Some of you might know the Zimbabwean proverb: “If you can talk you can sing, if you can walk you can dance”. Is this true or is it one of these things that idealistic singing and music teachers post on their classroom and studio walls?

I have to admit: years ago, when I was teaching music in an elementary school, I too had a banner like that on my classroom wall… And my reasons for having such a banner in my classroom were mainly based on the idealism of a young, enthusiastic music teacher. Years have passed since I taught in that particular classroom, and in the meantime I have spent a lot of time studying the voice, the anatomy and the physiology of the voice, the principles of healthy sound production, and the techniques behind specific sounds. I’ve worked with singers of all levels, from children to adults, and from beginners and “tone-deaf people” to professionals and recording artists. So it’s time for a reality check. Would I still have such a banner in my studio?

Yes. But with a little correction. I firmly do believe that anybody with healthy vocal folds can talk and also sing. And…now comes the ‘but’: Singing is an ability that needs to be developed like any other ability. So let’s reformulate the proverb:

“If you can talk you can (learn how to) sing”.

I don’t believe anybody would come to think of asking a person (adult or child) to play a song or a scale on a musical instrument without having learned HOW to play the instrument first. Yet, when it comes to singing, an attitude is often assumed that ‘you either can do it or you can not’. And subsequently: if you can’t do it, you better shut up and let those who can, do it.

Singing in tune is often the main aspect we focus on when we define if a person can sing or not. I do agree that singing in tune is an important goal in mastering the ability of singing. But there are other aspects that need to be taken in consideration as well, even before we consider the aspect of singing in tune (and how it is done).

Just like we need to learn how to play a musical instrument, we need to learn how to play our instrument (the singing voice). In order to do this we need to understand how our instrument works so that we can work with it instead of against it. Understanding how the voice works will also help us understand what singing in tune is, how it can be done, and what we can do about not singing in tune. We need to understand the techniques behind the various sounds, so we can learn how to use our instrument, make different sounds with it and control it. We also need to develop awareness (and later on, control) over aspects such as pitch, melody, rhythm, dynamics, and so on.

The ability of singing can be developed with the right instruction, in a positive learning environment, through successful experiences, through trial and error leading to new insight, by practicing in the right way, and last but not least: by singing. The more time we spend exploring the singing voice and making music, listening to and learning from other singers, the more we learn about the language of music, the deeper our understanding becomes.

If you can talk you can (learn how to) sing…but not everybody will have careers in singing. And not everybody with singing careers will become famous singers. A singer can be famous in one country, and completely unknown in another. Some singers become world famous, but that doesn’t necessarily have to do only with their singing skills. Singing careers and fame belong in different discussions. But one thing is for sure: everybody has the possibility and the right to learn how to use their singing voices, to enjoy singing and express themselves through singing and music.

The subject of singing – how it can be learned, and how it is taught – is something that keeps my mind busy. So I will reflect on these things in future blog posts as well, let’s say that this was a beginning

by Katja Maria Slotte

This is a chapter of my master thesis ‘Women in Salsa’ (2009). Are gendered instruments still a fact, and what are we music educators doing in order to break with this cliché?

Gendered instruments

First, there is an extensive range of studies analyzing the gender-stereotypes of musical instruments. Hallam (2008) conducted a research among British school children aged between five and nineteen years, where she studied which instruments are the most gendered, and illustrates some of the possible reasons for those differentiations. According to her findings, girls’ (and women’s too) choice for an instrument depends on such factors as the shape or size of an instrument, its pitch and sound quality, and the physical characteristics necessary to play the particular instrument (Hallam, 2008: 7). In accordance with her results, girls are more probable to play small and higher pitched instruments, as example the flute, which is one of the most gendered musical instruments.

As Gourse writes in her study about the jazz scene, female horn players experienced insults, or were even occasional physically attacked. It was unacceptable for men to see a woman blowing an instrument, which let to comments such as “I hate to see a woman do that” (Gourse, 1995: 8 ).

While today brass and woodwinds instruments are still extremely gendered, the saxophone is gender neutral. Amongst the various percussion instruments, there is a clear dominance of boys playing the Kit drums, whereas African drums are gender neutral.

Those numbers are conforming to traditional views on gender and practice of music instruments. Nicholas Cook wrote that practically all of Jane Austen’s female characters played the piano (1998: 106). This female preference for the piano, or keyboard is still ongoing today, as the research of Hallam (2008) proves. Eklund Koza (1991) is noticing a comparable fact while examining the role of women in music as described in Godey’s Lady’s Book, popular in the nineteenth century. At that period, keyboard instruments were the most prominent among women, while men preferred instruments of the orchestral woodwind and string families such as violin and flute. The book does not mention any female musicians in connection with percussion or woodwind instruments (1991: 107).

