Radio in Music Education: The Indiana School of the Sky Music Episodes,1947

Abstract

In this study I examined archival material relating to music lessons that aired on the Indiana School of the Sky during its inaugural season in the 1947–1948 school year. The Indiana School of the Sky was an educational radio program intended for use in the public schools and produced by Indiana University students and professors, in partnership with the State Department of Education. The purpose of this study was to illuminate details of the Indiana School of the Sky music program during its inaugural season in 1947–1948, such as the staff, repertoire, teaching strategies, and program structure. Of particular interest was Dorothy G. Kelley, who served as supervisor of the Indiana School of the Sky music episodes during its inaugural season, and was the first female to join the faculty of the Music Education Department at Indiana University. A secondary purpose was to examine the intersection of education and technology in the late 1940s through the lens of the Indiana School of the Sky and to afford contemporary music educators the opportunity to reflect on how they use current technologies in their classrooms. This study found that the program employed three main teaching strategies: singalong, call and response, and listening. Indiana University music and music education students performed in many music episodes alongside Kelley, and 34% of compositions that aired during the 1948–1949 school year comprised of music by composers from the United States, or folk music originating in the United States. Other countries represented by either composer or folk tradition included Australia, Austria, Czechoslovakia, England, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Norway, Mexico, Russia, and Spain.

Keywords

Dorothy G. Kelley Indiana School of the Sky educational radio educational technology twentieth century Indiana University music education history

Pioneers of Music Educational Broadcasting

Armstrong Perry, member of the Payne Fund Committee on Educational Radio, wrote in 1929 that “the educational opportunities which are offered to the public by means of radio are most important and far-reaching.”¹

Armstrong Perry, Radio in Education: The Ohio School of the Air, and Other Experiments, 2nd ed. (New York, NY: The Payne Fund, 1929), 30.

According to Perry, radio found its way into public school classroom instruction as early at 1923, when lessons in accounting were given over the airwaves at Haaren High School in New York City.²

Ibid., 47.

The following year saw The Little Red Schoolhouse broadcast to schools in Cook County, Illinois.³

Ibid., 50.

In Oakland, California in 1924, an educational program was lauded as equally effective as a live teacher.⁴

Ibid., 49.

The overwhelming attitude was deeply optimistic: radio would provide expert instruction to learners in any corner of the country, bringing “a wider, richer world” into the classroom.⁵

Benjamin. H. Darrow, Radio Trailblazing; A Brief History of the Ohio School of the Air and Its Implications for Educational Broadcasting (Columbus, OH: College Book Company), 5.

It was to be the great democratizing tool of modern education, “equalizing education opportunities.”⁶

Cline M. Koon, “The Value of Radio in the Classroom,” in The American School of the Air: Teachers Manual and Classroom Guide, ed. Helen Johnson (New York, NY: Columbia Broadcasting Company, 1934), 10.

Writing in the Music Educators Journal in 1950, Edna Whitsey, an educator who taught radio music classes to first and second graders in the Cleveland public schools between 1934 and 1938,⁷

Constance Armfield Sanders, “A History of Radio in Music Education in the United States, with Emphasis on the Activities of Music Educators and on Certain Radio Music Series Designed for Elementary and Secondary Use,” (DME dissertation, University of Cincinnati, 1990), 283.

identified the following types of educational radio programs for teaching music: “Preparation and Production of Programs,” in which students learn about music by creating their own radio program; “The Listening Lesson,” synonymous with music appreciation, bringing music performances to the students not otherwise possible to have in the classroom, such as symphony orchestras or large choirs; “The Weekly Lesson,” consisting of basic instruction in rhythm, rote singing, and listening; “The Testing Program,” intended to evaluate musical talent or achievement by means of radio, and “Programs from Networks or Local Stations,” or programs not explicitly developed for classroom use, but that may have value for students.⁸

Edna A. Whitsey, “Radio in Music Education,” Music Educators Journal 37, no. 2 (1950): 26.

The “Listening Lesson,” or music appreciation, lent itself naturally to the radio medium. The Cleveland public schools, perhaps the first public school system to use radio to deliver music education, first broadcast music appreciation lessons between 1925 and 1928.⁹

Sanders, “A History of Radio,” 280.

Taught twice per week by the school system’s Supervisor of Music Appreciation Alice Keith, this program was a collaboration between Keith and Arthur Shepherd, director of young people’s concerts at the Cleveland Orchestra. Concert attendance was reportedly doubled as a result of this initiative.¹⁰

Michael L. Mark and Charles L. Gary, A History of American Music Education, 3rd ed. (Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield Education, 2007), 294.

The NBC Music Appreciation Hour, an ambitious project created by conductor and educator Walter Damrosch, aired from 1928 until 1942. This monumental project included four levels of programming, serving students in grades three through adult.¹¹

Sondra Wieland Howe, “The NBC Music Appreciation Hour: Radio Broadcasts of Walter Damrosch, 1928-1942,” Journal of Research in Music Education 51, no. 1 (Spring 2003): 64–77.

Frances Elliott Clark, Ann Shaw Faulkner Oberndorfer and Marguerite V. Hood were also pioneers of music appreciation through recorded music, first by Victrola recordings and later through the more widely accessible radio.

