Norwich Sol-fa Ladder

Sarah Glover (1786-1867), the daughter of the Rector of St Lawrence Church in Norwich, developed the Tonic Sol-fa system of music education in the 1830s. Sarah taught in several Norwich schools including Black Boy's Yard School, Lakenham School, and the Girls' Central School. In 1835 she published her Scheme for Rendering Psalmody Congregational which was designed to simplify the sight-reading of music, helping teachers to improve the singing of psalms. She invented a method of teaching music using a 'table of tune' and a glass glockenspiel called an harmonicon. This instrument, developed with the help of a local manufacturer, had twenty five glass keys and covered two chromatic octaves. It had a roller which was positioned beside the keys and which could be rotated to display the scale in all twelve possible keys. At a time when pianos were not common in schools, this instrument could be used by teachers with very little musical ability. Sarah provided a detailed set of directions for school instruction, including lesson notes and musical examples. Sarah Glover's system and its accompanying teaching methods were discovered in 1841 by John Curwen, an English congregational minister, who subsequently popularised and adapted them. The system was intended for use in charitable schools initially, but was adopted by various missionary societies, and used throughout the school systems of the British empire. Conflict arose between the two educators regarding the modifications Curwen made to the system, yet the impact of Sarah Glover's work on Curwen and, eventually, music education in general, cannot be disputed, and let’s not forget Julie Andrews teaching the Von Trapp children to sing in The Sound of Music!