Music as a Language: Lectures to Music Students — Context and Discussion

Chapter IX. An extra interest will thus be added to the lesson, and the child will have its first initiation into 'self-expression' through the art of music.

THE TEACHING OF SIGHT-SINGING

Instruction in sight-singing should begin by teaching the staff notation through the Tonic Sol-fa method. Objections to this are sometimes raised by very musical people, who have no recollection of any 'method' by means of which they themselves learnt to sing at sight, and who therefore think their pupils can pick up the knowledge in the same instinctive fashion. Experience proves that this is very rarely the case.

With very little children it is well to keep entirely to hand signs and ear tests until all the notes of the scale are known, through their 'mental effect'. One reason for this is that such children cannot read or write, so no musical work can be done with them which implies this knowledge. Care must be taken to vary the lessons as much as possible.

At one lesson the teacher can give the hand signs and ear tests herself. At the next, one of the class can give the hand signs for the rest of the class, and the teacher the ear tests. At the next, a child can give the ear tests, and so on. An experienced teacher will find plenty of similar ways for producing new interest in the lessons, even though the actual amount of work done be necessarily small. Nothing is gained by hurrying over the initial stages of ear-training. The foundation must be securely laid, or trouble will come later. Those who have had experience of class work in kindergartens know the special difficulties to be met--the irregularity of attendance, the constant stream of new pupils coming in, and so on. Unless plenty of opportunity is given for revision the work will suffer in thoroughness.

For children who take this work between the ages of eight and twelve, no better scheme for sight-singing can be found than that contained in Somervell's _Fifty Steps in Sight-singing_, supplemented by the children's books, _A Thousand Exercises_, published by Curwen. It is essential to read carefully the appendices to this work, especially that concerned with the minor keys. Another book of sight-singing exercises which follows the same sequence is the _Rational Sight Reader_, by Everett, published by Boosey.

In teaching the keys of G major and F major it is most important that the class shall themselves discover the necessity for the F[#] and B[b] in the respective signatures. Inexperienced teachers sometimes teach this as a dogma, and thereby deprive the children of the delight of discovering it for themselves.

Thus, if the scale of G major be played with F[n] instead of F[#], the class will discover that _taw_ has been played instead of _te_, and will soon find out how to correct the wrong sound.

Similarly, if the scale of F major be played with B[n] instead of B[b], they will say that _fe_ has been played instead of _fah_.

If the order of keys taken be that of the _Fifty Steps_, the following diagram will show at a glance the underlying plan:

7 5 3 1 2 4 6 E[b] | B[b] | F || C || G | D | A

It should be noted that so far as the positions of the notes on the stave are concerned, the key of A[b] is as easy to sing in as the key of A, D[b] as D, and so on. This fact is sometimes overlooked, and unnecessary difficulties are created for the children.

It is important for a class to sing at sight fluently in one key before attempting a new one. Some teachers take keys in groups, and try to teach them all together. This plan rarely leads to satisfactory results.

It is wise to defer the treatment of these until all the major keys have been mastered. The harmonic form of the scale of C minor should then be taken, the children identifying the two notes new to them as the flattened third and sixth of the scale. It is a good plan to get them to sing a few melodies from the blackboard which are in C minor, but which bear the signature of C major, the flattened third and sixth being supplied. This impresses the new notes on the children.

Later on, the correct signature should be evolved by experiment, and the same plan followed for the other keys, before the 'rule' for finding the signature is discussed. The melodic form of the scale can then be taught, and both forms practised to give plenty of freedom in the new tonality. The various minor keys should then be taken in the same order as that in which the major keys were taken.

It is advisable to limit the work at first to melodies which do not modulate to the relative major. Later on, when the children are fairly fluent, they can take these. At first they will have to make use of 'bridge-notes' at the modulation, but, with a little practice, they will soon be able to sing at sight to _lah_.

Children should not be allowed to sing part-songs until they can sing at sight in parts. The reason for this is that in the majority of part-songs the under parts are written too low for the child voice, and if they are _practised_ several times in succession, harm is likely to result. If, on the other hand, the songs can be read at sight, the parts can be interchanged, and the voices of the children do not suffer to the same extent. The greatest difficulty in teaching part-singing is a moral one: a child who takes an under part does not like the feeling of some one singing above her. The voices must be divided carefully for this work--some teachers prefer to get the balance on the side of the under parts, in order to avoid the feeling that it is necessary to shout in order to be heard! The ideal plan is to interchange the parts freely at the same lesson.

Exercises should be chosen at first in which the under part starts on a fairly high note and, if possible, before the upper part enters, in order to give confidence. The under part should also move freely, and should not consist of long holding notes. Exercises in which the parts cross afford excellent practice. Good instances of easy exercises are to be found in Nos. 9, 68, 80, 101, &c. in Book III of _A Thousand Exercises_; also in the many canons to be found in that book.

