NewsBlog Editor’s Note: This post is the sixth of a series written by CMIE Research Fellow Anthony Green, as part of the documentation for Green’s CMIE Research Internship. See other posts in this series here.  

It is always exciting to observe or be pleasantly surprised by behaviors and phenomena that are unexpected in research projects. With that, it would never have occurred to me before commencing this project to examine the relationship between language, culture, and solfege. This relationship, which made itself pleasantly obvious throughout the semester, is something which, in my opinion, should be explored in a second installation of this guided internship. For now, I can only recall the nucleic observations which will hopefully spawn a larger organism in the future. 

It is a well-known fact that learning a language is best done at a young age, when the mind unconsciously soaks in information without formally “studying” it. The mind is simply immersed in a new, unfamiliar environment, and is forced to adapt to its surroundings for survival. In this case, when you are young, and you are hungry, and you are in an English and French speaking household, you know that you can say, “I’m hungry” or “J’ai faim”, and something will come of it. The best part about learning a language through immersion at a young age is that you do not “study” the grammar, the article agreement (if any), the tenses, the cases, the vocabulary, the idioms, and the other idiosyncrasies of language. You just learn it. You speak it. People correct you, and you rarely make the mistake again. This is how fluency is gained. 

When studying a language for the first time as an older person, especially after the age of 12 or 13, it is harder to keep everything together. Learning a language then becomes more of a process of memory rather information-soaking and internalizing. When speaking, the learner more often then not thinks of what he or she wants to say first in English and then translates. The learner doesn’t simply know how to think in that language. When learning a language at the university level (at least this has been my experience), immersion is attempted by having language classes three times per week. A language student should have as much exposure to the new language as possible to guarantee the highest amount of immersion necessary. 

One can easily start to find parallels from the above. At Boston University where I learned solfege (in a rather haphazard way because the “ear-training and sight-singing program at BU, which teaches “fixed do” solfege, is mostly ignored and taught by ill-trained graduate students), I did not even think to relate learning a language to solfege. But retrospectively, I can truly say that my lack of immersion in solfege before BU has definitely hindered my ability to truly internalize it as a fluid language. At BU, I used a process of translation to get through my exercises. This process may actually be beneficial, and it is popular: whenever I sang my melodies, I played the piece on the piano in my head while singing it, and figured out the solfege syllables in that manner. This is nothing new or unique. Students use this technique all the time, most of the time developing it on their own, such as myself, Eric Smith (a student at NEC) and many of my friends, and perhaps some of you readers. 

But is this a good thing or is it a process that truly blocks the internalization process? If personally this process is quick enough for a sight-singer to execute melodies at correct tempi, then this process should be utilized. In essence, this translation process is not, nor ever will be, the same as being able to look at a note on a staff (or ledger line) and say its correct syllable without visualizing an instrument, hands, tables, etc … The translation process becomes even more demanding when reading in different clefs. Not only is the language of solfege getting in the way, but the pattern-language of the clef is shifted. This can perhaps be related to reading books in written in different accents, like Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston. Or better yet, being a native of Korea, learning English for the first time at the age of 15, and attempting to read The King James version of The Holy Bible. 

When a student is immersed in solfege, then the ability is completely, COMPLETELY different! There were students in the “Solfege for Singers” class who learned solfege at an early age. These students were not American. This is where the cultural element comes into play. In my student interviews, so far all of the Americans had little next to no exposure to “fixed do” before post-secondary instruction. Additionally, the little solfege exposure received was usually in passing, and of course in “moveable do”. Admittedly, my only exposure to solfege was singing that annoying popular song from The Sound of Music. Culturally, English is one of the only languages where the names of the notes are letters rather syllables. Other cultures, when it comes to solfege, do not separate between ‘a’ and ‘la’. In other languages, ‘a’ is just a letter and ‘la’ is the pitch. That’s that. 

