GRAVES OF ACADEME
SIR,—The answer to Sidney Harrison's troubles con- cerning the teaching of contemporary music to 'Grade 8, GCE, local authority grant' students is fairly straightforward. I believe it also contains the answer to our academic troubles.
The fault lies firstly in the purgatorial system of graded exams which successfully strangulate any expression of modern grammar or musical initiative, and secondly in the teacher's archaic approach to sound.
The foundation grades issued by most publishers consist of largely antediluvian rubbish, suitable only for the emotional life of a retarded Victorian. There are few sounds here which will lead to the exciting world of Bartok and Stravinsky, Schoenberg and Webern.
Whilst the vital first stages of our musical life are so devoid of light, colour and imagination, can one wonder that many of the devoted teachers at our leading institutions dogmatically adhere to the tenets of 'forgotten ages. In their lives they have fashioned the various channels of musical education to their requirements. Meantime, creative music has progressed several centuries, and the dichotomy is complete.
Children are the first to respond to a vital, adven- turous conception of sound, and in time they will reject the limpid, barren and unmusical. What is needed at this stage are new editions for children by imaginative twentieth-century composers, a 100 per cent. increase.in the encouragement of creativity in children, and a gigantic bonfire of textbooks, sheet music and examination syllabuses which perpetuate sounds which ceased to be relevant 100 years ago.— Yours faithfully,
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