As Zervoudakes and Tanur (1994, cited in Hallam, 2008: 9) remarked, a change in girls’ choice for instruments between 1959 and 1990 can be noticed, and one realizes that girls are gradually opting for both, ‘feminine’ and ‘masculine’ instruments.

It is important for girls or women to have role models. As Bruce & Kemp (1993, cited in Hallam, 29008: 9) found out, girls are more probable to choose a ‘masculine’ instrument if there are other female musicians playing that same musical instrument. This phenomenon has also been confirmed by Maite Hontelé, a Dutch trumpet player:

Well, girls find it in general nice to see that there is a woman who gives the lesson. Then they see that it is possible for a girl to play the trumpet. What I do while teaching is to support the girls in their choice to play the trumpet. (Interview on July 6^th 2009)

She had two role models herself, from whom she could receive the confirmation that it is possible for women to play the trumpet successfully (interview on July 6^th 2009).

May Peters, while teaching at the Puerto Rican conservatory was interestingly not only a role model for girls but also for her male students.

They [the male students] also tell me: wow, I think you are so great, Maestra! They even tell me that they would enjoy having a mother like me. This is for me the reason to be there; being a role model. (Interview on August 3^rd 2009)

A further influence is the social environment. Especially during the adolescence, peers have an enormous influence and one runs the risk of standing under enormous pressure if one is opting for ‘the wrong’ instrument (Hallam, 2008: 14). Again, the same occurred in the case of Maite Hontelé who found it extremely important in the early stages of her musical experience that female friends of hers played the trumpet as well (interview on July 6^th 2009).

If, on the one side female musicians are slowly accepted playing ‘masculine’ instruments, on the other side one is still making differentiations in performance practices of women. The most apparent example is the one of female percussion players. Waxer states that, while men are playing the congas or bongos (both Afro-Caribbean percussion instruments used in Salsa, next to the timbales) mainly being seated, women are expected to play them standing up, since it is considered “unlady-like for a woman to be seated with her legs spread around a percussion instrument” (2001: 242). She further mentions the female keyboardists, who also play standing up. The reason for this, according to Waxer, is the expectation that women show legs and dance while performing (2001: 242).

By Jeanne Schmartz

Image: Daniel St. Pierre / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

1. Your personality is your most important tool.

2. Make your views come true.

3. Always respect people.

4. Recognize your own limitations.

5. Be consistent and reliable.

6. Develop a sensitivity to experience things from the point of view of whom you educate.

7. Be ready for self-criticism, yet without abandoning yourself.

8. Leave space for whom you educate – also for making mistakes.

9. Do not break the agreements and promises that you have made.

10. Cherish your inner freedom, which is your most precious capital.

By Martti Lindqvist

Translated from Finnish by Katja Maria Slotte

“Pentatony is an introduction to world literature: it is the key to many foreign musical literatures, from the ancient Gregorian chant, through China to Debussy.” – Zoltan Kodály

Any music educator who has taught songs or musician who has improvised melodies using the pentatonic scale knows the power of the five tones. The five-tone pentatonic scale has been called the most universal of scales, because of its substantial use in music cultures around the world, including West African music, Sami joik singing, Hungarian folk music, Indonesian music, Appalachian folk music, Celtic folk music, Chinese music, and Andean music, to only mention a few. The pentatonic major and minor scales are commonly used in jazz, blues and rock music, and the blues scale predominantly derived from the minor pentatonic scale. In classical music, the pentatonic scale was used by Western impressionistic composers including Claude Debussy.

In this interesting video from the World Science Festival 2009 Bobby McFerrin uses audience participation and the pentatonic scale to demonstrate neural programming, as part of the event “Notes and Neurons: In Search of the Common Chorus”. At the end of his “pentatonic brain hacking” McFerrin mentions that regardless of where he is, anywhere, every audience gets it. Aside from the fact that the pentatonic scale seems to be used in music cultures around the world, interesting questions arise. Why does it seem that the pentatonic scale is universal? Is our brain programmed to “think pentatonic”?

Perhaps it is. A Belgian research found the pentatonic scale could be heard in the vocal interaction between babies and their mothers. And whoever has listened to children on a playground, can recognize the so-mi / la-so-mi patterns in their chants. This natural use of the pentatonic scale by children lead music educators including Zoltan Kodály and Carl Orff to largely use the pentatonic scale for pitch-matching and improvisation in their music education approaches. Not only babies and children seem to gravitate towards pentatony though: military cadences, used to keep soldiers in step while marching or running, also typically use pentatonic scales.

