Translator: Mike Maeda Reviewer: Tanya Cushman
I'd like you to imagine, in a very strange universe,
your first experience with a basketball.
You are handed a basketball and a piece of paper
with instructions on it,
such as "Bounce the ball five times and pass it to the person in front of you,"
or "Run forward, turn around and catch the ball someone throws at you."
Over the months, as you develop your skills
of reading and performing these instructions,
you learn longer and longer choreographies,
which look exciting and dramatic,
but where, in fact, you are not making a single decision for yourself.
It doesn't sound like much fun, does it?
Imagine after five years of this
that you arrive to a practice to be told by your coach
that on this day, for the first time, you won't be using any pieces of paper
or any planned or memorized games.
How would you react?
Would you be able to move beyond your years of reading instructions
and start making anything up?
Would you have any conception of what it feels like
to be genuinely playful with a basketball?
I think that in this very strange universe,
which I hope doesn't exist,
you would probably be completely confused.
It's a funny thing because in this universe,
that's pretty much how we teach musical instruments.
Games and many sports require people to make decisions,
to respond in the moment to the actions of others.
And that's part of what makes them so exciting.
You never know ...
what's going to happen next.
But in music, we have a whole host of written instructions
which dictate the pitch, the duration, the dynamics,
the articulation, the phrasing.
There really aren't many decisions to be made at all.
In fact, you could say
that playing an instrument is quite a scripted affair.
So what typically happens?
Well, I started to learn the flute when I was 11 years old.
The first challenge was just to get a sound with the head joint.
This took about a week of puffing and puffing.
Holding the flute wasn't easy either.
And the first note I probably played was a "D."
What most teachers would do at this point is put a book in front of the students.
So learning aninstrument from this point forward
becomes a matter of learning increasingly difficult pieces.
If you were to ask this student after two years of this kind of training
to play something by ear
or to make something up,
they'd look at you in horror, probably,
and say, "What do you mean play by ear?
I need to see the music.
And make something up? Out of what?"
I've seen this countless times.
When students are taught to play an instrument
almost exclusively through reading somebody else's music,
they hardly ever develop the ability
to make up a single musical phrase of their own.
You might be thinking that it's unfair of me to compare music to sport.
But I have to say that I absolutely love written classical music just as it is,
and I'm not here to bash it.
Learning to read music and to play in an ensemble can be so much fun,
and I wish everyone could experience the sense of community,
the discipline required,
and the sheer joy and excitement of bringing these notes to life.
What I am suggesting
is that the world of written musical artifacts might just be half the story,
and that beyond the printed page,
there lies another world of playing by ear and improvising.
This is a world of playfulness, of risk, of self-expression.
A world where you discover a voice inside your head
that delights in creating new music.
And to a great extent,
this is a world which resembles the playfulness of games and many sports.
To me, as a flute and saxophone player,
reading music, playing by ear, and improvising
are all equally important parts of the amazing world of music.
And I think all of our students
should have the chance to learn each of these skills.
I'm not the only person saying this, of course.
There are alternate teaching methods out there.
And most of these methods start by acknowledging
that the beginner on an instrument already knows lots of music.
Your typical 11-year-old
has been listening to music their whole life.
They've sung dozens and dozens of nursery rhymes and folk songs,
and they've certainly listened to hundreds of pop songs,
over and over again.
So in a very real sense, this music is actually written into their brains.
So why not start, instead of with a book,
why not start by showing the student
how to play some of the easier music they already know?
Let's take a tune now that I hope you all know:
"Ode to Joy" from Beethoven's Ninth Symphony.
For all my preparation and memorization skills,
the success of this talk now lies somewhat in your hands.
I am going to start singing this tune,
and I'd like you to join in with me to the syllable "ta."
So we'll have an introduction.
(Music)
(Singing) Ta ta ta ta ta ...
(Music ends)
Wow, that's beautiful.
So that tune already exists in your minds in some way.
So you can sing it.
Can you play it?
And now I'd like you to put your hand out in front of you,
as if you're playing the piano,
your right hand, palm facing down.
There are five notes in this melody,
five fingers.
So one finger corresponds to one of the notes.
We're going to call the thumb "1."
So, if I was to sing the five notes,
one two three four five four three two one.
Can you all do that with me?
One two three four five four three two one.
Brilliant.
Now, there's an amazing musical skill,
which some of you might now be able to demonstrate,
and which is completely overlooked in most instrumental teaching.
You are going to use that skill to answer this question:
Which finger or which number does "Ode to Joy" start on?
There are five notes, five fingers.
I've been told we can edit out all the wrong answers.
(Laughter)
One two three four five, da da da da da da da da.
So, somebody?
(Audience) Three.
Three. That was right. Thank you very much for that.
(Laughter)
It starts on the third finger.
What you're are all doing, some more successfully than others,
but you are attempting -
you're all doing what's called "audiation,"
what Edwin Gordon called "audiation."
You are not simply hearing the first notes in your head - ta -
that's not so difficult.
But you're hearing the third note
in relation to all of the other notes in the melody.
So now let's sing it again,
and you are going to play by ear
on your imaginary keyboard in front of you.
So we'll sing, and you'll start with your middle finger.
