Music Monday - The use of popular music in adaptations of classic plays.

On Saturday evening we attended a performance of Checkov’s The Cherry Orchard, presented by Black Swan State Theatre Company. The performance took place in one of the buildings and in the grounds of the Sunset Precinct, a heritage site in Dalkeith in Perth.

This is not a review of the play as such but some observations about the extensive use of pop music from the 1980s in this production, which was modernised and set in that decade in Manjimup, WA - the Western Australian cherry-growing district. (Ironically, the food and drinks served at interval remained distinctly Russian.)

Music was used to create context, develop a sense of character and to create a sense of place and time. The audience responded positively to the music and often seemed eager to tap, clap and even sing along. The choices of songs were recognisable, enhancing the audience’s identification and enjoyment. There were some terrible songs written in the 1980s – did we need to be reminded?!

In music theatre, music advances character and situations. Does it work the same way in a straight play? It is a fine balance. Get the balance wrong and music could be seen as just filling time. There were a few times on Saturday when I felt this was the case.

Music can also create mood and atmosphere. It was interesting in this performance, that the final act was without music. In a film there would have been underscoring throughout this scene. However, strangely, I found this final act the most satisfying of the performance.

I guess the challenge for a director is to know when to pull back.

Music Monday - Music’s healing power and cultural foundations

On Saturday I listened to The Science Show with Robyn Williams on ABC Radio. It was a fascinating discussion about the effect of music on the brain and on emotion  - very apt for Valentine’s Day.

The speakers were:

Psyche Loui, Associate Professor and Director MIND Lab, Northeastern University, MA, USA

Elizabeth Margulis, Professor of Music, Princeton University, NJ, USA

Daniel Levitin, Dean of Arts and Humanities at the Minerva Schools, San Francisco, USA

At Stagepage we have often referred to the benefits of music to brain development in children, in particular the wonderful work at Bigger Better Brains.

This was more of a look at music affects the brain overall.

I would urge you to have a listen to the whole show – it’s less than 30 minutes. 

Here, in points form, is what resonated most with me:

1. Musical anhedonia, an inability to experience pleasure from music, and the difference in the brains of those who have it – estimated less than 5% of humans. They are not ‘tone deaf’ or ‘worse at music’ – they simply don’t like it.

2. The rewards in the brain from experiencing music is linked to social bonding.

3. Our perception of music is strongly linked to culture and context. The famous Washington Post experiment (where a concert violinist busked in the subway and the majority of passers-by did not recognise his talent) was quoted, as was the perception of atonal music by western cultures with a tradition of tonal centres as opposed to people in say, rural China.

4. The variability in timing and amplitude that musicians use naturally, strongly affect the perception of the listener.

5. The entire brain is involved in music. Recent research seems to indicate that music uses older pathways in the brain – more resistant to transmission difficulty. 

6. Music is a unique stimulus to the brain; different parts of the brain are used for rhythm, melody, harmony, form and expression and different parts again bring them all together.

7. Point 6 may explain the effect of music in Alzheimers patients. Even after the pathways that affect speech and facial recognition have failed, the effect of familiar music can be a way to get at the brain of Alzheimers patients and help them recognise themselves.

8. The as yet underexplored area of the possible effect of music on health. For the past 2 decades there has been research but not empirical or rigorous. That is apparently changing.

9. The systemic interplay between prediction and reward when you listen to music that you enjoy.

10. Preliminary research into how music could help wounds heal faster. Music enhances mood. We have about 100 neurochemicals in our brains but scientists know only 8 of them so far. One of the famous ones – serotonin – is activated by music. Boosting levels of serotonin increases the T and K cells, the ‘James Bond’ of the immune system. Inflammation is a significant issue in wound healing and in some situations music can reduce inflammation.

I could go on, but you really need to listen for yourself and draw your own conclusions.

Like all music lovers, I have from a very young age, found certain pieces of music so achingly beautiful that they are almost too painfully beautiful. Many piano concerto slow movements fall into that category for me. I think I was drawn to this podcast because it explains some of this addiction to music.