After a 27-year career in education, first as a teacher and later as a school music supervisor, Frances Elliott Clark accepted the position of Head of the new Educational Department at the Victor Company (later known as RCA Victor Recordings) in 1911.¹²

Eugene M. Stoddard, “Frances Elliott Clark: Her Life and Contributions to Music Education” (PhD dissertation, Brigham Young University, 1968): 86.

With recorded music still in its advent, there were few educational recordings for children. The mission of Victor’s Educational Department was “to place the finest music, the works of the great artists, within reach of every child,”¹³

Stoddard, “Frances Elliott Clark,” 87.

and Clark quickly went to work leading the effort in producing content for children and convincing educators of the value of recorded music in the classroom. Under her direction, Victor’s Educational Department produced roughly five hundred recordings for educational purposes.¹⁴

Ibid., 99.

A notable collaboration between Clark’s Educational Department and the music teacher and gifted writer and lecturer Ann Shaw Faulkner Oberndorfer resulted in a course in music history and appreciation for high school students and adults that consisted of a book titled What We Hear in Music. Written by Faulkner, each of the 30 lessons featured a corresponding list of composition titles, composers, performers, and Victor Record Numbers so that learners could listen along with the text.¹⁵

Ibid., 110.

The great popularity of What We Hear in Music with its accompanying recordings saw it published in 13 editions over a span of 30 years.¹⁶

Terese M. Volk, “Anne Shaw Faulkner Oberndorfer (1877-1948): Music Educator for the Homemakers of America,” Journal of Historical Research in Music Education 29, no. 1 (October 2007): 27.

The genesis of Faulkner’s contribution to education by radio may be traced in part to her exposure to the Educational Department at Victor Recordings, as well as the regular preconcert lectures that she gave before Chicago Symphony Orchestra Concerts between 1897 and 1935.¹⁷

Ibid., 27.

Faulkner put the skills she developed through this regular engagement to use in a radio show broadcast on a weekly basis in 1926–1927.¹⁸

Ibid., 35.

She also organized Music Memory Contests for children, consisting of a month of lessons given by radio broadcast that focused on repertoire, followed by a listening test that children could complete and mail in for a prize.¹⁹

Ibid., 36.

Music supervisors used Faulkner’s Music Memory Contests to supplement their school music programs,²⁰

Ibid., 36.

and could be regarded as an example of what Whitsey would later categorize as “Testing Program.”

Marguerite V. Hood became state supervisor of music in Montana in 1930. Feeling that rural schoolchildren and communities benefited greatly from music education radio programs, Hood promoted programs such as the NBC Music Appreciation Hour, Alice in Orchestralia and the Standard Symphony Hour in her monthly column “The Music Round Table” that appeared in the Montana Educator.²¹

Shelly Cooper, “Marguerite V. Hood and Music Education Radio Broadcasts in Rural Montana (1937-39),” Journal of Research in Music Education 53, no. 4 (Winter 2005): 297.

When she stepped down as state supervisor, Hood created and directed the Montana School of the Air program, a music education broadcast intended for students in grades four through eight that ran for two school years. This program may have reached as many as 10,000 children in Montana in its first season.²²

Ibid., 299.

The Montana School of the Air featured listening lessons, with a narrator providing background on musical selections, the music itself, and a lesson worksheet to further engage students. Hood also provided classroom teachers with lesson outlines and recommendations on how to facilitate successful radio listening in the classroom.²³

Ibid., 301.

Some programs sought to go beyond music appreciation. For example, the lessons taught by Edna Whitsey and Myrtle Head in the Cleveland public schools in the 1930s, utilized teaching techniques such as “rhythmic activities, stories, dramatizations, and direct rote teaching.”²⁴

Sanders, “A History of Radio,” 284.

A program for rural schools in Humboldt County, California that was implemented in 1938, included review, tone drills, and songs by rote, in addition to music appreciation.²⁵

Marie Clark Ostrander, “Music Education by Radio,” Music Educators Journal 25, no. 3 (1938): 28.

These programs and others endeavored to use radio as an active teacher rather than simply as a music appreciation repertoire resource, and students were required to respond in nuanced ways, such as repeating melodies and lyrics back to the radio teacher.

The Indiana School of the Sky

Ten years after Hood began her radio broadcasts in Montana, the Indiana School of the Sky (ISS) saw its first season of broadcasting. Through a partnership between the State Department of Education, Indiana University (IU), and donated airtime from local radio stations, radio instruction came to elementary public school classrooms across Indiana for the first time on October 6, 1947. Like the program in California, the ISS required active participation from listeners with singing, review, and in one case even composition, in addition to music appreciation. Intended to provide “stimulating instruction” and to “lighten the labor” of the already busy teacher,²⁶

Indiana School of the Sky Teachers Manual 1947–1948 (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Department of Radio and Television Chair’s records, Collection C104, Indiana University Archives), 3.

in its inaugural season in 1947–1948 the ISS consisted of 15-minute episodes broadcast to elementary school classrooms every weekday. The music program aired on Mondays, with social studies on Tuesdays, on art Wednesdays, science on Thursdays, and a program called “The Story Book” on Fridays.²⁷

“Teachers Manual,” 19.

