I was in elementary school in the mid-late '60’s (NE Minnesota). Other than our teacher playing the piano once in a while our music education consisted of our teacher rolling the giant TV stand with the black and white TV on it into the classroom once a week. We watched a show on PBS where a woman played the piano and sang. We had corresponding music/song textbooks and would sing along while sitting at our desks. Does anyone else remember doing this? Maybe it was a local show, I’m not sure. Although I seem to recall that the textbooks were regular hardbound books so maybe it was a nationwide program. For some reason, the phrase/title - Music Is Everywhere, Under the Sun - sticks in my mind. Not sure if it was the title of the TV program or a song we sang at some point.
1st-3rd grade we watched a music show on PBS or sang a few songs. We got a music teacher when I was in 4th grade (1973). She was the wife of the former school superintendent and guy the school was named after. She would let us being 45 rpm records and would one at the end of class.
In elementary school (1960s) we had to sing, learn to play the recorder, and some other crazy stuff. I hated it.
No TV viewing.
We went to music class in a separate room every day from 1st to 6th grade. We sang all kinds of music. We were exposed to, but not graded on, a lot of folk music with brief explanations of the history behind the songs, for instance one song we sang was “Irish Need Not Apply”, with the teacher (and we had a regular music teacher) explaining about the treatment of some immigrant groups. By fifth grade we were doing two part (soprano-alto) songs.
Also in fifth and sixth grade we could take band. I don’t remember how long the classes lasted. Probably about 30 to 45 minutes each at most.
Starting the summer before fifth grade we could take summer band, which met at the high school and had all the grade schools at once. In the spring all the school bands would work on the same music and there would be a mass band concert with a set by the fifth graders and a set by the sixth graders. In December all the regular music classes would learn the same songs and perform in a Christmas concert that was not only optional, but sometimes kids weren’t allowed to participate because of behavior problems.
Teacher here. We still have it, but in middle school, it splits into two group. One group is the “band kids”, who obviously get trained on an instrument. The rest take choir and music appreciation classes.
In my elementary school years (1971-1976), we always had music class one day a week for an hour. In first grade we started with just singing, and learning the music scale, EGBDF every good bird does fly and FACE. Over the grades 1st - 5th, we started learning playing recorders and then moved to bells, xylophones, zithers, marimbas, piano, etc. Interestingly in this public school, the main song we learned to sing and play was All creatures great and small, a definite religious song. The music teacher the whole time I was in elementary school, was a man, the accompanied the class on his accordion.
No TV (we were out of range of the nearest PBS station), but we did have music, using tonettes.