Music Musing Monday - What is it about the taas and titis?

For many years I have enjoyed asking people about what, if anything, they remember of their primary school music education. Each year I pose this question to the class of 1st year acting students I teach at WAAPA. And when running workshops for primary classroom teachers over the years, I have always posed it to them as well.

For many of my generation in Western Australia, the only school music education was the weekly ABC singing broadcast to schools. On Friday mornings at around 11.30am the crackly classroom wireless set was cranked into action to deliver the song to be taught that week. My classmates would sigh and then drag themselves into reluctant submission to the alien classical songs being offered for their musical education. By contrast I always enjoyed – or pretended to enjoy - the broadcasts, but then I was already learning piano from my grandmother and listening to my mother practise art songs and German Lieder for her next ABC broadcast. I suspect I was a young musical upstart.

In the 1980s the Education Department in Western Australia introduced music specialist teaching into primary schools. It was a political decision to support the teachers’ union demand for DOTT (duties other than teaching) time for classroom teachers. To support the appointment of so many specialist teachers (many of whom had had limited actual specialisation in music themselves), the department developed music syllabus materials to support them. “Music In Schools” was developed, based on the Kodaly approach to music education, and on the work of Deanna Hoermann in NSW. Deanna was one of Australia’s pioneers in bringing the Kodaly approach into an Australian context.

So back to my original question. Many of the students and fellow teachers I have worked with over the past 20 years were educated post-1980s  - and in the Kodaly approach (which emphasizes solfa and time names and a methodical approach to intervals through singing.)

The taas and titis are the very first, basic rhythmic steps of this approach – closely followed by tika -tika, timka, etc. And paralleled by the learning of simple melodic intervals such as the falling minor third. It is a sequential program of learning.

Yet it is those first two rhythmic patterns that are remembered best  - both as sound and symbol – along with anecdotes about marking the rhythms with claves, making rhythmic patterns by making the symbol shapes with pop sticks and so on.

Is this another example of our fundamental human instinct for beat and rhythm? Or is it simply that beat and rhythm are less complex to teach than melody, so therefore more students Australia-wide have been exposed to the taas and titis?

What was your experience?

Music Musing Monday - Sound or Sense?

In the past week or so I have been pondering the curious phenomenon of student singers to ask after a performance, “How did it sound?” or “Was my voice okay?”

 Not “Was my interpretation clear?” or “Was I singing correct pitches and rhythms?” or “Could you understand the text?” or “Did you believe me?”

 The acting students I work with rarely ask, after performing a monologue or role, “How did it sound?” or “Was my voice okay?” But - the moment we work on songs, those same questions arise. 

When I draw the comparison with the speaking voice, the student actors are usually amused. Sure, they will ask whether they were successful in maintaining accent and dialect in a speech or role, or whether they could be heard clearly. But the sound of their spoken voice rarely concerns them. 

Successful singing and acting both rely on a secure vocal technique. And, of course, singing and speaking voices vary enormously in their inherent timbre and beauty. But where most of us will look forward to seeing a particular actor, more because of his / her ability to tell a story and transform into character than the essential sound of his / her voice; many more of us will go to hear a singer because of the voice itself.

I have always ranked the story-telling above the sound of the voice but over the years have come to realise that people are pretty evenly split on this.

Where do you fit? Is it the essential sound or the sense of what is being sung or spoken which hooks you?

Music Musing Monday - Awareness of beat in music and its significance to children beginning to read language.

Back in June I wrote about the work of Dr Anita Collins, an Australian neuromusical educator from the ACT. Dr Anita Collins has been back in Perth this past week and was a presenter at the national ASME (Australian Society for Music Education) conference held at the University of Western Australia. Although I was unable to attend the conference, I met up for coffee on Saturday with a singing teacher friend and colleague from Sydney. Of course, the conversation turned to the conference themes and presenters and my friend spoke excitedly of the neuromusical research presented – in particular the early childhood musical opportunities which, if utilised, can make a significant difference to a child’s capacity for learning.

We spoke about Dr Collins’ findings that a child who cannot maintain a rhythmic beat is not yet ready to read language. This seems, on one hand a concept so simple, and yet so elusive in our current education systems.

Why do we not train all early childhood teachers in the most fundamental concepts of music – beat and rhythm?

It is important to recognise that this is quite a different need to the equally important one of providing specialist music (and all arts) teachers in primary schools to provide worthwhile teaching and learning experiences. The significance of the early childhood beat and rhythmic work is that, if missed, the neurological benefit cannot be made up for in later childhood. Your thoughts?

I will be asking my primary music and early childhood teacher friends for their most effective classroom beat activities. Watch out for further details in future posts.