In addition to similarities with the music program in Humboldt County, the format of the ISS may have been adapted from the American School of the Air, a program that in the 1938–1939 school year broadcast one topic every school day, and featured music on Tuesdays.²⁸

The American School of the Air Teachers Manual and Classroom Guide, 1938-1939 (New York, NY: Columbia Broadcasting Company), 3.

Dorothy G. Kelley, a new teacher at IU and first female professor to join the music education department, supervised the music episodes.

Purpose and Need for Study

I examined a variety of printed and recorded material on the ISS, located in the Indiana University Archives (IU Archives) at the Bloomington campus. I engaged in this inquiry to illuminate details of the program such as the staff, repertoire, and structure of the music programming during the inaugural season of 1947–1948 and paint an intimate picture of individuals involved in the project. A secondary purpose was to examine the intersection of education and technology in the late 1940s through the lens of the ISS.

Telling this story fills a gap in the historical record of educational radio. I could find no information on the ISS outside of the raw material in the IU Archives. This study also brings to light the work of Dorothy G. Kelley (1900–1987), a woman who contributed to music education by radio through her leadership and creativity in the 1947–1948 season of the ISS. Through this research, I aim to add Kelley to the list of other pioneering women in music education such as Frances Elliott Clark, Ann Shaw Faulkner Oberndorfer, and Marguerite V. Hood.

In her 1950 Music Educators Journal article, Whitsey cautioned fellow educators that radios “are tools and devices rather than methods.”²⁹

Edna A. Whitsey, “Radio in Music Education,” Music Educators Journal 37, no. 2 (1950): 26.

Richard Clark, an outspoken critic of media in education, published a review of research in 1983 and suggested that “media do not influence learning under any conditions.”³⁰

Richard Clark, “Reconsidering Research on Learning from Media,” Review of Educational Research 58, no. 4 (1983): 445.

In apparent agreement with Whitsey, Clark likened media to a vehicle delivering instruction; while the vehicle could effectively deliver curriculum, the content rather than the vehicle itself impacted learning outcomes. Teachers and students alike can inadvertently create technology-centered environments where manipulating the technology takes precedent over meaningful learning experiences. With this in mind, I examine how the ISS creatively navigated radio as a delivery method of music instruction.

Research Questions

Questions included the following: What role did Dorothy Kelley, the first female faculty member in the IU Music Education Department, play in the ISS music programs? To what extent were IU students involved in this project? Which composers, performers, musical eras, and genres of music are represented in the ISS music program broadcasts from 1947–1948? What teaching strategies are present in the broadcasts? Did episodes follow a standard format, or did they change over time? And finally, did radio deliver meaningful learning experiences?

Methodology

This project employed immersion and content analysis as the primary research methodologies.³¹

Terese M. Volk, “Looking Back in Time: On Being a Music Education Historian.” Journal of Historical Research in Music Education 25, no. 1 (October 2003): 55.

I examined the IU Department of Radio and Television Chair’s Records, the Indiana School of the Sky Records, and IU Bulletins from the late 1940s. Online resources included audio recordings transferred from lacquer disks to digital files, and archival photographs, also digitized.

Physical artifacts examined from the Chair’s Records included original publicity pamphlets intended for distribution at teachers’ conferences; newspaper and periodical clippings; the song book compiled by Kelley titled Music in the Air; the Teachers Manual 1947–1948,³²

Digital copies of these artifacts can be found in the Archives Online, Indiana University Department of Radio and Television Chair’s Records, Box 4.

compiled by the professors collaborating on the project; correspondences between IU, local radio stations, and technology manufacturers; and a blank survey put out by the Department of Education intended to measure classroom teachers’ perceptions of the effectiveness and reach of the ISS. This survey was also duplicated in the back of the Teachers Manual.

I listened to 29 music program episodes from the 1947–1948 ISS season. These digital files are housed in the Media Collections Online as an additional part of the Indiana School of the Sky Records. Miraculously preserved after being forgotten in a dusty attic in Franklin Hall on the Bloomington campus for as many as 50 years, a maintenance inspector came across a pile of lacquer disks by chance in 2009 and alerted the Media Preservation Initiative at IU.³³

Patrick Feaster, “The School of the Sky Returns,” Media Preservation (Media Preservation Initiative at IU Bloomington, November 26, 2012), https://mediapreservation.wordpress.com/2012/04/12/the-school-of-the-sky-returns/

The disks were transferred to the Archives of Traditional Music for preservation, and the resulting digital sound recordings, easily accessible to the public on the Media Collections website, provide an auditory picture of many ISS programs, including the music programs from the 1947–1948 season.³⁴

All of the digital sound recordings can be accessed online at this address: https://media.dlib.indiana.edu/collections/dz010q170

To give the reader a sense of a typical music episode format, I provide the following narrative outlining how episodes generally ran during the 1947–1948 Season. On weekdays from 2:15–2:30 pm the program was broadcast to stations in Bloomington, Columbus, Connersville, Evansville, Hammond, South Bend, Terre Haute, and as far away as Louisville, KY. The radio station WIBC broadcast the program from 9:45–10:00 in Indianapolis, and WCTW broadcast to New Castle at 3:00.³⁵

“Teachers Manual,” p. 16, Indiana University Department of Radio and Television Chair’s Records, Box 4.

