School and Post-School Music in the Community

Abstract

OR several years supervisors have been urged to interest themselves in forming choruses, orchestras, and other musical activities among the students who have completed school and have ceased to use participation in music as a constructive force in their lives. As music educators, we have been condemned for creating something which ceases to function in the life of the child when his school days are over. Some writers on the subject have predicted a tragic end for music education unless a solution is found for the problem. In the city of Fort Wayne, Indiana, I believe we are making a definite attempt to reach such a solution. In 1931, a group of musical people of the city interested the Chamber of Commerce in the matter of reviving music in the home. A committee was organized to decide on the program best suited to attract young people to music activities, and more important, to encourage participation in music at home. It is significant that the chairman of this committee is an industrialist. The remainder of the group consists of the heads of the high school music departments, the conductor of a local symphony orchestra, the grade school music supervisors, and the head of a college music department. Music teachers who teach privately, and other professional musicians, were excluded so that the work of this group would not be, or appear to be, commercial in any sense of the word.