Better Organization in Music Costs Less

Abstract

N ~ rOT often does it happen that four difficulties in a subject can be effaced by matching one against another; usually they must be laboriously eradicated one by one. Four frequent difficulties in the music area are: the high cost of individual instruction which has always been considered necessary; the impossibility of standardizing or evaluating work when each student studies different material; the unwillingness of the colleges to accept music credit on a par with credit from other departments, because of the questionable content of many music courses; and the complex organization necessary to schedule these multitudinous courses which, under the encouragement of individual fees, have been subdivided to the point of absurdity. This article reports the beginnings of a change from individual to group instruction and suggests the further development of the program which will eliminate all these difficulties. When group instruction replaces individual tutoring, the cost is made commensurate to that of any other college subject. Moreover, the problem of standardization is solved. Even though a definite course of study with detailed outline is used by teachers in private lessons, it is impossible in practice to maintain a standard content. The large number of teachers necessary to carry on a program of individual teaching, the fact that all such tutors are themselves the products of such a highly individualized and often fanatical system; the variation between students, which is doubtless unreasonably apparent in a subject where physical technique has traditionally been so overemphasized-all these factors make it impossible for a program of individual music instruction to hold to a uniform standard. If instruction in music is carried on in a way comparable to instruction in other courses, evaluation is no more a problem than in any college subject. Once the music courses are standardized so that it is possible for college administrators to ascertain their content, it is easier to have them accredited. We assume that an art properly taught has a place in any college that purports to provide a cultural education.