Workers’ Educational Association, taught the piano privately and played for Joanne Priest’s ballet classes. Tiring of the music in the ballet excerpts book Dee began to improvise the music for the classes, developing a new skill. In 1943 she taught music at three kindergartens, pursuing her interest in early childhood music. Wanting to contribute to the war effort Dee wrote to Group Officer Stevenson, Director of the Women’s Auxiliary Australian Air Force, and was advised to apply to become an officer. Following selection she was sent to the RAAF School of Administration at the University of Melbourne where she was the only civilian in the training course for WAAF Officers. On completion of the course Dee was posted to Brisbane as an assistant to the Officer-In-Charge of the 500 WAAAF personnel at RAAF Command Headquarters. Group Officer Stevenson asked her to form a WAAAF Choir but nobody was interested because ‘there were so many American servicemen in town’! In late 1944 Dee was appointed one of six WAAAF Education Officers to organise educational facilities and leisure time activities that would assist the many WAAAF personnel to return to civilian life. Dee was responsible for Southern Queensland and then New South Wales. Dee left the WAAAF in 1946 and took up a Commonwealth Government position with the Universities Commission as Professional Officer for Music, being responsible for placing eligible ex-service personnel for training in music, dance or drama under the post war Reconstruction Training Scheme, monitoring their progress and for writing a survey of tertiary music courses, including music teacher education. In 1948 Dee resigned following an offer from her parents to send her to England to chaperone her younger sister who was to marry a Rhodes Scholar, and to undertake further study. Dee decided to study composition with Alan Bush at the Royal Academy of Music. During her year away Dee also attended classes given by Jeuan Rees Davies and obtained all three School Music diplomas offered by the Royal Academy of Music. She also taught part time at Evelyns Comprehensive School on the outskirts of London. Dee returned to Sydney in 1950 and for the next ten years conducted Adult Educational Classes for the University
Tutorial Class Department, gave private piano and theory lessons and taught the Saturday morning children’s theory classes at the NSW Conservatorium. She was a Council member of the NSW Music Teachers’ Association. Dee was also in charge of music classes at Ascham, a prestigious girls’ school, but gave this up when she married architect Peter Bridges in 1952. Their son was born the next year. In 1957 Dee began her long association with the Music Department of the University of Sydney, initially tutoring in harmony and counterpoint, and later also teaching other subjects. In 1963 she was appointed a Fulltime Temporary Lecturer and was reappointed each year to fill in because staff members had resigned. Eventually she was appointed a Senior Tutor. Whatever her status Dee supervised theses and conducting an honours/post graduate seminar of Theories of Music Education, a course that she had initiated and continued to teach for five years after she resigned in 1969 to concentrate on her Doctoral thesis, for which she had enrolled in 1965. In 1971 she was awarded a PhD for her thesis, titled ‘The Role of Universities in the Development of Music Education in Australia, 1885-1970’ (University of Sydney), which was the first to be awarded in music education from any Australian university. In 1948 Donald Peart (1909-81) had taken up the post of foundation Professor of Music at the University of Sydney. He introduced studies in performance practice, ethnomusicology and the sociology of music and revitalized university music education in Australia. Dee had noticed that the teaching of harmony and counterpoint at university level had changed very little over the years, and was largely British in origin. She was able to persuade Prof. Peart to allow her do away with examination based harmony exercises and to have some integration between the subjects being offered. She became convinced that AMEB and university theory teaching was ineffective and that there should be a system of comprehensive musicianship, which was already happening in the United States. This had led her to undertake the research for her PhD thesis. Dee was awarded a Commonwealth Government Grant to work with the Australia Council for Educational Research to develop the Australian Test for Advanced
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Music Studies which covered the musical concepts and aural abilities students should have when applying to study music at a tertiary level. It was recommended that rote learning, which was characteristic of much music teaching, should have no place in the proposed test. In 1974 Dee was appointed Senior Lecturer at the Nursery School Teachers’ College in Sydney, succeeding Heather Gell. Dee had become convinced that many of the problems music students had as they got older originated in early childhood, before they began formal music lessons. She was able to pass on helpful ideas about early childhood music to the teachers of young children. Dee retired from the Nursery School Teachers’ College at the age of 60, and for ten years conducted preschool music classes at the North Sydney Leisure Centre, and gave piano lessons to some of the children after they went to school. She collaborated with Deanna Hoermann to update the latter’s Kodaly based Developmental Music Program, Stages 1-3, and in preparing Catch A Song, an album of children’s songs widely used around Australia and published in the United States. Dee taught for the NSW Conservatorium’s graduate program in Primary Music Education and presented in-service courses in early childhood for music teachers. Dee’s ongoing research and writing is extensive. ASME published a Monograph, edited by Martin Comte, titled Doreen Bridges: Music Educator in 1992 to celebrate its 25th anniversary. This gathered together many of the articles that she had written. Music, Young Children and You, A ParentTeacher Guide to Music for 0-5 Year-Olds was published in 1994. In 2006 Australian Scholarly Publishing, Melbourne published her book More Than A Musician, A Life of E. Harold Davies. Dee has been an office bearer for a number of organisations. She chaired the NSW Chapter of ASME, was a member of the National Council and a member of the Governing Body of the Kodaly Music Institute of Australia. She was a member of the NSW Department of Education’s Board of Senior Studies