IN MANY STATES instrumental music was just beginning to find a place in the school before the war descended upon us. Instrumental activities had been carried on for some time in the larger schools in these states on an extracurricular basis, but it is only in recent years that such things as academic credit, a scheduled time for instruction, full-time instrumental teachers, and state organizations and festivals have come illto being. Although the war will probably retard the development of the instrumental music program, not only in states where it is rather new, but also in states where it has been well established, it does not seem amiss to discuss the subject at this time, in view of the large assignment given to music in the Schools at War and High-School Victory Corps programs and other phases of the national war effort. Outside of a few of the better schools in the larger cities, one of two situations has usually existed: (1) There has been no instruction at all in instrumental music and no instrumental music teacher, with the probable exception of a piano teacher remotely or directly connected with the school faculty, or (2) there has been a voluntary band or orchestra, rehearsing in out-of-school hours, the members individually owning their instruments and freqtiently receiving instruction in ensemble playing, periodically but not regularly, from a private teacher or from an inadequately equipped member of the school staff who was employed to teach a full schedule of mathematics or English. Many schools, finding themselves in either one or the other of these situations, have been groping for an adequate procedure by which to establish a substantial program of instrumental instruction, however modest, within the curriculum. In the throes of passing from nothing to something, or from the extracurricular to the curricular basis, these schools have faced many problems that have hindered development on a widespread scale. A statement of these major problems, together with an analysis, synthesis, and diagnosis based on experience, may serve to indicate some of the answers to these problems. It must first be recognized that any school wishing to inaugurate a program of instrumental instruction within its must first be willing and able to face and meet certain fundamental requirements: (1) The conviction that such instruction belongs in the curriculum: that it is fundamental, exists of its own right, and is not a fancy embellishment placed there merely to furnish an obviously pedagogical curriculum enrichment-a catholicity sop thrown in to balance machine or print shop. (2) The financial resourcefulness that will enable the school to buy at least some of the instruments that are not ordinarily owned by nonprofessionals, such as the oboe, bassoon, and bass, and to employ a teacher decently equipped to teach them. (3) The preprofessional and avocational approach to instruction, never the professional. (4) The belief that some children, and not all, should be given serious and prolonged instrumental instruction; and the technique for finding those children. Assuming that these initial prerequisites can be met and that a program of work is undertaken, the average small school will not encounter many difficulties that cannot be overcome. There are, however, several questions which the teacher of instrumental music must be prepared to answer: At what level shall the program begin? How can the really talented pupil be discovered at an early age? How can the director intelligently answer the parents' queries as to what particular instrument an individual child is best fitted to study? Upon what basis shall instruction be organized so as to allow for differences in ability and achievement? How can the yearly depletion of best players from the ranks of the school ensemble, caused by graduation, be counteracted ?
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Dec 1, 1982
David R Rockefeller 
