by

Songs for Summer

I’ve just spent the  half-term week walking Dorset’s Purbeck Hills and glorious coastline. It’s been some years since I managed to get away to do some serious walking  at this time of the year, and it was wonderful to wind along the paths in all all their flower-lined splendour. We had plenty of rain but, apart from a dismal first day spent  ‘mud-skiing’, every walk had a few sunny hours and, after all, the rainfall is what makes England such a green and pleasant land!

Back in harness to the tyrant computer, I’ve adapted the ‘Summer Fun’page – for sharing by families or friends – to The Full Pitcher’s new formats. This is a selection of pieces from the ‘Miscellaneous Scores’section of the catalogue for which playback is is available in streaming Flash-Audio format. Flash is already installed in 97% of the world’s browsers and our music is streamed at speeds suitable for 56k modems, so this resource should be available to most users. The Flash-player opens in a very small  pop-up window and there is a pop-up of lyrics for each song, so both can be simultaneously displayed on screen. Schools can display them on an electronic whiteboard or a large monitor. Each song has activity suggestions for mixed ability groups and maximum inclusion. There is a song for which the group is encouraged to create their own lyrics, rounds, simple improvisation ideas and an arrangement of Schubert’s infectious “To Wander”, with new lyrics. I can dally on this page when I check the website and relive my holiday!

I hope you enjoy it!

“Summer Fun” with The Full Pitcher

by

Tonic Sol-fa for Instrumentalists

Where can instrumentalists who want to teach themselves tonic sol-fa find suitable resources?

For a singer, sight-reading means singing at sight and many progressive sight-reading materials which combine tonic sol-fa and notation will be found in the voice section of music shops. Instrumentalists can also make use of these, but an experienced player will quickly need to quickly apply the sol-fa syllables to a wide range of keys. A good source of tunes for this situation is “The Folk Song Sight Singing Series”, published by Oxford University Press. This is a a series of twelve little books, starting with a major scale and leaps between notes of the tonic chord and progressing, with increasing rhythmic complexity, through minor and modal scales, to difficult leaps and modulations. For less experienced players, “150 American Folk Songs” published by Boosey and Hawkes is a useful publication, in keys up to two sharps or flats.

These books presume that the pupil has already been made familiar with the sol-fa syllables:they merely identify the position of ‘do’ on the stave and which syllables are used in a song. “An Introduction to Tonic Sol-fa for Instrumentalists” is a resource which can be downloaded from The Full Pitcher website. It introduces syllables for one octave of C major scale and provides exercises in singing interrupted scales, scales in thirds and simple leaps. These can be transposed to other keys and then followed up with publications like those mentioned above.

by

Sol-fa, So Good!

Tonic sol-fa isn’t exactly fashionable in music education today , so many amateur musicians know nothing of it. To my mind, this is a great pity. Familiarising themselves with this system has the potential, I believe, to be the most effective form of self-help that they could undertake.

So, what is this sol-fa thing? Tonic, or relative, sol-fa is a notation system in which each note of a scale is given a single-syllable name – the first degree of the scale is “do”, the second “re”, and so forth. As a syllable is associated with a degree of the scale, the relationships between the various symbols remain the same when a tune is transposed. This is sometimes called the ‘movable do’ system of sol-fa. One learns to recognise the aural characteristics of degrees of the scale and the intervals between them.

Identifying notes by their sol-fa syllables facilitates memorisation, playing by ear and transposition. It also makes it easier to learn scales and to grasp many aspects of theory. The Kodaly method is probably the most well-known instructional system based on tonic sol-fa. It is essentially a system of aural development and, like any other developmental process, it takes time and nurturing to become established. However, some of the benefits listed above can be enjoyed by those who have familiarised themselves with the principles but are still in an early stage of internalising the aural impressions created by movement between the various degrees of the scale.

Historically, tonic sol-fa has been a powerful tool to improve access to music learning for disadvantaged groups. In the UK, it was adopted as the instructional system for singing in Victorian schools. This musical education provided a strong basis for a choral tradition and enabled the factory-workers and miners of the day to quickly learn great choral works, the performance of which gave a wonderful new dimension to their harsh lives. In Hungary, Zoltan Kodaly used it to roll out a nationwide system of high-quality music education that made the experience of great music available to rich and poor alike.

