Music irz educationThe task of these music teachers is a very comprehensive one. More
and more the individual teaching of instruments in the schools is
transferred to specialists. A pedagogical examination for those engaged
in instrumental teaching has recently been established at the academy.
In June 1952 a conference on music education, with participants
from the four Scandinavian countries, was held in Stockholm. As a
result, a Scandinavian union for music education has been established.
One of the subjects of this conference was ‘The music educator and the
composer’, as was the case in Brussels. The need for collaboration
between the music educator, the composer and the performer cannot
be too strongly underlined.
In earlier times, for example, in the Renaissance and Baroque periods,
composer, performer and teacher were one and the same person, but
this was possible only while the technique of musical composition
remained fundamentally in its traditional form, the difficulties of per-
forming were small, and the methods of teaching were founded on
direct imitation of the master’s work as a composer and as a performer.
These periods were more interested in the impression created by music
on people, than in musical activity itself. Also the sort of music which
was thought worthy of attention, I mean art music, had a limited pro-
vince and effect: it served the church and the court and special social
functions. School music was on a high level, especially because of the
needs of the church, but the need for a general musical education was
not then as great as it is today.
It may be said that this problem began to gain in importance about
the time of the French revolution. The common man began to feel the
need to share in the cultural life of the community. Rousseau in his
Emile gives a very good picture of this problem. At the same time,
music and musicians began to be liberated from their servitude, but
this evolution did not benefit music education as such.
Today music is available to everybody through technical means,
and the democratic outlook on education-instituted by Rousseau,
Pestalozzi, Kerschensteiner, Dewey and others-has now become a
reality. These two factors have made the educational task in the field
of music a very great one. To become a music educator nowadays
demands so many years of study both of music and of other subjects,
that it is impossible for music education to be a part-time occupation
engaged in simultaneously with composing and performing.
Now we must define what is meant by an educator in music. Per-
formers and composers still do some teaching, but mostly on an artistic
level as in earlier days. This combination is still possible and necessary.