So where did the pentatonic scale come from? Doug Goodkin writes in Play, Sing, & Dance – an Introduction to Orff Schulwerk (2002):

“Some people (Leonard Bernstein among them) have theorized that the universal quality of the pentatonic scale comes from a subconscious sounding of the overtone series. A string produces a sound based not only on the vibration of the whole string, but also on vibrations of that string in halves, thirds, etc. Each division produces a soft, but audible tone called the overtone that becomes a part of the texture of the fundamental tone. This is not only true of strings, but any vibrating body, be it a tube of air or metal gong or drumskin.”

I find it interesting to theorize about the universal quality of the pentatonic scale or about our brains being wired for music, but what counts for me in the end is that it actually works. No matter what age, no matter what cultural background, be it with people who are completely new to music/singing or with music professionals…the pentatonic scale can always be used.  In my singing workshops I often use pentatonic songs from various cultures and music styles, and base a lot of my vocal improvisation and ear training exercises exercises on the pentatonic scale or pentatonic modes – often combined with accompanying drones or ostinato melodies.

Some musicians and music educators dismiss the pentatonic scale as sounding one-dimensional. Before you dismiss these powerful five notes, try exploring beyond the major pentatonic scale. Also, in honest my opinion, whether a scale sounds one-dimensional or not does not only have to do with the scale itself. It also has to do with how we use our instrument (in my case, the voice). A pentatonic improvisation can either sound like a “somewhat boring children’s song” or “sound like magic” depending on how the singer uses  rhythm/timing, sound color, volume, etc. and on how the accompanying vocals are built up. Perhaps more about that another time. For now, let yourself be inspired by Bobby McFerrin and his “pentatonic brain hacking”!

By Katja Maria Slotte

Following up from yesterday’s blog post with the Barbatuques video clip, today’s spotlight is on the work of percussionist/rhythm dancer and “body musician” Keith Terry. Keith Terry’s Body Music is a performance art that synthesizes body percussion, movement and cross-cultural rhythmic concepts. In Body Music, Terry draws upon rhythmic techniques such as polyrhythms, phasing, cross pulses, and polymeters. Terry’s influences range from Japanese Taiko and Balinese Gamelan to North American rhythm tap and Ethiopian armpit music. Terry  is the artistic director of Crosspulse, a non-profit arts organization dedicated to the creation, performance and recording of rhythm-based, intercultural music and dance. In addition to performing and teaching workshops, Terry has created two instructional videos (Body Music Vol.1 and Body Music Vol. 2) that teach the basics and variations on Body Music. These videos are wonderful (teaching) resources for music educators and musicians.

I was first introduced to Terry’s Body Music by San Fransisco-based Orff teacher Doug Goodkin, who was the first music educator to use Keith’s ideas in his work with children and subsequent teaching in Orff workshops. Since the early 90′s, Body Music ideas have been introduced by Goodkin and by Keith Terry himself to music teachers worldwide, among others at the Orff Insitute, and at Orff summer courses and conferences. In addition to the use of Body Music in the classroom, Keith’s ideas are applied by many performing groups as well.

Body Music is suitable as a medium for rhythm training at all levels, and also for strengthening rhythmic sensibility in singing, instrumental playing and dance. My own musical training began with classical piano studies and singing. Rhythmical training was often a nightmare subject because of the way it was taught: focusing on the ears and the head/logic, but completely disconnected from the rest of the body. It wasn’t until I was introduced to music education approaches like Dalcroze and Orff Schulwerk, where rhythm is connected to movement and body percussion, that I had most of my a-ha moments in rhythmical training. Later on, I took some percussion classes – something I would strongly recommend too for all singers. Working with world music styles that are based on aural learning has also been an invaluable training to strengthen my own rhythm skills.

In Body Music, the playing of rhythm patterns, movement and vocalization are brought together. When rhythm is experienced through the whole body it demands a physical internalization of rhythm, that I believe music education on all levels and areas benefits from. Music doesn’t happen in the head, it happens in the whole body! Body Music can be adapted to virtually any music style or culture, and thereby provides excellent rhythm training tools for culturally diverse music education. Finally, a link to the Crosspulse Teacher Blog, where you can download a PDF of Keith Terry’s article on Body Music.

By Katja Maria Slotte

Here is a clip of the Brazilian group Barbatuques that makes organic music using their voices and bodies as instruments. The group performs in Brazil as well as internationally, teaches workshops, gives trainings and participates in educational and social projects.

