Books › Ayars, Contributions to the Art of Music in America by the Music Industries of Boston (1937) — the Squier, Farley, Rettberg, Rockwell and Elias Howe matter, 1937 › scan 81
Scan 81
Ayars, Contributions to the Art of Music in America by the Music Industries of Boston (1937) — the Squier, Farley, Rettberg, Rockwell and Elias Howe matter, 1937
14 lines. Read by computer on 27 September 2026. Printed page 59. See the scan on archive.org.
1SILVER, BURDETT AND COMPANY
3This company was founded in Boston by Edgar O. Silver at [address hidden] in 1885. Branches were opened soon afterwards in New York, Chicago and San Francisco. In July 1922 the home office was transferred from Boston to Newark, New Jersey, as a more central location. The Boston office, for many years at [address hidden], is now located at [address hidden] and is a centre for the company's business in New England.
5The second series of graded song books issued in the United States was "The Normal Music Course" compiled by John W. Tufts and H. E. Holt. This was originally published by D. Appleton and Company in 1883. The publishing rights for this course were secured in 1885 by Silver, Burdett and Company who started their business with this and the "Ward Rational Method of Reading." Mr. Holt was a pupil of Mr. Mason and assisted him as one of the music supervisors in Boston from 1869-1898. Mr. Tufts edited and composed the music for the various books "in which he was the first to use pictures illustrative of the text and drawn by himself." 9
7"The National Music Course" had demonstrated that all children could sing. So "The Normal Music Course" was designed to serve the double purpose (1) of providing plenty of exercises and songs graded so that the grade teacher could conduct the music lesson, and (2) of covering every problem so thoroughly that the children would be compelled to read music. 9
9The basis of the method was the teaching of the major scale as a melody from which all the intervals were developed. Both tonal and rhythmic dictation were emphasized and in dictation much use was made of the modulator, charts and five fingers to represent the staff. Ta te ti note names were used to designate the length of the notes, as rhythm was taught by the watching of a swinging pendulum instead of by beating time. The double process involved for the children, of thinking of pitch and ta te ti note names at the same time, was probably the reason why children could not read music easily after mastering the tonal and rhythmic problems. 9
11The series consisted of first, second and introductory third reader for soprano and alto voices, and two third readers, one for
139 Birge, Edward B. History of Public School Music in the United States p. 114.
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