In other words, other cultures internalize the syllables naturally. There is no process of translation occurring. Listening to the students in class who have internalized these syllables was a source of inspiration to other students, and me as well! It is always magical to see people solfeging at superhuman levels of speed. At the same time, observing these students really made it clear to me how much solfege is linked to language and culture. I have heard stories about the rigorous solfeging exercises at the Paris Conservatoire, and have thanked my lucky stars that I did not have to undergo such training. In the same breath, I wonder why America has not yet picked up on this solfeging tradition. I wonder what type of musician I would be if I was as good at solfege as the students who have internalized the syllables. But I must say, I am not questioning my musicianship, just my solfeging abilities.

One final thought: the Solfege for Singers class at New England Conservatory is held three times a week.

NewsBlog Editor’s Note: This post is the third of a series written by CMIE Research Fellow Anthony Green, as part of the documentation for Green’s CMIE Research Internship. See other posts in this series here.

It is truly extraordinary how conducting encompasses a vast range of approaches, techniques, and styles not only from what certain musics and instrumentations need and do not need, but also from people’s personal preferences, interpretations, and biases. For example, a conductor should not approach orchestral conducting in the same way one approaches choral conducting or big band conducting. Because of the different instrumentations and the needs that these ensembles imply, one will usually find different conducting courses for these ensembles (Intro to Orchestral Conducting, Wind Ensemble Conducting Techniques, Choral Conducting II: emphasizing the ictus, etc…) Furthermore, one person’s style of conducting a Beethoven symphony can completely differ from another’s. This is one good reason why there is not one definitive recording of each symphony. In my opinion (as well as others), the ensemble is the conductor’s instrument.

But can the same be said about contextual conducting as it is used with solfege? As stated in a previous post, contextual conducting is a method in which the conductor chooses hand gestures and specific subdivisions that best represent the music. To further elaborate on this idea, contextual conducting prompts the “energy” of subdivisions (energy is a term of Professor Scripp). For example, if one is conducting a sight-singing exercise in a 3/4 time signature, and encounters a beat one containing a dotted-eighth rest and a sixteenth note, if the conducting before this measure only required a normal pattern of quarter notes, then the pattern will change to include the eighth-note subdivision for the beat one of this particular measure. Additionally, whenever the music implies a need for a foundation from which a new energy should spring, one should change the pattern to reflect this energy. In essence, the conducting pattern changes to reflect the diverse contexts that the music implies. Hence, contextual conducting.

Professor Scripp emphasizes the importance of not only conducting while sight-singing, but also utilizing contextual conducting to further understand the placement of notes that may be slightly irregular (quick notes coming from a tie, syncopated, etc…). Also partly acting as a student, I have had the opportunity to try out the methods that Professor Scripp advocates and uses himself. Of course he has had much more experience than his students as he has been working in this realm for a while. He also teaches solfege, which is a great way of strengthening any knowledge that you already posses. I am amazed at his use of contextual conducting because, after trying it, I realize how difficult it is! It is hard enough to conduct in regular patterns and sight-sing simultaneously, but applying the changing patterns of contextual conducting along with sight-singing is a circus act to me!

For the sake of establishing a better context, most Americans do not grow up with solfege syllables as notes, and when Americans do, they usually learn a moveable-do system with “ti” instead of “si” for the note B. Therefore, when solfege is studied in American institutions, not only are the students required to learn a most-likely unfamiliar system, but also they are expected to become fluid and adept in this system while conducting. To perform an adequate sight-singing session, the student’s mind is required to sing with good pitch (which is rather difficult if you are not a singer, and do not have a good vocal range, and do not have good vocal technique), sing with correct syllables (which becomes tricky with key modulations, accidentals, transpositions, unfamiliar clefs, and of course quick notes), sing with correct rhythm, and conduct at the same time. The mind must be applied to four different processes simultaneously! Without contextual conducting, this process is hard enough. The idea behind conducting is that eventually one is supposed to know the patterns well enough to not think about them. The pattern serves as a metronome. However, when contextual conducting is applied, then the conducting and the rhythmic element of the sight-singing should become one entity.