Students might have sat at individual desks with Music in the Air open in front of them (see Figure 1). Episodes opened with the beginning of Eric Coates’s “Knightsbridge” from the London Suite, an exciting opening that modulates upwards with a great crescendo. As the music climaxes, a jovial voice announces, “Indiana University in cooperation with the State Department of Education and this radio station presents The Indiana School of the Sky, a series of programs designed for the elementary school.” Dorothy Kelley welcomes the listeners with “Hello boys and girls,” and goes on to provide an overview of the day’s program. Before each musical activity, Kelley gives a small amount of background on the song or composer. The first few songs featured on each program are either review from previous weeks or have assumed familiarity, such as “America the Beautiful,” and Kelley invites the radio audience to sing along with the musicians in the studio without providing much instruction. Kelley quickly moves from one piece to another, sometimes instructing students to turn to a particular page in their songbooks. When learning a new piece of music, Kelley employs a call and response teaching strategy. For example, when learning “Erie Canal” in the fifth episode of the series, “Music in Our Country,”³⁶

“Music In Our Country,” 1947, Indiana School of the Sky Records, Collection C643, Indiana University Archives, https://media.dlib.indiana.edu/media_objects/3b591f32p

Kelley requests that an IU student participating in the program recording sing through the entire piece. Next, the soloist sings a small part of the chorus and Kelley instructs, “everybody now,” and more voices join in. Kelley gradually leads the students through the song in this way. A musical appreciation activity generally follows, and then the episode concludes. The announcer comes on again: “And that’s all the time we have for today, Miss Kelley … be sure to listen next week at the same time as we will again present a program in music.”

Figure 1.

Class listening to the Indiana School of the Sky. Courtesy of Indiana University Archives.

The Teachers Manual provided a list of the production staff, the advisory board, a letter from superintendent Ben H. Watt, a letter from director of Educational Radio George C. Johnson, an introduction to each subject, a program schedule for the school year, and a lesson plan to accompany each episode. The brief lesson plans spanned no more than half a page, and included activities for before and after listening, as well as occasional suggestions for additional resources.

I determined the content of the music programs by matching content heard in the digital recordings with the following lists found in the Teachers Manual: the program schedule, suggested recordings, and a composer list. Each time I heard a composition while listening to the music episodes, I categorized it with composer and performer names, whether the content was recorded live in the studio or came from a commercial recording, whether Kelley’s voice was heard, and any identifiable teaching strategies. Three teaching strategies emerged, that I chose to call “singalong,” “call and response,” and “listening.” I cross-referenced compositions with the lessons in the Teachers Manual and classified them by country of origin and genre. Genres that emerged included classical, children’s, Christmas, folk, hymn, and patriotic. Classification of genre was done broadly, so as not to fragment categories into such small slices that they lose their meaning in the final analysis. For example, I categorized All Through the Night, Waltzing Matilda, and Yankee Doodle as “folk,” in spite of origins on three different continents. Music in the Air cited various folk music with more specificity, for example “Traditional American,” “English Ballad,” and “Negro Spiritual,” but because pieces were limited to one or two in each category, I placed them together in the “folk” category for the analysis. I categorized compositions by Sousa as “patriotic,” although scholars might argue that some of Sousa’s output would not fit neatly in that category. Christmas music received its own genre category in order to highlight its prominence in the program. A case could be made for some overlap, for example between “children’s” and “folk,” but I did not count any compositions twice.

A small number of artifacts from the 1947–1948 music programming were ambiguous or missing. For example, performers were not credited on the rare occasion when commercial recordings were used on the air. For example, this occurred with Sousa’s Stars and Stripes Forever (played on November 3, 1947), and with Dukas’ The Sorcerer’s Apprentice (played on February 2, 1948). While students who performed live were named in the ending credits, voice types and instruments were not always identified. I was able to confirm through the Registrar’s Office at IU that many of the performers named in the ending credits earned music education and performance degrees at IU and were students during the 1947–1948 school year.

I chose to limit this study to the inaugural season of 1947–1948 for two reasons: Dorothy Kelley only participated in the 1947–1948 season and I was particularly interested in her work as the first female music educator at IU, and because subsequent years have incomplete artifacts in the IU Archives. For example, material from the 1949–1950 season consists only of incomplete audio recordings; no scripts or teaching manuals survive. I could find no record of music programming between 1951–1952. Music program scripts do exist from 1953–1955, but there are no audio recordings. The ISS persisted until 1964, but after 1955 I could not find any record of music programming.³⁷

Indiana School of the Sky Records, Collection C643, Indiana University Archives, Bloomington.

Music Episodes, 1947–1948

Dorothy Kelley

Figure 2.

Indiana School of the Sky Concert. Courtesy of Indiana University Archives.

The ISS was produced on the IU campus by the Radio Broadcasting Department at IU, under the leadership of the Director of Educational Radio George C. Johnson. The production staff consisted of nine university professors and employees from across departments, with expertise in each of the various topics.³⁸

“Teachers Manual,” 2.

