C. POPULAR MUSIC SCWOQES
RURAL MUSIC SCHOOLS
IN ENGLAND
by
Mary IBBERSON, Director, Rural Music Schools AssociationThe rural music school in England is a very practical organization
which stimulates music-making among adults living at a distance from
the city centres, and provides a well-planned teaching service for coun-
try towns and villages. Children are taught, too; but the service is in-
tended primarily for young people and adults, the children’s classes
being regarded as a training ground for future members of adult groups.
The story of how and why the first rural music school was founded
is briefly as follows. Twenty-five years ago there was a boy named Bob
who lived in a village about eight miles from a country town called
Hitchin. We was 15 years old, had left school and was working in a
market garden. He attended some parties in his village led by a music
teacher from Hitchin, and he was encouraged to dance folk dances and
to sing folk songs. This he did well; but it was not enough for him.
He badly wanted to play the violin for the dancing. There were others
who wanted to play, too. What was the teacher to say? ‘You are too
ignorant’, ‘You are too poor7, ‘You are too old to begin’, ‘You live
too hr from the towns’. Obviously one could not meet such eagerness
with such destructive remarks. So a plan had to be made whereby
teachers could be brought to Bob’s village and lessons given for a fee
which Bob and his friends could afford. Methods of teaching instru-
ments in class had to be evolved, methods which would include the