What happens for me, however, is that I cannot apply all four elements simultaneously – pitch, syllables, and rhythm while singing, along with contextual conducting. It is difficult for me sometimes to concentrate on the syllables alone, let alone concentrating on the additional elements. Before continuing, I must admit that I do not actively practice these techniques. While I participate in the classes, I am officially not a student of this class, and am not required to keep a journal, take a final exam, practice the exercises, sing in class, and do other student tasks. Therefore, from my perspective, it is difficult for me to see how contextual conducting aids in the sight-singing process.

Sight-singing, by definition, is something that should not be “practiced” per se. Sight-singing is like sight-reading; the musician should be able to more or less reproduce certain notated musical ideas instantaneously. Like anything, sight-singing, as well as sight-reading, should be developed via hard work and study. However, the main goal should be to see a piece of music and play or sing it, nothing more, nothing less. Working on this goal leads to forward-motion on the paths towards other goals as well. But working on sight-singing should mean that the student wants to become better at instantaneous music production on his or her main instrument.

The added element of contextual conducting creates uncertainties for me. Firstly, in class, Professor Scripp has mentioned that there are different ways to execute contextual conducting. The method is not standardized, which creates one element of confusion. Secondly, even after practicing the contextual conducting, most of the students in the class still have not fully understood this concept. Thirdly, the students in this class practice their exercises to the point where their “sight-singing” coupled with contextual conducting is at a high-level. However, how much is memory involved in these “sight-singing” performances? Can the student produce an equally great performance of a difficult “sight-singing” passage without practicing it? Most of these concerns will be examined deeper in other blogs.

On the other hand, almost everything in music is possible if practiced long enough and correctly. Contextual conducting solidifies rhythm by placing difficult rhythms in an easier context. Imagine a piece of graphing paper with a complex line running horizontally across. The smaller the boxes are on the graph paper, the less complex the line becomes. Contextual conducting is a musical way of reducing the “size of the boxes.” Furthermore, contextual conducting strengthens normal conducting by adding an extra-musical element to an otherwise repetitious, emotionless pattern-beating routine. When Professor Scripp demonstrates his understanding and application of contextual conducting, he shows the students variations on how the different “energies” can be represented in the pattern. He also shows how they can be represented in other ways which corroborate with the expressive elements of music in general (for example, a breath, the widening of the eye, a sigh, a twist of the hand, etc…) The students consequently improve as singers, sight-singers, and conductors in the end; they improve as all-around musicians.

Another wonderful element to contextual conducting, which has not been examined at length in the classes that I have observed, is it can be used to change one’s rhythmic perception. For example, if difficult rhythms of a sight-singing exercise are mostly found in the second half of the measure, assuming the exercise is in 4/4, then the student may find it easier to imagine the exercise in a combined meter of 2/4 plus 1/4 plus 1/4. This altered rhythmic perception not only makes the contextual conducting easier, but it does not change the result for the listener. In fact, it will strengthen the accuracy of rhythm, and ultimately the execution of the exercise. Such a skill is just another version of reducing the “size of the boxes”, and it can be applied to any piece of music. This skill will prove helpful for vocalists singing Crumb, Berg, Ligeti, for pianists playing Carter, Boulez, Stockhausen, Ives, Nancarrow, and for any other musician performing works with complex rhythmic elements that are not found in most music before the 20^th century.

In the end, what can be done about contextual conducting? Standardize it and teach it one way? This will not prove useful. Conducting itself is not standardized, so contextual conducting cannot be either. Completely eliminate it from the curriculum? That would prove detrimental to the sight-singing program at New England Conservatory, to Professor Scripp’s work (as well as other professors), and the students who have adopted this technique into their practice. Perhaps contextual conducting should be taught in a manner that provides students with an option to use it. Therefore, the student will gain what the student can gain from it without having it affect his or her grade if this technique is not fully internalized.