I, also, have found this a means of widening inclusion, as the following example demonstrates. A few years ago, I was directing regular sessions for a small ensemble of experienced players. A young Ghanaian, in the UK for medical treatment following a motor cycle accident, was sitting in on the sessions and it was clear that he would love to participate! We had a keyboard that could be made available to him but he was a complete beginner and didn’t read music. As luck would have it, the tea-break conversation turned to tonic sol-fa and Philip said, “That’s how we did music when I was at school in Ghana.” So, we had our way in! I added sol-fa syllables to his music and he quickly learned to identify the notes for C major and A minor on the keyboard (which had a transpose facility). Using the sol-fa syllables to further support his good aural skills, he was able to participate in subsequent playing sessions and, in the process, discovered a new interest that would help him in rebuilding his shattered life.

I envy those who have been brought up on tonic sol-fa, developing strong aural skills from an early age. There are some excellent pre-school music schemes incorporating it and these provide a marvellous start for a young musician. However, it’s never too late – go for it!

Update 6 March 2013: See my post Learn Tonic Sol-fa with GridPlay for details of  free Windows software for learning tonic sol-fa.

Several posts on my blog deal with aspects of tonic sol-fa, so if you don’t see what you want in this post, check the ‘Category’ menu in the sidebar for more on this subject.

by

High-School Band:Involving A Pupil With Special Needs

One of the most rewarding of my recent online activities must be an exchange of emails with an American high-schooler.This wonderful child was looking for a way to share the joy she experienced as a member of her school band with one of the school’s special needs pupils. She had some excellent ideas of her own and sought advice as to whether she was on the right track. She explained that the challenge was to find a way to involve him in the band without detriment to the performance of this competetive and advanced ensemble. A few weeks later, I was thrilled to hear that the school had put my suggestions into effect, to the general delight of pupils and staff. I thought I’d share these ideas here, as they may be relevant to other schools:

“It really brightened my day to hear from a young musician who has given so much thought to sharing the wonderful gift of music!

Providing a suitable instrument for a disabled player is a very individual thing but I can make some suggestions that have proved useful in similar situations. As you have worked out, any electronic instrument could be used with headphones, so that the band’s performance is not disrupted. I believe, though, that a more truly inclusive solution is to feed the sound output into a small keyboard amp, the volume of which can be controlled by the conductor or by the special needs teacher/facilitator. It may not be the case with this young man, but the contribution of people with severe disabilities is often surprisingly musical and appropriate. Even if this boy’s performance leaves much to be desired, he could have the satisfaction of joining in ‘live’ when the band’s going at ‘full throttle’ and could be easily silenced when his contribution is inappropriate. This would be educational for everyone. :>)

An electronic keyboard is an extremely versatile bit of kit for a lifeskills program and, if one is available, it could be used in the manner suggested. For the more physical experience that you are exploring for your friend, Yamaha drum pads are worth considering. Higher specification sets, like the DD35 and the DD55, are touch-sensitive and have a hand-percussion mode. The DD55 has two foot-switch inputs built in. Any kind of switch can be attached. This could be useful if the conductor wanted, for instance, for the pupil to use a single sound and he was unable to confine himself to one pad.  A MIDI facility makes it possible to attach a switch box, enabling several switch-users to play a variety of percussion ‘instruments’ through the drum machine.

Thank you for exploring this issue. I hope my reply will be useful to you and that you will let me know how you get on. Do get back to me if you have any further questions.

Happy music-making, everyone!

Best wishes,
Audrey”

by

Limits Set Me Free!

Rory’s comments on “What Second Life Should Learn From Myst” really resonated with me and it struck me that would-be music improvisers could also learn from Rory’s improvisational theater experience. Improvisation seems to be more frequently encountered in drama than in music, other the jazz idiom, so beginners may find this a fruitful seam of ideas to mine.

