Music Appreciation Course Research Articles

Personalized System of Instruction Versus the Lecture-Demonstration. Method in a Specific Area of a College Music Appreciation Course

This study sought to determine (a) whether a Personalized System of Instruction (PSI) would have a different effect on student achievement than would the lecture-demonstration method, (b) how the experimental students would evaluate the PSI method as a mode of instruction, and (c) how PSI would affect music opinion. Results of the main study indicated that both methods of instruction produced statistically significant changes in achievement and in listening opinions, and that no significant differences occurred between the two methods. The experimental students gave a rating of slightly “above average” to the PSI method of instruction as a mode of instruction. It was concluded that PSI could be used as an effective teaching method in music appreciation courses.

Music History and Appreciation in the Two-Year College Curriculum

The purpose of this study was to examine the status of music history and appreciation courses in the nation's community and junior colleges.1 Data on course offerings and enrollments in music history/appreciation courses were obtained in Spring 1975 and Spring 1977 from a representative sample of 178 two-year colleges participating in a nationwide study of the humanities curriculum in community and junior colleges. Among the findings reported were: (a) most two-year colleges offered a course in either music history or music appreciation in Spring 1975 (74.2%) and in Spring 1977 (70.2%); (b) enrollments in music history/appreciation courses declined by 9.5% in the same time period in which total college enrollments increased by 7.4%; and (c) nearly all of the music history and appreciation courses offered in two-year colleges are designed primarily for transfer program students. Recommendations on how music departments can increase their enrollments are offered in this paper.

The Construction and Validation of a Test of Expressive Phrasing in Music

IS MUSICAL EXPRESSION in performance too subjective and individualistic for measurement and categorization? Does the intricate comples of expression break down into generalizations and rules? Is this important facet of performance and appreciation dependent upon situation, medium, and/or performer? Furthermore, if generalizations and rules of expression really exist, how much do they change over a period of time? How much variance exists among artist performers? Are rules of expression, if they do exist, often unobserved or violated by performers when they reach artist stature? Obviously, these questions are of considerable importance to the professional performer and to the music educator. Even if rules of expressive performance can be formulated, is it feasible or practical to devise a test to measure this ability? Can an objective instrument be constructed in such a suS jective, nebulous area? One can readily imagine the problems in such a project, but the need is great for such a test. First, a test of musical expression could be utilized by applied instrumental or vocal teachers to evaluate student achievement and understanding of this important facet of performance. Besides pointing up deficiencies or omissions in the present educational program, it would aid the music edun cator in assessing the general direction of a child's talent. The ability of students tends more or less in one direction, being either more technical than emotional, or more intellectual than emotional, or more emotional than either intellectual or technical, and so forth. By discovering the tendency of the child in this respect, the teacher can esercise his ingenuity in an effort to develop a well-balanced performer. Second, an expression test could be employed as an evaluative instrument in music appreciation courses, since the native aesthetic sensibilities plus all the cumulative educational influences involved in the total musical reaction are presumably measured. Third, such a test might well prove useful as an aid in teaching expression, serving to delineate the elements of expression which are difficult to verbalize or demonstrate to the student. Fourth, it might even prove useful in revealing aptitude since many authorities claim that the ability to perform or perceive the ewressive elements of music is more dependent upon innate capacity than upon training and experience. Fifth, an indirect advantage would accrue manifested in an increased cognizance of expression on the part of both the student and the teacher; it would stimulate activity in this neglected area, thereby de-emphasizing the present American obsession with technique. This increased cognizance and understanding may assist in the organization of a functional instructional program and an examination of present pedagogical techniques. A test of this type would have important implications for more precision and clar-

Music Appreciation by Television

E ARLY in the 1951-1952 Winter Semester, the Music Division of Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, was approached by the University Broadcasting Council to consider the possibility of offering over television a three-hour credit course in Music Appreciation. Since September 1951, the University had been offering over television two credit courses, General Psychology and Comparative Literature, which were to be followed in December by a second series, Child Psychology and Physical Geography. Each series, presenting two courses, adhered to the thirteen-week units common to television production. A third series, General Economics and Music Appreciation, was scheduled to begin March 18, 1952. The idea of a telecourse, as these offerings came to be designated, was therefore not entirely unknown to members of the Music Division. Challenged by the prospect of reaching thousands of viewers daily in this comparatively new field and in part flattered by the proffered opportunity, the members of the Music Division attempted to crystallize notions hitherto unarticulated in regard to the teaching of music appreciation and to arrive at a sound philosophy with regard to basic objectives, methodology, and procedures.