NewsBlog Editor’s Note: This post is the first of a series written by CMIE Research Fellow Anthony Green, as part of the documentation for Green’s CMIE Research Internship. See other posts in this series here

Recently, I have been assigned to be apart of the research process observing the ear-training component of New England Conservatory. As one small cog in a machine of parts, my responsibility is to observe Professor Scripp’s Solfege for Singers class, which meets Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays from 5 to 6. Time is noted here because vocal chord quality is affected by many things, including time of day.

Just a bit of background about myself, I am a 2^nd year Masters student, studying Composition. I also have a 5-student piano studio, and I am a vocal coach to a local singer (who is not a student), an accompanist, and a music history and theory tutor. More about me can be found on my website: www.agreencomposer.com.

Week One

My first week of this class actually started during the second week of the school year. The students and Professor Scripp were still getting acquainted with one another, and new introductions of not only me but also another MIE intern were made. This initial class began with a recap of what was discussed in the previous week, which was a general introduction into solfege.

The students along with teacher determined that solfege is the use of syllables assigned to pitches to facilitate the ease of sight-reading, especially when singing. It can be used for different goals, such as re-enforcing one’s relative pitch, improving sight-reading, re-representing and re-articulating familiar songs, proving the accuracy of pitches during sight-singing, and more. Students solfeged “London Bridges,” and professor Scripp encouraged the students to learn from the moments of “pause.” He also established the rule that it is most important in this class, when solfeging, to get the syllable correct.

Conducting was examined as a way to verify rhythm. Students observed what information is portrayed through conducting and how, how subdivision can solidify information in a conducting pattern, and how subdivision can aid and correct rhythm. Two main questions were reflected upon:

1) What is rhythm?

“Variation of beats within a given time.”

“Beats arranged in a pattern.”

“Placement of a note in a given time, meaning duration.”

“Proportion, ratio, grouping.”

“Patterns governed by periodicity.”

and …

2) Why do we conduct?

“To verify where a beat should lie.”

Professor Scripp introduced the class to contextual conducting, which is a method in which the conductor chooses hand gestures and specific subdivisions that best represent the music. Such conducting can be used not only when sight-singing, but also in warm-ups and perhaps themes.

The breadth of information in each class is extensive, but is usually in the form of discussion rather than lecture. The students show quite a bit of enthusiasm for participation, and the atmosphere is such that mistakes are welcome and fear or embarrassment is rather low. Another wonderful aspect of this class is the varying backgrounds that the students have in music. The class is approaching a point where it can be a forum for each of the students to draw on each other’s various histories and experiences.

This Fall marks the beginning of several changes we’re making to the CMIE Guided Internship program at NEC.

One of the most exciting developments is that Guided Internships are now being formally recognized by the Conservatory’s Registrar; this means that students who successfully complete internships will get those internships listed on their academic transcript. To register for a guided internship, students should meet with me prior to their academic advising appointment and present a Guided Internship Proposal. Upon acceptance and review of the Guided Internship Proposal, Larry Scripp and I will sign a Special Enrollment Permission Form that the Registrar uses. Registering an internship with the CMIE Office and the Registrar guarantees some very important things:

1. Your internship meets CMIE program guidelines;
2. You promise to complete your Guided Internship within the semester of registration;
3. Your internship will count towards the CMIE Concentration;
4. You will receive credit for your internship on your academic transcript

IMPORTANT: These guarantees only apply if you register for your internship in advance of doing it. From this point forward, you can no longer tell us about your internship “after the fact” and expect to receive credit for it. Also, all internships MUST be registered for by the completion of ADD/DROP period; we cannot honor requests or proposals past the Conservatory’s ADD/DROP period for the semester that the internship work is planned for.

