Why Music Lessons
Throughout the ages, great musicians desired to train their students in the art of music making so they could make progress in the most efficient ways possible. What it took the teacher many years to coalesce, the student could acquire in a fraction of the time. Saving the student time in their pursuit of musical discipline was of the greatest importance to the teacher.
The great J.S. Bach wrote tutorials for his students, not only to learn to play their instruments, but also to master the skill of composition. In fact, two of his sons succeeded him and became respected composers of their generation.
At the beginning of Bach’s famous collection, “Two and Three-part Inventions,” he wrote that it was an “Honest method, by which the amateurs of the keyboard- especially, however, those desirous of learning – are shown a clear way not only 1) to learn to play cleanly in two parts, but also, after further progress, 2) to handle three obligate parts correctly and well; and along with this not only to obtain good inventions (ideas) but to develop the same well; above all, however, to achieve a cantabile (singing, melodic) style in playing and at the same time acquire a strong foretaste of composition.”
Some of the more notable examples of musical methods in recent history include, the Kodaly method, the Orff Approach, the Suzuki Method, and Nadia Boulenger’s assistant’s Dieudonne’s Solfege training method.
Many people ask the question: Are music lessons really worthy it? One of the greatest examples in history of the benefits of music lessons is the teacher Nadia Boulanger.
She herself studied at the Paris Conservatoire with Gabriel Fauré. Her initial career track was to be a composer, but she began to realize that her greatest contribution would be as a teacher. She opened up her French Music School for Americans in Fontainebleau.
Nadia Boulenger insisted that her students be able to sight-sing all of the SATB parts of the Bach Chorales in ‘fixed Do.’ Some of her notable students were Elliot Carter, Aaron Copland, Philip Glass, Quincy Jones, Leonard Bernstein, and Igor Stravinsky. Her influence shaped the direction of contemporary Western music well into the 20th century.
German composer, Carl Orff developed a methodology of teaching music that mimicked a child’s world of play, to include movement, drama, and speech. He believed that music education should be presented in a way a child learns language, providing Elemental Music Making materials that were “basic, natural, and close to a child’s world of thought and fantasy.” His method relied heavily on the Kinesthetic approach of participation and activity.
Zoltan Kodaly’s highly revered method, which ultimately transformed the entire musical development of the nation of Hungary in the early 1900’s, has subsequently been applied throughout elementary schools in North America.
The following excepts are from the book, The Kodaly Method (by Lois Choksy).
“Hungary, a nation the size of Indiana, with a population of ten million people, has eight hundred adult concert choirs, fifty of the first rank and another one hundred of radio or public performance quality. There are four professional symphony orchestras in Budapest alone and five in country towns, as well as numerous amateur orchestras. A man without a musical education is considered illiterate. Almost all play instruments; almost all sing. Concert halls are full. The situation was not always so.
“Early in the 1900’s, Zoltan Kodaly, the noted Hungarian composer and educator, was appalled at the level of musical literacy he found in students entering the Zeneakademia- the highest music school in Hungary. Not only were these students unable to read and write music fluently, but in addition, they were totally ignorant of their own musical heritage.
“Kodaly felt deeply that it must be his mission to give back to the people of Hungary their own musical heritage and to raise the level of musical literacy, not only in academy students but also in the population as a whole.
“In his own words, ‘It is much more important who is the music teacher in Kisvarda than who is the director of the opera house in Budapest…for a poor director fails once, but a poor teacher keeps on failing for thirty years, killing the love of music in thirty batches of children.’”
Kodaly’s method was not devised from a subject-logic approach to musical education but rather based upon the various stages of child development. In terms of rhythm, moving rhythms are more child-related than sustained ones. Melodically, the first recognizable tunes sung by most young children are made up primarily of minor thirds, major seconds, and perfect fourths. They are the tones his mother uses to call him to dinner.
His plan included the following concepts: 1) The range in which a young child can sing songs comfortably and correctly is limited- usually encompassing not more than five of six tones, 2) Descending tones are easier for children to learn and reproduce accurately than ascending ones. 3) Small skips are easier for the young child to sing in tune than small steps, and 4) In terms of range, one study has shown that left to his own devices the young child will most often pitch the upper note of the minor third around F#, thus the keys of D, Eb, and E would seem to be indicated for pitching rote songs.
Kodaly carefully selected materials for the children’s development from songs with the following criteria: 1) Authentic children’s games and nursery songs, 2) Authentic folk music, and 3) Good composed music from recognized composers.
“Kodaly felt that the simple, expressive forms of nursery songs and folk music were more suitable for children because they were living music, not fabricated or contrived for pedagogical purposes. The language of folk music tends to be simple, drawn from speech patterns familiar to children even before they enter school. He believed that a love for masterworks could be cultivated through a knowledge of and a love for one’s own folk music.
“Kodaly collected great numbers of children’s songs and folk songs. Kodaly published six massive volumes of Hungarian folk music, the first of which contains more than one thousand children’s songs.
“To implement the third source of materials- good composed music- Kodaly himself wrote much music for children: four volumes of pentatonic music, numerous volumes of two- and three-part exercises, and many children’s choruses. Bartok, too, wrote for children: the Mikrokosmos for piano students, and a number of songs for children’s choruses.
Kodaly used three sets of ‘tools’ in his training: 1) A moveable-do system of solfege, 2) Rhythm duration syllables, and 3) hand-signs
Regardless of the exact form a method for teaching takes, it is evident from Kodaly’s example that an entire generation can be affected by a successfully implemented method.
We believe the same is possible again!