Meth0d.s and aids in music educationgerminate. A child who, in the intensity of his feelings, expresses his
pleasure in life by shouts or other sounds which are more or less ‘out
of tune’ (by reference to our conventional modes) is surely nearer to
the spirit of music than a child reading sol-fa perfectly accurately and
in time but without life or enthusiasm. Think, for example, of the little
girl, with her doll in her arms, humming a simple lullaby tune with all
the tenderness of the mother she will one day be.
It is useless for a child whose appreciation of music has not been
developed beforehand to acquire technical skill and extensive theore-
tical knowledge; he will be set on the wrong lines, with a false con-
ception of the art, and, disappointed, he will soon forsake it. We must
stimulate and harness the children’s spontaneous impulses, and then
the love of music will be born to endure for ever, bringing with it
interest, the cement by which the different items of knowledge are
bound together, and artistic expression, that wonderful instrument
for general education. By those ‘primitive’ shouts and songs, the
child himself shows us the path to take for, in the space of a few
years, he has to repeat in himself the development of music from its
earliest beginnings.
For this reason, new methods had to be found whereby, without
losing touch with the spirit, the essence of music, the child could be led
up to our concept of music, our modes, scales and graphic conventions.
Investigation of the different psycho-physiological states plays an im-
portant part in the development of these methods. For instance, it is
impossible to develop the sense of rhythm and to study measure simul-
taneously, because these two things are associated with two different,
if not opposing, psycho-physiological states.
Rhythm has to do with sensation: measure with reasoning.
Sensation and reasoning represent two different states, which are
difficult to reconcile, and the child cannot, at one and the same time,
be in a state conducive to the development of the sense of rhythm
(sensory) and in a state in which he can observe and study measure
(intellectual). A child’s artistic training is much simpler, quicker and
more far-reaching when the method employed takes account of these
natural principles.
The artist who creates, the performer who interprets, and the child
who improvises, are all in more or less the same state. By constantly
insisting on reasoning, however, we may prevent the attainment of
that state.