100 Years Ago: Alton Schools Host Music Memory Contest

In May 1926, fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth grade students in the public schools participated in a music memory contest as part of Alton’s Music Week observance. A component of the music instruction program was to sing or listen to well-known compositions by the masters, and to study composers’ lives. For the music memory contest, parts of compositions were sung or played, and the students wrote the title of the number, the composer, and his musical nationality on specially prepared paper blanks.

Miss Mary Maguire, supervisor of music in the schools, reported the results to the Alton Evening Telegraph in an article published on May 7, 1926. The students performed remarkably well in the contest. Out of a total of 878 pupils, 377 made a perfect score of 60. The lowest individual score was 28, but the median for the total number of students taking it was incredibly high: 56.

This was not the first music memory contest in Alton. The earliest mention in the Alton Evening Telegraph of a music memory contest was in 1924. A December 17, 1924, article talked about the upcoming contest (organized by Mary Maguire) in which teams from ten Alton schools would participate at Alton High School on December 20. According to the article, the idea of music memory contests in schools originated in the home of C.W. Tremaine, director of the National Bureau for the Advancement of Music. “The music memory contest is an effective device for familiarizing children with good music and for inculcating in them love for good music. It also has an educational value in teaching the child to concentrate and analyze.”

Sources

Alton High School (Alton, Ill). 1925. “The Tatler.https://archive.org/details/AltonHS_Tatler_1925

“Major Programs Mark Third Day of Music Week.” Alton Evening Telegraph (Alton, IL), May 8, 1926.

“Music Memory Contest for Alton Pupils.” Alton Evening Telegraph (Alton, IL), December 17, 1924.

“Music Memory Contest in Public Schools.” Alton Evening Telegraph (Alton, IL), May 7, 1926.

“Observance of Music Week for Alton Launched.” Alton Evening Telegraph (Alton, IL), May 3, 1926.

“Observance of Music Week in Alton Success.” Alton Evening Telegraph (Alton, IL), May 8, 1926.

“Our National Music.” Geo. H. Walker & Co., 1888. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, LC-DIG-pga-02990https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/96507808/

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