of virtuosi from Asia and Africa? From the musician's point of view, I believe there are very good reasons to open the doors as wide as we can, but there are equally good reasons from the nonor extramusical point of view to lock them tight.

Aesthetic Concepts and Education: Edited by Ralph A. Smith. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. 455 pp. Index. Hard cover, $9.50

Abstract: This excellent compilation of seventeen essays (all but one written especially for this collection) may well become a standard reference work in the literature of aesthetic education. An outstanding group of writers in the fields of aesthetics and education has examined key concepts in an attempt to determine how aesthetic experience can serve as a model for the educational process. They examine the question of whether there are similarities between these two types of human endeavor that would enable the person who understood the one area to thereby gain an insight into the processes involved in the other field. Such writers as Monroe Beardsley and Harry S. Broudy agree that this analysis can indeed be fruitful for educational theory. For example, Beardsley gives a set of criteria for aesthetic experience that he claims educational experience should also meet: concentration of attention; engagement of the whole self; wholeness, coherence, and completeness. Broudy applies Michael Polanyi's notion of tacit knowing to both aesthetic and educational experience. He maintains that one gains from the aesthetic experience a kind of intuitive knowledge not obtainable by logical-empirical means and that aesthetic education should help develop in the student a receptiveness to that kind of knowledge. Brian S. Crittenden argues that aesthetic argument and teaching technique are similar in that they both utilize persuasive language. Some of the contributors, however, take a different approach to the relationship between aesthetic and educational concepts. Eugene Kaelin discusses from the phenomenological viewpoint how the art educator may justify his statements about a work of art. Walter H. Clark, Jr. calls on the work of Gilbert Ryle in analyzing the differences between \"seeing as\" and \"knowing that\" in art. In general, many of the familiar topics of aesthetic discourse as they relate to the educational process are dealt with once more in this collection. These include metaphor, intention, creativity, medium, imagination, and performance. The essays are all thoughtprovoking, and some provide fresh analyses of some perennial aesthetic problems as they illuminate aspects of the teaching-learning enterprise. Yet, this book is not of the type that would ordinarily be used for a text in a music course, even a graduate course in the foundation of music education. The authors write as though for their professional colleagues, causing the essays to be too difficult for quick, straight-through reading. However, the book can serve as an extremely useful and informative reference work for serious students of the philosophy of music education, as well as for students of aesthetics and philosophy of education in general.-A. David Franklin, Associate Professor, School of Music, Winthrop College, Rock Hill, South Carolina.

Is the Curriculum the Score-or More?

Abstract: I In a special section of the Music Edlucators Journal that was devoted to the music critic, Edwin Safford of the Providence Journal and The Evening Bulletin, Providence, Rhode Island, pointed out that \"All across the country, orchestras, chamber groups, operas, dance companies, and recitalists of every description struggle for an audience....\" He then asks the distressing question, \"Where is music education in all of this emptiness?\"' A recent survey of band directors, which I conducted during a 17,000mile trip around the country, produced a clear and startling picture of the instrumental portion of music education in America. This picture was especially disturbing to me because of my long involvement with school bands. A total of 222 interviews were conducted, during which each band director described his performance schedule for the previous year. The band in the average high school with an enrollment of over one thousand students gave 6.6 halftime shows and 5.5 concerts per year. It also participated in 3.3 parades. This was an average of 15.4 large group performances in a typical year.

Technology Serves Self-Realization

Abstract: ing the children at their own level and allowing for individual differences in students. The Music House has been an attempt to accomplish some of these goals. If a Music House is to be an enriching experience for the boys and girls, the following ingredients are necessary: a music room, some of the equipment mentioned here, a principal and teachers who understand the project and will cooperate, and most important of all, many sizes and shapes of children whose natural love of beauty will bring them to the Music House. 9

One Out of Twenty: The LD

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Rhythm Builds Order in Brain-Damaged Children.

Abstract: handicapped in learning for rather obvious reasons-deafness, blindness, mental retardation, and so on. More recently, however, a new type of handicapped child has emerged-the child with learning disabilities. This condition is defined as \"a disorder in one or more of the basic psychological processes involved in understanding or in using spoken or written language. These may be manifested in disorders of listening, thinking, talking, reading, writing, spelling, or arithmetic. They include conditions which have been referred to as perceptual handicaps, brain injury, minimal brain dysfunction, dyslexia, developmental aphasia, and so on. They do not include learning problems which are due primarily to visual, hearing, or motor handicaps, to mental retardation, emotional disturbance or to environmental deprivation.\"' A tremendous range of problems lies within this framework; some are quite common and others are quite rare. Although many individuals have attempted to develop methods of working with learningdisabled children, no standard list of

Expanding Music Experience To Fit Today's World.

