The friends I'm talking about were turned off the minute I said the word MODE and I had to drag them to the piano to show them. When they heard it they understood a little but I had to find the chords for the songs. We're talking guitarists with absolutely no musical knowledge - just your basic 3 chord basher but we progressed to more than that.
(But when I mentioned 'relative minor' I got "Come on Robyn' don't talk like that".)
We still built up a pretty good repertoire (without Click go the shears).
Which NZ schools did you attend? Did they have radio broadcasts that included singing? We heard songs from all over the world, as well as a few Maori songs, some classical ones and yes, lots of English songs. They were on each week and we had songbooks that went with them.
Andulko, Ah lovely meadows, Can't you dance the polka, The Swazi warrior, Lilli Burlero, Schubert's Wandering, and rounds galore.
I'm not sure when school broadcasts stopped - I don't remember them when I became a teacher in the early 60s but maybe it was resistance from the classroom that saw their demise.
Robyn