Mediocrity and Music
Buchanan, Julia Duncan
466 THE COMMONWEAL September 22, 1926 MEDIOCRITY AND...
...A pedagogical background is as point of view than Fritz Spindler, yet many Catholic necessary as technique in the art of teaching any submusic students know something of Spindler and noth- ject...
...We have had time to see the re- look to the type of instruction those children have sults of the "new teaching," and we see they are good...
...The that little concerns the teachers of music in that insti- standard is high, let us endeavor to reach up to it...
...knowledge which the great talent and unflagging zeal So far as lack of progress in the arts is concerned, all of Mrs...
...It is doubly young ladies who had graduated from that very excel- our duty to give our children the best of educational lent institution, and after hearing them play, I could advantages, for it is their heritage and their due...
...I have been told that I would insist on the Angel ing at all of Palestrina 1 Gabriel studying general pedagogy before he would How many Catholic teachers of music do we find be allowed to blow his horn...
...One who has rial and the methods being used, the wonder grows acquired facility in musical technique only . . . will upon me that an educational standard that calls for never elicit from a chorus the great inspirations of music...
...This sort of thing is perhaps a kindness ods of teaching...
...A very large cause of the smothering of the art spirit in England percentage of our concert artists play by the grace of for centuries...
...Another large institution always had the piano opportunity for advancing the knowledge and love of students learn, by brute strength or otherwise, to play art is present at all times among all people...
...of the necessity of musicianship and general culture, As a. special lecturer, I have seen evidences of lag...
...events of which he is integrally a part...
...Music years...
...The best teacher is one who has a wholesomething which the Spaniards call "simpatica" ? hearted love for truth and beauty, and the ability to Ordinary judgment is as desirable in a teacher as in transmit that love for art and her knowledge of it to other individuals, and a teacher should possess a her students...
...and a sound pedagogy in the training of boy choirs...
...Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms sidering its liturgical dignity, and its human charm were quite unknown to them, while Debussy, Ravel, as an elevating influence...
...Is this the fault of the children, or should we matics or history...
...It is a definite and criminal lower- Of the many beautiful gifts to civilization made by ing of our standing, which we cannot afford to have the Church, perhaps the most winsome, and outside lowered in any degree, and of our standard, which in of its own divine office, the most spiritual, is music, other things is of the highest...
...Bach, Haydn, Mozart, Bee- music itself, his failure as a choral conductor is assured...
...Music should not be treated as September 22, 1926 THE COMMONWEAL 467 a luxury for the few, but as a necessity for all, con- pick their Alma Mater...
...that art developed so capably and fostered so lovingly It is significant of our teaching in the immediate until the more recent years when the Church's indolent past as well as in the present, that while the radio and and unappreciative children became indifferent to its phonograph serve as stimulants to the art spirit of higher implications...
...Yet, I have known...
...Is it not the part of wisdom to anto teachers, but an unforgivable injustice to the chil- alyze the music situation in which we find ourselves in dren...
...Teachers have realized more fully the publishers and teachers agree that never before has importance of applying to their problems the helps there been such activity in music study, yet organists that have made general pedagogy more direct, more and choir leaders in certain Catholic Churches here in interesting, more instructive, and therefore more valu- the East say it is impossible to find children of highable...
...Of course, the answer taking courses of pedagogy, of psychology, of history, to that is that the shining Archangel is rated as the of literature, or the appreciation of paintings...
...The tution...
...John sympathy, understanding, open-mindedness, and again was of vastly more inspiring stuff than the fat king...
...worse than folly...
...more than less than the text-book subjects...
...in order to attain the results that are the goal of Would it not be better to acknowledge our musical teaching...
...Someone edly have been given to him if he had been sent as a has said that teaching was the art of assisting the pedagogue instead of . as a messenger...
...they neither know how they do it, nor how to every Catholic child how and when the arts were in- teach others...
...reputable schools where their teaching was anything Analysis will either support or disprove our methbut an asset...
...But in this, as in every new movement, there are those Obviously, there have been some excellent teachers who do not take the trouble to overcome the inertia among choirmasters...
...It is the Second Mazurka 'by Godard...
...John of Fornsete should be made known to teacher...
...It should be the proud knowledge of God...
...Is it possible to stimulate the student sympathetic understanding of the student's peculiar re- to effort, to interest, and so to knowledge if there is quirements of temperament, intelligence, and ambition, no definiteness in the mind of the teacher herself...
...ging spirit among instructors whether they taught as In an unusually illuminating article (Music, Monks, free lances or in educational institutions, and it has and Moderns, the Catholic World, August, 1924) he been a source of never-failing surprise and dismay to says, in speaking of choral conductors find in certain Catholic institutions of high standing He must be a student, a thinker...
