Music in education
is the reflection of the other. According to the extent in which we improve
technically and show the social and cultural usefulness and value of our
work, so shall we gain support from governments, private institutions and
the general public. In relation to the extent of public regard for our work
and the results of it as seen in social and cultural life, we can be increased in
number and encouraged to higher accomplishment.
These optimistic thoughts will not obscure in the minds of most of us,
however, the knowledge that throughout our world we have advanced in
these last 50 years only a small part of the way toward the goal that is pro-
bably held by common agreement in the minds and hearts of all of us-that
every child shall have a chance to develop to the utmost the music traditions
of his culture and that when he grows up he will continue to do so.
Do we not know, in spite of our undoubted achievements and of our
hopes continuously to advance toward our great goal, of the many hind-
rances to our progress? How often have we sat in on budget conferences
and had to see every other demand upon a limited fund considered before
the agenda reached music? How often have we listened to the parent explain
why his child cannot begin or must stop music lessons because some luxury
or even frivolity has to take precedence?
Can we still afford to rest, as we have for so many centuries, on the com-
placent belief that a good teacher never lacks pupils and a generous patron,
a worthy object for his beneficence?
I believe we cannot. For during the last 50 years a great change has come
over the pursuit of our ancient and worthy profession, as it has over all other
great professions. This change has been the direct result of the technological
innovations that have led to what we call ‘the media of mass communi-
cation’-phonograph, radio, cinema, television, printed matter in millions
of copies, and universaI elementary and secondary education.
These innovations have not supplanted the centuries-old relationship of
the individual teacher to individual student. But they have extended it in
surprising ways and at the same time modified it enormously. We should
study them carefully. For we have already begun to use them. And they
have already begun to use us, our art and the teaching of it.
The first question we should ask about mass communications is: who
controls them? Obviously, at the present time-at least in Europe and the
Americas-the answer must be, first and foremost: the government offices
and private companies that operate them. I shall call these the ‘policy groups’.
Second, are the technicians who take care of the details of operation.
I shall refer to these as the ‘technical groups’. Third, is the mass of the
population that ‘consumes’ the product of these operations, in the form
of disc, film, press release, radio, and so on.
Now, any music historian will, I am sure, telI you that prototypes of all
three of these categories have contributed variously throughout known
history to the moulding of the traditions of music-and, so, of music teach-
ing-as we know it. A certain balance among the three of them has character-