The works we know as the classics, the work of composers such as Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Wagner and others beloved of so many, and the ‘difficult’ music of Schoenberg, Webern, Stockhausen, Boulez, the source of bewilderment for just as many, in fact, share a clear common heritage. Continue reading “‘Classical and ‘Modern’ Music – Are They Really So Different?”
During the 1990s, I was director of a music support service for schools in the UK. We provided mainly group lessons, so when interviewing prospective teachers, I would ask them what they saw as the advantages or disadvantages of group tuition as opposed to one- to- one teaching. Their answers almost always (and I mean in more than 90% of cases), dwelt on the perceived disadvantages and very, very few advantages would be identified. Some would say things like “Well, obviously, the best situation is individual tuition, but …”
Obviously!
I couldn’t see anything obvious about this at all! In fact, a great deal of reflection, research and experience had convinced me
Continue reading “Benefits of Group Instrumental Teaching”
Actually, I prefer ‘practice makes permanent‘! Here is a short article about the thorny issue of music practice – how the teacher’s guidance during the lesson can make it more meaningful and desirable to the student, and how careful a choice of words can make a big difference to attitudes to practice. All very important because of course, the majority of the learning takes place away from the lessons and the teacher! Excuse me…
It’s 
a relief finally to be able to post the next article in my series about the relationship between musical structures and the harmonic series. It’s a relief because my crowded schedule, which included writing a new (now finished) piece for solo piano, meant that I could only work on it sporadically. However, it’s done now!
Whereas the first article dealt with timbre, this one focuses on melody on harmony (well, mostly harmony actually) and, after tracing the development of harmony in relation to the proportions inherent in the harmonic series, illustrates the premise that music based on functional harmony (tonal music) and atonal music are very similar in at least one very important regard.
The two are often thought of as very different and even in opposition to one another, but in fact one grew out of the other and both are founded on proportions to be found at points – distant points perhaps – but nonetheless, points on the continuum which is the harmonic series.
It’s all becoming reminiscent of Heraclitus and the ‘unity of opposites’ once more I think! Read more here.
Many teachers or conductors of amateur and student ensembles will be accustomed to tuning to a sustained note, usually A, or in the case of brass or wind bands, it could be a B flat. The problem with this is that many players will, consciously or unconsciously, compensate by correcting the pitch with the embouchure. Once the music starts, the tuning is ‘out’ again.
I have found the following sequence for tuning instruments very useful. It is a lengthy process initially, but it speeds up as you and the players get used to it – and it pays dividends.
We hear the beats or octaves because of ‘sum tones’ and ‘difference tones’: When two notes are played simultaneously, we hear additional frequencies which are the sums of, and the differences between, the frequencies of the notes being played. This is a psychoacoustical phenomenon rather than a physical one. If the difference between the frequencies is just 2-3 Hz, then the difference tones will be below our hearing threshold, but they will create ‘amplitude modulation’ of the basic tone creating the familiar ‘wah-wah’ effect. If they are in tune, the clear octave above will be heard.
For the sake of clarity, let’s take A as an example. Everyone knows that in standard concert pitch A = 440 Hz.
440 + 440 = 880; in tune so ‘A’ one octave higher would be heard.
440 – 440 = 0; no lower pitch would be heard, but
440 – 438 = 2; one note is 2 Hz. flat so ‘beats’ at the rate of 2 per second would result.
It gets a tiny bit more complex when one note is sharp, but this serves to illustrate the point.
Of course, after this and when your rehearsal is under way, the focus will be on intonation (the players) rather than tuning (the instruments). However, you will find that once these tuning habits are well established and the players are encouraged to listen critically to, and correct, their own intonation, a considerable improvement in a richness in the ensemble’s tone quality, due to the presence of combination tones, will result.
I am just about ready to introduce the first in a projected series of articles discussing, in accessible terms I hope, the influence that the harmonic series has had on musical development since the Middle Ages. I will be discussing not only the connection between the harmonic series and timbre (the obvious one), but also the connections between this and the conventions governing musical structures such as rhythm, melody and harmony.
Ultimately, I will arrive at the conclusion that there needs to be a clear, natural (as opposed to contrived), relationship between the the diverse sets of proportions inherent in the harmonic series, and musical expression – now and in the future. Ironically, or so it might seem, I will also argue that whereas the development of functional harmony and therefore tonality was strongly influenced by our perception (maybe subliminal – I don’t know) of the ‘inner workings’ of musical sound, the music that has already left, and will leave, tonality where it belongs – in the past – is equally bound up with these inner workings – particularly as represented by the harmonic series.
Many will know a great deal about the relationship between the harmonic series and timbre already, so may not find anything particularly new in the first article which sets the scene, so to speak. To find out if you’re one of them, click here.
Following on from Let’s Make Music… the article Demonstration, Imitation, Improvisation then Notation, suggests some alternative ways of getting your students to play musically from the start – without getting tied up reading notation. It goes on to suggest ways of introducing notation when the time is right.
A ‘part two’ to this article will be online soon to develop this further.
Thanks to those who have made positive comments about the articles. Please do keep your feedback coming.
Here is a short article about the thorny issue of music practice – how the teacher’s guidance during the lesson can make it more meaningful and desirable to the student, and how careful a choice of words can make a big difference to attitudes to practice. All very important because of course, the majority of the learning takes place away from the lessons and the teacher! Excuse me…
It is so often taken for granted (students, parents and teachers) that early music lessons will involve learning to read music. After all it’s essential isn’t it? Well, I’m not so sure it is.
In this article, I discuss some of the pitfalls of insisting that beginners – particularly children – read music before they can play with a degree of fluency. Let’s Make Music…
This is my way of sharing ideas about contemporary music (which for this purpose, means ‘classical’ music of the 20th & 21st centuries) and about preparing the next generation of musicians.
When talking about the next generation I mean ‘musicians’ very much with a ‘small m’, because one of the things I feel very strongly about is that for too long, music education has been based on the conservatory model, with teachers often dismissing students as lacking in promise, talent, potential or whatever, in a system that often insists on ‘ear tests’ before admitting students to lessons at all! This means that the innumerable benefits of musical activity are denied those who do not fit the conservatory model. More later.
Likewise, I want to share ideas about where contemporary musical thinking is going. I know where mine is going, and it’s in the opposite direction to those who want to go back to tonal structures and write in styles called ‘neo’ this, that or the other! Issues such as this, and others, will be explored in time.
I look forward to some interesting discussion as a result of my posts over a period … possibly an extended period, because, in view of all the things I have to do, I think this blog might take some time to develop!
Robert Lennon Musician & Educator 