Other exciting guided internships await in new partnerships we are forming with our community partners. Through a new relationship with the Boston Chinatown Neighborhood Center, we are able to offer MIE students opportunities to work with Boston’s Asian immigrant population. If you are interested in teaching workshops or classes that align music learning with American cultural studies and/or English Language Learning, or you would like to teach vocal music, come by the CMIE Program Office and speak with Randy Wong.

NewsBlog Editor’s Note: This post is the first of a series in which MIE Concentration students have volunteered to share excerpts of their emergent MIE course portfolios. Graduate student Bianca Garcia has graciously volunteered to be our first portfolio example.

This blog is a sneak peek of my MIE511 Portfolio entitled, “Multiple Personas”.  In my portfolio I will attempt to define the concept of a “Persona”, describe my own personas as an artist, private teacher, and outreach performer, as well as answering the main inquiry I had throughout my time in the MIE Graduate Seminar with Professor Larry Scripp. 

The first chapter of my portfolio will feature my mission statement. It also will feature two inquiries: What is a “Persona”? & How does one best divide time between teacher and student activity in performance outreach?  Furthermore, the first chapter will highlight excerpts of my answers to Prof. Scripp’s “Persona Questionnaire.” 

The second chapter will give a perspective of my persona as a private flute teacher.  Towards the end of the MIE511 Graduate Seminar I obtained a new flute student, which gave me a chance to create a new persona as an Artist-Teacher-Scholar.  The role of the “Scholar” had been revealed to me by an in-class portfolio exhibit by Laura Umbro.  The concept of documentation in private lessons was impressed upon my mind and as a result, I formulated a “Lesson and Practice Notes” guide that would provide documentation of student progress, as well as foster the student’s own persona as an artist-scholar.  It also implements the Learning Through Music (LTM) Five Fundamental Processes that are intrinsic to fully engaged learning in music.  Another reason for my creation of the aforementioned guide was because my philosophy on private lessons had been stimulated by words of Mihalyi Csikszentmihalyi.  Below is part of a Double Entry I had written (with Csikszentmihalyi’s quotes on the right and my words on the left).

Finally, my portfolio will feature my persona as an outreach performer.  Again material from my Persona Questionnaire will be displayed, this time including real-life experiences from my many years of performance outreach.  It also will feature a special chart I made that covers outreach performances from 2002 until this year and shows the ratio of performer versus audience activity in each outreach and documents a steady direction I have taken in dividing activity between the two.  The creation of this chart was made in response to my main inquiry and with inspiration from various articles recommended by Prof. Scripp and colleagues in my MIE511 class.  Among these articles was “Crossing Boundaries” by Gail Burnaford in which she describes Music-In-Education as “entrepreneurship”.  According to this simile, Music-In-Education would then require creativity, pioneering, and fulfilling needs.  I believe this description would find a parallel in the Artist-Teacher-Scholar framework as fulfilling needs definitely aligns with the persona of an artist, creativity with a teacher, and pioneering with a scholar.  Another article I read from class suggestion was “The Teaching Artist and the Artistry of Teaching” by Eric Booth.  In this article, Booth quotes an old adage: “80% of teaching is who you are”.  This quote struck me and caused me to reflect on my former collaboration with the From the Top radio show.  I started an internship with the From the Top radio show’s Education department at the beginning of Spring Semester; however, I had formerly been a From the Top “cultural leader” as a teen flutist.  Something about the experience had felt really powerful and meaningful.  I was not a certified educator and had never taught a class, but children in schools that I had visited enthusiastically received my performance- wanting to hear more than I had prepared, wrote letters to me that looked up to me as a person, and expressed their desires to start playing my instrument.  Later, I learned From the Top’s mission through their education program—“we provide a platform for young artists to present themselves, share their passion, and develop into inspirational peer models.”  These aspects of teaching shine through outreach performance.  They both also relate to one’s persona as an outreach performer.  Musicians in any educational setting are role models, as teachers or visitors, and children are imitators and balls of energy; therefore, we must be at the peak of our behavior and musicianship while presenting for them and our presentations must involve them.

