comprehensive musicianship through performance
across southeast Asia, I have found myself pondering the various differences and commonalities in the ways we think about music and how we approach teaching it.
It is nearly impossible to look through repertoire collections or search online without encountering the new “world mu- sic” genre, and the metaphor of music as “bridge” to other cultures is practically a cliché. But how viable is this metaphor in classroom reality? Are there really ways in which music does function as a bridge – a structure that really lets students move be- tween that which is familiar and that which is new, gaining insight on both sides?
I believe the bridge metaphor holds up in at least three ways. First, nearly every kind of music today – whether pop music, video game and movie scores, or concert/ art music – shows some global influence. In a world where we can all hear each other in ways that were not possible in the past, cross-cultural musical influence is apparent everywhere. Examining the sounds and structures of many different kinds of music can lead us to speculate on how aesthetic sensibilities that were once unique now share new similarities.
Music can also be a bridge when the study leads to an understanding that there is more to know – that a different aesthetic may exist that is no less meaningful or valuable than the one in which we have lived. New insights can be gained once we (and our students) concede that our tendency is to like what we know, and yet real growth can come from trying to understand the unfamiliar.
Finally, music is bridge in the sense that
it expresses what is essential to the hu-
man condition, universally. The power of a memory, the joy of falling in love, the ache of emptiness or loss, the pain of betrayal, the comfort of a real friend – each of these fill the artistic expressions of humans around the world. Though the timbres, techniques and traditions may vary widely, the emotional content is universal.
A Bridge or a Postcard?
So why can well intentioned attempts at “bridge building” fall short of these ideals? Often, the “cultural” music experiences resemble more of a quick glance – more like getting a postcard with a cool, exotic picture, than a real personal exploration. Is this bad? It is fun to get a postcard, right? Well, sort of. A postcard collection from all over the world certainly lets you see things that don’t look like home and might give you a few interesting facts. But anyone who has ever compared a postcard to the real thing, knows that there is an enormous difference.
Still, simply executing a piece in a differ- ent language, hearing different harmonic or rhythmic structures, utilizing a differ- ent timbre, and enjoying some musical satisfaction does give you a postcard glimpse that the entire musical landscape is not just different shades of what you already know. Merely encountering a non-Western piece is valuable in itself. But how can a “postcard performance” evolve into a richer interaction with the music, and consequently with new aesthet- ics and ideas?
Thinking Comprehensively: Teaching Affectively
The CMP (Comprehensive Musicianship through Performance) model offers a great template for planning instruction that provides a deeper look at music of any culture, but especially less familiar, less approachable repertoire. Specifically, the intentional planning and teaching of af- fective outcomes lifts student experiences beyond the postcard view. Purposeful af- fective teaching – reflecting on emotional responses, drawing connections between music and other realms of life, seeing how compositional techniques and aesthetic preferences reflect a whole culture’s way of living and thinking – is really at the heart of constructing a meaningful musi- cal bridge.
“What makes the desert beautiful,” said the little prince, “is that somewhere it hides a well…” (The Little Prince,
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry)
Wisconsin School Musician
A giant paper lantern of a traditional Korean drummer is propped in the middle of the Chonggyechon River in downtown Seoul.
Most rewards and treasures are not obvi- ous. Successful affective outcomes depend on a teacher willing to dig, find resources – sometimes written, sometimes in the form of other people – and ask questions that often don’t yield easy, immediate answers. Knowing the students, the blinders they (and we) come with, and the level of their emotional and intellectual understanding of themselves, their community and their culture is also crucial.
Recently, I taught the Korean folksong “Toraji” to middle school students. My affective outcome: Students will explore how the natural landscape becomes a trig- ger for inner memories.
On the surface, this piece is fairly easy to grasp, a lively melody with a Korean text. “Toraji” is easy to find on the Internet and many students would be content to sing a “nice sounding” song from Korea about a flower.
But to go beyond the “postcard view:” I prepared a recipe of toraji using the frozen version available at the Asian
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