In the meantime – keep an eye on Dr Collins’ work – check out ‘Bigger Better Brains’ on facebook.

Music Musings Monday - Saying goodbye

At this time of year across Australia secondary teachers are saying goodbye to their year 12 students as they prepare for final exams and departure from the school system.

Those of us teaching music (or for that matter any of the arts) know the special nostalgia of farewelling students after sharing years of arts-rich teaching and learning experiences with them - experiences which both student and teacher will remember for many years to come; probably for life.

Over the past weekend I had two opportunities to reflect on the power of music and the arts in our lives.

On Friday as I packed up to leave school, a colleague and friend mused on the coming week when she would say goodbye to her year 12 singing students. A number of these kids had done weekly voice lessons and several choir rehearsals with her for the past five years. In time the weekly lessons may retreat to the back recesses of their collective memory, but it is likely that most will carry memories of their choir performances for life.

 On Saturday I attended a reunion of my own old school year group. I attended an all-girls school and back in my day music was not offered as a subject at the school. Our school music experience involved some half-hearted group singalongs with a well-meaning volunteer teacher in the old stables building at the back of the school. Although I was learning piano outside of school, I probably played the school piano fewer than five times in as many years. Nevertheless, at the reunion several old girls asked me whether I was still playing piano. I was pretty amazed that they remembered at all – but obviously they saw the piano playing as part of who I was.

 There is no doubt that we tend to remember our school arts experiences – music concerts, drama productions, musicals, dance shows and so on. What do all of these experiences have in common? I think that part of the positive memory is tied to the discipline, practice and training that precedes the performance and contributes to the satisfaction of getting to performance standard – being stage worthy. Best practice in the performing arts is hard fun. And that is what creates those lifelong memories.

Music Musing Monday - Toy Pianos

One Saturday recently I drove from home to WAAPA listening (as I do most Saturdays) to Andrew Ford’s Music Show on ABC Radio National.

The featured guest that day was Margaret Leng Tan, known for her work in championing the work of John Cage since the 1980s but also in more recent times, for her use of the toy piano as a serious musical instrument.

During the program Margaret Leng Tan spoke extensively about the toy piano as a musical instrument in its own right. She also performed pieces composed for the instrument by Jed Distler and Phyllis Chen.

You can catch the program on https://www.abc.net.au

As I listened, I mused on several things.

Firstly I have never thought of using a toy piano as an actual musical instrument. I thought of them as cheap, rather tinny and unattractive-sounding Christmas gifts for children from childless relatives – the family members who would also give a toy drum kit gift to a toddler.

A quick online search revealed a number of sources for buying better quality toy pianos, though it should be noted that Margaret Leng Tan considers that the toy pianos being manufactured today are not as good as those from the last century. 

My second train of thought started when there was brief discussion about the toy piano being the perfect instrument for scoring the soundtrack for a horror movie. As I listened to performances on the instruments during the show I could definitely hear how the quality of the sound – very different from a full sized piano - could invoke tension and suspense.

As I reflected on the show I wondered - could a toy piano make a useful and versatile addition to a school performing arts department? The music department could certainly use it in improvisation and composition projects.

The media department could utilise it in sound effects. And no doubt the drama department would get in on the act as well.

Toy pianos – who would have thought!

Music Musing Monday - Choral Singing

Yesterday I helped out at the Western Australian Public Secondary Schools’ Choral Festival. This is an annual event organised by the Instrumental Music Schools Services in the Department of Education. Many of my voice teaching colleagues and friends were there with their choirs.

Choir directing has not featured much in my long teaching career. Once, long ago, I directed a church youth choir, and I have certainly sung my share of Messiahs and other major choral works in choirs over the years. But my direction of any large group of singers has mostly been as a vocal coach and MD for musicals.

Yesterday as I sat listening and watching, I was struck by the special bonds which so clearly existed in almost all of the choirs and ensembles. The singers clearly loved performing together and were proud to take ownership of their work. 

The groups ranged in size from four to around one hundred and in age from grades 7 to 12. Nearly seven hundred singers took part over the day. 

The vocal styles covered folk, religious, indigenous, pop, gospel, classical and music theatre. Some of the performances featured simple choreography and I was again reminded of the benefit to our brains of combining music and movement. (I also remembered back to the 1980s when ‘choralography’ was first seen as a trend in the USA and was regarded by many Australian choral purists as something to be avoided here at all costs!)

Where am I going with this?

Well, in this time of parents seeking private singing teachers for their children at younger and younger ages – and at considerable cost – they might be better advised to ensure that their child joins a choir. There the basics of good breathing and fundamental singing techniques can be learned, along with musicianship and reading skills and most importantly, working as an ensemble with other like-minded children. Solo vocal lessons can wait a year or so.

