Music and Education

The Nature of Music Education

“The preponderance of psychological evidence indicates that experts are made, not born.” (Philip E. Ross The Expert Mind Scientific American August, 2006)

The true nature of music education lies in the mentoring process. The spark which flies from the teacher to the student can ignite the student’s mind and inflame it to master the field and surpass his/her mentor. My teachers, students and I form a network of minds which encompass a vast body of knowledge and wisdom. My teachers also include the masters from the past whose works and recordings I study, as well as those I come into personal contact with. My students, many of whom have become professionals, continue the work of my mentors and go on to mentor others.

The example of mentoring is especially instructive in the study of Indian classical music. In a similar way that language is learned, the student is introduced to the teacher and studies begin (often as early as age three or four if the teacher is a family member) with rote learning of a graduated series of lessons which, if continued, inevitably lead to mastery. The lessons are taught in a context of mutual respect and with a love of learning which encourages the young mind to blossom in a nurturing, non-punitive environment.

I consider myself a student for life and continue to study new topics and work on the development of new skills. Cognitive scientists have found that motivation is a stronger factor in mastery than native ability. “It is no accident in music, chess and sports…(that) professionalism has been emerging at ever younger ages, under the ministrations of increasingly dedicated parents and even extended families.” (Ross, p.71) Because of this attitude toward learning new topics and skills, my mental flexibility has continued and increased into my 60’s with new interests and skills being added all the time.

There is a ten year rule in psychology which states that it takes approximately a decade of heavy labor to master any field. (Ross p. 69) When mastery is attained, there is a graceful, effortless quality to the work and listeners are left with the impression that making music it is easy. Indeed, once mastery is attained, it is easy to practice the art which has been mastered. Most of us are masters of walking and speaking our native languages, among other skills. We do these tasks so well that we seldom think about the technique involved. Yet, when we watch a baby take the first few steps or learn to talk, we can appreciate what complex tasks they really are, and how much effort goes into the mastery of these skills. How many millions of words have we spoken in our lives or steps have we taken? There is a very good reason why we do it so well: we practice all the time. Bird Parker once said that, as a boy, he used to practice eleven hours a day; and he continued to practice incessantly all his life. Is it any wonder that he reached such a high degree of technical and musical excellence? “The expert relies … on a store of structured knowledge.” Ross Op. Cit.

A favorite technique I use in the mastery of music is effortful repetition. If something is impossible, I practice it one hundred times and it then becomes possible. If it is difficult I will practice it one thousand times. It then becomes easy. After ten thousand repetitions (literally) it becomes permanent, not unlike walking, speaking, driving or swimming. If performing is a problem, I do it repeatedly, and phych myself up for each performance, with autosuggestion.

Once mastery of music has been attained, learning should not stop, but should continue and grow into new areas and more advanced levels. The sad state of many masters of baroque, classical and romantic music is that they never go on to master the music of their own time and place. If they had lived in the baroque, classical or romantic eras with their present attitudes, they would have ignored the great music all around them, even as they do today. Unfortunately, as teachers the often pass on this past-oriented approach to learning. Fortunately there is a body of performers, including many of the generation in their 20’s and 30’s, who are intensely curious about the newest and most innovative music. They are helping to revolutionize vocal and instrumental technique and inspire composers to expand the language of music.

Music Can Heal Humanity

Music Can Heal Humanity

In the early 21st century, much of the world has opted for the insanity of war, race hatred, religious intolerance, nationalism, a thirst for power, class dominance and corporate greed. Humanity sorely needs a return to ideals of peace, brotherhood, tolerance and spirituality. My forty-plus years of experience in music composition and performance have convinced me that music can heal humanity of this pathology. The right kinds of music can heal the consciousness of humanity. This music should not provide any easy answers, or facile solutions, but should dig deep into human consciousness and provide original solutions to big ideas. Music lacking in conviction will not work in this arena. The example of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony makes perfect sense in this respect. Not only does it provide a musical setting for Schiller’s poem depicting universal brotherhood through joy, it also embodies all the creativity, humor, energy and spirituality (soul power) that makes its appeal near universal.

In order to do this, we need to make a music in which the spirit of creativity and universal brotherhood takes precedence over the spirit of materialism. Musicians who aspire to spread this kind of music need to think first of the needs of the human race and their career moves second. This music should not be used to display wealth and power, to establish racial or social dominance or act as a nationalistic call to arms. This is no easy task: the ego dies hard, but the very survival of the human race may be at stake. This task requires people to act in selfless ways, which may run counter to much of what they have been taught since childhood. The music, which can accomplish this task, will be the equivalent of speaking truth to power and the very force of its conviction will sweep away all opposition.

