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M1BILIL
A-N I DMaUSalI
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E Many years ago a young pianist This incident reflects the kind of teaching is not the students' reten-
friend of mine was lucky enough teaching one could call "indoctrin- tion of a series of names and dates
to win a national competition that ation" rather than "education." The that fill the chronology of man. On
awarded him a Town Hall debut. young pianist's teacher had trained the contrary, it is an understanding
Not long before the date of the re- him thoroughly through the intrica- of the human conditions, aspira-
cital, my friend asked me to hear cies of a particular piece of music; tions, and efforts that produced
his playing and to give criticism. he had coached him through every the events and thus provides the
One of the works he played was a nuance, suggesting every breath as student with meaning for the names
Bach fugue, which he performed well as every movement of the and the dates.
with complete mastery: every tone pedal. For this particular piece, his Similarly, the end goal for a
was where it should be. At the programing was complete; like a schoolboy playing the comet is not
completion of this very convincing computer, the button had only to the ability to push down the proper
performance, however, my friend be pushed to start the machine roll- valve at the appropriate time, ac-
turned to me and asked, "How many ing through its operations. The hid- companied by measured lung pow-
voices are in that fugue?" I was den tragedy was, of course, that er and calculated lip vibration. His
surprised by the question, for it the final product was only one ability to perform these tasks with
was inconceivable to me that one supremely wrought Bach fugue. exquisite skill cannot provide him
could convey such a degree of un- Faced with a new fugue to per- with adequate insight into music;
derstanding without knowing more form, my friend would have been this ability ensures only that he is
about what was being conveyed. lost in a forest of musical com- capable of the most elemental kind
Rather than answer my friend's plexities; he had been taught par- of stimulus-response maneuvering,
question directly, I recommended ticular musical operations rather a level not far above the perform-
that he play the fugue again and than general musical principles. ance of the Pavlovian dog. The goal
count the voices in the exposition Without his teacher's absolute of music participation in the schools
himself. This he did and had no guidance, he was incapable of com- must be to equip the individual
difficulty in correctly answering ing to grips with a fresh musical students to make music a vital and
his own question. After further dis- problemand arrivingat a valid continuing part of their future life,
cussion, it became apparent that solution. a life that extends some fifty to
he was equally ignorant of almost This incident is symptomatic of sixty years beyond the days of the
every other structural character- the problemthatmosturgentlyde- school ensemble. Ensemble per-
istic of this same fugue; although mands the attention of the music formance is certainly one way-
he played it beautifully, he had only educator. In our zeal as musicians perhaps even the best way-of
the most rudimentary psychomotor to reach immediate goals in per- reaching this goal of music under-
grasp of what he was doing. formance, we run the risk of for- standing. But performance in which
The author is Visiting Resident Scholar getting our long term goals as the student never rises above the
in Music, Hawaii Curriculum Center, educators. level of an automaton does not
Honolulu, Hawaii. The goal of meaningful history develop his ability to operate
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4(ID4-III1 by William Thomson
musically with independence. work verbally or symbolically as a as a communicative technique
Assuming that the performance description of "what it is." would be broached, nor would com-
ensemble is an indispensable part Many directors of school per- ment arise about the author's skill-
of the music teaching process, how forming groups (and many private ful use of vocabulary for creating
can the director of the ensemble music teachers as well) rely exclu- precise meanings for the experi-
bring about those conditions in sively on the old "osmosis" theory encer. Discussion of syntax and
which conceptual awareness be- of instruction. In this method, one semantics would be out of place,
comes an integral part of the pro- learns merely by a "soaking up" for (this teaching rationale as-
cess? process, benignly filtering in audi- sumes) these will be felt rather
The major goal of any band or tory signals with the faith that than known by the careful reader.
orchestra or choir is to make music, sooner or later the learner even- The activities that do take place
and to make that music in the most tually begins to "know"-the sponge in the enlightened literature class
artistic way possible. Does this goal has soaked up enough molecules of of today can be most instructive
preclude other than the most auto- whatever it is that must be known. for music educators. The reading
matic kinds of rehearsal techniques, This technique would arch the eye- of a work is merely the fuse that
in which the director merely posts brows of teachers in other academic sparks a probe into the nature of
his orders and his soldiers react ac- disciplines in a shock of disbelief. the work: how it is put together,
cordingly? Let us hope not. A con- If they really understood some of what it means, why it is moving,
ductor must know a work before he the current music teaching tech- and even how the author might
conducts it with any authority, niques, they would not believe have written differently in order to
whether that work be Beethoven's them; such methods are too primi- achieve a radically different result.
