Song Writing in a Junior College

Abstract

THE TWENTY-FIVE STUDENTS who enrolled in the harmony class in September 1942 at the Kansas City Junior College were a group of average young people with varying amounts of musical background but with a common feeling for and interest in music. The group included both firstand second-year students, ranging in age from sixteen to nineteen years, who had come from the public high schools of Greater Kansas City. There were ten boys who started in the class, but by spring all but two had gone into military service. Some in the class had had four years of band and orchestra-a flutist, oboist, two clarinetists, two trumpeters, trombonist, violinist, and a cellist. Others had sung in choirs, choruses, and glee clubs. Some had had piano lessons. None had ever been in a harmony class before. Their objectives in taking the course ranged from a desire to increase their appreciation of music from the purely avocational standpoint to an interest in laying a foundation for further work in music theory. The course includes harmony, dictation, sight-singing, and keyboard harmony, and gives four points credit per semester. The class meets seven hours a week. No person is permitted to take any part of the course separately, so that exactly the same group of people is present for dictation, keyboard, etc. In April, during the second semester, each member of the class wrote a patriotic song to be submitted to the creative music projects conducted by the United States Treasury Department and the United States Office of Education. Though the actual writing of the song took only three or four weeks, many of the activities of the entire year were of particular value in contributing to the background for the song-writing project. For example, the first day's lesson began to lay the foundation for an appreciation of a good melody. The question was asked, What music did you hear this summer that you liked ? Rhapsody in Blue was mentioned, among others. A recording of this composition was played. After the slow melody in the middle section, What makes you like that tune? Those 'drops' add to its attractiveness. From there, the drops were analyzed and identified as octaves. A discussion followed as to the qualities which an octave skip gives to a melody. What always happens in the Rhapsody in Blue after the big skip? It seems natural for the melody to turn and go in the opposite direction. One of the characteristics of a good melody was learned. On another day in September, the following took place: Today we are beginning with a piano recital. Recordings of Chopin's Black Key Etude (G-flat major) and Revolutionary Etude (C minor) were played as the class listened.