The professional development course that I am giving with Jeanne in Luxembourg 26-27 November is called “No Instruments? No Problem!” The idea for the workshop was born because of the reactions we often get from teachers: “At our school we don’t have (a budget to buy) enough instruments for all the students…” Making music and exploring musical elements and concepts is possible without any instruments at all, just like the Barbatuques show in their video (all right…they have included a Jew’s harp in this particular piece, but even that sound could be produced with the voice only).

Body percussion is probably the most ancient universal instrument. Ethnomusicologist Curt Sachs writes in ‘World History of the Dance’ (1937):

“The original time beater is the stamping foot… To the dull stamping sound is added the sharper sound made by slapping the hand on some part of the body; thus the upper arm, the flanks, the abdomen, the buttocks and the thighs become musical instruments. [...] Besides stamping… only hand clapping is found among all cultures at all periods.”

Add another instrument that we all are equipped with, the human voice (vocal sounds, singing voice and speaking voice), and we have endless possibilities to create music!

I would also like to thank my vocal coach colleague Cordula Klein Goldewijk for sharing this particular Barbatuque clip, it made my rainy morning much nicer!

By Katja Maria Slotte

Today is World Teachers’ Day. I was just wondering: do you have a personal Teachers Hall of Fame – with teachers who you are grateful of having met or been able to study with? What teachers are in your personal Teachers Hall of Fame? What traits do these teacher have in common?

Here are some thoughts I had about some of the best teachers I have had. These teachers:

• Mastered their content and were enthusiastic and passionate about it.
• Provided me with guidance and tools that suited my way of learning and helped me understand the content.
• Thought outside of the box and created new ways of explaining things.
• Never stopped learning themselves.
• Created successful and positive learning environments.
• Contributed to my personal growth in a profound way.
• Inspired me because of their contributions to the community I lived in.

There is another thing that these teachers have in common. I think these teachers were / are in what Sir Ken Robinson calls “The Element”:

“…the place where the things we love to do and the things we are good at come together.”

Every time I have met a teacher who is in their Element they have helped me find out something about my own Element.

What do you think makes a good teacher? And if we narrow it down to the areas of specialism this blog is about: what do you think makes a good music teacher? A good singing teacher? What teachers do you think belong in a “Music Educators Hall of Fame”? Why?

By Katja Maria Slotte

26-27 November 2011 Jeanne Schmartz and Katja Maria Slotte will lead a professional development workshop for teachers, childcare professionals, social workers, and music educators in Luxembourg.

The workshop is called “No Instruments? No Problem!” and is designed to cater to the needs of many educators and schools that struggle with (budget) issues and not having (enough) musical instruments for their students. In the workshop we will explore the vast possibilities there are to teach music in a meaningful and creative way without using any instruments at all. The participants will get introduced to the possibilities of working with body percussion, singing voice, speaking voice, and vocal sounds, and get lots of hands-on activities and ideas to bring back to their own classrooms and teaching situations.

In the workshop we will explore the connection between the Orff Schulwerk approach to music education and common elements used in world music styles, such as ostinato patterns, echo, improvisation, and other techniques. The workshop repertoire consists of children’s singing and rhythm games from all over the world. Participants will not only receive a lot of ideas and activities to bring back to their own classrooms, but also train their own vocal and rhythm skills and become more confident in presenting music activities.

This professional development weekend is organized by SCRIPT (Service de Coordination de la Recherche et de l’Innovation pédagogiques et technologiques),  the institute for professional development of the Luxembourgish Ministry of Education (Ministère de l’Education Nationale et de la Formation Professionnelle).

Workshop languages: English and Luxembourgish.

Teachers:
Jeanne Schmartz; percussionist, music teacher, musicologist (MA, BMus)
Katja Maria Slotte; singer, musician, singing teacher & music educator (BMus, MMus, Authorised CVT Teacher)

For more information and sign-up, please visit the SCRIPT professional development page.

This blog will be dedicated to the world of music education, and especially to the aspects of music education that are close to our hearts:

• Singing & Vocal Education
• Percussion (Afro-Cuban, Brazilian, Latin)
• World Music & Multicultural Music Education
• Orff-Schulwerk
• Early Childhood & Elementary Music

On our blog you will find news, observations, reviews on music education materials (books, DVD’s, CD’s), information on interesting music education projects, initiatives, concerts and workshops, as well as mini-interviews with interesting music educators and musicians that inspire us. From time to time we will give away some lesson plans and share our favorite teaching tips.