Ninth Symphony or Paul Yoder's tive to be credible in our day. In such a class, the ~student can
latest march. "Knowing a work" If the English literature class learn not just how to read or
means understanding the ingredi- were taught by similar, quaint, old how to experience life vicariously
ents and how they are put together, strategies, the student would read through words; he can learn what
just as "knowing a person" means novels, short stories, essays, and literature is, how language can help
the ability to reconstruct the con- plays and perhaps even perform him to think about and respond to
figuration of the bodily and per- some of the plays to get a real "feel" his world, and how to communicate
sonality traits that are the person. of the drama. But the pedagogical those thoughts in their most subtle
It means understanding how the process would go no further than shadings to his fellowman.
piece coheres-its form, its thematic the reading or performing. No men- Granted, there are problems in-
content, its textural deployments, tion would be made of the nature herent in the music-making process
its climactic rises and falls, its of the human experience unfolded; that defy the wholesale adoption
harmonic style, its aesthetic intent, no discussion would follow regard- of successful techniques of other
its rhythmic format-in short, the ing the use of metaphor or simile to disciplines. It should be obvious,
conductor knows a work when he yield vivid images of experience; no however, that some of the proce-
is capable of reconstructing that analysis of the function of rhetoric dures employed in other academic
MAY, NINETEEN SIXTY-EIGHT 45
fields should be adopted in our this motet incorporates the Dorian mere mechanics of playing all the
mode? Will the mood of their per- notes.
teaching if it is to be relevant to
our goals. formance be blighted if you dis- What is needed in the rehearsal
If the conductor of an ensemble cuss (for no more than three min- room is the conductor's calculated
does indeed know the work he is utes) what the word "motet"means desire to transmit the very tech-
conducting, then it is his responsi- -what it originally meant, what it niques he already possesses in a
bility as an educator to transmit meant in Palestrina's day, and even sophisticated form. His directions
that understanding to his students what it meant to Brahms? Will their are based on decisions born from
with every means at his command reading fluency be crippled if they an understanding of the musical
and in a manner that is appropriate are made aware that the 4/2 meter substance. Only through his con-
for the cognitive sophistication of of this piece is different from the scious attempts to make these proc-
more familiar 4/4 only in notation? esses of decision-making known to
Will your group's interest wane if, his students can he nurture the in-
"\Will it hurt in the most offhand way, a discus- dependence of judgment required
[a choir's] pear- sion of what a cappella really means by the mature musical person. The
crops up in a rehearsal? Or who conductor's rehearsal monologue
shaped tones will suffer if some fleeting mention can be greatly altered to become
to know the differ- is made (after the third time more of a dialogue, more of a
ence between through, perhaps) of what Pales- guided search for common musical
trina did for a living? goals than a march of automatons
homophonic and poly- Any rehearsal is filled with direc- to the tap of one man's drum.
tions from the conductor concern- The goal of the ensemble re-
phonic textures?" ing more than just correct pitch or hearsal should be to develop the
accurate rhythm. Matters of phras- individual performer's understand-
his students. For too long we have ing, articulation, balance, dynamic ing of the entire musical scenario
assumed that students learn the contrasts or continuities, and all and the way his role fits into that
structural intricacies of music only other details of performance we whole. His understanding must in-
in courses called "theory," and his- customarily classify under the clude a grasp of how music is put
torical background only in courses broad term of "interpretation" are together, as well as some notion of
called "music history." The stifling the common concern of the dis- those extra-musical memorabilia
compartmentalization of music edu- cerning conductor. Decisions about tied to its creation.
cation-has led us to act as though these interpretive details are not The result of this kind of "music
the conductor knows only how to reached arbitrarily; they are de- talk," always stemming from the
plan football shows or how to beat cided by musical events that con- music at hand, is a musical educa-
the less-demanding meter patterns. spire to demand certain perform- tion in the best sense, for it can
Suppose that you are a conductor ance procedures, certain ways of provide the student with a basis for
faced with the task of directing putting the whole thing together judgment when he is no longer
your band in a Sousa march. What musically. In expressing these di- under the protective wing of his
do you want to know about this rections to his performers, the con-
march before you start waving your ductor has the potential to teach
baton? Is it relevant to know any- a great deal about music in general, "What is needed
thing about its harmonic style? as well as about the particular work in the rehearsal
about its melodic patterns? its tex- in progress.
tures? its key relationships? its In telling his brass section to hold room is the con-
formal design? its dynamic con- back at letter J, for example, the ductor's calculated
trasts and how these parallel or con- orchestral conductor should add
tradict the form? Should you know that this piece reaches its greatest
desire to transmit
how this march differs from the climax later, that its form-as it is the very techniques
minuet and trio you played last projected to the listener-will be he already pos-
week? And how about this man destroyed if the intensity of this
Sousa and the tradition of the earlier section preempts the com- sesses in a sophis-
American band? poser's carefully planned intent. In ticated form."
Or let us suppose that you are a other words, the conductor has the
choral conductor immersed in the opportunity to tell "why" rather
task of guiding your choir through than merely "what."He can provide omniscient teacher. This independ-
the intricacies of a Palestrina motet. his students with some insight into ence of thought is, after all, the
Is it possible that a few considered the broad formal design of the work essential goal of education, whether
words might help this process and in music, mathematics, or agron-
they are performing and remind
develop some basic musical under- them that music does have form omy. For the budding musician,
the proper scene for its enactment
standings in your students? Will it and that the dynamics in their per-
hurt their pear-shaped tones to formance help to establish this is in the rehearsal room, where the
know the difference between homo- form. The conductor, as master re-creation of music blesses the
phonic and polyphonic textures? teacher, can make his students process with an immediacy and vi-
Would it impair their pitch memory aware of the operations of the musi- tality that is not available in any
to know that the first section of cal mind that extend beyond the other context. A

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