Happy Sunday, Solfa Adventurers!
October is here, but it's still short-and-sandal weather in Colorado, with delightful cardigan mornings and evenings. Autumn is making quite a positive impression on me this year, I must say!
Many of you know that I've embarked on the adventure of a gluten-free diet (until recently, it's been gluten-free pescatarian, but on the advice of my alternative health practitioner, I've now introduced small amounts of super-humanely-raised-you-can-request-a-picture-and-personal-history-of-the-bird-to-confirm-it-had-a-happy-life chicken...quite a change for me), which has necessitated something of a paradigm shift in what it means to put together a meal. However, it's a LOT easier to do this kind of thing now than it used to be, I believe, especially since lots of other people are on similar journeys and talking about it in interesting and helpful ways.
http://www.elanaspantry.com/
http://www.thenourishinggourmet.com/fresh-nourishing-salads-for-all-seasons
Tons of information is out there -- you just have to be willing to look for it, and be willing to embrace a different way of going about the procedure of everyday things. Is it convenient? Not really. However, does it give you an opportunity to grow? Undoubtedly. And, the experience of exploration opens you to new delights, treats and treasures that people who walk the path more-traveled-by don't get to see.
As I've been dipping my toes into new dietary waters, I've been fortunate to have a parallel experience, but from the perspective of the guide rather than the tenderfoot explorer. Several intrepid and delightful women have been studying music fundamentals with me over the past few months, and we've been having tons of fun. As I mentioned last week, new information takes time to sink in, and that tends to worry us unnecessarily. Additionally, I have increasingly come to believe the "direct path" is a myth. Sometimes we get lucky, and the first time we explain something, it sinks in for the learner. However, in the world of music, almost nothing works like that. Multiple modes of operation, conflicting vocabulary, redundant synonyms (how many ways can you think of to say/describe "half step"....it's just plain sick to have that many ways to say the same thing), an ancient notational system, all within a culture where many of our most handsomely compensated "musicians" boast of having no formal training and no knowledge of any of the above -- these are some serious learning barriers. Anyone who makes it in the door despite all of that (especially as a grownup) is worthy of a big dollop of respect in my book, and they deserve to have a teacher who can show them more than one way to navigate through the choppy waters of determining the quality of an interval, unraveling the mysteries of the circle of fifths, constructing the three forms of the minor scale, etc. And, while it's a difficult task to do what we're doing, and many people would consider it more trouble than it's worth for a person who is pursuing music as an amateur, the expressions of empowerment and pride and good old-fashioned geekiness I've seen and heard out of these students have convinced me that this is worth it for them. Sometimes it's just a matter of repetition. More often, it's a matter of repetition from a variety of perspectives, taking a whole panoply of routes past one point of interest until it becomes a landmark, and then adding more landmarks, then determining the spatial/conceptual relationship of one landmark to the others, then creating a map of an ever-larger hunk of musical geography incrementally over time. In this way, being a teacher is sort of like being a human GPS device...and sometimes road closures or human error or bad neighborhoods or new developments make us say "recalculating" about 9000 times along the way, which can be annoying, but it's our job. We're the ones who already have a pretty good map (even though we, too, are always learning), good enough that we can find a way around it.
So, this week:
All Levels
Take a look at Ottman, chapter 2. Yes, I'm serious.
Read pp. 12-13. Now, take yourself back to your earliest sight-singing experience and think through what else your teacher would have needed to say in order for all of this prose to make sense to you. Did you know what a major scale was? Did you know what half steps and whole steps were? How would you define them for someone (like your former self) who had been singing them forever, but who didn't know what they were or why they were called that or why they had other names? Would you use a keyboard?
After thinking through these issues (and others that might come up along the same lines), create a procedure for teaching an older beginner basic sight-singing using the material in Ottman, chapter 2. For the purposes of the exercise, you may assume that the imaginary student already has a basic understanding of rhythms and meters.
Now, if you're curious, empirically minded, or if you have a willing victim/captive audience handy, it might be interesting and fun to try out your strategies on a real live person. In fact, I highly recommend it -- that person will inevitably teach you far more than I can. If your handiest student is a bit beyond chapter 2 skills, adapt your strategies and the material to the situation. Notice what surprises you. Delight in your student's successes. Be creative in your descriptions and your problem-solving. As you think on your feet, remember what it's like not to know. Recalculate as needed.
Enjoy!
Showing posts with label pedagogy exercises. Show all posts
Showing posts with label pedagogy exercises. Show all posts
Sunday, October 2, 2011
Sunday, April 3, 2011
Fatal Flaws
Salutations, my dear solfeggists!
I'm writing from my comfy couch, looking out on an April snowstorm....not an uncommon occurrence in Colorado, but always a shock to the system when it follows an 80-degree day -- although that, too, is not uncommon.
This week's blog post subject material is courtesy of a conversation from yesterday with one of AKI's own...with a little help from church this morning.
In yesterday's conversation, we were discussing our respective "fatal flaws" -- the thing we just can't stop doing, even though we'd like to change it. Everyone has one (or several...), and chances are that you know about them in both yourself and other people. In fact, to some extent, we are even known by our flaws, and they actually become a part of our identity....it happens in choirs and classrooms all the time. You know the part in X piece where that one person always makes a mistake, and you can take a good guess at which kid turned in a paper without a name on it by looking at which answers are incorrect.