Some Thoughts on Music Appreciation

ANY discussion along the line of presenting music appreciation should certainly be approached in a prayerful mood, and I, for one, feel most keenly my own ignorance and limitations in putting forth ideas on this subj ect. I am only doing so, with the hope that out of many years' experience and after stumbling along the way for some time, I may be of help to the young teacher, by stating a few facts relative to my own experiences and those of my associates. In writing this, I am reminded of a paper which Miss Glenn read some years past at a teachers' meeting held at the University of Illinois. She said that since this was her third or fourth presentation of her ideas of teaching music appreciation to children, prepared each year for this same conference, she was tempted to call this particular attempt The Evolution of Glenn. I should like to give this article some such name, but am only hoping that the Evolution of Teaching Music Appreciation at New Trier High School has been as successful an evolution as has been Miss Glenn's. Our high school requires a course in music appreciation for graduation, which is presented in the freshman year. It is needless to say that very little can be accomplished in so short a period of time, but the important point is that we do make some connection with every incoming freshman, which acquaintance, plus a bridging over of his interests from the grades into high school is certainly valuable.

Hearing is Believing

take the place of regular instruction in music by the local teachers, but we hoped that in many schools where music had not been regularly taught our broadcasts might arouse an interest which would lead to the acceptance of music as a necessity in the school life of young children. I am happy to say that our hopes have been fulfilled and that not only have our broadcasts become an actual course in music appreciation adopted in many schools, but singing and instrumental music have also received wider recognition as subjects proper to the school curriculum. The usefulness of these broadcasts, however, is not confined to the schoolroom. One little girl, for instance, snowed in last winter in a district far from school, received one of our Student Notebooks, and kept it herself, making our concerts her own course in music appreciation, while seizing every opportunity to listen in to similar music which came over the air without the explanations of our

Suggested Graded Course in Music Appreciation for First Six Years

Suggested Graded Course in Music Appreciation for First Six Years

Suggested Graded Course in Music Appreciation for First Six Years

Suggested Graded Course in Music Appreciation for First Six Years

Music Instruction in Junior and Senior High Schools in Forty Representative Cities

3,usic instruction of any importance is comparatively recent in high-school education in this country. Both vocal music and some instrumental music were a part of the curriculums of some of our early academies, eventually finding their way, as did many other secondary-school subjects, into the high school from this source. Although Boston is considered the cradle of public-school music in America, music instruction was not introduced into its high schools until 1872, thirty-five years after its first adoption. Definite mention is made of the establishment of music-teaching in the high schools of Chicago in 1848, of Cleveland in 1851, of Providence in 1856, of Cincinnati and St. Louis in 1858, and of Lowell in about 1870.' The work was usually chorus or assembly singing once or twice a week and was not considered of sufficient importance to warrant regular school credit. Its status remained practically the same until after 90o6. Even at this late time there were but few schools offering music instruction of a more serious character than mere group singing. Cambridge offered a course in harmony, and, on the strength of its success, Boston and Worcester experimented with it as a high-school subject. Springfield, Massachusetts, had a course in harmony with credit and a course in music appreciation without credit, while Northampton offered in addition to harmony a course in voice culture with credit.2 This was considered an exemplification of the country's best offering in high-school music education! Its development covers a period of scarcely two score years;

Music Appreciation in the Junior High Schools of Detroit

The children in the Junior High Schools of Detroit are singularly fortunate in being able to base their course in music appreciation directly upon the Junior Concerts which are given outright by the Detroit Symphony Society to the boys and girls of the sixth through the ninth grades in the public and parochial schools of Detroit and Wayne County. 20,000 tickets are given away each year in a series of five pairs of concerts, the only condition being that each child shall have been previously prepared upon the numbers presented by the orchestra at each concert. The Symphony Society has realized with much wisdom that great music should not be for the adult musical public alone; if it is to become, as in Europe, the cherished possession of the entire people, love and appreciation for it must be inculcated in the bosoms of the youngsters and there is positively no way of doing this without permitting them to hear it. Briefly, the organization of this project is as follows: Before the symphony season closes in the spring, while Miss Rhetts, Educational director of the symphony, and Mr. Kolar, Associate Conductor of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra and the Junior concerts are still in town, the programs of the concerts for the coming season are selected and arranged great care being exercised to include only such numbers as may be reproduced in the schoolroom by means of the phonograph. In this fortunate day this does not imply a limitation as so much that is best in musical literature is now available in that form. Lists of the numbers to be played are furnished to all music and auditorium teachers weeks before the close of

The Symphony Orchestra and Music Appreciation. Outstanding Features of Course in Music Appreciation as Given in San Diego (Cal.) Elementary Schools

The Symphony Orchestra and Music Appreciation. Outstanding Features of Course in Music Appreciation as Given in San Diego (Cal.) Elementary Schools