July, 2003
Volume 18, No. 3
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July, 2003
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Contents: Rethinking The Teaching Of Music Theory
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Tin Ear
Alice heard this poem on Garrison Keillor and enjoyed it so much she wanted to share it with our readers. We stood at attention as she moved Peter Schmitt "Tin Ear" is reprinted by permission from "Country Airport." 1989. Copper Beech Press, Providence, R.I.
Rethinking the Teaching of Music Theory Editorial While I was teaching the choral arranging for some thirty years, I was often astonished at the gulf between the native musicality of the students and what came off the ends of their pencils onto staff paper. It's as if there were a total divide between what their uneducated senses told them, and what they'd been educated to believe about music. And these weren't uneducated people: most were active teachers in schools and churches - even in universities. (The theory teachers always had the hardest time with my assignments.) Only now, five years after I stopped presenting that class, does it occur to me that perhaps much of our traditional 'theory' teaching has been founded on wrong assumptions, and that what I was applying as a corrective is really a pattern of what should be taught at the beginning. I'm in the process of trying to put into words what all those experiences taught me about Melody, and begin to sense the outline of an introductory course which would introduce the basic elements of music to all students through active class singing of time-tested songs. Back to those students: most of them had never tried to compose anything, and those that had were apologetic about it. ("I couldn't find anything that fit what I needed, so I just wrote something.") I found that often these pieces were 'just right' - they accomplished the writer's intent, in spite of a lack of training. But when they tried to write my assignments, they were hampered by their beginning-theory knowledge, rather than released by it. The most telling point was the inability to sing a song in a way that appealed to me: most 'performances' were like a typewriter, communicating only a dead fragment of that song's possibility. They would choose to work on the version of a song printed in a book, rather than the delightful version they had known since childhood, and could sing with verve and subtlety. And then they found it hard to believe that I preferred the 'unauthentic' one - as if printing proved authenticity! Their education had throttled their native musicality. And they did not value precisely those songs which had led them to music study. Learning to trust the page had really led them astray - and this misconception was exactly what they were passing along to their own students. No wonder the most musical young people I knew often came back to me from their first year in college with the question "Why is theory so boring?" (Or why my own youngest daughter dropped out of freshman theory after one semester: she just couldn't stand it. She ended up majoring in drama rather than music.) Does it have to be that way? Surely not. Difficult-to-educate teen-aged boys are enthralled by automotive theory when it involves taking apart engines - the more grease and dirt, the better! Why can't we make music while learning how it works? What better avenue than the human voice? What better means than melody? In other words, why not design a curriculum based on hundreds of different melodies, to be heard and sung by the students in the most seductive performances? Their ears and voices would be tuned to increasingly subtle differences of rhythm and pitch, and the class would become a functioning musical instrument, making real music as well as talking about it. My first two theory courses were titled Harmony and Counterpoint (the second, lamentably limited, was 'Harmonic counterpoint'.) They assumed that all melodies wanted to be harmonized; that the rules were the same, no matter what the nature or function of the melody; and that this discipline would teach the student to listen more acutely and to recognize heard harmonic patterns. Probably the last part of the assumption is true - the other is'way off base. Melodies are surely very different, and the only ones that really want to be harmonized are those in a tonal idiom, restricting us to western European music between 1700-1900. And if you follow the rules, you don't end up with a Bach Chorale - you end up with a Lowell Mason hymn, performed with no grace. Is that a worthy goal? How do we all learn about music? From hearing it, and singing it. Those who grow up in families who sing together are getting the best possible preparation for a musical life. I've even become convinced that it doesn't much matter what kind of music is sung: it's enough to establish the enjoyment, the instant transfer of ear-to-voice, and the communicative nature of the song. We need to re-learn how to imitate exactly the unnotatable quirks that distinguish one performance from