Altogether it will be seen that the study of transposition is opening a new window for them into the fairyland of music.

Later on, when a child can compose short harmonized tunes of its own, it is well to hold up the ideal of being able to transpose them into any key, and in certain cases, where the melody lends itself to the treatment, from major to minor, and vice versa.  This work must of course be voluntary, but a child is well rewarded when it finds that it is only the first step which costs, and that the second of such tunes is so much easier to transpose than the first!

And the time comes when a child will sit down to the piano, and will extemporize quite happily either in F major or in F[#] major, whichever is suggested.  Such work is well worth any initial trouble taken—­it is a combined process of ear and mind which has a far-reaching educational effect.

The last stage of all in this work consists in transposing at sight from the printed page.  Hitherto the ear and the mind have been chiefly employed, but now the eye must be trained to do its share.

It is found useful to make children say the names of the chords aloud when they are beginning this sort of transposition.  The habit sets up a connecting link between the various faculties in use, in some curious way.  The eye can help by noting the intervals between successive notes in the various parts, and especially in the outer parts.  It sees the general drift of the piece before the mind comes into play—­the coming modulations and so on.  In fact, it is not too much to say that it is best, in certain musical phrases, to rely on the eye alone, e.g. rapid decorative passages, which are not always easy to analyse at first sight.

A word of warning must now be given.  Those who attempt ‘short cuts’ in this work will certainly come to grief, unless they are born with the faculty—­undoubtedly possessed by a few—­of being able to transpose by a sort of instinct.  Such people are fortunate, but it is not our present task to attempt to guide them.  We are concerned with the average child, taught in fairly large classes, in the ordinary school curriculum, and with only a very limited amount of time at our disposal.

CHAPTER XII

GENERAL HINTS ON TAKING A LESSON IN EAR-TRAINING

All those who teach ear-training should keep a book in which they write on one side of the page the proposed scheme of work for each lesson, and on the other the actual work done.  All sorts of things may happen in the course of the lesson to upset the proposed scheme.  The children may find the new work easier, or more difficult than was expected, a question from a child may suddenly reveal a piece of ignorance which necessitates a digression—­every teacher is aware of the ‘unknown quantities’ in class work.  Unless the proposed scheme of work is checked by what is done in each lesson, there will be difficulties later.