In Japan, school music education was started in Meiji 5 as Singing. And in Meiji Era, some educational thought entered from foreign countries.
The purpose of this study is to reveal features of five song books: “shougaku-syoukasyu”, “shougakusyouka”, “kyouka-tekiyou-younen-syouka”, “shinpen-kyouiku-syoukasyu”, “jinjyou-syougaku-syouka” by analyzing them. And in a main subject, changes of the song teaching materials in Meiji Era are discussed. Those song books were main teaching materials in Meiji Era, and they were widely dealt with by elementary education. Analytic viewpoints are time, key, musical range, note value, and musical interval. Analyzing those song books, the following features were revealed. First, as time and note value, music which considers children’s sentiment and a developmental stage generates a light tune by using short note value, dotted rhythms, and two-four time and so on. Second, as it becomes in the second half of Meiji, song teaching materials take children’s developmental stage into consideration more. Concretely, the following point is mentioned : as it becomes in the second half of Meiji, musical range becomes narrower and the proportion of complex musical interval and long note value which require children of high technique to sing decreases more.