Mcrsic in education
Folk music has inevitably to a great extent become divorced from
its former associations. We cannot, even if we would, restore the con-
ditions in which folk music was made; nor is this necessary for its
appreciation. Folk music must now take its place alongside other mu-
sical creations as a work of art, and it is upon its intrinsic merits that
it will stand or fall.
The International Folk Music Council has been at great pains to
draw a distinction between folk music and popular music. It does not
consider that popular music is necessarily bad, and that it should have
no place in education. What the council does claim is that folk music,
because of its particular qualities, should be given a special place in
education at all its stages.
Again, we do not believe that every version of a folk song or folk
dance is a great work of art, although even the poorest example, if it
is authentic, will probably have some redeeming quality. But we do
claim that the best folk music, although it is limited in scope, ranks in
artistic perfection with the greatest musical compositions.
THE PRESENT STATE
OF MUSIC EDUCATION
IN THE OCCIDENTAL WORLD
bY
Leo KESTENBBRG
Principal, Music Teachers Trainiig College, Tel Aviv, IsraelOur subject makes it necessary to draw a distinction between musical
education in Europe and that in Asia and the Americas. We are thus
concerned with various geographical and historical factors which are
closely bound up with the general cultural background. In the first
place, we must go back to the origins of European musical education,
to its first beginnings in Athens and Jerusalem. The origins of Eu-
ropean musical education and those of the music of Christiandom up