You could watch me,
but that would be using your eyes,
and the point is to try to use your ears to guide you to the next notes.
So let's try it again.
Go straight in.
Three four.
(Music) (Singing)
(Music ends)
Brilliant.
This is a little bit what it's like to play by ear instead of to play by eye.
When you're reading music,
you learn to associate certain dots on the page
with certain finger patterns.
And you don't actually have to be able to hear anything in your head at all.
But when you play by ear, the music first needs to come alive in your mind,
and then you have to learn how to connect that sound to an instrument.
These two skills are not easy, but together they're extremely powerful.
Given that hardly anyone teaches young students to play by ear or improvise,
it's amazing that anyone actually learns this skill at all.
In my case, I was about nine years old
when I started to have recorder and piano lessons.
At home in Beirut, I remember Dad teaching us Scottish folk songs,
and Mum had some classical music cassettes,
which I listened to over and over again.
Back in England, at the age of 11 when I started to play the flute,
a music teacher one day called me into his room
and asked me, challenged me to make something up at the piano -
uh, to make something up on flute while he accompanied me at the piano.
That simple intervention, without any elaboration or discussion,
opened up a whole new realm of music for me
where I realized that it was possible for me to have my own musical ideas
and that to play these spontaneously was called improvisation.
Soon after that, I joined the music group at my local church,
and over the months and years,
I learned to improvise, playing in the church services.
At first I just started off playing the melodies by ear
that everyone was singing.
Then I would start improvising in my own small way,
trying to find more and more beautiful ways through the music.
This was the best way to learn to improvise.
No one was telling me what to do.
No one was telling me what to do next.
Just me and my ears, searching for more and more beautiful music.
There is a school of thinking, however, that says,
"You need to learn your scales and your arpeggios and some music theory
before you can learn to improvise."
I'm not so sure about this.
In his book "Improvise for Real,"
David Reed suggests that it's just the opposite,
that it's through improvisation itself
that music theory can best be explored and understood.
Certainly, that was my experience.
Technique and creativity were being developed simultaneously,
one challenging and inspiring the other.
I believe that just as we don't need to be taught
to express our thoughts through language,
so, too, in music,
improvisation is something that, given the right environment,
will arise naturally.
This is radical.
Let it sink in a moment.
Improvising might be as simple as opening your mouth ...
and saying what's on your mind.
I'd like each of you now to hear that you are musical improvisers.
Even if you've never played an instrument,
you all have a musically playful mind that is unlike anyone else's.
I'm going to start singing a musical phrase.
And I'm going to stop halfway through,
although the accompaniment is going to continue.
When I stop, I'd like you all just to listen to what you hear inside your head.
Don't try to make anything up.
Don't sing out loud.
Just listen.
Here we go.
Two three four.
(Music)
(Singing)
(Music ends)
Now, I have no idea if anything was happening.
But I have a strong suspicion
that many of you heard some kind of musical response,
and that it was natural.
It wasn't coaxed out;
it was your brain being playful.
Now we're going to do it again.
This time I'd like you all to sing out loud.
It's going to sound mildly, gently chaotic.
Don't sing something if you don't want to, if you don't hear anything at all.
But the phrases, I believe, will encourage some kind of response,
and it's effortless, I would say.
Here we go.
So straight in.
One two three four.
(Music) (Singing call and response with audience)
(Music and singing ends)
Fantastic. Give yourselves a round of applause.
(Applause)
Don't think that I've been teaching this new method for years and years.
Despite all the fun that I've had as an improvising musician,
I've always found it quite a struggle to teach playing by ear and improvising,
especially when working with large groups of students.
But this year, I am co-teaching beginner band.
And my colleague and I are experimenting with a range of new approaches
with our grade-six students,
so this is very much a work in progress.
What I am sure of is that as instrumental teachers,
we need to start showing our students
that there is more to music than simply playing pieces,
however great these pieces are.
There is a world of curiosity and creativity
where the young student can enjoy
the independence of playing by ear and the excitement of improvising.
How do we do this?
The challenge is to put curiosity, creativity, and self-expression
at the heart of instrumental teaching right from day one.
And why do we do this?
Because experiencing your instrument as an extension of your imagination
and being able to play alongside empathetic musicians
is simply incredible.
To adopt a skiing metaphor for a moment, as I close,
I like to think that music and, in fact, any kind of endeavor
becomes truly fun when you are able to go off-piste,
when you're able to experience an activity as being fresh and uncharted.
I asked some of my students recently
why they liked to go off-piste when they're skiing.
One girl answered,
"Because you're not following a path laid out in front of you.
You can make up your own path."
You can make your own path.
Now that sounds like fun.
Thank you.
(Applause)
Up until now, every word of this talk has been carefully memorized,
mostly successfully,
including what I'm saying right now.
But I'd like to finish by going off-piste myself
with Libor Šmoldas on guitar and Josef Fečo on double bass.
We are going to play the jazz standard -
(Applause)
We're going to play the jazz standard "It could happen to you."
After I've played the melody,
that's when I go off-piste.
I really have no idea what's going to happen at that point,
but I cannot wait to find out.
Thank you.
(Music)
(Music fades out)