Of course, this all comes at a cost to the choir directors who work tirelessly to rehearse, to strive for detailed and polished performances, as well as attend to the myriad paperwork involved with taking students out to choral festivals.  My colleagues were clearly exhausted at the end of the day. But it was so worth it for the students and the audience.

As I watched a group of year 12 students thanking their choir director (and secretly shedding a tear that this was their last choir performance before graduating high school) I was filled with admiration for choir directors world-wide.

Music Tip Monday #10 - Scale patterns

Why do choir directors and singing teachers so often play warm-ups in major scale patterns?

Have you ever noticed that singing warm-ups nearly always exist in major scale patterns? Why is that the case?

Some singing and music teachers have told me that because they are not keyboard experts, they feel most comfortable playing in 5 note major scale patterns. And that is okay, except that it reinforces the same sequence of whole and half step intervals (tones and semitones) in the ear of the singer. And then when that singer does a music exam where other scales are required as part of the technical work, more complex scales like the chromatic and whole tone become aural challenges. Why not instead make a habit of mixing up the scale patterns from the beginning stages of training?

With limited piano or keyboard skills most music and singing teachers can play a major scale from middle key – it is simply 8 white notes ascending.

Finding the natural minor scale (also known as the Aeolian mode) is as simple as playing 8 white notes from the A two notes below middle C. Immediately a new tonality and pattern of tones and semitones is available to the student’s ear.

You could try all your favorite warm-up exercises in both major and natural minor keys. By using only the black notes on the keyboard you can play and explore the pentatonic scale – a scale which works whichever note you start on.

The less predictable your warm-up patterns are, the more attuned your students’ ears will become.

Give it a go!

Music Tip Monday #9 -

One of the reasons music is an appealing art form is that people can engage in it at any age.

It is never too late to start making music.

When planning music learning for a primary (elementary) class, the teacher often faces the challenge of teaching the basic music concepts in an engaging way. For example, what happens if an upper primary class has had limited or no prior exposure to music learning?

The fundamental concepts must be taught for the learning to be meaningful and sequential, but the pre-adolescent child can be impatient with learning the basics of, say, beat and rhythm.

Many teachers successfully apply this rule: Keep the concept simple but the activity age-appropriate.

Here are some examples:

You need to teach the concept of maintaining a steady 4 beat pattern.

In the pre-primary classroom the children stamp to the 4 beats – left right left right – repeat the sequence.

In the middle primary classroom the children form pairs and face each other to mirror a 4 beat sequence – slap own thighs, clap hands, ‘high five’ the partner with both hands, clap hands again – repeat the sequence.

In the upper primary classroom the children try a more complex cross-patterning sequence – extend left arm and tap left shoulder with right hand, tap left wrist with right hand, use left hand to reach across to grab right shoulder, extend right arm – repeat the sequence.

What activities have you found successful in teaching fundamental music concepts?

Music Tip Monday #8 - More on Neuromusical Development.

Children who play an instrument enjoy the ‘rewiring’ effects in their brains of participating in making music while moving (ie the action of playing their particular instrument).

In order for singers to get the same benefit, some movement while singing is necessary. It is not always appropriate for your school choir to move when performing. However we can all get into the habit of moving while warming up the singing voice – perhaps marking beat with some cross-patterning actions or indicating pitch changes with the hands or whole body.

How do you incorporate movement and singing in your teaching room?

Music Tip Monday #7 - Neuromusical education

Last Friday I attended a thought provoking day on music learning and brain development given by Dr Anita Collins, an Australian neuromusical educator from the ACT.

Anita is a passionate, practicing music teacher as well as researcher. Her three sessions focused on how learning music affects the brain and a child’s cognitive development. It was a discussion more about using music education as a powerful tool in building bigger better brains, than about the equally important function of music learning in an arts enriched education.

Here are a few points which resonated strongly with me:

1. Left brain / right brain is an outmoded way of thinking.
   

2. Hearing is our biggest information gathering sense.

3. The ages 0-7 are critical in the first wiring of the brain. Rhythm and beat form the basis of all brain development. ( Aside: any early- childhood classroom teacher is capable of simple beat and rhythm activities and is thereby enhancing the cognitive development of every child in the class)

4. In the ‘first wiring’ stage, significant results can be achieved by just 10 min of beat and rhythm activities per day.

5. After age 7 brain development is considered ‘rewiring’. It can be achieved but requires more minutes per day.

6. Singing and moving engages the whole sensory network.

That is just a taste of Dr Anita Collins’ work. To read more, check out ‘Bigger Better Brains’ on Facebook.