Vocal Tai-Chi

I realised this weekend how powerful voice work can be. More importantly, how powerful group work with the voice can be. Jenni Roditi’s Vocal Tai-Chi workshop this weekend was a pleasure to experience. I offered some additional backing to the solo performances in the second half of the workshop – improvising on the piano – preceded by group work for the first part of the afternoon.

Jenni facilities such an intriguing atmosphere, and without any pressure on the participants. So much encouragement existed in the room not only from Jenni but from everyone, to encourage each other to explore and try things out. The internal pressure to try and be “good” at the activities slipped away fairly quickly. There was no goal, or expectation, other than to engage with a process. And all the participants did. William Westney’s ‘Unmasterclass’ came to mind during one activity, and it reminded me of how valuable expressing musical gestures through movement can be. Westney’s book ‘The Perfect Wrong Note’ was an inspiring book when I was undertaking the EPTA Piano Pedagogy course, as was the book ‘A Soprano on her head’. Coming at a desired outcome from what can appear to be an unrelated route often brings interesting results, and such methods help to detach us from any preconceived ideas about a process. Not to say Jenni’s guided processes were unclear in anyway, or disconnected. On the contrary, there was very clear path of the processes we were exploring and an evolving one at that, as she was responding to what the participants brought to the workshop.

All participants were welcome to contribute anything of their experience during day, and particularly after solo improvisations in the second half of the workshop. Such warmth and consideration was given to everyone’s solo performance with feedback that showed this was more than a musical experience for everyone. A diverse range of participant permitted really interesting discussions, and I could sense this was the beginning of a rather intriguing and enriching journey for Jenni and for those attending.

Let them make noise

Jonathan Savage encourages us to ‘find time, in what are our undoubtedly busy lives, to read and reflect on the broad literature of music education’. His new book The Guided Reader to Teaching and Learning Music (Routledge 2013) is a collection of what he considers key writers that have inspired his pedagogy, and he rightly points out that the ‘development of a skilful pedagogy is a blend of theory and practice which needs careful integration and constant attention’. Savage’s new book seems an ideal way to aid this integration, with each extract supported by questions and points to consider for the practising teacher.

‘We are musical: it is part of our basic human design’ writes Welch, in the first extract in Chapter One of Savage’s book. Welch goes on to write ‘we do not require formalised music education in order to engage purposefully with music and to exhibit musical behaviours’ and that ‘music is integral to our social and cultural environment’. Welch writes of the importance of pre-birth musical and sound experiences: children grow to know their mother’s voice and even her musical taste before birth. The ‘diversity of pre-school musical experience needs to be understood and addressed when children enter the education system if we are to ensure that each child’s basic musicality is developed to its full potential’. Welch writes that ‘music in school, therefore, is not just a basic human and educational entitlement; it should be sensitively designed to address the diversity of our musical backgrounds, to differentiate our musical needs and to faster individual musical development’. I agree with Welch that ‘school music education will be more successful if it embraces both the plurality of musical cultures within the wider community’ and most importantly that ‘ we are all musical: we just need the opportunity for our musicality to be celebrated and developed. Such is the prime purpose of music education’.

I find it difficult to remember my own early musical experiences. I can recall hearing Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony for the first time and how much it made me want to move to the music, particularly the first movement. I can recall my class music teacher giving my a copy of Poulenc’s Flute Sonata and explaining that the double-tonguing in the first movement – if one chooses to use such a technique – required me to ‘blow raspberries in the flute’. I don’t recall anything earlier with any clarity but have seen how much of an impact music has on younger children and babies. They move to music, and research has shown that it is the pace of music rather than particular styles that seems to be most attractive to very young children. Children are noisy, and much of their speech seems to blur with singing and they can move freely between speech and song, and seem to have a preference for higher pitch sounds. Before verbal communication babies makes signs, and noises. Such forms of communication are essential to music making.

It must be rather jarring  for a child to enter school having experience music making in a natural, free way and then be expected to not move or make noise in response to the music they hear. Attending a workshop led by William Westney when I was undertaking an EPTA Piano Pedagogy Course demonstrated the value of responding to music with movement. It really hit home how much our musical education slowly erodes such a natural and free response to musical sound when William expected the adult participants to move to music, and to make gestures connected to the music to other participants in the class, willing them to mimic the gesture. It must be a priority for music educators at the early stages to ensure they build on ‘the natural engagement in music and music education that Welch argues all children naturally engage in’ (Savage) and singing is particularly ideal to do this. Savage suggests considering ‘how can we avoid the mismatch between the emerging musical identities of pupils and the formal curriculum in the early years that may be a problem?’. Avoiding the mismatch between school and home needs music teaching that does not set up a hierarchy of styles – music is music. Placing certain styles above or below others will only result in conflict. Pupils need to feel their musical experiences are respected and acknowledged, then we can connect new experiences to these.