Music Monday - Mismatched

This evening, Robin and I, with friends, attended the final performance of Mismatched in the Perth Fringe World Festival. The photo, taken after the show, is of me with the show’s pianist, Tommaso Pollio, who makes a reasonably average electric keyboard sound almost as good as when he (more often) plays the Fazioli grand piano at WAAPA. The final note on piano in tonight’s Maria, (more important in the score than the final sung note in my opinion), was every bit as evocative as you’d expect to hear in the Bernstein orchestration. Bravo Tommaso!

Mismatched describes itself as ‘a musical celebration of unlikely couples, starring cabaret veterans: Penny Shaw, Robert Hofmann and Tommaso Pollio’. It’s a slick and musically satisfying hour. The singing is top shelf from both singers, with just the right amount of operatic tone to please the audience. It is suggestive without being sleazy. It is middle of the road rather than edgy. The audience loved it, as did we. 

One line in the show particularly resonated with me. Penny Shaw talks of leaving a UK season of Phantom of the Opera to follow a relationship to Perth, Western Australia. She talked of being happily married here now for 20 years and asks the audience, “Who would have believed me twenty years ago, if I’d said that in 2021 there would be more work for singers in Perth, than on Broadway, the West End and the rest of the world combined?” 

Strange times indeed. 

Perth, one of the most isolated capital cities in the world (and to a large extent because of that) feels almost normal during this Fringe.

And so, we must remind ourselves again, that the rest of the world is far from normal.  As far as we can, we must work to support our fellow artists, not only here, but across the world. Otherwise, they may not be there when the pandemic ends.

We arts workers are not ‘essential workers’ but (again quoting from the show), we are where essential workers seek escape when they finish work.

Music Monday - Happy New Year, Happy New Anthem?

Happy New Year to all music teachers. May this be a year which slowly improves on 2020 and may we all resume choir singing and directing without fear of spreading Covid-19.

Over the past few days in Australia, discussion has again started on our Australian national anthem, Advance Australia Fair. It’s a bit of a dirge musically and the words have long been seen as inappropriate to Indigenous Australians as well as those who have come here from all over the world. Our conservative prime minister, Scott Morrison, announced that as of 1st January 2021, one word of the anthem would be changed – from ‘For we are young and free’ to ‘For we are one and free’. Almost as though this simple change will solve the many other issues with the text of the song. And to be honest, in a crowd singing the changed line, who would really know? 

I took another look at the complete verses of Advance Australia Fair, written by Peter Dodds McCormick in the 1870s. Verse 2 is particularly irksome, especially to Aboriginal Australians, the original custodians of this land:

When gallant Cook from Albion sail’d,

To trace wide oceans o’er,

True British courage bore him on,

Til he landed on our shore.

Then here he raised old England’s flag,

The standard of the brave;

“With all her faults we love her still

Britannia rules the wave.”

In joyful strains then let us sing

Advance Australia fair.

Surely we can do better than this? 

Personally, I think an obvious time to change the anthem would be at the end of Queen Elizabeth’s reign – when I hope we will finally become a republic. In the meantime though – is a one word change enough?

Music Monday - Rhythm and Rhyme – working creatively with young children.

Both rhyme and rhythm are patterns in sound – in spoken sound as well as sung sound.

The wonderful work done by biggerbetterbrains.com highlights the importance of these skills in early language development. I have written about this in previous Music Monday posts and it continues to fascinate me, especially now that we have a pre-schooler grandson in our lives.

Yesterday (almost) 4 year-old William came to our house for the day. As usual he was excited about what activities we had planned for his visit. The hot favourites always include cooking, picking up the dog’s poop (yes, really) and music. The last always includes a very short period of hand positions on the piano, and a longer time singing songs, accompanied by me with William playing random notes in rhythm at the top end of the keyboard. Yesterday his attention was caught by the rhyming patterns in one particular song and I wondered whether we could play further with this idea, especially after he volunteered, “The rhymes are words that sound the same, aren’t they?”

We got out William’s scrap book and started writing down rhyming words. Of course, ‘poop’ featured – loads of good rhyming words with that one! 

