Anthony L. Barresi

Children's Age-Related Intellectual Strategies for Dealing With Musical and Spatial Analogical Tasks

The authors of this study sought to determine whether there is an age-related, common level of logic underlying responses to musical and spatial analogical tasks and to characterize these levels of logic in terms of similar intellectual strategies. Children (N = 128) ranging in age from 6.5 to 12.5 years old were individually tested using author-designed Spatial Analogy Tasks (SANTs) and Musical Analogy Tasks (MANTs). Analyses of results indicated that (a) a sequential nature exists in a childs development of musical intellectual strategies; (b) this sequential development in music seems to parallel an age-related sequence in other areas of understanding (i.e., spatial concepts); and (c) a parallel, rather than identical, sequence between musical analogical reasoning and spatial analogical reasoning may be due to the complexity of musical concepts. That is, the musical tasks may have created a conceptual “overload” for this population of subjects.

Musical Cognition Within an Analogical Setting: Toward a Cognitive Component of Musical Aptitude in Children

This study is a cross-sectional investigation of the development of childrens information-processing and problem-solving strategies as they relate to musical cognition within an analogical setting. 111 children ranging in age from preschool through to 11 years were administered a series of musical analogy tests (MANTs), a series of spatial analogy tests (SANTs), and Gordons Primary Measures of Music Audiation. The results reinforced the results of an earlier study which revealed that the cognitive strategies used in spatial analogical tests appear very similar to those employed in musical analogical tests. These results should encourage researchers of musical aptitude to maintain the use of discrimination testing and also to broaden the scope of their investigations to include measurements of other aspects of intelligence so as to gain a more complete understanding of musical aptitude.

Edgar B. Gordon: A Pioneer in Media Music Education

Although he is remembered primarily for his work as president of the Music Supervisors National Conference during the mid-1920s, Edgar B. Gordons most unique contributions were associated with his highly influential but less publicized involvement with radio instruction in music. His pervading social philosophy, nurtured in the Chicago settlement movement and in the community arts activities of Winfield, Kansas, motivated him to participate in perhaps the earliest radio instruction in the nation (1921) as well as to devise materials and teaching techniques that would effectively teach music via radio to approximately one million rural Wisconsin children over a twenty-four year period (1931–1955). The author traces Gordons professional development, details his radio involvement, and analyzes his instructional techniques and materials.

The Roger Stevens Years

“If Stevens didn’t exist, we would have to invent him,” once remarked Abe Fortas, former justice of the Supreme Court.1 The Fortas comment sums the quality of this complex and brilliant man appointed by President Johnson to be the first chairman of the National Council for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts.

Development of Government Support for the Arts

The years between 1966 and 1976 witnessed approaches to support for the arts never before attempted in our nation’s history. For the first time, the federal government became substantially committed to the preservation and advancement of artists, arts organizations, and cultural opportunities for its citizens. Moreover, it accomplished these tasks with active cooperation from private, business, and foundation sectors. Through imaginative granting procedures which, in effect, extended federal dollars by matching them, the government was enabled to encourage artistic expression of quality, varied arts activities, improvements in arts education, and development of existing and future arts consumers.

The Nancy Hanks Years

The first decade of the National Endowment for the Arts breaks naturally into two divisions under its successive chairmen. If the first period was exciting, innovative, without a discernible pattern, often narrowly focused but full of promise, the second period began to fulfil the promise, develop patterns, and broaden the commitment to the world of the arts.

Opening Up the New Frontier

Making the arts nationally available to men and women in every walk of life was becoming a primary emphasis of the Council and the Arts Endowment in the early seventies. Under Nancy Hanks’ deft guidance, the Council had articulated its threefold purpose as the achievement of availability of the arts, cultural resources development, and advancement of the cultural heritage. The three goals provided a strong structure for handling the increasing numbers of requests that were coming into the program offices for assistance to a sweeping selection of arts activities. Without the three broad goals it would have been almost impossible to categorize and process the ferment of creativity the daily mail brought to each program director’s desk.

At the End of Ten Years

In 1965 Congress had found and declared that “the encouragement and support of national progress in the humanities and the arts, while primarily a matter of private and local initiative, is also a matter of concern to the Federal Government.”l This was landmark legislation. Not since the American Revolution had there been so clear a public statement by any Congress of the need for government to foster the quality of life. Indeed, the legislation went further than the simple “pursuit of happiness” into the essential human need for aesthetic nourishment of the spirit.

Reaching Legislative Consensus, 1960–1965

During the decades of the Fifties and Sixties, a tremendous expansion of interest in the arts in America occurred. This phenomenon, often termed in the popular press as a cultural “boom” or “explosion,” was characterized as a seeking for cultural sustenance by an affluent population in a variety of settings and through a variety of experiences.

The Role of the Federal Government in Support of the Arts and Music Education.

This report focuses upon the historic role of the federal government in support of the arts and music education by placing instances of federal assistance into periods identified by the common motivational factor of “necessity.” To better understand the factors influencing present-day funding procedures and the likelihood of continued subsidies, government support policies were grouped into periods of “practical necessity,” during the nations formative years; “economic necessity,” when the financial crisis of the Great Depression caused the government to provide work opportunities for unemployed artists and educators; and “cultural necessity,” during the 1960s and 1970s when aid was provided to meet the expressed needs of artists, educators, and arts consumers. Through the introduction of special programs, innovative funding activities, and creative projects, government support encouraged artists and educators, in recent years, to cooperate in the development of arts education efforts.