Music As A Language Part 5

CHAPTER X

THE TEACHING OF ELEMENTARY COMPOSITION

A wise musician has drawn attention to the fact that music has a more important educational function than any foreign language, being a common language for the expression of emotion, imaginative power, and rhythmic feeling. He went on to say that, as a training, it is of use from the very earliest years, and for all cla.s.ses of the community.

If we agree with this view--and it is encouraging to note the increasing number of those who do so--we must so organize the musical education of children that a time comes when they will be ready to 'express themselves' in music in the same way in which they can express themselves in their native tongue.

An earlier chapter in this book has dealt with the teaching of extemporizing, first, treated as vocal expression, then as instrumental.

When a cla.s.s of children has arrived at the stage of being able to extemporize a tune of sixteen bars, in any given key and time, and introducing given modulations, it is quite ready to begin the more formal study of composition, and to be initiated into the mysteries of form. Hitherto the experiments of the cla.s.s in this direction have been chiefly spontaneous; the teacher has of set design left the child who is extemporizing as free as possible, but the time has now come for a new 'window' to be opened in its mind.

A preliminary talk should be given on the need of form in music. It must be pointed out that we cannot be intelligible without it, that it is not enough to have a language at our command; we must have _shape_ in order to convey our ideas to others. The child should realize that the great artists in all the arts are under the same necessity as the youngest beginner in composition. Inspiration must be embodied in a definite form, or others cannot share the vision of beauty.

For a time the child now has to learn to select a musical form, then to choose a musical thought which can be fitly expressed in it. It will seem a cramping process after the freedom of extemporizing, but the child who loves the work will willingly submit to the discipline. It cannot be too often impressed on the young teacher that children as a whole _like_ discipline. They despise those who are indifferent to it, and give a ready submission to those who expect it, provided they feel sure of an underlying sympathy.

The first lessons in form should consist of the a.n.a.lysis of simple tunes, preferably of the Folk Song type. The forms known as AB, ABA, and the variants derived from these will be explained, and the cla.s.s will write examples of each, at first not harmonizing the melodies, but afterwards doing so. The old dance forms will then be taken. At this stage it is absolutely necessary for those of the cla.s.s who are musical, and who wish to give a little extra time to music, to go through a course of strict harmony and counterpoint; endless time will be wasted if they do not do so. The work will be very much lightened because of the foundation already laid, for, without knowing it, the children have been doing a little free counterpoint for some time, when they added vocal parts to a given melody, and their knowledge of practical harmony will make it possible for them to take many a short cut in the formal work.

The dance forms, together with very simple fugues and contrapuntal studies, and a few 'free' exercises in songs and short pieces, will be as far as the majority of children will get in the study of composition.

But there will always be a few in each cla.s.s who will be eager and able to go farther, and to begin the study of sonata form. For such children, and certainly for all teachers of music, there can be no better text-book than Hadow's _Sonata Form_, published in the Novello Primer Series. This book is often described as 'more exciting than a novel'!

Somervell's Charts for Harmony and Counterpoint are also most valuable, and will save the necessity of a text-book in these subjects--at any rate for the beginner, who works under guidance.

There is one curious fact about all but the most musical children when they begin to _write down_ tunes of their own composition. They make mistakes which they have never made when _extemporizing_ the same type of tune. This seems to arise from the fact that they suddenly feel self-conscious--they have more time to think when writing than when singing or playing, and are inclined to compose one bar at a time instead of phrase by phrase. They will produce a tune of seven bars--they will end on a weak beat--they will come to a full stop in the middle of an eight-bar tune on the tonic chord, root at the top--the last half of the tune will have nothing to do with the first half. We could write a page of their possible mistakes!

The cure for these lapses is to insist on the tunes being sung before being written. The old unconscious habit will then a.s.sert itself, and the little tunes will fall into shape.

It is a useful lesson to get a cla.s.s to criticize all original tunes when played by the young composer. For one thing, the criticism of our contemporaries often carries more weight than that of our elders; and for another, the practice arouses the critical faculty, and teaches the children to listen keenly, for they have not the written tune in front of them.

After a little practice quite good criticisms will be given by children.

They will notice such points as a weak scheme of keys--undue repet.i.tion of the chief melody--a clumsy modulation--a trite ending--an over-laboured sequence--a tendency to borrow ideas from others, and so on.

This training will be of the greatest possible value to them later on in the concert-room. As a writer in _The Times_ once put it:

'The vague impressions which are all that many people carry away from the concert-room would be replaced by definite experiences.

'Mental a.n.a.lysis is not, of course, the main object in listening to music, but it is a most powerful aid to full appreciation. It is the failure to perceive any definite relation between the parts and the whole that baffles so many people, and sends them away from the concert-room remarking that they cannot understand "cla.s.sical" music.'