The conflict and struggle of much human endeavor can be worked out in music rather than in war and unbridled competition for a few crumbs. When musicians sit down and make music together, they can’t fight. This is so true as to sound simplistic. Yet it is so obvious as to be constantly overlooked. Musicians must work together to create a coherent result, and many may need to work in a heroic manner to master the technical and musical complexities of new works, in a belief that they are pushing the boundaries of what is humanly possible in music.

The glorification of war and militarism, which is so much a part of the psychology of corporate media news reporting, slants the consciousness of human perception today to the point of pathology. Much of this “news” reporting is little more than nationalistic propaganda of the worst sort. The power of music to touch and move people deeply is generally unquestioned by most rational thinkers, yet most musicians continue with business as usual, putting commercial concerns above service to humanity.

The United States contains about 5% of the world population, yet consumes over 40% of the world’s resources annually. The violence and repression necessary to preserve that level of inequality taints almost all the values of our national mythology and dialog. We must strive to be an equal member of the world community of people with no superiority of position. This innocent sentence is so contrary to conventional American wisdom in 2007 as to sound subversive. When musicians explore the aspects of different cultural values in a context of respect and tolerance, a spirit of love arises spontaneously in listeners and artists. Music that incorporates techniques and sound worlds from different cultural traditions, provided these techniques are well understood and mastered through serious study (not mere exoticism) can make a true integration of consciousness between cultural ideals and transcend the psychological gaps between people of different cultures and technological stages.

Contemporary experimental music with the Cagean listening strategy of welcoming every sound with fascination or the Stockhausenean strategy of exploration of the sense perceptions and cognition of musical process provide further paradigms for healing the human race of narrow closed mindedness and intolerance. The fearless exploration of new instrumental techniques and states of consciousness by contemporary performers such as the late David Tudor, can provide a paradigm for people of good will who want to make peace with former enemies--who may still harbor resentment and fear of communication.

Here is some feedback from American/Australian composer Warren Burt

Just looked at your blog entries. Nice stuff. I look forward to more. Your commonsense attitude to things is refreshing. Why is common sense such an uncommon commodity?

Music and culture

Some people identify with a particular musical style or historical period of music to the point of elevating their own personal preferences to the level of general aesthetic principles. They may become extremely uncomfortable if forced by circumstances to listen to music identified with another historical period or subculture. Still other people have new musical and cultural experiences with little or no stress, just as some people learn new instruments or languages quickly, seemingly without effort. Their musical and cultural tastes are flexible and open ended.

Culture is always in a continuous state of development, and intellectual ferment, just as living languages are continuously evolving, with new words and usages being added and others dropped whenever dictionaries are revised. Culture is the cumulative expression of the values in the hearts and minds of the world’s people and music is an important part of that. Most musical languages are also evolving in a more or less continuous manner and reflect the culture as a whole. The social experiences of music listening and music making are very important, and the music may depend on them for its very existence. The aesthetic experience and the perception of beauty in music are more important to me than the cultural context, and do not depend on them for its appreciation. That is why any music can be appreciated which may have been created long ago or far away.

Some of my ideals for intellectual ferment and cultural development are: deep curiosity, a fascination with sound and process, tolerance for other ideas, and compassion for struggling humanity. The value of any particular piece of music is not necessarily tied to the cultural or historical context of its origin and may transcend its context if well enough made. I try to put the music first.

More from the Soul of Music

Zen and the Art of Music Composition

Composition doesn’t have to be complex or hard work to yield good music. Anyone can practice it with the acquiring of a few principles and a trust for the process of right-brain thinking. The following represents an easy approach to composition, which anyone can learn quickly, and practice to the point of infinity.

I. Listen carefully to what you hear in your mind’s ear or in physical reality.
II. Capture some sound (in a verbal description, sound recording (sampling) or some form of musical notation).
III. Process the sound in some perceptible sense by varying some aspect(s) of the sound
IV. Document the process in some form.
V. Go back to step one
VI. Evaluate the results and revise if necessary (Be careful of self criticism; if it becomes too obsessive, put revision off until later. Don’t dam up the creative flow.)
VII. At some point, break this cycle and present the resultant sounds. A good rule of thumb is Dylan Thomas’ idea to stop when the revisions don’t make the poem any better.