Sight-singing in three parts should always begin with exercises written in the contrapuntal style. There are instances of these in _Three-part Vocal Exercises_, by Raymond, published by Weekes & Sons. This book is also suitable for use where men's voices are obtainable, the two treble parts being taken by two tenors, and the transposed alto part by a bass.

A good series of part-songs is to be found in the Year Book Press, which only admits songs by standard composers.

THE TEACHING OF TIME AND RHYTHM

It is impossible to over-estimate the importance of careful study before a teacher attempts to train children in a sense of time and rhythm.

Not only must an intellectual conception of the importance of the subject be arrived at, but a subconscious realization of it. The function of rhythm in the world should be perceived, and such natural phenomena as day and night, the seasons, the tides, and countless others, seem to be examples of the same principle. The same influence may be traced in social activities. Work cannot be organized and carried on where rhythmic order is not found, and no conception of the brain or of the artistic faculty can emerge uninformed by rhythmic continuity.

A human being imperfectly endowed with a sense of balance or rhythm is a danger to the community, and one who is entirely without this sense is spoken of as 'insane'.

In the training of the teacher it is well to call attention first to the rhythm of speech, before entering into that of music. Those who have had a literary education have already studied the metrical properties of poetry and prose. They will readily agree that such phrases as:

'My father's father saw it not.' 'Happy New Year to you.' 'Because I sought it far from men, In deserts and alone.' 'We must go back with Policeman Day, Back to the City of Sleep.'

can be thought of as written in [2/4], [3/4], [4/4], [6/8] times respectively.

M. Jaques Dalcroze has shown, through his Rhythmic Gymnastics, the extraordinary effect that rhythmic movements can have, not only on physical health, but on mental and moral poise. For highly nervous children some such work is of especial benefit, but for all children it is of great value. It should be supplemented in the ear-training class by constant practice in beating time to tunes. The teacher begins by playing simple tunes, with strongly marked accents. The children should discover these accents for themselves, and should be taught to beat time, using the proper conductor's beats from the first.

The French time names--_ta_, _ta-té_, &c.--are invaluable in early stages. They are based on sense impression, and are picked up quickly by the children. By taking the crotchet as the unit to start with, the old-fashioned plan of exalting the semibreve, the least used note in music, to a primary place, is avoided.

If the order given in Somervell's _Fifty Steps in Sight-singing_ be followed, the question of complicated time will not be forced too early on the attention of the children. Pupils trained on other systems have sometimes been found incapable of singing melodies written in complicated time, even though they can beat time to the notes, giving the time names, without mistake. The same thing is noticeable in their instrumental work. This is due to the fact that one side of their training has been developed at the expense of the other--time at the expense of pitch. There seems little point in teaching a child such time-values as

when it can only read at sight in the key of C major!

In taking an exercise in sight-singing for the first time with a class at an elementary stage the following practice has been found beneficial:

1. The children sing the tune straight through at sight, without stopping, the teacher beating time. Mistakes are then pointed out and difficult phrases practised.

2. The children stand and sing the tune straight through again, beating time as they do so.

3. Individual children then stand and sing the tune by themselves, beating time. In this way the child gets to know the sound of its own voice, and the teacher can correct any individual faults of intonation, voice production, &c. Some children will always have an inclination to shout when they sing with others, partly through excitement and partly because they cannot hear their own voices in any other way. If this be permitted the quality of tone will rapidly degenerate, and the effect of the whole class work will suffer.

Nothing is more delightful than to hear young children sing quietly, and without in any way forcing their voices.

THE TEACHING OF DICTATION

So long as the work done in ear-training is in the very elementary stages the best form of dictation will be:

1. Ear tests, consisting of two to three notes at a time, which should be written in staff notation as soon as possible.

2. Monotone time tests, which should be quite short, as the constant repetition of the same note in pitch is irritating to the more sensitive ears in a class. This point is sometimes overlooked, with the result that only the less musical children get any real benefit from the tests.

By the time that children can sing at sight in the key of D major they will be ready to take down from dictation short melodic phrases in time and tune. A useful plan is for the phrase to be played over three times, the children listening carefully and beating time. They should then sing the phrase once through to _lah_, and write it down.

This method of dictation is more satisfactory than that of dictating a bar at a time, as it draws attention to musical phrases as a whole. Later on it will be found possible to dictate in the same way longer and longer phrases. Incidentally the memory is being trained as well as the ear.

The class should be accustomed to write phrases which do not necessarily begin on the first beat of the bar. The handwriting, exact position of accidentals, &c., should be carefully watched. With young children it is well to use manuscript books which have the lines ruled very widely apart--a little child's hand soon gets cramped if it is made to write in an ordinary manuscript book.

When a class can take down simple melodies correctly it is time to begin two-part work. As a preliminary, get a child to play middle C on the piano, then to combine with it each of the notes of the scale of C major in turn. The class will decide which of these two-part chords are pleasant to listen to. Opinion is generally unanimous in favour of the third, sixth, and octave, which will therefore be the basis of the first exercises in two-part dictation.

