MUSICAL EDUCATION

Te Ao Hou, June 1961, Page 12

MUSICAL EDUCATION The musical events were the greatest challenge because the children in our group are mostly by nature musical, but were quite unfamiliar with the type of music they heard at the festival. Not only that; the children are deeply influenced by jazz, rock-and-roll, and the spirit of youthful rebellion, the creed of which is centred in this music. Classical music is therefore apt to be listened to not with sympathy or even neutrality, but as the epitome of meaningless boredom: the “square” may be powerful—one has to live with him—but as music is the world of pleasure, he should be kept out of it. Educators cannot help but clash with this confined world of pleasure. If they left it to evolve freely, it would be necessary to remove most school subjects from the syllabus. In music, as in other subjects, educators wish to widen the children's experience and to enable them to respond to music in more varied manifestations. Our starting point was a lecture given at the Adult Education Centre by Mr Ronald Barker. The theme is his talk was “I am a square and I am proud of it”: he discussed the music we were to hear at the festival. It was followed immediately by the Wind Quintet. The programme contained quite a solid work by Hinemith and was perhaps in parts too difficult as an introduction. The environment was a hall in the Art Gallery, with good modern paintings: the public at this luncheon concert consisted mainly of musical connoisseurs and the atmosphere was far more intimate than at the usual evening concert. We found later that the concert made quite an impression on a number of the children—Wiri was the only militant objector. Morris liked the concert far too well, applauded like a cannon, and had to be stopped from tapping his feet to the music. The school concert of the National Orchestra was, of course, far easier to understand. Again the reactions were mixed; the experience certainly did not stimulate any increased interest in the remaining musical event, Madame Butterfly, that same evening. The 15 seats we had were occupied with considerable reluctance and even feelings of envy towards those who had made the Cinerama. When Morris found he was the only boy volunteer he hastily withdrew; our final party consisted entirely of girls. There was nothing doubtful about their reaction. They were deeply moved by the beauty and pathos of the whole performance; they felt sorry for the others who had not been there. Since our return we have played to the children a recording called “The Adventures of Piccolo, Saxie and Company”, an amusing symphonic piece during which Victor Borge introduces, in story form, the instruments of a symphony orchestra. Before the tour this piece would hardly have been understood, but now the children were delighted by it; the instruments mean something to them now, and so does symphonic music. The experience laid a foundation for the appreciation of the mainstream of European music.