Table Of ContentA COMPARATIVE STUDY OP
THE MUSIC APPRECIATION BROADCASTS POR SCHOOLS OP
THE STANDARD OIL COMPANY OP CALIFORNIA AND •
THE AUSTRALIAN BROADCASTING COMMISSION
A Thesis
Presented to
the Faculty of the Department of
Radio and Television
The University of Southern California
In Partial Fulfillment
of the Requirements for the Degree
Master of Arts
by
Camille E.B.Montgomery
January 1951
UMI Number: EP65344
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This thesis, written by
Camille. .............
under the guidance of fax.....Faculty Committee,
and approved by all its members, has been
presented to and accepted by the Council on
Graduate Study and Research in partial fulfill
ment of the requirements for the degree of
......Ias.tsx. Ark..............
HARRY J. DEUEL, Jr.
............Deafi...............
Date..
Faculty CojjHrtTi>tee
Chairman
TABLE OP CONTENTS
CHAPTER _ PAGE
I. THE IMPORTANCE OP THE PROBLEM................ 1
Statement of the problem................... 11
Sources of data........................... 14
Organization of the study.................. 14
II. REVIEW OP THE LITERATURE........... 16
General recognition of radio in education... 16
Definition of an educational broadcast..... 17
Criteria of broadcasts for schools. . ...... 20
Co-operation betv/een educators and
broadcasters........... 26
Actual listening to broadcasts............. 28
Music broadcasts......... 30
Effect of radio music.................... 31
Demand for serious music................. 32
Difficulty of teaching music appreciation.. . 33
Need for teaching discrimination......... 34
Types of music appreciation programs....... 36
Special criteria for music appreciation
broadcasts.............................. 40
CHAPTER PAGE
III. REVIEW OP THE TWO SERIES "A MUSIC-MAP OP
AMERICA” A m "LET'S LIS TEH TO MUSIC.11...... 44
Brief history of educational broadcasting
in the United States..................... 44
Brief, history of educational broadcasting
in Australia ............. 49
Organization and policy. .............. 57
Special departments controlling the
broadcasts............................ 57.
Co-operation between educators and
broadcasters....... 59
Policy.................................. 66
Use of professional actors, scriptwriters,
and musicians.......................... 71
Educational approaches, to music
appreciation....................... 73
Development of present programs.......... 74,
Review of the two series................. 80'
"A Music-Map of America”............... 81
"Let's Listen to Music"................ 84
Other Commission music appreciation
series................................ 88
"Music through Song”.......... 88
"Music through Movement"............... 89
"Kindergarten of the Air” . .... . . ..93.
CHAPTER PAGE
Fumbers and age range of listeners....... 94
Evaluation of the programs............... 98
Research.................................. 103
IV. SUMMARY AFP C0FC1USI0FS........... 109
Summary of findings........... 109
Conclusions and recommendations. . ........... 116 ■
BIBLIOGRAPHY 125 ,
CHAPTER I
s
THE IMPORTANCE OP THE PROBLEM
t
Prom its very beginnings .in savage and .primitive
society, music has always been an integral, part of the life
of. the individual and the group. Prom earliest times, man
has relied on music to heighten, the impressiveness, of cer
emonies marking. the important, events of. his daily 1 if e.
Even today when people meet, for social, purposes.,..music is
used to set the required, atmosphere,, whether it be one of
festivity, solemnity, or sorrow.
Music has. conveyed and heightened, the. .emotional side
of man’ s experi enc e in triumph or despair; . in exaltation or
lament; in tenderness or in.ferocity. Every phase, of human
feeling has found expression in. music. Even the innermost
hopes and fears associated-with, man’s religious life and
his belief . in God form. a distinct..type of. music .ranging in
expression from the simplicity and sincerity, of the Negro
spiritual to the nobility and serenity.of the Gregorian
chant, or the grandeur and sweeping rhetoric..of. Bach.'*-
lEdwin John S-tringham and Joseph Machlis., ... ?’Listening
to Music Creatively, pp. 4-14.
2
For most people , the enjoyment of music ...comprises
listening, not composing or performing*.. ..However,., as
Stringham. and. Machlis maintain, 11siening. itself, may be
creative, though in. a different way from that. of ..performing
or composing* The listener must contribute, a love and
under standing .of- the art of. music, and . must also contribute
something original and personal...without, which..the efforts
of the composer, and perf ormer, remain incomplete* Since the
performers and composers, take, the listener as their, object
ive and complement, operating and living .only,..through him,
they confer upon him a definite .responsibility* To fulfill
this responsibility .the. listener, must, do more. than, listen
passively -- he must do more than merely hear — he must
listen "creatively.n
This "creative listening” . implies .manjr. factors for
3
Stringham and Machlis* To be specific, some of. these are
as follows
The listener must be first of all sympathetic, will
ing to respond, to the music.
^Ibid., pp.2-3
^Loc.cit.
3
Then, he must have a fairly' basic knowledge of the
style, type, and character of the musical work, its com
poser, the society in which he lived, and the circumstances
in which he composed,
To these must be added knowledge about the form of
music and the aural skills and tonal memory that come with
experience and practice.
And beyond all this, continue Stringham and Machlis,
the listener should be building his criteria of taste, the
ideal being catholicity of taste combined with high stand
ards. of discrimination. Thus, listening entails knowledge
understanding, and skill, just as performance and compos -
ition do, and these qualities are attained only through
training in music appreciation.
The scope and difficulty of music appreciation have
long been recognized. In 1789, Doctor Charles Burney, the
great historian of music wrote:
There have been many treatises published on the art
of musical composition and performance, but none to
instruct the ignorant lovers of music how to listen
or judge for themselves. 4
The contemporary writer, Percy A. Scholes, suggests
that the difficulty of music appreciation results, from four
4Percy A. Scholes, Music Appreciation, p. 3.
4
obstacles, f or. the lis tener ,, and that the . teaching .of music
appreciation entails the removal of these, obstacles.^ As he
lists them they are:-
i
first, the obstacle of.. form.. ihe listener.. gets
bewildered by any elaboration, of form and fails .to..recognize
musical themes as they are repeated.
Second, the obstacle . of. Texture, . . ^he ...listener, tends 1
to f ollow only the upper, thread on..the. music., neglecting the
rest.
Third, the obstacle of Style.. . ^he listener fails to
penetrate to the human feeling beneath, the older., forms and
textures of his.ancestors.
fourth, the. obstacle. of. Color. The listener fails to
eni oy many passages because of . lack ..of. training.
Today the universal acknowledgment, of. ..the need for
teaching music appreciation has. led to its...inclusion, in the
regular school curriculum.. As . a ..foremost .music, educator
Howard Hans on comments., enlightene d. educators realize
education .is. "the training of. the whole .person,, mind and
body, character, social.relationships, emotions...and.
6
aesthetic, sensitivity." Mr,. Hanson further declares that it
5lbid., 96.
p .
6
Howard Hanson, Music Educators. Journal, 34:7»1948.