As always, ‘freedom’ is an illusion! If we can do absolutely anything, we invariably do absolutely nothing because we don’t know where to start! The composer, Stravinsky, said that the more restrictions he placed on himself, the more inspired he was to write. I’m certainly more ‘fired up’ to compose if there is a clear brief and is the reason I find it so absorbing and rewarding to write for beginner performers. It makes one really strive hard to distill the musical experience and to draw upon the potential of each note and technique accessible to the player.

Like Rory, I need to be emotionally engaged by the ideas I’m working with but I think that actually communicating such engagement in a piece of music is a difficult task for the improviser/composer because it requires a synthesis of all the playing techniques and sound qualities of the instrument(s), placed at the service of the emotion.

Beginners may find that another good starting point* is a focus on the sound qualities of their own instruments. What is the emotional ‘feel’ of the same few notes played in each register of the instrument, or on each string? How does changing the articulation alter it? Initially, try letting the music grow naturally out of the instrument.

*See “The Rhythmic Basis of Melodic Improvisation” for an alternative starting point.

by

The True Story of a Magic Flute

This is a happy story about the kind of magic that can happen when the worldwide web is used in the way the early developers envisaged – a great antidote to all those poisons injected into the system by spammers, hackers and crooks! It is a story of love, creativity, generosity and determination facilitated by the internet.

A little over a year ago, Ruud van der Wel, a musician and therapist from Holland, set up a website, “mybreathmymusic.com” to showcase the music made by disabled children at the rehabilitation centre in which he was working, to create a dialogue with like-minded musicians and to attract sponsorship to develop the centre’s music resources.

One of the first people to contact Ruud online was David Whalen, a quadriplegic living in New York. David was looking for a way to play a wind controller that didn’t involve finger movements. Working together by means of email, internet phone and e-conferencing, they drew up ideas for a simple slide-flute that would change pitch with head movements.

Their search for a developer led them to Brian Dillon of Unique Perspectives, an imaginative Irish firm, manufacturing technological aids for disabled people and providing a prototyping design service. Now there were three ‘dreamers’ in three different lands inspiring and encouraging one another and, in no time at all, Brian had created an instrument that went beyond their dreams!

It certainly added ‘magic’ to my Christmas, 2006, when Karin wished me a “Merry Christmas!” with her video of “Jingle Bells” performed on the new instrument! You can watch this and lots of other clips of Ruud’s young musicians in action on The Magic Flute User Pages. For full details of the instrument , see The Magic Flute Homepage.

The Magic Flute goes on sale this year and will, no doubt, be the magic password opening the door to music for many would-be instrumentalists. Today, my love-hate relationship with technology is in love mode!

by

“Say That Again” – Repetition in Improvisation

When I was looking through some easy classical piano anthologies for examples to illustrate the “I’ve Got Rhythm…” article , I was struck by how much repetition, melodic as well as rhythmic, the tunes contained. I knew there would be plenty of combinations of two phrases – ABAB, ABBA, etc., but I wasn’t prepared for the number of pieces (or sections of pieces) that were built on a single rhythmic pattern. I’m always trying to drive home the point that less really is more if you want to create a memorable tune but I don’t think I’ve ever suggested sticking to a single rhythm.

Once the beginner improviser has absorbed a feeling of phrase length, the next challenge is to strike a balance  between repetition and variation: too much repetition is boring – sorry Schubert! – while too much variation will quickly lose the listener. The problem is that, if you’re going to repeat a phrase, you have to remember it.

A good way to work on memory is to create tunes four phrases long, in which the first idea is played three times and then a different idea is used for the fourth phrase, rounding off the tune. Actually, this is a very common structure in melodic construction, although the fourth phrase is often an extension of phrase three rather than a new idea. Lots of ‘Blues’ use this idea. In fact, once you begin to look for it, it crops up all over the place!

The next stage is to to improvise using two or three phrases ABAB, AABB, ABAC, ABBA, etc.. A really extravagant use of resources, apparently! :>)

by

Rhythmic Basis of Melodic Improvisation

(I’ve just changed the title of this post, 21/03/07, as a lot of people were coming here looking for a popular jazz title -sorry folks!)