Dorothy G. Kelley, the university’s first female professor of music education, supervised the music episodes during the 1947–1948 season. As supervisor of the music portion of the ISS, Kelley played an instrumental role in the production of the music portion of the radio program. She was responsible for the advance planning of 29 episodes, the music-related text in the Teachers Manual, and for compiling the songbook that accompanied broadcasts. It also appears that Kelley developed the radio scripts. She recruited student performers and appeared live on the air alongside them, and her voice can be heard in all but one of the audio recordings. Additionally, during the 1947–1948 school year, Kelley taught courses through the School of Music and the School of Education such as “Methods in Music Education for the Elementary Schools,” “Music Materials and Procedures for Elementary Teaching,” “Curriculum Construction in Music Education,” and several sections of class piano.³⁹

1948 Bulletin, Vol. XLVI, No. 17, Indiana University Archives, Bloomington.

“Miss Kelley,” as she is referred to in both the broadcasts and in course listings printed in the IU bulletins, earned a Bachelor of Music in piano at Columbia School of Music in Chicago in 1928, and a Master of Arts in education from New York University in 1936. Her school teaching experience was at rural schools in her home state of Illinois (1918–1920), in Chicago (1921–1922), and as an Assistant Director of Music in Des Moines, Iowa (1931–1934). She held positions prior to her appointment at IU at the Eastman School of Music (1928–1930), and the Milwaukee State Teachers College (1930–1931 and 1934–1946), where she worked with student teachers. Kelley became an Assistant Professor of Music Education at IU in 1946 and was promoted to Associate Professor in 1954.⁴⁰

Indiana University News Bureau Form, undated, Dorothy G. Kelley Clipping File, Indiana University Archives, Bloomington.

She remained on the faculty for 23 years. In a press release around the time of her retirement in August of 1969, then Dean of the Music School Wilfred C. Bain credited her contributions to the school, stating that “she has had a great influence on our many graduates who are working in the field.”⁴¹

Press Release, Indiana University New Bureau, August 8, 1969, Dorothy G. Kelley Clipping File, Accession no. 20011031, Indiana University Archives, Bloomington.

A slim clippings file in the IU Archives contains an undated sepia-toned portrait of Dorothy Kelley. She smiles softly, hair pulled back neatly with a necklace of pearls peeking out from around her high collar. This photo made it possible to identify her in a photograph titled simply “School of the Sky Concert” in the Archives Photograph Collection, taken on April 16, 1948 (see Figure 2). Although the “School of the Sky Concert” photo was taken from the side and the headshot from the clippings file is from the front, the curve of her eyebrow and cheek suggest that it is the same individual in both photos. The School of the Sky Concert photo was taken at IU. Kelley is pictured on the right-hand side, and the other four individuals appear to be approximately college aged. They stand around a piano with a microphone hanging above them, ready to lead the radio audience in song.

Student Participation

IU students regularly contributed to the music episode broadcasts through singing and playing their instruments and are heard live on the air in every music episode during 1947–1948. Because of the curriculum’s focus on singing, in most cases they lead the radio audience in learning new pieces or reviewing those learned previously. It appears that students also performed on their instruments, as in the episodes titled “Choirs in the Orchestra,” and in accompanying roles in some of the Christmas episodes. Through their participation, students surely benefited by exposure to repertoire selection, sequencing, and Kelley’s pleasant teaching affect.

The IU Radio Broadcasting Department provided practical training in radio for students, and as of 1948, nine IU students were on staff. Additional hourly student workers were required for the impressive 90 hours of rehearsals that took place each week for the various programs that the Department produced.⁴²

1948 Bulletin, Vol. XLVI, No. 17, Indiana University Archives, Bloomington, 564.

It is unclear how many rehearsal and production hours were dedicated to the ISS, but judging by the vast number and frequency of music episodes recorded live during the 1947–1948 school year, it is likely that substantial time was allotted to the project.

Participating students’ names were typically announced in the ending credits. While the specific roles of student participants such as voice type or instrument were not usually articulated, occasionally students’ roles were clearly mentioned on the air. “Miss Jean Towers” performed a trombone concertino, Martha Lou Gross performed a work by Edward MacDowell on piano, Nicholas Konichi performed on clarinet with Mary Helen Pease accompanying on piano. Not all names were confirmed as IU students by the Registrar’s Office, possibly because of misspellings or incomplete records. However, many were confirmed. According to the Registrar’s records, Pease received a Bachelor of Music in piano in 1949 and returned to IU to receive a Master of Music Education with high distinction in 1968. Other students who received degrees in music performance included Shirley F. Patrick (BM, 1949) and Pete J. Carr (BM, 1950). Music education majors included James Leroy Roderick (BME, 1949) and Willard Eugene Snap (BME, 1950). All of these students were heard on music episodes of the ISS in 1947 and 1948.

Repertoire and Teaching Strategies

The ISS music program included 95 compositions, both sung live and played from a commercial recording, during the 1948–1949 season. Some compositions appeared more than once, as students reviewed previously learned material across weeks. Music that originated in the United States, either by a composer or folk tradition, made up 34% of material used for both singing and listening activities (see Table 1). Other countries represented by either composer or folk tradition included Australia, Austria, Czechoslovakia, England, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Norway, Mexico, Russia, and Spain.

Table 1.

Country of Origin of Compositions Represented in the 1947-1948 Indiana School of the Sky Season.

