Manual of Instructions and Interpretations for Measures of Musical Talent #247524

Musical talents vary enormously both in degree and kind. Many of these capacities can be measured before musical education has been begun. It is of inestimable value for the art of music that these capacities and traits should be discovered early and be analyzed for the purpose of guidance in musical education. The material presented in these records furnishes measures for five of the most fundamental and essential capacities of the musical mind. As we may hear the prima donna sing in school and home, so we can com mand the scientific means for aid in the detection, analysis, and rating of musical talents. These measures of musical talent comply with the following conditions: they are based on a thorough analysis of musical talent; they are standardized for content that does not need to be changed; they give quantitative results which may be verified to a high de gree of certainty; they are simple and as nearly self-operating as possible; they are adapted for group measurements; they take into account practice, training, age, and intelligence; they have a two fold value in the concrete information furnished, and in the train ing and pleasure gained from the critical hearing of musical ele_ ments. These measures are adapted primarily for use in the regular music course and for special surveys in the public schools. They should be used first in the fifth grade, because this is the earliest age at which group measurements 'can be made satisfactorily, and it is early enough to make serious arrangements for a musical edu cation. They should then be repeated in the eighth grade, just before the great sorting of children into the vocations of practical life and elective courses in the high school.