SINGING IN PREPARATORY SCHOOLS.

ONE of the most health-giving, mind-refreshing, and pleasurable exercises in which children can take part-God's gift of song-has been strangely neglected in Preparatory Schools. It is the exception to find a school where singing is systematically taught. This condition of things may have arisen from the indifference shown towards the subject by the children's parents, or from the presumed difficulty of obtaining satisfactory results from the methods of instruction known to the principals of schools. The period in our national history when, upon the music books being handed round at a social gathering, every gentleman was expected to be able to take his part in a madrigal was followed by one in which Lord Chesterfield's maxim, "If you love music, hear it; pay fiddlers to play to you, but never fiddle yourself: it makes a gentleman appear frivolous and contemptible," ruled the procedure in the domestic circle as in the more public of society functions. Neither in the nursery, in the schoolroom, in the drawing-room, nor in the church has the faculty of singing been cultivated to the extent which the means and opportunities for culture enjoyed by the upper classes would lead one to expect.

This neglect has resulted in the boys in Preparatory Schools being backward in their appreciation of musical sounds, and therefore more difficult to teach in the earlier stages than the children in the Primary (Board and similar) Schools. Musical education should commence in the nursery, by which is meant that the child's musical ear should be trained to distinguish melodies and to enjoy sweet sounds by hearing the mother's, or that poorest apology for nature's own provision, the nurse's lullabies and nursery rhymes. The importance to the subsequent musical progress of children from infancy hearing and imitating such simple ditties cannot be over-estimated. This nursery education is well described by Mrs. Florence A. Marshall in the preface to her Solfeggi (No. 26 of Novello's Music Primer):

"In all teaching that must be best which most closely follows the method of nature. Now, music is a language, and is best learned as speech is learned, the unconscious powers of memory, association, and reason, working together to guide the ear and inform the tongue. The first thing in music grasped by a childish ear is a tune, or fragment of tune. That tune depends for its coherency and charm on certain harmonic laws according to which notes enchain themselves together, and to which every phrase has reference. The little singer knows as much of these

natural laws as he does of those he is obeying while he walks or stands or falls, or as he knows of the derivation of the words and idioms he uses while chattering at his play. He likes the sounds. and the tunes which they make up. He learns to distinguish them as he learns human relationships. Starting from my

mother, my father,' my sister, and brother,' it occurs to him in time that his brother is his sister's brother as well as his, that both are children of his parents as he is. He sees among his playmates the same family ties-brothers, sisters, parents; all different people, relationships the same; hence by-and-bye he realises the idea of a family. Nor, because he sees these alwaysrepeated relationships, does he mistake one individual for another. He knows Jack from Tom, and his own father from Jack's father. So in music, by means of melody, of many melodies all made up of different arrangements of sounds bearing yet certain constant relations to each other, his ear may be trained to recognise each of these sounds as they follow each other in ordered succession. If this takes longer than it takes him to learn his native tongue, it is because he does not hear the language of music spoken around him all day long, so that his musical faculties are only occasionally roused to activity. But as fast as his ear recognises each sound-relation, a sign for it may be given to him by which his eye knows it also. All this has nothing to do with the pitch of the notes. He may perceive that also, and should be led to notice it; but it is a thing apart. A tune he once knows he will know again, whether it be sung high or low, by a man or a woman, or played on an instrument." Although this kind of nursery education is still greatly neglected, there has been, of recent years, an awakening with regard to musical culture, especially in its instrumental forms. "Fiddling" is no longer looked upon as a frivolous amusement, or pianoforte playing as being suitable only for girls. For many years the Public Schools and Universities have given greatly increased attention to the subject, and have afforded opportunities for vocal and instrumental practice which have contributed greatly to the musical development of the nation, while in the Elementary Schools the benefits the study of vocal music is able to confer have long been recognised. It is, in fact, not too much to say that the moral, intellectual, and physical condition of the children in those schools has been enormously improved by their systematic instruction in singing.

Singing is not only the most natural and heart-stirring of all forms of music, it is, as all musical educationalists agree in declaring, the one which should provide the basis of instruction in the other branches of the subject. Through the use of the voice should be cultivated that mental conception of the sound represented by the written note, which has been called "hearing with the eye," and that other faculty of analysing or naming the sounds heard which has been similarly described as "seeing with the ear." The study of vocal music has also an advantage over that of an instrument, because singing from notes may be successfully taught to large classes, whereas individual lessons

are required by the learner upon any kind of instrument. Another and a very important reason for commencing with singing is that a much smaller amount of time will produce far greater results than are obtainable from instruction upon the pianoforte, violin, or other instrument. The latter point is one which would doubtless weigh with the principal of a school who desires to introduce or to extend the study of music among his boys, but who is deterred by the difficulty of finding time in the already crowded school curriculum. The circumstance that

a considerable proportion of the boys on entering the school are unable to sing the simplest tune from memory; that others are unable to repeat a phrase of "God Save the Queen" after a pattern has been given; and that some cannot even imitate a single sound or alter the pitch of their voices higher or lower at the teacher's request, need not create a feeling of despair in that principal's mind. Frequent and carefully graded lessons given upon a good method will effect wonders. Inability to sing almost invariably arises from a defective or neglected ear, not from an absence of voice. By degrees a boy's dormant musical perceptions may be awakened, his ability to imitate given sounds would follow, and ultimately it may be possible to train him to produce musical intervals at will. This training in the case of some boys is a very slow process, and it has to be considered by those responsible for their general education whether or not it is worth while to persevere with them. The experience of a school where great attention has always been given to music may here be quoted. About one-third of the new boys are musically inclined, and can quickly be taught to sing, the remainder are more or less deficient in ear. Of the latter, those who fail to master the tones of the major scale after two or three terms are put to other work during the time of the singing lesson. These non-singers vary from one-quarter to one-third of the whole school.