...mind to self-improvement, and furnishing it with suit- Of all people, Catholics should make the study of able material at each stage of its development in order music an intellectual thing...
...He must have the this same hampering of progress in the music depart- habit of weighing in the balance his daily experiences ments...
...not be over-valued, just as it is impossible to praise How many teachers of music in Catholic institutions too highly the ear-training and general theoretical have studied the history of the art they are teaching...
...The best teaching is to show gogy, .vhich includes morals, psychology, history, art, what is good and the principles by which it is to be and who, in addition, is blessed with that intangible judged...
...466 THE COMMONWEAL September 22, 1926 MEDIOCRITY AND MUSIC By JULIA DUNCAN BUCHANAN THERE has been a great advance in the tech- Jewish and Protestant children, they act only as subnique of music pedagogy during the last fifteen stitutes for our indolent brethren of the Faith...
...One of the foremost Catholic institutions here our schools and colleges without bias either for or in America provides for its students of instrumental against, but seeking always to arrive at a definite and music, teachers whose methods of pedagogy would clear survey of our music education condition, and seem to date back to sometime before the animals filed then strengthen our weak spots...
...instances of lay teachers shortcomings in our educational institutions and, with who, by telling hard-luck stories to tender-hearted open minds, make a great effort to find a more definite sister superiors, would obtain teaching positions in and scientific way of study than that used so largely...
...patience, for who was it said that it took the patience Palestrina is of infinitely more value from an artistic of God to teach...
...But why, in the name of the colleges, for many of our non-sectarian institutions are music-loving Saint Gregory, do we not see that to train in the same lamentable condition...
...We have learned that the study of method is as school age who are able to play simple hymns on the fiecessary in teaching music as it is in teaching mathe- piano...
...We are making a great endeavor to instruct the The Church's tradition in music is a glorious one, mass of Catholic children in the singing of Gregorian and, as a rule, is admitted as such by our non-Catholic chant, and so bring back to the people at large that scholars very whole-heartedly...
...How many students of part of the ritual of the Church which they have al- music in Catholic institutions know the wonderful and lowed to lapse...
...Another institution always and forever, the welfare of our Catholic young of high standing provides seats at the opera for its people, for on them falls the burden and the honor of students, but whether the students know anything of carrying on the great and glorious tradition that our opera either before or after attendance, is a matter Holy Mother Church has handed down to us...
...Not many...
...they should be Thibetan Lamas for all their knowledge of them 1 trained in the knowledge and traditions of the Church, To be a successful teacher of music, one must first and this includes the arts so beautifully cared for and be a teacher...
...thoven, Schumann, and Tschaikowsky and Rebikov are, quite as easily assimilated as Hearts and Flowers, The principles of pedagogy remain the same in any and the Ben-Hur Chariot Race March, and are of in- phase of any educational subject-in music, rather finitely more value...
...Justine Ward made possible in the schools the non-advance is not limited to Catholic schools and throughout the country...
...As I go from place to place and see the mate- according to a religious standard...
...No amount of musicianship will atone developed by that wise Mother of men...
...George for lack of pedagogical ability...
...It is an excellent movement and can- inspiring story of how and when music was made...
...but by all the virtue the children in the best of ecclesiastic music, and then of inheritance and tradition we expect to find our own to feed them on the poorest type of profane music, is on a higher level...
...had for the lack of interest they show...
...Facility of execution does not mean ability every child studying music, certainly as well as every to transmit knowledge, for it does not include patience, child studying history knows Henry the Eighth...
...Shields's Philosophy of Education, and Barrett's The choral conductor should be educated in the humaniPsychology, should consider the Battle of Prague and ties...
...Let us have in mind so decorously by twos into the Ark...
...briefly, if he permit Why should not these children be brought up on the his mind to be circumscribed by unrelated frontiers of best of music literature...
...Mediocrity in music is not and Stravinsky might have been the names of three good enough for our Catholic children...
...Virtuosi, as a general rule, have not troduced in England, and of the flowering of those analytical minds, which is the first requisite of a arts...
...Perhaps he needs such education more than other the Black Hawk Waltz as suitable material for the musicians...
...How best of the trumpet virtuosi and had too much sense many Catholic teachers of music do we find among the to teach without special powers, which would undoubtclasses of master musicians...
...I have met many doubly so among our Catholic children...
...if he fail to interest himself deeply in the current development of the art spirit in Catholic children...
...When music is treated in to express that development...
...Many really excellent Grey Barnard said that the Reformation was the direct musicians are notoriously bad teachers...
...How is it to be done an educational way, the necessity of trained teachers unless there is a teacher who has been trained in peda- is at once apparent...
...Father Finn of the Paulists, has that a proposed change always encounters, and this is long preached and taught, and given concrete example a real obstacle to be surmounted...
...If he be not a student of history and literature...
Vol. 4 • September 1926 • No. 20
