Music for the General College Student

Abstract

THIS STUDY-a condensed report of the results of a survey made in the spring of 1941-was prompted by the realization that a significant change has been taking place in recent years in the attitude of our colleges and universities toward music. The music department formerly was looked upon as a professional or semiprofessional school, or, at least, as a department where especially interested, and especially talented, amateurs received technical instruction in the mysteries of music. It had very little to offer to a member of the general student body. If such a student had the talent and/or interest, plus the cash in either case, he might take private lessons in applied music. The theory department had nothing for him unless he wished to embark upon a really serious study of music. There remained open to him, then, only one other direct contact with music: membership in some organization such as glee club, choir, band, or orchestra. Unfortunately, in a great many instances these organizations existed primarily as advertising media for the school, and hence their value as teaching media was at a low level. Little attempt was made to give the student a broad acquaintance with the musical literature in his field. Consequently, he emerged from college familiar with perhaps only the three or four dozen compositions which his group had prepared for programs, and probably unable to name the composers of a third of them. Obviously, the student's musical experience, meager even in his own field, was limited to that field, as far as his college work was concerned. There were, of course, exceptions to the situation above described. Numerous schools sponsored concert courses; some made a sincere effort to give the students musicianly understanding and broad experience in their respective fields of musical literature. Still others were experimenting with a new type of course, a course designed not for the musician but for the layman. It is with this type of course, designed to present music as a cultural subject, or better perhaps, as a cultural experience, to the general student bodies of our colleges and universities that this study is concerned. It is not concerned with the causes that brought about the widespread recognition of this type of course as a vital part of the college curriculum. That phase of the subject would make an interesting study in itself. We are interested here in such questions as would come to the mind of an educator who is organizing this type of course for the first time, or who wishes to evaluate the course he is now offering in the light of the practices and experiences of others. His questions would have to do with the general status of such courses among colleges and universities; their content and the methods of conducting them; the type of students who enroll and their reasons for doing so; the time given to the courses and the amount of credit allowed; and with an evaluation of such courses by those who have been offering them.