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MUSIC
AS A LANGUAGE

LECTURES TO
MUSIC STUDENTS

BY

ETHEL HOME

HEAD MISTRESS OF THE KENSINGTON HIGH SCHOOL

G.P.D.S.T.

OXFORD

AT THE CLARENDON PRESS

1916

PREFACE

The following lectures were delivered to music students between the years 1907 and 1915. They have been partly rewritten so as to be intelligible to a different audience, for in all cases the lectures were followed by a discussion in which various points not dealt with in the lectures were elucidated.

An experience of eight years in organizing a training course for students who wish to teach ear-training on modern lines to classes of average children in the ordinary curriculum of a school has shown me that the great need for such students is to realize the problems, not only of musical education, but of general education.

Owing to the nature of all art work the artist is too often inclined to see life in reference to his art alone. It is for this reason that he sometimes finds it difficult to fit in with the requirements of school life. He feels vaguely that his art matters so much more to the world than such things as grammar and geography; but when asked to give a reason for his faith, he is not always able to convince his hearers.

He feels with Ruskin that:

'The end of Art is as serious as that of other beautiful things—of the blue sky, and the green grass, and the clouds, and the dew. They are either useless, or they are of much deeper function than giving amusement.'

But he has not always the gift of words by means of which he can describe this function.

We want our artists, and their visions, and those of them who can realize a perspective in which their art takes its place with other educative forces are among the most valuable educators of the rising generation.

ETHEL HOME.
KENSINGTON,
January, 1916.

CONTENTS