The subject of instruction in singing may be divided into three branches: (1) Voice Production, (2) Singing from Notes, and (3) Rendering Songs or Part Singing.

Under the first head would come breathing, breath control in voice production, vowel quality, and resonance. Much could be said upon these matters, and specialists in this department of musical training would desire that all teachers should go through a complete course of study in these essentials. Failing a thorough knowledge of the subject (and it must be admitted that voice specialists differ considerably upon almost every detail of voice production) a short course of lessons in breathing and cognate exercises would greatly increase the teacher's usefulness. If no school took up the practice of singing until it was possible or convenient to engage an expert in voice training, it is to be feared the majority of schools would remain unmusical, or, at least, non-vocal, When voice production shall have been taught for years in all the Public Schools and Universities, assistant masters will be available for Preparatory Schools who have a thorough knowledge of the subject. At present the

heads of schools must be content with masters who show aptitude for singing, who can set a good example in quality of voice and general style, and who will observe and correct flagrant errors of the pupils. Suitable exercises for the teacher's use may be found in many Voice Training Primers. Special attention should be directed to securing pure tone, every symptom of harshness being corrected by insisting on soft singing with the mouth well open. Flat voices are frequently corrected by the use of chordal exercises instead of scales, and, where there is a tendency to force the "registers" upwards, the voice should be trained by downward scales sung softly.

In teaching to sing from notes, or sight-singing as it is commonly called, success will greatly depend upon the method of instruction employed. The playing upon a piano of the exercise or piece to be taught until the pupils have learnt it by ear is most strongly deprecated as a waste of time and intelligence which no head of a school should tolerate. By sight singing is meant the unaided rendering by single pupils, or a class, of music the notes of which they have not seen or heard before. A method must be found which will appeal to the musical capacities of the boys, and one which should be able to develop the power of singing in the case of children who have been deprived in their earliest years of the inestimable advantage of nursery training. The first thing to be done is to lead the pupils to recognise, name, and sing the "family of tones "-the key tone and six related tones forming the major scale. The simplest possible sign should be used to denote each musical fact learnt. No calculation or analysis should be required before the pupil can find the name of the written note the sound of which he is to give. To attempt to teach a number of signsclefs, sharps, flats, time values of notes and rests, key signatures, time signatures, &c.-as many teachers do at the outset of the singing course, is to invest the subject with perfectly gratuitous difficulty, and to render it practically impossible for any but the musically gifted children to make progress.

The ability to individualize the tones of the scale, to make each tone as clear to the mind as colours are to the eye or textures to the touch, has been for many centuries chiefly accomplished by the use of the Italian syllables do re mi fa sol la si, in some form or other. Unfortunately they have been employed in two opposite senses, in one case representing fixed sounds, and being merely other names for the alphabetical designations of C D E F GAB notes, ie, do re mi fa sol la si, and in the other case indicating relative pitch or key relationship. The former or fixed do method was adapted from Wilhem's system as practised in France and Germany by the late Dr. Hullah. After many years' trial in the training colleges and elementary schools of this country, as well as in public singing classes and choral societies, the system was found to be a failure. Previous to this period the movable do had always been in use, and proof of what could be accomplished in sight singing by the application of the syllables

to express key relationship was given by John Curwen in his "Tonic Sol-fa Method of Teaching to Sing." Under the guidance of Her Majesty's present Inspector of Music (Sir John Stainer) the movable do has been reinstated as the officially approved system of teaching, and since then skill in singing has progressed by leaps and bounds in the Training Colleges and the State-aided schools of the country.

Much of this success is due to the simplified notation with which the return to the movable do was accompanied. The pitch of sounds is represented by the first letter of the syllables before mentioned (with the substitution of t for the s of si), thus: dr mfslt. Higher and lower octaves are shown by figures, thus: -d1 de d, d, etc. Names are provided for the chromatic tones (sharps and flats), and changes of key in the course of a tune are shown by a double name-that of the sound in the old key and the name it assumes in the new key, thus $d (meaning that sol becomes do). This is called a bridge note. Accent is indicated by bars and colons, which, placed at regular distances along the paper, give a pictorial representation of duration of time. Divisions of the pulse, or beat (the unit of time value) are shown by a dot or comma placed in certain positions The general appearance of the letter notation, as also its simplicity in the representation of a difficult passage, may be illustrated by an extract from Spohr's Oratorio "The Last Judgment."