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EDUCATIONAL RECORDINGS
The Teacher Never Had It So Good!
Taken even literally, the title of this article is strictly true. For the year 1957 further proved that today's teacher can obtain practically any type of record needed to teach, or supplement the teaching of. all major courses in the curriculum.
During this year, and for the past several years, there have been two major developments in educational recordings. First, there is the tendency for the major record companies (Victor, Columbia, Decca. etc.) to confine their educational offerings to the broad school needs for records in the field of classical and semi-classical music, square and folk dances, and some occasional records for the Social Studies.
On the other hand, the smaller record companies seem to have taken the lead in supplying the more highly specialized school records, such as elementary song and rhythmic material, poetry and readings, folk and ethnic recordings, dramatizations of historical events, etc. Incidentally, nothing derogatory is meant by the term "smaller record companies." It simply means those companies, such as Folkways. Gloria Chandler, Caedmon, and Enrichment Records, and many others, which have neither the resources nor widespread distribution facilities of the "major" companies. As a matter of fact, many of the "smaller" record companies have done a really out.slanding job of providing the highly specialized educational records demanded by some schools, and not provided by the larger companies.
What did 1957 bring in the way of new recording.s? First, let's cover the general field of classical music. The major companies, of course, continued to literally pour out thousands of new recordings of classical type music, all of which can be used at some level of education. These recordings must be considered as "educational" as the multiplication tables, set to a musical, rhythmic background, which were issued by one company this year. Today, the teacher can obtain a recording of almost any piece of serious music ever written from Debussy's well known La Mer, by Munch and the Boston Symphony, to such an obscure composition as Mancinelli's "Cleopatra" Overture, by Gamba and the London Symphony. Name the selection, and you can most probably find a recording of it.
With this plethora of riches, the real
L. V. Hollweck, Manager RCA Educational Services
problem of the school is to find which of the 2,000 record companies in business today issues what is neded. There is no easy answer to the problem except to say that someone like the music supervisor, or audio-visual supervisor, or some teacher in the school should be given the responsibility of keeping as up to date as possible on what is being issued or available from both large and small record manufacturers. This can be done by obtaining catalogs yearly from as many companies as possible (both manufacturers and retailers specializing in educational records), by checking advertisements in educational and other magazines, reading record review columns, etc.
Of considerable interest to the school purchaser of records during 1957 was the prevalence of many "special price," meaning lower price, recordings. Most o^ the larger companies regularly released certain $3.98 LP's at $2.98 for a limited time. Of even more importance was the expansion of the $1.98 LP lines of labels, such as Camden. These low price lines offer standard classical and children's records, performed by major artists and orchestras. Every educator should investigate these $1.98 records — you can't go wrong at one-half the usual price of a record!
During 1957 there was further expansion in the release of the more highly specialized records for schools, highlighted by many records for use in the Social Studies area. These included additional recorded dramatizations of the Landmark books, poetry and literature readings, and many new records of music, folk dances and songs of foreign countries, as well as sections of our own country.
Of considerable interest also during the past year was the entrance of Keyboard, Jr. into the record field with a series of records for Elementary, Junior and Senior High Schools which tie-in directly with their particular monthly lessons. Appearing also were series of records, with instructions, to teach Social Dancing.
During the ])ast year two of the major music book publishers, Ginn and Company and Silver Burdett, issued new books with accompanying records. This is a continuance of the practice of such companies to provide "model"
recordings of the material in their song books. This practice is also being adopted by other companies; for example, some of the standard publishers of band scores now also have recordings for use as "models" of how they should be jjlayed.
Released also this year were new filmstrips in the Jam Handy series of Stories of Music Classics. For each filmstrip they al.so issue an LP record in which the music is directly related to each frame of the filmstrip.
.\ prominent development during the year was the resurgence of children's records on the low price labels. While some of these records are not what might strictly be termed educational, judicious selection by the teacher will uncover dozens of fine story type records which are ideal for u.se with pre-school and primary grade diiklren.
Future Trends in the Record Industry
A problem common to most schools is their inability to get good service on the more specialized educational records. Simply stated, most record dealers just can't afford to stock them. A promising new development is the growing interest of .-Xudio-Visual dealers in stocking and selling the educational record in addition to the projectors, tape recorders, phonographs he now handles. RCA Victor has just made available, to its Audio-Visual dealers, the complete line of educational records — the Basic Record Library for Elementary Schools, folk and square dances, foreign language courses, etc. This development, if expanded to the fullest, could help solve the school problem of obtaining records promptly.
There is a further growing trend toward more record dealers specializing in a mail order business devoted solely to records for schools. Such setups now exist in Washington, New York, Los .Angeles, San Francisco and other cities. This type specialty dealer issues his own Educational Record Catalog and will give prompt mail order service anywhere in the country although their major business is usually more of regional nature.
All in all, 1957 was a good record year as far as education was concerned. There is every indication that the future will be even more productive, especially as tape recordings, which schools are just beginning to investigate, come into more general use.
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EdScreen tj AV Guide — December, 1957