To find my “Practice and Lesson Notes” guide, its basis in the LTM framework, and the Ratio of Student/Teacher Activity chart, look at the attachments below.

Here is an assortment of photos from a recent class in “Cross Cultural Approaches to Music-in-Education” here at NEC with professor Warren Senders.

The Artist-Teacher-Scholar framework has been around for over a decade. As far as I know, the term was first coined when during the years I served as the Founding Director of Research at the Leonard Bernstein Center for the Arts in Nashville (along with Eric Booth, Teaching Artist Director, David Steiner, former Head of the National Endowment for the Arts, and Alexander Bernstein) where the term was used to understand the Leonard Bernstein’s persona and his life’s work as a synthesis of his artistry, teaching, and scholarly publications and lectures.

Nine years ago at NEC, I worked with Alan Fletcher (now CEO and President of the Aspen School of Music and Festival) to establish the Artist-Teacher-Scholar (ATS) Framework as the conceptual framework for NEC new Music-in-Education Program. It was the ATS framework – employed as an educational model for MIE students at NEC – that attracted years of federal funding to help NEC establish its Music-in-Education Program and the Research Center, representing the two key components of the Center for Music in Education.

Today I understand that the success of both NEC programs is aligned with the inter-related principles of the ATS framework. That is to say, as many students develop musically over time, they become increasingly interested in both the ‘teaching of the musical arts’ and the ‘artistry of teaching’ in schools or in outreach programs regardless of what career path they choose. And eventually it is not unusual for these musicians to recognize the importance of building both a personal ‘scholarship of artistry’ and a ‘scholarship of teaching’ as they develop career paths.

As evidence of this ongoing progression, NEC faculty whose courses count toward the MIE program - all highly trained and experienced musicians - engage in scholarship that takes the form of publishing, lectures, research, advocacy, community leadership, curriculum development, outreach programs, assessment, social action and policy shaping through our local programs and national collaborations relevant to music in education and our society. I believe that the ATS model helps to explain the genisis and effectiveness of these faculty initiatives.

Further evidence of the impact of this framework can be understood through changes in institutional policy. Nine years after the creation of NEC MIE programs and its research center, there are now guided intern programs, concentration programs in Music in Education, and even new research institutes in our partnering organizations nationally. Googiing on the internet I discovered there are now Music-in-Education programs established internationally independent of our work. I think these events have not occurred in absentia of an evolving conception of the artist’s developing persona as an artist-teacher-scholar.

Personally, the conception of the ATS clarifies the need for research and assessment in music-in-education practices. For me, artistry and education have limited impact on public policy, practices or leadership without ongoing research that is both rigorously conducted and aimed at practical significance for musicians, teachers, parents, administrators and students. Without having to arrive at a lock-step view of the ATS framework as a model for NEC faculty or students, I think it is fair to say that Patrick Keppel, Randy Wong, Lyle Davidson, Warren Senders, and Paul Burdick and our many other colleagues at NEC and in our partnering schools, see this framework as a driving force behind NEC’s national or local initiatives, Journal publications and the presentation of student portfolio work coming out of the NEC MIE and outreach programs.

I look forward to seeing more alums presenting their work on the www.mieatnec.org website and blogs. I hope everyone reading our new Journal in May will be stimulated through seeing the work of fellow MIE interns in other institutions. Nonetheless, it is my fondest hope that anyone investigating the publications, student, and alum work will appreciate the evolving forms of artistry, teaching and scholarship represented by NEC faculty and students as a resource and inspiration for advancing music in education and our society.

- Larry Scripp

Larry Scripp is Director of NEC’s Center for Music-In-Education and Executive Director of the MIE National Consortium. Scripp is also on NEC’s Music Theory and Music Education faculties, and is a professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.