composition & improvisation
comfort. If I were to answer the questions above, they might be:
• My grandmother’s voice singing “Meet Me in St. Louis,” the water splattering around my head as she washed my hair, the tromping of my cousins’ feet running up and down the stairs, my grandpa’s Columbo TV show playing in the background, and the mail coming through the metal mail slot on its way to the hardwood floor in the front room.
• I feel cherished by my grandma and I sense the massage of the warm water on my head. I feel happy to play with my cousins.
• I heard my grandpa rattling his newspaper.
I invite you to do this exercise and share your experiences with me at pertll@
lawrence.edu.
The seminal experiences of making music and experiencing sound come with a unique, personal history. There are many sound spaces we share, but many that have shaped us very personally, like the soundscape of my grandmother’s kitchen. This very consideration guides my approach to nurturing a school’s cul- ture of music making, and to engaging the wider community, like the Fox Cities dur- ing the Mile of Music Festival, in music making events. From individual classes of public school students, to our cities, to our global communities, from our personal soundscapes, to our shared soundscapes, I ask the question, “What is the music of our community?” Let’s explore this more thoroughly in this exercise:
• Pick just one of your music classes. What is the music of that particular community? It is made up of very different individuals than your other classes, so, even though you may be playing the same repertoire or engaging in the same improvisa- tory exercises, there will be subtle and big differences in how the mu- sic community operates together.
Wisconsin School Musician
• What is the music of your home community? Maybe your fam- ily sings while making dinner, or dances to the tunes Alexa plays. Maybe grandpa teaches the kids how to jitterbug?
• What is the music of your city? Are there polkas in the midst? A live singer-songwriter scene? The pow- erful shimmering of a Gamelan? The vibrations of a guitarron? A performing arts center that brings in Broadway shows?
• And probably most importantly: What is the music of each in- dividual child? Do they have a space to reflect and express this in your classroom?
Are we inviting our students to bring something of themselves into our music making spaces? Do they feel valued in sharing their musical histories and ideas? Do we treasure these unique expressions as a vast wellspring of creative and col- laborative possibility? Are we inviting our students to create, from this wellspring, a shared musical community that has never existed before; one which finds itself de- fined necessarily by each and every child’s expressions of being here in this life and being fully who they are? If so, then we are connecting our students on a soul level. They can’t help but see one another as fellow human beings.
What is the music of our community? Who are our neighbors? What are our students’ personal sound histories? Whether in our cities, homes, or in our classrooms, we can listen deeply, and find the wonder and courage to be beginners again. Let’s open our doors, extend our hands, and dance together amidst the beautifully diverse sounds of our Backyard Groove.
Leila Ramagopal Pertl teaches music education at Lawrence University. Email:
pertll@lawrence.edu
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