another; and schooling should reveal to us the wealth of the world's store of folk and composed tunes. In other words, if we do not value and perform well the single-line of vocal melody, the theory we teach is without foundation. Singing and analyzing familiar and unfamiliar melodies will develop in the student a sense of style, of function and of historical/geographical change, as well as the subtleties of articulation that lead to irresistible performance. This will immediately transfer over to instrumental study, or aesthetics or analysis or critical work, or even interdisciplinary studies in art or drama or literature. And the next steps in music theory: how do we then progress to harmony and counterpoint? I would say by enlarging the circle to include a listener/responder. How can you answer, encourage, support or extend that melody you are hearing? Try two-part counterpoint first (perhaps decorated cadences), and only then explore the harmonic ramifications. . .. But that's another book, for those who have absorbed Book I. With only this change in approach, we might provoke a stampede of people rushing to enroll in Theory I! And what a musical nation we might have if we learned first to trust our ears and voices. Alice Parker
Board's Eye View Our fiscal year ends with ruffles and flourishes, celebrating the release of "My Love and I" (It's available through our catalog!), and a generous grant from the Aaron Copland Music Fund that will allow us to complete "Listen, Lord! An Album of Spirituals." With "Angels and Challengers" already recorded, we've made significant progress with the Alice Parker Recording Project. Pardon us if we seem always to be talking about this project but it represents one of our most compelling missions. So much music to be recorded--and each recording requires a major investment from the organization. A high quality CD with professional musicians, produced by a first-rate producer/engineer, costs about $40,000, so even when we crow about a $25,000/10,000/5,000 grant, it is a small fraction of what we need to preserve Alice Parker's choral legacy. The reality is, we depend greatly on individual donors for most of the funding. But we're not just about recordings. Under the editorial leadership of James Heiks, a member of the Board of Melodious Accord and 30-year veteran of music teaching, "Alice Parker's Hand-Me-Down Songs" is nearing publication. This collection of over 30 "sing along" songs are favorites of 8-10 year olds, and the content, design, and cost are intended to encourage "ownership" of the book by young singers. Alice Parker workshops continue to be at the heart of our mission, whether at her studio in Massachusetts, where song leaders, composers, and teachers are mentored in the Parker style, or across the country where thousands have experienced the joy of "Singing with Alice." As the song says, "It was a very good year," and we're planning toward "Tomorrow!" Marilyn Pryor, Chairman
The View From Here A New England Spring is so late, so brief and so beautiful. Right now, in mid-May, the grass is finally green, the trees are in that first, lacy leaf, and forsythia, daffodils and dandelions are screaming Yellow! Yellow! The apple trees are red all along their branches; willows stream in every breeze. My early white dogwood and azalea are in full bloom along with a few yellow tulips, jonquils and tiny purple grape hyacinth. Each one is precious, as there are so few. The lengthening days give us long twilights, which would be lovely time to work outside except that the bugs just arrived too. Tiny ones that nip, and big ones that bite. I walk every day in the woods, enjoying the views of the brook which will soon be hidden from eyes by green branches, but not from ears. . . it gurgles and splashes and roars after a good rain. I had two springs this year: the whole month of March I was in Atlanta, occupying the McDonald 'Chair' at Emory University. It was luxurious and pleasant, with many friends and opportunities to make music. When I arrived, I rejoiced in the yellow and purple pansies that echo the school colors - I had been starved for color. Soon daffodils bloomed, then tulips and finally tulip trees, dogwood and azaleas - a full six weeks ahead of Massachusetts. I also enjoyed temperatures in the 70s and 80s (they still haven't arrived here!) and the chance to take walks around the lake beside the campus. I came home expecting to enjoy a second flowering - but had to wait until the end of a cold, gray April before it even began. As a dedicated New Englander, though, it's worth the wait. Somehow it strengthens character to postpone the reward, and makes the arrival even more precious. Then there's frantic work to get the garden in so that we have veggies and herbs and salad makings before the summer is over. I'm reminded that last year we had a hot April and I put plants in early, only to have to begin again after the mid-May snowstorm. I guess that builds character too - no, mostly wariness. Mother Nature always wins! Alice Parker
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