Next we made up short phrases, each one ending with one of our rhyming words. After 8 phrases and 4 pairs of rhymes, we tried clapping each phrase. One of William’s made-up phrases started with an upbeat so we talked about that, and although he didn’t really understand the concept, he was able to clap it with the stress on the first beat of the bar. 

We then played a game where I clapped the phrases out of sequence and William guessed which phrase I was clapping – mostly accurately. We talked briefly about the words being the rhythm – that time-honoured concept of primary music teachers. 

Finally we invented a tune for his song. William was inclined to stick to a monotone and focus on the rhythmic patterns, but I guided and coaxed him towards a simple tune contained within the doh-soh range.

All up this song-writing activity took about 30 minutes.

Later, when his parents arrived for dinner, he was keen to share his song. As before, he clearly enjoyed stressing the strong beats, clapping and singing enthusiastically. He felt ownership of both the process and end product.

So much of what we do in music classes tends towards recreating. Sometimes it is fun – and beneficial – to be creative instead.

Music Monday - COVID 19 + Singing

This report was brought to my attention a few days ago. It is definitely worth a read. (NATS is the highly respected professional association of singing teachers in the USA; the American equivalent of ANATS in Australia.)

Now while it must be remembered that the viral load is very much larger in the USA than here in Australia, the report gives us much food for thought:

Adequate spacing and distancing between singers in any ensemble, choir, class or individual voice lesson will be the only safe way to teach and rehearse for the foreseeable future.

Some of our traditional singing warmup practices of touching our faces and feeling for vibration will be only possible within the most stringent of hygienic practice.

We singing teachers need to be vigilant in watching for and calling out students touching mouths, noses and eyes during our lessons.

As Australia moves towards easing the Covid-19 restrictions over the coming months, we face a challenging time ahead as we all work together to find ways to continue making music safely and with artistic integrity.

Music Monday - ANZAC Day

Anzac Day

Anzac Day 2020 was like no other before it in the many years since 1915.

In Australia, with gatherings banned due to covid-19, the usual services and parades were cancelled  - except for one at the Australian War Memorial in Canberra attended by only the few dignitaries who conducted it, telecast to the nation.

Instead, at the tops of suburban driveways across the country, Australians gathered just before dawn, holding lighted candles, and sometimes waving to acknowledge their neighbours without approaching or speaking to them.

 In quiet reflection Australians remembered their Anzacs  - and all who have suffered and perished in war – and as the skies softly lightened with the dawn, the morning chorus of magpies and crows was augmented by players of music – student brass players, music teachers, amateur and professional musicians and singers – each contributing to an extraordinarily moving tribute.

On my own driveway I could hear from the next street the hesitant sounds of a student trumpeter playing “Lest We Forget”. Further away there was the faint sound of the Last Post with its tricky high notes for beginner players. 

In the couple of days since Saturday the papers have carried letters from Australians suggesting that the dawn driveway tradition be kept and commenting on how moving it was to have their own silent contemplation accompanied by the sound of live music. My music teacher friends as well as non-muso neighbours have all said much the same.

Music is SO important in our many life rituals. When we work on the tedium of music theory, or teaching the singing and playing of scales, it is worth remembering how important our job is. We are contributing in our way to the rich tapestry of our country’s unique culture.

Music Monday - What I am learning from my 3 year- old grandson

Our son, daughter-in-law and grandson have moved to Perth and are living with us for a month or so until they find a house. Suddenly we have gone from a quiet household of two sixty-something adults to a busy, cluttered, slightly crazy environment with a 3 year-old who springs into each day curious, questioning and eager to play, play, play. I find myself wondering and marvelling that we ever got anything done back in our day as parents of pre-schoolers at the same time working full-time as teachers. Of course, across Australia and the world, this generation of working parents are doing the same.

I find myself observing William’s play and reflecting yet again on the research into musical beat and its connection to reading readiness. I also find myself rethinking the whole idea of using only gross motor skills when making music with this age group – something which was emphasized to us in music education classes. Yes, children under 5 years are still learning to catch a ball, balance on one leg, jump etc. But in another sense they have greater fine motor skills than previous generations, developed through what seems like a universal use of screens these days.

