Topic: Pedagogy - Goals
It’s tempting to argue the separation of vocal and instrumental music in public schools was a consequence of Protestant reformers in England and Scotland banning organs from churches. However, Henry VIII didn’t freeze taste: music constantly changed, and every generation made its own aesthetic decisions. [1]
John Wesley was born in 1703 and raised in a household where his clerical father played organ. [2] He was a child when Handel wrote his first Biblical oratorio in 1708. [3] Bach published the Well-Tempered Clavier in 1722 when John was a young man. [4]
Wesley’s later exposure to Moravian music led him to prefer harmony to melody as the latter "raises various passions in the human mind." Bertrand Bronson said he thought instrumental music useless. [5]
Lowell Mason introduced Handel’s innovations to this country in 1822. [6] Thomas Hastings promoted the use of the organ at Charles Finney’s revivals in 1832, although he did not encourage virtuosity. He argued, perhaps justifiably, the best accompanist was a
"man of moderate attainments, who has too much modesty for the love of display, and too much principle to allow him to incommode the singers." [7]
Still, even in the purely instrumental interludes, Hastings discouraged the "disposition to exult and revel at will in all the intricate mazes of melody and harmony" in the voluntary that closed a service for a "solemn assembly of Christian worshipers." [8]
Church choirs adopted organs, and later pianos, while instrumentalists played Beethoven in concert halls. The division was institutionalized in public schools by music books that were produced by different types of publishers, teachers who had different training in colleges, and prominent citizens active in local Methodist, Baptist, and Presbyterian churches who influenced school boards.
They all agreed all children in elementary school should learn to sing, and, since the popularity of Carl Orff’s methods, given a chance to play an instrument. But, by the time students reached secondary school, teachers believed only those with proven abilities should be taught. It was a continuation of Hastings’ view that trained choirs were more important than congregations because the individual
"who has talents, is encouraged to make proper use of them; while he who is destitute, is either excused from the service, or so disposed of, as to be rendered harmless." [9]
We take these pedagogical goals for granted, and only see them as culture specific when we are exposed to a music program from another country that did not believe music was the provenance of the talented and did not demand they use their gifts to improve society.
In 2011, 439 students from the middle school in Castenaso, Italy, performed "Kumbaya." Stefania Luchetti remembered, no one was excluded: "the boy with disabilities with castanets, the girl with hearing problems at the keyboard ... all had an instrument in their hands." [10]
Pier Carlo Bechis created an arrangement that was structurally simple, yet varied in the way it highlighted the different elements of the school’s music program. Everyone sang or played in unison and the harmonies flowed from the different timbres of the massed voices and instruments. [11]
The melodic interludes between sung verses were played by those plastic recorders suggested by Orff and transverse flutes, with a few violins. One time the accompaniment relied upon the rhythm of beaten guitars and another was limited to syncopated hand claps. Most other times, the flutes and recorders provided the accompaniment. Once the melodic instruments were joined by those favored by youth, guitars and digital keyboards.
One of the more surprising aspects of the concert was three people conducted simultaneously. Bechis, the lead director, sat with his guitar during most of the performance. His colleague in the middle school, Roberta Rossi, stood to his left and directed, with an eye on him for cues. To his right, Francesco Crovetti directed his group of fifth-grade students, again looking over his shoulder to watch Bechis. Because the three adults were able to work as a team, the students were able to follow the person with whom they had rehearsed.
Performers
Vocal Soloist: none
Vocal Group: 439 middle-school students, 30 fifth-grade students
Vocal Director: Francesco Crovetti, fifth grade students
Instrumental Melody: violins, flutes, white plastic recorders
Instrumental Accompaniment: guitars, portable digital keyboards
Rhythm Accompaniment: four congas, kettle-stye floor drum played with sticks, hand claps
Conductors: Pier Carlo Bechis and Roberta Rossi
Credits
Spiritual Kumbaya composed by MVFrey on African melody. [12]
Transcriptions, arrangements, elaborations by Pier Carlo Bechis. [13]
Notes on Lyrics
Language: English
Pronunciation: koom BYE yah
Verses: kumbaya, needs you, crying, singing
Vocabulary
Pronoun: someone, I
Term for Deity: Lord
Special Terms: none
Basic Form: six-verse song
Verse Repetition Pattern: ABCDDB1 where B was "someone needs" and B1 was "oh I need"
Ending: none
Unique Features: none
Notes on Music
Opening Phrase: 1-3-5
Tempo: moderate
Basic Structure: sung verse alternated with flute-recorder-violin interlude; accompaniment for verses varied.