Country of Origin	Frequency	%
United States	33	34
Germany	11	11
England	8	8
France	8	8
Mexico	6	6
Russia	5	5
Unknown	5	5
Austria	4	4
Czechoslovakia	4	4
Wales	3	3
Australia	2	2
Finland	2	2
Spain	2	2
Italy	1	1
Ireland	1	1
Norway	1	1
Total	96	97

Note. Decimal points were not included, so total percentage amounts to less than 100.

The bulk of the genres represented fell into the folk (39%) and classical (34%) categories (see Table 2). The lessons emphasized singing and active participation from the students, and folk music might have seemed a logical vehicle for this aim because of the comfortable vocal ranges and regular rhythmic patterns. All other genres were less consequential, amounting to between 4 and 9 percent.

Table 2.

Musical Genres Represented in the 1947-1948 Indiana School of the Sky Season.

Genre	Frequency	%
Folk	38	39
Classical	33	34
Christmas	9	9
Children’s	7	7
Patriotic	5	5
Hymn	4	4
Total	96	98

Note. Decimal points were not included, so total percentage amounts to less than 100.

The ISS music programming in 1947–1948 included two types of lessons that Edna Whitsey articulated in 1950. These included “the weekly lesson,” in which students participated in rote song learning and “the listening lesson,” or music appreciation, where students experienced “good and interesting music that is beyond his power to perform…”⁴³

Whitsey, “Radio in Music Education,” 26.

Within this framework, Kelley employed three main teaching strategies that I identified as either “singalong” for pieces that the students already knew and were simply singing through, “call and response” for pieces that Kelley taught by rote on the air, and “listening” for music appreciation segments. While these three strategies took up the bulk of lessons, they were not the only types employed in the music series. A few select episodes featured storytelling, peer modeling of composition, and live concerts.

Episode Format

Most episodes followed a predictable lesson sequence. First, students reviewed previously learned compositions using the “singalong” strategy, then new compositions were introduced using “call and response,” and finally students engaged in some sort of listening or music appreciation activity. 85% of compositions heard on the air were recorded live in the studio at IU, and the episodes that did contain commercially recorded music also featured live music for at least a portion of the 15-minute lesson. Recorded music included classics such as Brahms’ Hungarian Dances, Dukas’ Sorcerer’s Apprentice, Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker Suite, and Johann Strauss’ Emperor’s Waltz. Recorded music was categorized as “listening” in all cases.

Dorothy Kelley’s voice was most prominent on the air. She led students in song and introduced composers and pieces. Some episodes included mini dramas telling the story of a composer and acted out by IU students. George C. Johnson, the Director of Educational Radio at IU, introduced each lesson and interjected at regular intervals, ushering students from one activity to the next.

There were several episodes that notably broke the standard episode format of review, new repertoire, and music appreciation. These included “Hansel and Gretel” on January 5 and 12, 1948; “Choirs in the Orchestra,” January 19 and 26, 1948; “Making Our Own Music,” February 23, 1948; and “Your Favorite Music,” April 26, 1948.

The “Hansel and Gretel” episodes consisted of an arrangement of Humperdinck’s opera with voices, piano accompaniment, and narration between songs. This was performed live in the studio and consisted completely of “listening.” The “singalong” and “call and response” teaching strategies were completely absent. In this case, the music episodes coordinated with another ISS program. The radio audience heard the story first “The Story Book” program on the previous Friday, January 2, 1948, preparing them for the “Hansel and Gretel” music episode on Monday, January 5. This coordination between the music series and other programs only occurred one other time, when the Social Studies program broadcast “Mexican Neighbors: Western Countries III” on Tuesday, April 6, 1948, a day after “Music of our Latin American Neighbors” aired.

“Choirs in the Orchestra” also abandoned the typical format. This episode included descriptions of orchestral families of instruments with brief sound examples and longer musical demonstrations. Harry Jay Skornia, chairman of the IU Radio Department and a member of the ISS production staff, narrated the bulk of these episodes. Kelley led one song on January 19, but on January 26 her voice was not heard, for the only time during the 1947–1948 Season. Great care was taken in these episodes to announce performers’ names and instruments as they were heard, departing from the usual quick mentions of participating students during the ending credits.

An intriguing alternative-form episode that merits highlighting was titled “Making Our Own Music,” and it aired on February 23, 1948. This episode featured a group of students from the Elm Heights School in Bloomington and culminated in original pieces, composed live on the air, by the Elm Heights children. First, led by Kelley, the children sang favorite songs that they had learned while listening to the ISS in their classroom, such as “Let the Fun Begin” and “Yankee Doodle.” This segued into a discussion about composers and students gave their opinions about “what makes a good song.” These youngsters contributed ideas such as “rhythm and time,” “mood,” “good words to fit with your music,” and “melody.” Kelley asked the students open-ended questions, and the segment had an unscripted feel. After their discussion, Kelley read a poem about a frog that one of the children had written:

There was a frog that sat on a log, sat on a log, sat on a log,

And there he sat and grew very fat, grew very fat, grew very fat,

A little fly came buzzing by, buzzing by, buzzing by,

Frog caught the fly as he buzzed by, buzzed by, buzzed by,

Frog ate him fast, as he buzzed past, and there he sat and grew very fat, grew very fat, grew very fat.⁴⁴

“Making Our Own Music,” 1948, Indiana School of the Sky Records, Collection C643, Indiana University Archives, https://media.dlib.indiana.edu/media_objects/qj72pd097