William loves to sing and make up songs. Of course, he is somewhat influenced by parents who are also musical. But his inclination, whether singing his own invented songs or those learned from family and various television programs, is to move to the beat. Today we played with various beat movement combinations – clapping, patschen and so on. He could maintain a steady beat with a recurring 2-action beat but found more than 2 physical actions a challenge to maintain steadily. So a recurring pattern of slapping knees then clapping was easy to maintain while singing the Sesame Street alphabet song. Slapping knees then clapping 2 beats was also a success while singing his current favourite – the refrain from The First “Nowell”. But a 4-beat action pattern of slapping knees, clapping, slapping a partner’s hands then clapping again, while doable, was less successful as a steady beat while singing.

Where am I going with this? Well, music as an art form aside, should we not as a society be maximising the benefits to child development from engaging with beat and rhythm as early as possible? Perhaps childcare centres – especially as their staff are required to do some level of early childhood education training - could be the entry point for children in this work. That would surely have a levelling effect for children before they enter formal schooling.

Music Monday

Across Australia some schools have finished for the year and for the others this is the final week before the long summer holiday starts.

With Christmas carols everywhere at present, I noticed a recent facebook post which drew attention to the carol, “Joy To The World”. This carol begins with a descending major scale. The post read something like, “Joy to the world is a major scale” (which also referenced that the carol is often sung in the key of A major).

This got me thinking about other songs which contain whole scales – in other words all the notes of the scale, rather than little sections interspersed with intervals. I cannot think of many; in fact so far I have been able to think of only 3:

1. The afore-mentioned “Joy To The World” (descending major scale)

2. The opening of the canon known as “The Wordless Canon” or sometimes simply “lah ti doh re” (ascending Aeolian Mode / natural minor scale)

3. Bars 3 and 4 of the introduction to Stevie Wonder’s “You Are The Sunshine Of My Life” (ascending whole tone scale)

When I asked my year 9 students whether they could think of any, an interesting and lively discussion began. Many students were able to identify fragments of scales in songs that they know – and there was occasional confusion between the various forms of the minor scale. Students offered suggestions and were shouted down by others because their song contained intervals – not pure scales. And so on. It was interesting to see the students engaging with scales in an animated way – such a contrast to the look of benign resignation when we practise singing the set scales for their technical work assessments.

So facebook friends – can you add to my list of songs?

Continue the conversation on facebook and twitter.

Music Monday - Remembrance Day

Today in Australia it was Remembrance Day. 

At the 11th hour of the 11th month the whole country stops for a minute’s silence to honour and remember those who lost their lives in war. Red poppies are worn on this day. 

It is also customary to have a bugler play The Last Post before the minute’s silence and Reveille at the end. Both pieces are heavily based on the intervals of the perfect 4th and 5th – intervals which are notoriously challenging to sing exactly in tune.

It happened that today I was working at my school and so, along with the whole school population, joined the short memorial at 11am.

As at previous Remembrance Day services I was again struck by how very silent the students are on this day. It is a different kind of silence than an ordinary school assembly silence – a complete silence. A respectful silence.

 And then out of this pristine silence comes the bugle playing the Last Post - the repeated upward 5th - with a pause on the 5th each time. The minute’s silence follows. Then again out of complete silence comes Reveille – more upward fifths then an upward 4th. The focus of the whole crowd is on those sounds. There is no background noise. Then the Remembrance service is over for this year. We return to class.

My year 9 group are identified as gifted and talented in music theatre but they are mixed ability in aural and music skills. Interestingly, today all the students can sing the Last Post back to me with correctly centred pitch. And yet when we encounter the same intervals within their song repertoire, they are no longer all exactly in tune.

Why is this so? They hear the Last Post only once per year. Is it the iconic nature of the annual memorial which imprints itself in them? Is it because it is one of the few times in a year that they listen to a single line of sound with no background noise whatsoever?

How can we transfer this learning to other aspects of their musical education?