Plenty of practice should be given in isolated examples of these chords, in more than one key, before the class attempts to combine time with tune. When they are ready for this, the work should begin with very simple phrases, with plenty of repetition to enable them to be quickly memorized. A later stage introduces the use of passing notes. It is better to play the exercise through first without these, and when it has been written and corrected, to play it again, inserting the passing notes.

Before a class has finished the major keys it should be ready for the dictation of three-part chords. As the children are accustomed to the sound of the chord of the third on all degrees of the scale, it will be a natural experiment to play a particular combination of thirds, thus arriving at the triad. After this has been played on all degrees of the scale, the class should be asked to decide which of these chords it will be well to get to know first. They will remember that the first three keys in which they learnt to sing were C, G, and F major, and will therefore suggest that the tonic, dominant, and subdominant chords should be chosen.

At this stage it should be pointed out that all the notes of the scale are contained in one or other of these chords. This is a seed which, if well planted, will suggest the first principles of harmonizing melodies later.

We must now work at the three chords carefully. Begin by making the class sing them in arpeggio, and in a definite rhythm, so as to get precision. Each chord should be sung once very slowly, so as to get the notes correctly, and absolutely in tune; then twice more quickly, so as to get the feeling of harmony. This step is invaluable in its later results--a child will often be heard to sing different chords in arpeggio, when in doubt as to the chords to use in harmonizing a melody.

When the three primary chords are known the others may be added, together with the dominant seventh and the inversions, in all keys. This last step must not be hurried. The average class rarely finishes three-part chords in less than a year, and unless plenty of time is given difficulties will crop up later, when four-part chords are begun.

It is not enough for children to be trained to listen to the actual notes of a chord--they must feel the mental effect, in the same way in which they felt these effects in the case of the notes of the scale.

A later step is to make use of the position of the chord in a sequence--for instance, the child soon gets to notice that many phrases end with the progression subdominant, dominant, tonic.

We now come to the consideration of the dictation of four-part chords. These need not be sung in arpeggio. As a first experiment it will be necessary to play the chord to the class with each note doubled in turn, so that they may feel the necessity for doubling the best note.

This experiment is most valuable, as it gets the child away from the cramping feeling of keeping a rule merely because it is mentioned in a text-book.

Plenty of phrases with the primary chords in root position must be taken before the other chords are treated. For at least a year the class will not be able to _write_ four-part dictation; the time should be spent in identifying the chords when played.

The chant form is the best for elementary work. It is very simple, and can be adapted to every sort of sequence. Passing notes, appoggiaturas, suspensions, &c., should be avoided at first. When the diatonic chords and their inversions are known the principal modulations should be studied. It will probably be necessary for the teacher to write her own tests, as there are very few books of chants published which contain enough exercises on the use of the easier chords.

The last step in the teaching of dictation is the treatment of what may be called the 'mixed phrase', i.e. one in the course of which the number of parts varies. This is the most difficult stage of all, and will need the utmost patience on the part of the teacher. But by this time the children will have begun some of the practical work at the piano described in the chapter on 'The Teaching of Extemporization and Harmony', and this will help them to recognize easily the drift of the mixed phrase.

THE TEACHING OF EXTEMPORIZATION AND HARMONY

In early days the art of melody was developed before that of harmony. The same plan should be followed in the general musical education of the child.

As every child possesses a voice, but does not in every case learn an instrument, it is clear that the fundamental training in music must be given through the use of the voice. The first step will consist in learning how to sing at sight and how to take down easy melodies from dictation. Parallel with this work the child should be taught to extemporize melodies, and to sing them.

Quite little children will take pleasure in completing a musical phrase of which the first few bars have been given them. The procedure will be as follows:

1. The teacher writes two bars in C major, [2/4] time, on the blackboard.

2. The class sings it through twice, first using the Sol-fa names for the notes, then singing to _lah_.

3. Volunteers are then asked for to complete the phrase by adding another two bars. The more musical children in the class will at once respond, and their efforts will stir the ambition of the others. It will soon be a question of taking the children in turn, a few at each lesson--so eager will they be to 'express themselves' in melody.

It is important not to be too critical of these early efforts. The great thing is to get the children un-self-conscious--variety of melodic outline and of rhythm will follow quickly enough.

The next step will be for two children in the class to extemporize the whole phrase between them, one taking the first two bars and the other the last two. The key and time should be varied as much as possible--keys a fourth or fifth apart should be used in succession, or the children will assume that any melody can be sung by them in any key, which is obviously not the case. A melody sung in C major, which uses middle C and high F, cannot be sung in the key of G major with the child voice.

The class will now find it quite easy to extemporize the whole of a four-bar phrase. Suggestions can be made by the teacher, such as:

'Begin on the third beat of the bar.'

'Introduce two triplets in the course of the phrase,' and so on.

When this becomes easy to them they will be ready to begin eight-bar melodies. At first the teacher will give the first four bars, and different members of the class will finish the tune. Modulations should now be introduced. The same procedure as before should be followed, until any child in the class can give the whole of a tune, in any given key and time, and with a given modulation.