Kelley proceeded to lead the children in speaking the poem rhythmically, emphasizing any “important words.” Several children volunteered to sing a tune that they thought went well with the rhythmic verse. It was unclear if the students prepared for this ahead of time, but the results were creative and pleasant to listen to. In spite of the confines of working with the same lyrics and chanting the lyrics in rhythm, the students produced unique renditions: two students sang in a lilting six–eight meter, while another interpreted the lyrics in a march-like four-four. The compositions did carry the influences of past repertoire; with symmetrical phrases and regular rhythms they seemed to mirror the folk music that permeated the series. In “Making Our Own Music,” we saw Kelley creatively set up a unique learning environment over the radio: The Elm Heights students taught children in classrooms across Indiana strategies for music composition. It was an exquisite example of peer modeling.

Students listening from their classrooms were encouraged to experiment with composing and mail their work to the radio program. Kelley selected two of these compositions to feature live on the air: A second-grade class from Jeffersonville wrote “I Will Try to Understand,” and IU students performed it on April 26, 1948. “My Kite,” composed by a sixth grader from Ellettsville, was recorded on Friday, April 23, 1948, in a special concert on the IU campus and attended by students from across the state. These original compositions, prompted by the “Making Your Own Music” episode, was an exception to the program’s typical emphasis on singing and music appreciation, inserting creative music making and personal choice into the curriculum.

Conclusions

In supervising radio music lessons in the 1947–1948 school year, Dorothy Kelley became part of a legacy of female educators using technology as a medium to reach into classrooms where they might not otherwise have the ability to step. The inaugural season of the ISS allowed music education and performance students at IU to work alongside a seasoned music teacher in a unique field experience setting. Kelley innovated beyond simple listening activities, relying heavily on the “singalong” and “call and response” teaching techniques, and even into the realm of peer modeling. In addition to learning new pieces, singing well-loved pieces as a group, and listening to repertoire staples such as The Nutcracker Suite, students had the opportunity to explore composition.

Dorothy Kelley was a member of the music education department at IU for 23 years, but there is no evidence of her continuing with the ISS after the first season. In addition to her teaching duties in the School of Music and the School of Education at IU, the large amount of materials that Kelley was responsible for in the broadcasts must have been akin to a second job. One wonders if Kelley felt that the show brought valuable experiences to the IU students, and worthy lessons to public school students across the state; if she enjoyed the work or found it a cumbersome project pushed onto the newest and only female faculty member; and, if she had a sense if the singalong and call and response teaching strategies were effective over the air.

IU students certainly played a central role in the music programming during 1947–1948, as evidenced in their regular performances on the air. Through their participation, these young men and women not only gained radio and performance experience, but also experienced Kelley’s precise lesson planning and pleasant rapport with the radio audience. This afforded them the opportunity to apprentice with an experienced teacher, while at the same time utilizing exciting technology to deliver instruction. They must have felt as though they were part of the future. Because some of these students were music education majors and others were performance majors, this project provided an opportunity for the two disciplines to intersect. As many performers end up teaching at some point in their careers, though not necessarily in traditional classroom settings, this program could have sparked valuable ideas for how those who considered themselves “performers” might also see themselves as “educators.” The symbiotic relationship of music education and performance is often undervalued, and many conservatory students graduate without exposure to teaching methods. The manner in which the ISS handled its music programming could inspire current programs to create unique opportunities that similarly draw performance and education majors together and foster this symbiotic relationship.

The results of the content analysis suggest that the curriculum for the music lessons aired on the ISS in 1947–1948 was synchronous with larger trends in American music education at the time. A committee appointed by the MENC entitled “American Unity Through Music” advocated for the use of music to uphold American ideals during the tumultuous time around World War II. Suggested repertoire included the obvious classic patriotic pieces, but also folk music from a diverse array of cultural traditions, and music by American composers.⁴⁵

Marie McCarthy, ““We Who Have the Destiny of Musical America in Our Hands”: History Speaks to Us through 100 Years of MEJ.” Music Educators Journal 100, no. 29 (May 2013): 31–32.

With the war only two years in the past, the ISS curriculum championed the music of Americans such as John Phillip Sousa and Stephen Foster, local Indiana composers Hoagy Carmichael and Paul Dresser, and what was at the time “new music” with New Yorker Ferde Grofé’s “Grand Canyon Suite.” With 34% of compositions classical music from the United States, or folk music originating in the United States, the ISS sat in stark contrast with the NBC Music Appreciation Hour, which aired during the same years, and mainly promoted German/Austrian and French music.⁴⁶

Howe, “The NBC Music Appreciation Hour,” 69.

Further study and discussion is warranted in investigating the program’s folk music originating in the United States. For example, Music in the Air explicitly mentions music of African American origins only once, when the book refers to “Jacob’s Ladder” as a “Negro Spiritual.”⁴⁷

“Music in the Air,” 10.

On February 9, 1948 in the episode titled “Music in Lincoln’s Time,” “Little David” is called a “Negro Spiritual” on the air, although in songbook it is simply referred to as “spiritual.”⁴⁸

“Music in Lincoln’s Time,” 1948, Indiana School of the Sky Records, Collection C643, Indiana University Archives, https://media.dlib.indiana.edu/media_objects/cr56n589z

The extent and manner in which this and other radio programs from the time included music from all persons dwelling in the United States demands further interrogation. Further study is also needed to compare trends between other radio programs designed for in-school listening, such as the Ohio School of the Air and the American School of the Air.