Abstract: Modern society is demonstrating an increased consciousness of world community and a growing awareness of ethnic identity. Education for this kind of society makes ethnic music not only a desirable component in the curriculum but also an urgently needed one. The importance of ethnic music is generally acknowledged as a way to meet the recognized need for expanding the breadth of musical experiences in the schools. The major concern centers on how it can best be used. Music in an ethnic context has a dual identity. It can be thought of as a particular system or organization of sound (a \"musical style\"); at the same time, it can be regarded as an object that belongs to a culture or a subculture. This social context is important in classifying experiences-for example, when we speak of \"Japanese music,\" \"white blues,\" or \"country sound.\" Music education for our society should include both of these aspects-music in its social context and music as organization of sound. Ethnic music is by nature a current music-it belongs to real people. In a time when American society is oriented toward the present and the future, students often have little patience with an educational system that spends so much time on music of the past, often ignoring music that is shaping their present and their future. The fact that ethnic music is contemporary and at the same time is tied to an identifiable

Shaping A Body Image Through Movement Therapy.

Abstract: dance therapy, is the planned use of any aspect of dance, movement, and sensory experience to further the physical and psychic integration of the individual. The term \"body movement therapy\" is perhaps preferable to \"dance therapy\" because it is more inclusive. \"Dance\" brings to mind preconceived ideas that may be inhibiting, especially to young boys who have cultural biases. To them, \"dancing\" is a threat, but \"moving\" is what they do all the time. Body movement therapy, like music therapy, can be applied to any age group, to normal or special people, and in any setting. Since movement \"is a fundamental dimension of human behavior,\"' it can be a mode for vital nonverbal communication. It can be used like music to help fulfill basic needs in a child's devel-

Putting Aesthetic Education to Work

Abstract: During the past several years the term "aesthetic education" has been used so frequently among music educators, art educators, and others that it has become an accepted part of the language of these fields. Yet the reality to which the phrase refers remains disturbingly obscure. Some people have had the queasy feeling that the term is a disembodied ghost, lacking flesh and blood but, like an old superstition, compelling enough that one must pay some attention to it if only to stay on the safe side of things. No matter what the difficulties with the term, aesthetic education is now something real and will become more central a reality in human experience in the future. To strengthen that reality to make its impact more widespread and more powerful in the lives of children and adults is the major obligation of music education. As a guide in my discussion I will use a description (a safer word than "definition") of aesthetic education as "the development of sensitivity to the aesthetic qualities of things." This description has several key components: "development," "sensitivity," "aesthetic qualities," and "things." A few words about each component (taken in reverse order) will show that we are not dealing with a ghost. We will then be able to tackle some problems of how to put aesthetic education to work more effectively. By "things" I mean perceptible objects and events. One of the major characteristics of the aesthetic realm is the necessary involvement of things. The thing may be a piece of music, a sculpture, a painting, a

Instrumental Music: A Great Ally in Promoting Self-Image.

Abstract: delphia, a music program for the severely retarded child (IQ below 50) has been in progress for many years. Originally, the program engaged several hundred eightthrough sixteen-year-olds in classroom vocal and instrumental activities throughout the city. Since its beginning, the program's enrollment has almost doubled, and the age range has widened in both directions. To give the classroom work still another dimension, an all-city orchestra comprising thirty-five of these children has been formed.

Increasing Awareness and Sensitivity Through World Musics.

Abstract: Would we explore the nature and scope of the musical elements that are employed, or of the means that may exist for notating the sounds? Such a course might be organized as a packaged tour of several countries in as many days. While the entertainment value of such a tour might be high, the musical value could be short-lived. To carry the analogy further, we could play the tourist-the consumer of

Music and Language: A New Look at an Old Analogy

Abstract: lationship in terms of "little" and "big." Another familiar comparison involves music and language itself. It is an interesting analogy, and has implications for music instruction and general intellectual growth. A language of the emotions, a universal language, a language used by conductors and performers-we often talk about music in linguistic terms, and rightly so. Music and language are both uniquely human activities; they set us apart from the other creatures of this planet, and they still challenge our capacities for description and understanding. If there is a relationship between the two, what sort of relationship is it? Is music a language, or is it somehow like a language? Or is it perhaps a very special sort of language that resists description in conventional linguistic terms? The surface similarities are apparent: both music and language take place in time, and they both employ distinctions of pitch, duration, and intensity as a basis for recognizable patterned behavior. To some degree, we use the same kinds of words in talking about both. "Sign," "phrase," "reading"-these terms and others suggest that music is, like language, a system of symbols that we learn to use and enjoy. Yet this common vocabulary of description seems to be heavily weighted in favor of the printed page, whether covered with words

The Neurologically Handicapped Child: More Than a Package of Bizarre Behaviors

Abstract: and shuffles, seizing and handling instruments, books, and papers without really seeming to see any of them. He does not speak, but makes little noises to himself, listening to nothing else. Another boy sits quietly, watching Billy. Someone asks, \"Roy, will you bring me the chalk, please?\" Obediently, Roy stands, walks to the door, and shuts it. Jane stands in front of a chair, gently rocking back and forth. Asked to sit down, she bursts into hard laughter, rocks a little faster, then finally gets into her chair. Who are these children? Finding out may be difficult. They seem so different from each other that it may be almost impossible to even describe them properly. In different parts of the country, in different schools, institutions, or testing centers, each or all of them may be described as mentally retarded, minimally dysfunctioning, aphasoid, brain damaged, speech handicapped, apraxic, autistic, neurologically de-