A lot of people fancy the idea of improvisation -they just never get started. Where do you start?

There are probably almost as many different ways of improvising as there are people, so there are many possible starting points. However, if someone doesn’t know where to start, the chances are that they think of improvisation as the effortless creation of melody and will quickly become disheartened if their efforts lack conviction and form. One can improvise melodically in many styles but almost all successful melody creation is built on a strong sense of pulse and rhythmic balance.

Experienced jazz teachers frequently start off with rhythmic ‘question and answer’ activities: the teacher plays a short rhythmic idea to which the pupil responds with one of equal length. This helps the pupil develop a feeling for phrase length which, as most Western music is structured in balanced phrases, underpins melody. The second step is for the pupil to invent the ‘question’ for the teacher to answer. Once the pupil is secure in this rhythmic invention, the rhythmic ideas are clothed with pitched notes.

Rhythmic ‘question and answer’ is a good way to get started in any style of melodic improvisation and “Answering Back” provides some simple phrases with which to work in classical or folk styles. In case pupils are tempted to ‘turn up their noses’ at the simplicity of these rhythmic schemes, I should explain that they are all taken from melodies by ‘top rank’ composers. For Haydn, Mozart & Beethoven simple was good!

by

Playing Away

This is the time of the year when music publications aimed at teachers and musicians are full of ads for summer schools, which must mean that it’s time I got around to updating the “Creative Workshops” page on the Full Pitcher website. As our “Get Creative!” pages are resources specifically to support creative music-making, I only post details of courses with a focus on improvisation & composition (I’d be delighted to hear from anyone running such a course, anywhere in the world) but there are hundreds of other UK courses available, covering everything from bagpipes to music technology.

Every year, Rhinegold Publishing produce an “Annual Guide To Summer Schools”. This year it’s a 52-page small-print publication! This is sent free of charge to “Music Teacher” subscribers but non-subscribers can purchase it from the publisher’s website. For experienced amateurs, the breadth of choice is just amazing! But, if you dig around, there is also plenty on offer for less experienced musicians and for children.

Here, I’d like to introduce you to two small UK venues which are big on broadening musical experience and fun:

First, there is the Hindhead Music Centre, where the calendar of summer courses embraces both children and adults, with tuition levels from beginner to diploma. There is even a course, “Discover Music!” for children who don’t yet play an instrument and those who have just started. The centre is a country house, set amidst acres of National Trust commons and there is free time in which to swim in the pool or explore the glorious countryside.

Another of my favourite places is Benslow Music Trust, where adults can enjoy a mind-boggling range of courses – classical, folk, jazz, world music – you name it, they do it! It’s a friendly place and there are courses at various levels. Benslow courses are mainly short weekend or mid-week courses.

by

MIDI Connections

Question:
I was very interested in your “Have Fun with MIDI” posting and I’ve started using some of this music in my classroom. The school has a music keyboard and, on the back, there are two sockets marked “MIDI IN” and “MIDI OUT”. Does that mean I could connect it to the computer and play the music with the, much nicer, sounds on the keyboard. If so, how do I do this?

Answer:
Yes, you can connect the keyboard to your computer. The simplest way to do this is with a USB MIDI Interface with in-built cables, 1-in/1-out. This will come with software to install the drivers. You must plug the “Out” cable into the “In” socket on the keyboard and the “In” cable to the “Out” socket. Once the drivers are installed, your computer will detect when you’ve got the interface connected. If you are using vanBasco’s Karaoke Player, right click anywhere on the player and select the “MIDI” Tab. Set the Output Device to “USB Audio Device”

If you are using Windows Media Player, Windows will probably set the MIDI output automatically. If it doesn’t, go to Control Panel> Sound & Audio Devices> Audio and set the MIDI player to your device. If you’re using simple music software like GridPlay, Music Box or Compose World, you will be able to set the MIDI output device from the, user-friendly, onscreen menus.

Of course, when you have an external MIDI instrument, the fun really starts when you use it to input what you are playing on the keyboard into your computer software, but we’ll save that for another day!