CLASSICAL MUSIC ARCHIVES: Students Tip 14

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Students Tip 14
EXERCISING YOUR "CHANGE" MUSCLE

Dear Friends,

April was incredible!

I worked with young orchestras and choruses in Kansas, Minnesota, New York, and St. Petersburg (Russia). We created lots of musical and personal growth in our workshops and concerts, and experienced some truly memorable music making.

Since I always want to do better and better, I decided to look more closely at a feeling that came up when I would begin working with each group. I was frustrated that it took a while for us to achieve inspired music making; I hoped it would happen sooner so everyone could experience that incredibly exciting feeling just as soon as possible.

And so I started thinking and writing (when I'm trying to figure something out, I often write down what my thinking; it somehow helps direct and clarify my thoughts). And I came up with a way of getting things happening faster that really works!

So you can share my thought process (lucky you!) and get more out of the Tip, please sing or play the following music two or three times:

Pretty, yes? It's the beginning of the Shaker hymn, "Simple Gifts" that Aaron Copland used in his "Appalachian Spring," one of the most beautiful pieces of music I know.

Now, what does singing or playing that excerpt have to do with what getting you young musicians to make inspired music faster? The answer is simple if you agree with me on this: to create magic music, everyone has to play or sing every single expressive marking on the page... and with all their hearts.

Now, referring to the music I asked you to sing on play, did you observe all the expressive markings? Any one of the three times? And with all you heart? In fact, most young musicians (and plenty of older musicians, too) actually consider expressive markings "extra credit" stuff... and hardly notice them. But without observing them, music can sound as flat as someone who speaks in a monotone, and it won't be the kind of inspiring experience that really juices us.

What I realized was that making magic music faster needed everyone to be singing and playing all the markings, and what was needed for that was to get everyone's attention - their full, sustained, heartfelt attention. I saw that what I needed to rehearse was not so much the expressive marks, but rather: attention! It became clear that, once everyone was concentrating fully on the music, they could and would create magic music. It was just a question of getting young musicians' attention!

Well, getting people's attention (especially you 'tweens and teens) isn't the easiest thing in the world. And I certainly knew that telling you to play the markings because "they're written right there on the page" wasn't the way to go. But I do know that young people (and some of us middle-agers, too) are very, very concerned about making the world a better place, and so here's the approach I came up with to create a state of total attention (and, hopefully, a better world.)

I asked if any of the students were in favor of what happened on 9-11. Of course... what an absurd question... what a tragedy... I then asked what it would take to prevent that kind of thing from happening again - how would we have to behave as individuals, what changes in attitudes would we need - in order to create a future without such hatred?

We agreed we had to change our attitudes about people who were very different from us - different in their physical appearance, beliefs, traditions, values, etc. We spoke about the importance of changing how we thought so much that we no longer would "see" color or religion. To prevent more 9-11s in the future, we concluded that we had to change how we thought so radically that we would only see how people were alike - not how they were different.

We then came back to earth and considered how difficult such a radical change in thinking would be. We went inside ourselves, looked at the truth, and then some of us admitted that we mainly saw differences between people, not similarities. We admitted how difficult it would be to have our sister marry a Muslim, or our brother marry a Jew or Caucasian, or our future children date Catholics or African-Americans. It was a moment when we all realized how much we had to change if we wanted to create world understanding and friendship. And we admitted how difficult changing would be.

I, then, suggested that we might want to try to exercise our "change muscle." That muscle wasn't anywhere near strong enough to change us all the way. But maybe, I said, just maybe we could start exercising that muscle to make it stronger.

We were all in agreement. An easy exercise for that change muscle was right in front of us: the music. We could change just a little bit by observing the dynamics. Nothing radical like marrying someone who looks, speaks, and acts totally different. Just playing a few more fortes and pianos. What did everyone think of this? Was this a good thing? Or did it just seem like a teacher's trick to get them to sing and play dynamics? We were all into this way of thinking so much that not one person (honest!) thought it was a trick. And, by that time, it wasn't.

Everyone wanted peace. Everyone said it would take enormous change. They realized they weren't capable of such enormous change now. They realized the paradox of wanting such enormous change but not being able to change enough to observe one or two little accents in the music. They started exercising their change muscles.

The attention and therefore the music were incredible because everyone concentrated so hard on exercising their change muscle. And the magic music happened right away because they did.

What a wonderful experience for us all. And what a wonderful experience if can be for you and your ensemble, too.

With All Best Wishes,

David Barg, Learning Center Director
The Classical Archives, LLC
email: david@prs.net

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