Singing Style: unison, one syllable to one note
Vocal-Orchestral Dynamics: crying verse accompanied by guitars, keyboards, flutes, and recorders; rest accompanied by flutes, recorders, and violins
Vocal-Rhythm Dynamics: kumbaya verse accompanied by drum sticks and beaten guitars; second singing verse accompanied only by rhythmic hand claps and conga drums
Notes on Performance
Occasion: Concert, 11 June 2011
Location: Palasport sports arena, Castenaso
Microphones: floor mike at guitar level in front of Bechis
Clothing: white tops, black slacks; fifth grade students wore casual clothes
Notes on Movement
Everyone was on the floor of the arena. Bechis was seated with his guitar most of the time, but stood to conduct the last verse. The other conductors were standing. Except for the end, all three director’s hand movements were small.
Many of the students were seated on the floor, with music laid down in front of them. A number without instruments had laptop computers. The flutes stood with music stands to one side. The conga players stood toward the front. The guitar players were seated on chairs, and the singers behind them were standing.
Audience Perceptions
Standing ovation at end.
Notes on Performers
Castenaso was a small city near Bologna. Until the late 1960s, it was primarily an agricultural market town with 5,451 residents. More recently there were 15,214. [14] If the middle school had three grades, then each class averaged 146 students. I was raised in a town of a similar size and my graduating class was 125. These statistics indicated that, indeed, everyone who could or wished participated in the concert.
One should be cautious about waxing romantic about other countries’ education systems. One of the few notices I could find on Bechis indicated he was part of a demonstration protesting cuts in funding for the public schools three months before the concert. He told an interviewer:
"I’m here because the seniority shots have stopped us, because they cut the culture, and I teach music, because morality is in pieces: in classrooms we talk about solidarity and justice, and we were alone to do it, while the world goes from another part." [15]
The preservation of the music from this concert may have been part of his protest. Luchetti [16] said the rest of the program was a mix of the classics (Bach, Saint Saens, Lully) and popular singers like Bob Marley, rapper Jovanotti, [17] rock singer Adriano Celentano, [18] and social activist Fabrizio De André. [19]
Availability
YouTube: uploaded by Pier Carlo Bechis on 15 June 2011.
End Notes
1. Mores are not laws; they have be to be renewed continually by a culture.
2. Ted A. Campbell. "Charles Wesley in Contemporary Study: Wesley and the Methodists." United Methodist Church website. On John Wesley’s father.
3. Wikipedia wrote "Il trionfo del tempo e del disinganno, an allegory, Handel’s first oratorio was composed in Italy in 1707, followed by La resurrezione in 1708 which uses material from the Bible." ("George Frideric Handel.")
4. Wikipedia. "The Well-Tempered Clavier."
5. Bertrand Harris Bronson. "Some Aspects of Music and Literature." 91-118 in Bronson. Facets of the Enlightenment. Berkeley: University of California Press 1968. On melody and harmony, 11; instrumental music, 12.
6. Lowell Mason. The Boston Handel and Haydn Society Collection of Church Music. Boston: Richardson and Lord, 1822.
7. Thomas Hastings. Dissertation on Musical Taste. NY: Mason Brothers, 1953 edition. 125.
8. Hastings. 128.
9. Hastings. 103.
10. Stefania Luchetti. "Il concerto degli alunni di Castenaso è entrato nel cuore di tutti." Bologna Rifa Scuola website. 2011. Google Translate from: "il ragazzo diversamente abile con le nacchere, la ragazza con problemi uditivi alla tastiera… tutti avevano uno strumento in mano." Ellipsis in original. She was a teacher in the middle school.
11. Some of the instruments like the recorders may have been playing in octaves.
12. Google Translate from: "lo spiritual Kumbaya composto da M.V.Frey su melodia africana."
13. Google Translate from: "Trascrizioni, arrangiamenti, elaborazioni di Pier Carlo Bechis."
14. Italian Wikipedia. "Castenaso."
15. Ilaria Venturi. "Le mamme tricolore uscite da Facebook." La Republica [Rome, Italy] 13 March 2011. Google Translate from "Sono qui perché ci hanno bloccato gli scatti di anzianità, perché tagliano la cultura, e io insegno musica, perché la moralità è a pezzi: nelle aule noi parliamo di solidarietà e di giustizia, e siamo rimasti soli a farlo, mentre il mondo va da un’ altra parte."
16. Luchetti.
17. Wikipedia. "Jovanotti." He was born Lorenzo Cherubini.
18. Wikipedia. "Adriano Celentano." Wikipedia said "He is credited for having introduced rock and roll to Italy."
19. Wikipedia. "Fabrizio De André."
No comments:
Post a Comment