A 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 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. Dissertation Publishing UMI EP65344 Published by ProQuest LLC (2014). Copyright in the Dissertation held by the Author. Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code ProQuest LLC. 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106- 1346 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.