The call and response style of teaching that Kelley employed regularly on the ISS music program is disjointed and awkward for the modern listener. Kelley, or an IU student in the radio studio, would demonstrate a small phrase, and then the small group of IU singers would respond. The call and response did not happen in a rhythmic manner (imagine a teacher chanting “my turn here I go” and “your turn ready go,” to facilitate such a moment), and as a trained musician, I found it difficult to predict the exact moment to begin singing when Kelley gives her directions, “now you, the chord, sing!” Breath and rhythmic sense did not translate well through the airwaves, and the lack of visual cues containing pulse and indicating musical lines makes the task of ensemble even more difficult. The live interaction between teacher and student, an essential element of teaching—breaking down activities further when something is not understood or moving ahead when the students are up to a greater challenge, a gentle push and pull between teacher and pupils—could not happen between Kelley and her radio listeners. Perhaps students during this period, less accustomed to visual stimulation that we receive on a regular basis today, did not experience this as a large problem, or perhaps this teaching strategy exemplified the use of technology for technology’s sake, inhibiting meaningful learning experiences. There is no doubt that technology has the power to bring, in the words of early education radio advocate Benjamin H. Darrow, “a wider, richer world” into the classroom,⁴⁹

Darrow, Radio Trailblazing, 5.

but contemporary music educators would do well to ensure that any technology they employ works for the student, rather than the other way around.

The call and response teaching strategy serves as an interesting example of experimenting with a new medium. Further study is needed to determine if other educational audio programs (Victrola or radio) from the 1930s and 1940s employed a similar technique. It is clear, based on the ISS music program recordings from the following season (1948–1949), that this teaching strategy was quickly abandoned: That school year focused on one composer per episode, and consisted largely of musical examples (both in the studio and by commercially-produced recordings) with brief information about composers and pieces.

While the call and response teaching style over the radio leaves much to be desired, the ISS music program in 1947–1948 influenced student learning in at least some meaningful ways, and Kelley experimented with other teaching strategies that appear highly effective. The use of peer modeling in student composition with the children from Elm Heights provides an exemplar case. Based on the evidence provided by student-composed pieces “My Kite” and “I Will Try to Understand,” it is clear that young students in Indiana engaged in composing because of the ISS program. Opportunities for peer modeling in remote and technology-based music lessons could be an avenue of creativity that contemporary music educators might explore.

In the President’s Report, 1947–1948, Herbert George Wells estimated that more than 30,000 school children in 161 towns and rural communities found in the ISS broadcasts “sound instruction in an enjoyable and memorable form.”⁵⁰

President’s Report 1947–1948, 1948 IU Bulletin, Indiana University Archives, Bloomington, 114.

In a press release announcing the ISS’s 1948–1949 Season, Superintendent Watt reported that the tremendous demand for teachers’ manuals and songbooks indicated that thousands of teachers and students participated in the first season.⁵¹

Press Release, Indiana University Department of Radio and Television Chair’s records, Collection C104, Indiana University Archives, Bloomington.

If these 30,000 school children received better quality music instruction through the ISS than they previously had in their classrooms, it is reasonable to assume that the radio did have a democratizing effect on their education. The Teachers Manuals contained surveys for teachers, but sadly a cache of survey responses has not been located. Evidence from these surveys would aid in a more concrete understanding of the program’s reach, as well as teachers’ and school administrators’ reactions to it. Even were this information available, the surveys require teacher and administrator responses, while leaving out the voices of the students that the program was intended to serve. Further study, including oral history interviews, would aid in completing this picture.

Current educational programs delivered by radio and by its newest cousin, the podcast, suggest particular aspects of radio teaching that have best endured. While “weekly lessons” with the active teaching of repertoire requiring immediate listener responses do not seem practical, “listening lessons” or music appreciation programs have withstood the test of time. For example, “Exploring Music with Bill McLoughlin” has aired Monday through Friday on hundreds of radio stations across the country for the past 16 years.⁵²

“Exploring Music with Bill McLoughlin,” WFMT, https://www.wfmt.com/programs/exploring-music/

Conductor Joshua Weilerstein has produced his own podcast since 2017 entitled “Sticky Notes: The Classical Music Podcast,” and delivers eloquent, engaging lecture-concerts analyzing specific pieces of music, composers, and musical eras.⁵³

“Sticky Notes, The Classical Music Podcast,” https://stickynotespodcast.libsyn.com

These programs and others stand on the shoulders of those that pioneered educating through the medium of radio.

Footnotes

Author’s Note

This article is dedicated to the memory of Dr Patrice Madura Ward-Steinman. It was she who introduced me to historical research, and her mentorship and goodwill are greatly missed.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Morganne Aaberg

Author Biography

Morganne Aaberg is a PhD student and Associate Instructor at Indiana University. She is a faculty member at the IU String Academy and currently serves as Editorial Assistant for the Journal of Research in Music Education. Her research interests include string pedagogy and the intersection of technology and education.

Radio in Music Education: The Indiana School of the Sky Music Episodes,1947–1948