Musical Musings by Angela Chan
September 2009
For music teachers, September marks the beginning of the academic year. It is an exciting time when we re-open our studios, accept new students, and see returning students grow. The beginning of the term is time to help students evaluate and define goals for the forthcoming year, and to choose new repertoire.
As teachers, we would like to be as fully prepared as possible – we acquire collections of new repertoire, check out new teaching methodologies, download funny musical videos on youtube, purchase new recording equipment, reorganize the studio, revise policies… As much as our students’ playing may have become a little rusty after the summer break, teachers may also benefit from a little boost to get back into gear.
The question is: How can we recharge our pedagogical batteries? Both piano performance and teaching are by nature solitary professions, whether it is about practice, teaching, managing our studios, or organizing activities for our students. Often times, this entails a lonesome journey, and understandably inspiration may run dry despite unwavering commitment and enthusiasm, for we are only human.
Attending workshops and seminars in the company of other music teachers not only helps establish new networks, but also opens a forum for the exchange of ideas. This brings new perspective and insight to our pedagogical approaches. As music teacher and director of a music and fine arts institution, I have the fortune of immersing myself in an environment that celebrates diversity and nurtures innovative ideas amongst musical professionals, colleagues and students. As a consequence, I benefit from a getting a “kick-start” for the fall semester.
Last Monday, Professor Joe Ringhofer, Chief Examiner Emeritus of RCM Examinations and Director of the Phoenix Conservatory of Music presented a workshop on “stealth” music theory at our school. In his talk, Professor Ringhofer demonstrated through his multimedia presentation how concepts of music theory such as harmony, form and structure are integral within the repertoire of young students. He surmises that, when concepts of music theory are presented to students in a fun and exciting manner through performance, learners become better able to relate to the music they play even at early stages of learning. Once they are able to “see” the patterns and relationships as they appear on the score, hear the compositional structure as it is played, and feel the patterns unfold under their hands, they also become better able to relate these experiences to the music they play. This is particularly helpful in the cultivation of an intuitive keyboard sense and general musicianship.
By assimilating theory into musical performance, teachers are also less inclined to confine their pedagogy exclusively to the mechanics of performance in isolation. This liberates teaching from the grueling nitty-gritty details. As we all know, insistence on getting specific details down can be an ordeal between teacher and student at times. It is sometimes necessary to step back in order to gain perspective.
I find that integrating theory and performance offers teachers a greater degree of freedom. When faced with a challenging situation where a specific approach does not seem to work, shifting focus can be particularly helpful. In this instance, students develop a stronger sense of musicianship through learning about form and harmony. With a better harmonic understanding of the music, students are more likely to express the music with greater artistic coherence.
Ringhofer also demonstrated how concepts of harmony, structure, and form could all be introduced to the young student in a friendly and integrative manner at an early phase. His comprehensive presentation makes it immediately apparent that a deeper understanding of theory established through analysis helps improve musical awareness. This can effectively expand the scope of musical understanding by bridging the chasm between theory and performance.
In the workshop, Ringhofer discussed the importance of helping students understand style. To present a convincing performance, the student needs to have a clear sense of character and style – whether it is a minuet, a berceuse or a free-flowing fantasy. As Ringhofer indicated, “it is possible to teach a child to paraphrase every nuance in a Shakespearean act without a deeper level of understanding of meaning and structure. In this instance, the child is learning nothing more than mimicry. It is through cultivating an intuitive sense of musical understanding that students can truly appreciate the music they play.”
This workshop has inspired me to integrate a more global approach in my teaching. Music is by nature a multi-faceted art form. Much akin to dance, applying the appropriate physical movements and touch at the right moments to the instrument can create sounds that captivate the listener. Some useful questions to ask may be: How can I better cultivate musicianship in my students through analysis? How can I motivate my students by making them curious about music through the study of theory?
I learned ever since my first years of teaching that every student is unique. To address individual differences in teaching, I need to use an alternative language that communicates to them at the core level. To a student who is more emotionally inclined, using stories, metaphors or analogies can be useful. For the visually inclined, a picture is worth a thousand words. I find it particularly helpful to use pictures to demonstrate the relationship of sounds – as much as paint offers a palette of colors to be applied across the canvas, sound offers a multi-dimensional palette to be lavished on the canvas of time.
I often share with my piano students that a good musician has the privilege not only to perform their instrument on stage, but also to play with the emotions of the audience through sound. In this instance, the concert artist becomes the stage hypnotist. This is the most gratifying experience – to be given the opportunity to express yourself without reservation, to cajole sounds from the piano keys, tugging on the heartstrings of your audience. This is the ultimate “power” of communication bestowed upon the concert artist. A good musician is a magician, who suspends disbelief in the audience. An artist can entrance her audience, keeping them spell-bound. Through sound, the barriers of space and time can be transcended.
This reminds me of my little student who felt nervous about playing for her RCM Grade 9 examination. I said to her “How many times have we performed for a friend or a family member, when mid-way into our performance, he/she started to yawn or initiate a chat with someone? In this instance, you are actually very fortunate. You have worked so hard on your repertoire, and now that you are fully prepared, you’re given the opportunity to perform for an empathetic professional who is there to support your artistic growth. So, think of this as a unique experience. You have the ultimate power when you walk into the examination room. You know why? You are going to be the magician, and you will turn the tables around. It is true that when you first entered the room, the examiner is the judge and you are the candidate. But after you’ve played the first note from your heart, you become the artist, and the examiner now becomes your audience. You have every power to change the situation and emotions through sound. It is all under your hands!” I am positive that on the day of the performance, my little one let her hands follow her heart – as it has been fully acknowledged in the examiner’s comments.
For minds that are mechanically or mathematically inclined, I would be obliged to communicate using a more “scientifically-based language”. For this student population, tangible facts and algorithms offer stronger cognitive appeal than ephemeral descriptions. Although explaining music in form of equations and graphs may seem a bit radical for many musicians and teachers, I find this to be highly effective for specific individuals. One of my students instantly grasped the notion that his fingers should remain curved as they descend into the keys to derive a more focused tone, as soon as I broke down the forces involved into its vectorial components. I also discovered that spatial and temporal analogies (as in the strategizing of chess moves) are particularly effective in helping students understand concepts of fingering. As soon as students are sensitized towards detecting and recognizing patterns, they become more capable in anticipating changes, and hence become more adept in making real-time adjustments. As a consequence, their skills in fingering and sight-reading improve.
For the imaginative student, the use of stories, or portrayal of specific feelings and emotions can be helpful towards artistic expression. As we tap into deeply felt emotions, we venture into a different zone where life takes on a different meaning altogether – where composer, artist and audience coalesce to become one. I can vividly recall that most inexplicable bittersweet feeling of helpless abandonment resonating within me every time I listen to the recording of Rachmaninoff’s Vocalise performed by my favorite pianist. Sounds can trigger intense emotions, and the converse is certainly true.
As the Austrian musicologist Victor Zuckerkandl succinctly puts it, “words divide, tones unite.” Music has an all-encompassing unifying effect. We all share similarities at a visceral level – in terms of how we sense, feel and experience our reality. Opinions may differ, but the ways we respond to emotions are undeniably similar.
As music teachers, we have the mandate to help students express themselves through the language of music. In the process, we need to be receptive and remain open towards finding a “language” that transcends perceptual barriers; and to develop the versatility in communication - whether it is through analysis of theoretical structure, addressing the emotive elements of music, or through more expansive explorations. The key is perhaps to interfere the least while generating the most effective and positive impact. This is when less is more…
(c) Angela Chan September 2009.
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