In a sense, when we Kodály types talk about going from the known to the unknown, we're dealing with an outward manifestation of an inward process: as we know ourselves and our strengths more thoroughly, we are better able to ascertain when we understand a concept, and we're able to demonstrate what we know in varying ways. Group dynamics and blind luck can disguise what is understood and what is not, and in the classroom, this happens all the time -- in fact, it is infrequent to be observed from the outside in a way that is identical to what's going on inside. If this is true, then all education is really self-education, because only the individual truly knows what he or she understands. And, similarly, when I teach you, I'm bound to start by teaching you as if you were me with all the flaws and strengths I recognize in myself. Hopefully, over time and by watching others, a teacher cultivates a more extensive bag of tricks than only what is effective for him/herself, but we all probably default to using ourselves as a point of departure. We are always our own first student.
So, all of that being said, I invite you to plot your own course for this week's assignment. Do what you know you need to do to be successful with this material. Make a note of what works for you and what doesn't. Be creative. Increasing your own self-knowledge is the name of the game.
Rising Level 2's
Take a look at this bicinia by Orlando di Lasso:
....and this lovely Brahms piece (you may know it in another form, with German text, as the second movement of his motet "Warum ist das Licht gegeben")
What is easy about each piece? What is difficult? Do they behave how you expect them to behave? If not, how will you cope? Creativity in practice is encouraged.
Rising Level 3's
Take a look at these pieces:
Sometimes you'll want to be in the key notated, sometimes a fifth away...I'll leave it in your capable hands to decide.
Rising Level 4's
Take a look at the chromaticism in these pieces:
What can you do to make the chromaticism seem less forbidding?
Now get out there, and show your flaws who's boss!
Sunday, February 20, 2011
What do you do?
Greetings, solfa-seekers!
The sun is shining brightly today in Colorado, despite forebodings of gloomy weather today, and I am grateful for the near-completion of a very busy weekend (and an unexpected reprieve from my usual Monday activities...hooray!). The University Singers' mini-tour to Winter Park was a success, thanks in large part to the cool heads and warm hearts of the Singers themselves. They did themselves proud from musical, logistical, and human standpoints, and I believe myself to be exceedingly lucky to work with them (and no, I'm not just buttering them up because they're stuck with me as their conductor for the remainder of the semester....though it probably can't hurt, right?).
For me, this month has been an exercise in learning my limitations. As I mentioned in my last post, I am a self-diagnosed adrenaline junkie. I have learned in my time how to do many things, and how to tiptoe right up to the line of the humanly impossible. In the past few weeks, I feel that circumstances have called me down on those choices and taught me several good lessons, but the heavy-hitters seem to go as follows:
1. When panic strikes, the ability to stop and ask yourself the question "What do you do?" is invaluable.
2. Being willing to accept help in a variety of forms can be hard, but it's absolutely necessary. And when it is offered, for gods' sakes, have the humility and the courage to accept it and accept it graciously.
I should perhaps explain here that the concept behind Lesson #1 was ruthlessly "borrowed" from a dear horn-playing-tenor-singing friend of mine who has two delightful and well-trained dogs, and when it's time to go for a walk, get a treat, etc., he says to them, "What do you do?" Now, before anyone gets upset because I'm comparing self-training to dog training, think for a second about that cue. The real message behind it is exactly right: "You know what to do. All you have to do is remember and do it." It's a message of confidence. It's a reminder of competence. It's a way of telling yourself that you can, even when it feels like you can't. As it pertains to solfa (Aha! You knew I was gonna do this!), this is really good self-pedagogy, because it asks you to draw upon what you already know to be able to deal with something that looks complicated....our favorite pedagogical progression of using the known to access the unknown. You're putting your own logged hours of effort to work for you, honoring your own work by not reinventing the wheel.
As for Lesson #2, it is also a message of empowerment: many supports are available to us as people and as musicians, and we (and especially I) like to beat our heads against the wall trying to do things without gathering the necessary tools and support mechanisms. We'd rather not have to think about how to get help because we're too proud or because getting the help seems like more effort than just pushing through. I would argue, however, that one learns much more from solving a problem when one is not so exhausted from the effort that all one wants to do is forget the whole thing ever happened.
It occurs to me that I've been preaching both of these messages to you, my students, for quite some time, but it's been a long time since I took a good, hard look at the way I get through my own tough tasks and rough patches. Studies in limitation are probably very good for all of us to take on sometimes, and it's probably never the same lesson twice, even if the principles are the same.
Rising Level 2's
Take a look at Ottman 12.1-12.10
Before you read through each example, consciously give yourself the following cues:
1. What do you do (meaning, what procedures should you follow in order to be successful)?
2. What help can I get to make this task more manageable (meaning, what pieces of information should you look for that will help de-mystify the examples -- formal patterns, scales/triad outlines, rhythmic repetitions, sequences, etc.)?
If you struggle with an example, revisit cue #2, and decide how to proceed with some sort of aid (i.e., reading through rhythm only first, transposing into a key that better suits your voice, accompanying yourself with block chords on the piano, going faster or slower, etc.)
Rising Level 3's
Take a look at Ottman 18.16-18.26 (read the chapter 18 heading before you start to give yourself a hint about why the rhythms look so scary, and pick your tempi accordingly....be musical in your choices of tempi, however -- if a super-slow tempo makes the music sound boring or yucky, that will make it harder for you to sing it).
Follow the same procedure as the rising level 2's
Rising Level 4's
Take a look at Ottman 19.2-19.5, 19.7, 19.12-19.13 (in my own examination of each of these melodies, I decided against changing keys in each case, but it's up to you).
Follow the same procedure as the rising level 2's, noting that audiation of the home tone is your friend in the chromatic passages, as is audiation of notes of resolution....remember, chromaticism is just an accessory!
And, for a little refreshment (only partly on these themes), click here.
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