Everything we do as composers can be seen as some part of this approach.

Composition and the spirit of work

As a child I had a recurring dream about being in a desert or beach with high dunes around me on all sides. Sitting alone in the sand with the hot sun overhead and a small sieve in hand, my job was to strain all the sand of the dunes through the sieve. When beginning to study composition in my early twenties, I remembered the dream and understood that every grain of sand I was straining represented one of the musical notes I was to compose in my life. Each note coming out of the end of my pencil was arriving from an infinite source and was being filtered through my mind, symbolized by the sieve. Having taken this experience as a metaphor for my compositional work, I continue to work in a disciplined manner, like a scientist or a kitchen worker separating spices by hand.

value of innovative arts

The following is a paragraph from my new book, The Soul of Music


The unique value of the innovative arts is that they can break the mental prison of convention and impart a fresh outlook on life. They teach us to think outside the box of conventional thought and behavior and invite us to lead lives of deeper meaning and appreciate the beauty all around us. There is great excitement in having new experiences, and the opening of the mind to the possibility of the next new experiences.

Esther Lamneck CD review

Esther Lamneck is one of the greatest clarinetists alive. That her name is not a household item is probably the result of her intense dedication to exploring the newest music of the most complex character, rather than the conventional repertoire, and her dedication to teaching new generations of students (at NYU) to play contemporary music. Her new CD on the Innova label, Cigar Smoke (Innova 673), brilliantly demonstrates her mastery of all aspects of clarinet technique in the musical context of solo clarinet and electronic/computer music. Ms. Lamneck was responsible for the creation of this music and gives amazing performances of all the works. They include: Cigar Smoke by Robert Rowe, Musicometry I by Lawrence Fritts, Trio for Clarinet and Two Computers by Cort Lippe, Abyss by Dinu Ghezzo, Event Horizon III by Orlando Legname, Lifelines by Lawrence Moss, and Crack Hammer by Zack Browning.

The title track, Cigar Smoke alternates sections of composed music with cadenzas in which the clarinetist and the computer respond to each other interactively. The most interesting music in this piece occurs in the heterophonic textures created by the interaction between clarinet and computer.

Musicometry I, incorporates recorded samples of Ms. Lamneck’s prior improvisations made at the composer’s request and direction. Particularly fascinating are the noise sounds made by the clarinet in the initial improvisation and incorporated into the computer music performed against the same sounds played against themselves by the clarinetist in performance.

Trio for Clarinet and Two Computers is a three-movement work which uses two computers, one of which responds to specific improvised clarinet sound events and triggers independent computer music. It represents the most sophisticated use of technology on this recording.

Abyss in seven sections, by Dinu Ghezzo, one of Ms. Lamneck’s NYU colleagues, is based on Milton’s dark theatre play Samson Agonistes. The piece carries an air of Eastern European melodrama (Mr. Ghezzo comes from Romania) and Ms. Lamneck improvises with great abandon here. It retains its emotional impact on repeated hearings.

Event Horizon III explores the sound world of granular synthesis and is the most interesting piece sonically. The composer has incorporated extended clarinet techniques in a cadenza in the middle of the piece.

Lifelines uses intricately interwoven lines between clarinet and electronic music. Particularly effective are Ms. Lamneck’s use of alternate fingerings to create timbre shifts and multipohonics. The tape part has some fascinating percussive timbres.

Crack Hammer provides a welcome sense of fun and humor in an otherwise very serious CD. The composer employs repetitive, additive rhythms with an unpredictable sense of humor. The form and rhythm of this piece were based on a magic square. Ms. Lamneck’s impeccable sense of timing makes the performance very exhilarating.

This outstanding recording (which was funded by the American Composers’ Forum’s Recording Assistance Program) should attract a lot of attention and provide Esther Lamneck (who also is a master of the Hungarian tarogato) some of the rewards she so richly deserves.

Hello,

This is Dary John Mizelle (DJM) with the first posting for the blog musicofourtime OOT. The first request is for comments reacting to a quote of Kyle Gann from 1988 (Village Voice), which is:

"Why is great American Music always the underground, never the mainstream?"

He may not agree with it today. If so, he is free to blog a response. In any case it is an interesting question.

There will be much, much more, along with comments, reviews and opinions.


DJM