CHAPTER XI

THE TEACHING OF TRANSPOSITION

A great many musical people will not take up the subject of transposition seriously, because they have no idea of the lines along which to work. They all agree that the knowledge would be most useful to them, especially from the point of view of song accompaniment, but the path seems to be beset by so many difficulties, and the results of their first attempts are so pitifully small, that they generally give up all hope, and all effort. Then again, some of the books published on the subject are not very helpful to the average student. Some of them seem to start with the a.s.sumption that the student is very musical, and can do a great deal by instinct. They therefore give only the roughest directions. Others begin sensibly enough, but leave out so many steps in the work that a student may be forgiven for throwing them aside in despair.

Now there are three chief reasons why the musician would do well to study transposition:

1. For the purpose of song accompaniment.

2. As an aid to committing music to memory, especially that written in a form where different keys are used for the presentment of the same material.

3. As an infallible test of a sound 'general' musical education.

The last reason is not often advocated, but a little thought will show that it is impossible for the average student, not specially gifted in any way, to transpose even an easy piece of music at sight on the piano, without proving the possession of a trained ear and a knowledge of practical harmony. For cla.s.s work with children it can be made a still more valuable test of progress. For the average child will be quite unable to transpose a simple ear test--such as _d f m l s t, d_--on the piano, from one key to another, say a fifth away, without a good deal of accurate knowledge.

The first exercises in transposition will be very simple--any child of seven or eight years old, who can sing at sight, and take down ear tests, in the keys of C and G major, can be expected to do them. They consist in:

1. Singing any well-known hymn-tune, or simple melody of the Folk Song type, using the Sol-fa names of the notes. It should be sung phrase by phrase, until every child in the cla.s.s is sure of the correct notes.

2. The children should now go in turn to the piano, and each play a phrase of the melody, first in C major, then in G.

It is important to emphasize the fact that the tune must be well known to them, or an extra difficulty will be introduced.

As the children learn more and more keys, these tunes should be transposed into them.

Provided the cla.s.s does not consist of picked musical children, there will always be a few in it who do not learn the piano. This work will be one of their opportunities for learning a little about it.

Interesting results have been obtained from such children, if the teacher is enthusiastic and ready to help.

By the time that the cla.s.s has begun the study of three-part chords the transposition will become more and more interesting, as sequences of chords can now be transposed. When the first steps in extemporizing on the piano are begun, the transposition advances by leaps and bounds. The children will be delighted to play their little tonic and dominant accompaniments in every key--to change from major to tonic minor by flattening the third and sometimes the sixth of the scale.

There is a sense of freedom and power in such work, to which the cla.s.s will readily respond. They soon realize that certain melodies 'only sound nice' in such and such a key, and in this way the foundation of a 'colour sense' will be laid. Also, apart from the question of the key in which a melody sounds best to a child, another point comes into notice.

The child cannot sing certain notes in certain melodies unless it keeps within a certain range of keys. This teaches them something. The point has been referred to in the preceding chapter.

Altogether it will be seen that the study of transposition is opening a new window for them into the fairyland of music.

Later on, when a child can compose short harmonized tunes of its own, it is well to hold up the ideal of being able to transpose them into any key, and in certain cases, where the melody lends itself to the treatment, from major to minor, and vice versa. This work must of course be voluntary, but a child is well rewarded when it finds that it is only the first step which costs, and that the second of such tunes is so much easier to transpose than the first!

And the time comes when a child will sit down to the piano, and will extemporize quite happily either in F major or in F[#] major, whichever is suggested. Such work is well worth any initial trouble taken--it is a combined process of ear and mind which has a far-reaching educational effect.

The last stage of all in this work consists in transposing at sight from the printed page. Hitherto the ear and the mind have been chiefly employed, but now the _eye_ must be trained to do its share.

It is found useful to make children say the names of the chords aloud when they are beginning this sort of transposition. The habit sets up a connecting link between the various faculties in use, in some curious way. The eye can help by noting the intervals between successive notes in the various parts, and especially in the outer parts. It sees the general drift of the piece before the mind comes into play--the coming modulations and so on. In fact, it is not too much to say that it is best, in certain musical phrases, to rely on the eye alone, e.g. rapid decorative pa.s.sages, which are not always easy to a.n.a.lyse at first sight.

A word of warning must now be given. Those who attempt 'short cuts' in this work will certainly come to grief, unless they are born with the faculty--undoubtedly possessed by a few--of being able to transpose by a sort of instinct. Such people are fortunate, but it is not our present task to attempt to guide them. We are concerned with the average child, taught in fairly large cla.s.ses, in the ordinary school curriculum, and with only a very limited amount of time at our disposal.

CHAPTER XII

GENERAL HINTS ON TAKING A LESSON IN EAR-TRAINING