There can be no doubt of the importance of early music experiences. I have had pupils refuse to sing as their first music teacher told then they could not sing. There seems to be a growing divide between those that are ‘musicians’ and those that are not, and this surely comes from the ignorant music teacher that sees such an artificial divide. A real shame, as such comments from music teachers stay with pupils for much of their life. My early musical experiences did shape my current musical life. I was fortunate to have very encouraging teachers that did all they could to stretch my music making and tailor experiences to my abilities and beyond. I remember vividly in a year 9 lesson being encouraged to notate a song for voice and piano, and to explore different inversions of triads and extensions. At GCSE my teacher fed me a never ending supply of pieces to explore that led to a great deal of composing. My music teachers showed me that there are pathways for all to engage in music making – we just need to be inventive enough to find them.

Musical Creativity

Reblogged from Steven Berryman:

I have started to read Pamela Burnard's recent book 'Musical Creativites in Practice' (OUP 2012) and hope to blog about each chapter as I read. It's a subject rather close to my heart as a composer but equally important to me as a teacher. Creativity in music is commonly confined to composing and improvising, and Burnard makes an interesting point that her own experiences of musical creativity as she was growing up and studying were rather limited.

Read more… 609 more words

Virtuoso Teacher Review

My review of Paul Harris’ Virtuoso Teacher appears in the most recent issue of Music Education Asia magazine. The magazine can be read for free on iPhone/iPad via a free download. Additionally I will be speaking at the Music Education Asia’s conference, MusicLearningLive! 2013, taking place in October in Singapore.

New Voices @ CUA

My choral piece ‘Versa est in luctum’ was performed in January as part of the New Voices festival at Catholic University of the Arts in Washington, DC. As part of the festival website I was asked to write about the piece and my musical inspiration; below is what I submitted. Originally published on the festival website.

What inspired you to become a composer?

My earliest memory of music is discovering Beethoven’s 6th Symphony as a ten year old. I was immediately compelled to move to the music, fascinated by the timbre of the strings and the power of the orchestral sound. It wasn’t long until I started to try and create short pieces myself, experimenting how to combine sounds and early pieces were often pastiches of the repertoire I was studying as a flautist.&nbps; I wrote obsessively as a teenager, exploring the solo sonata genre and attempting to write a piano concerto!

What inspired you to write the piece, and why did you choose to set this particular text?

Versa est in Luctum was a text requested by a small vocal group (in London, of young singers called Voce Sanctis) to fit in programme they were to perform of Renaissance vocal works. The text offers opportunity for word painting (My harp is tuned for lamentation, and my flute to the voice of those who weep. Spare me, O Lord, for my days are as nothing) though I rejected such word painting and was compelled to focus on harmonic materials as a way of delivering my own interpretation of the text. The piece received its first performance by Voce Sanctis at St. Luke’s, Chelsea in March 2012.

What music, from any genre or style, intrigues, inspires, and influences you?

Teaching music to a variety of ages and abilities of musicians has been my main source of inspiration as students often inspire me with their own composing or improvisations in class. The music I engage with as a listener and what ultimately inspires me, and intrigues me varies from week to week. I thrive on discovering new and unfamiliar music, and recently Thomas Adés, Matthew Herbert, Fauré, Handel have featured heavily on my Spotify playlists. I am particularly fascinated by the voice and it is this ‘grain of the voice’ (as Barthes described it) that keeps me writing music.

Steven’s piece, Versa est in Luctum, will be performed on the Sacred Music Concert on Saturday, January 26 at 1:30 pm in St. Vincent de Paul’s Chapel. A recording of the piece can be heard here.

Corpo: Lixa da Alma (Waste: Body of Soul)

Anomalous Visuals writes of the work that I composed music for:

“Performed at Cena Brasil Internacional Festival, Waste-Body of the Soul was an international multimedia installation involving artists based in London, Berlin and Rio. Conceived by costume designer Mauricio Carneiro and artist Beo da Silva, the collaborative project combines performance, poetry, live feed video, music and photography. Anomalous Visuals were responsible for the overall production of the digital installation and performed live visuals on the opening nights.”

Videos of the work – using music by me – can be seen here http://www.anomalousvisuals.co.uk/index.php?/live/cena/

 

Repeating Music

Enjoyable and educational concert by the London Sinfonietta last night; an introduction to minimalism, combined with video design and curated with quotes and extracts of interviews from the three composers programmed. Phillip Glass, Steve Reich and Terry Riley made a well paced programme which included some visually interesting pieces (Pendulum Music by Reich) and the violinist Jonathan Morton gave hypnotic performances of Violin Phase and Knee Play 2 (Reich). Clapping Music was rightly included, and the concert had opened with Philip Glass’ 1+1 for tabletop. It’s Gonna Rain (Reich) was fascinating to hear, beautifully joined by video, with a well paced, exciting performance of Terry Riley’s In C to complete the programme and performed by a larger ensemble.

This concert had plenty to offer those new and experienced to minimalism, and there was balance in this programme of music that was truly minimal in its musical material. Pendulum Music and It’s Gonna Rain were the most intriguing examples for me; leaving nature to dictate the pacing of how two or more sounds interact as the method of structuring a piece.