Framework paper polifonia

I- introduction
Intro music- exploring sound, space, listening
Bart- who am I, why this research
Helena- who is she and why or what? 5’

II- improvisation
Sample to start part one about improvisation.
Bart about why impro- takes us to heart/ reflective practice
Sample stravinsky
Bart about how reflecting on it (method)
Sample with a task like ‘time’ or ‘intervention’
Helena: how to translate this into ‘simple’ teaching
Sample to finish- 12’

III- conversation
Bart: Start to introduce briefly ‘conversation’- a key issue in our work- often formatted- impro is direct- so ‘how to get this vitality in conversation?
Start accompaniment plucked
Helena about roles and
Moto perpetuo strong in. (recorded or live)
Story with conversation in lesson based on moto perpetuo
Bart: conversation in larger groups and dramaturgy- one example
Examples music/drama energizing a- space, b- vaudeville (with helena talking) c- quatre mains. 19’
My favourite book…

IV- power, fear, how to develop a mentoring attitude
Bart: where are we in the paper? Back to structure. Introducing power and fear
?? bridge (Helena doing some piano from the inside flageolets)
Bart: student monologue about power
Helena: trust and silence
Bart: fear about voice
Playing arpeggio’s- fear-
Helena: remarks on fear and some added hobo maybe stretched into transformation
Arpeggio’s continue and vanish during conclusions Helena 23’

V- Conclusions
Helena: concluding triangle
Bart: concluding
We play just one chord or tone to finish.

The text that follows is not yet definite but gives a clear idea about possible changes.

Introduction

Bart
About me, the idea and the lectorate
In the late 90ies I worked closely with the government restructuring higher arts education. Four years ago I was secretary of an international committee to do a supplementary review on Dutch Conservatoires. Similar questions. Do these conservatoires actually respond on changing society? What I saw in general was a patchwork curriculum and a lot of teachers under pressure, feeling undervalued.

The pressure from outside seems to be unable yet to reach the heart of matters: music, musicians itself.

Being a musician I became intrigued by the thought of changing the whole direction of change and starting inside, starting from the music itself. Starting from inner motivation, inspiration and creativity. And from there embody change in our attitude, our conversation and along those lines connect with the new demands from society.

That is what I want to do as a lector at the Royal Conservatoire in the lectorate ‘teacher of the 21th century’. The project improvisation- conversation we present today expresses the first steps.

Helena
From my point of view, this work is stimulating my personal and professional development. Particularly relevant to today’s context, it is enabling development as a teacher in a conservatoire, a form of reflective practice, and enabling transfer skills between improvisation in music and in conversation, particularly conversation as I engage in it when working 1-1 with students.

It is providing me with an important way to deepen the development/transformation of my own practice.
I have already been engaged in developing my own work, through action research relating to my own individual teaching (breathing and oboe playing) and then working with others, through a PhD about 1-1 tuition in conservatoires, where I began to talk to and work with other instrumental/vocal teachers in my institution, and through the Reflective Conservatoire Conference, which was designed to stimulate sharing and discussion of practice and research relating to the core business of conservatoires.

Our current research emerges from these contexts, and is providing important practical tools. We also recognise that connections between improvisation and conversation have been made in a number of contexts (refer to literature handout). Our work, however, is practice-based more than theoretical, and we are looking for outcomes in different arenas: 1-1 conversations in teaching; wider institutional conversations; assisting in the necessary transformation of music education.

PART 1 - IMPROVISATION
Bart

we start playing free.

sample of music- Stravinsky1

Why impro?

For me improvising is trying to establish a dynamic balance between the inside and the outside. An inner impuls wants to do something. At the same time I receive all kind of impulses from outside. This goes quick. There’s no time to listen first and than decide how to deal with in- and outside. No. It both has to be there: integrated and in the moment- playing and reflecting in action. In improvisation I value the creative and curious attitude of ‘knowing that I don’t know’. (docta ignorantia nicolaas van cusa) And I value the exercise in postponing the judgement. If I judge I cannot play. To quote Miles Davis ‘play it first and tell what it is later’.

Sample of music – Stravinsky 2

How to reflect?

‘Play it first and tell what it is later’. Miles Davis follows (as I see suddenly) the great thinkers of the 20^th century on ‘reflective practice’: Dewey, Freire, Schon. First do it and reflect-in-action than reflect-on-action.

There are different entrances for reflecting:

- what happened with the musical parameters? timing, sound, motion.

- what happens with our fantasy, our association and imagination while playing?

- a third one is about the process of communication. How did it start? What kind of interventions where there? Do we agree or disagree?

- we can see it as drama or we can focus on more personal and psychological experiences like consciousness, fear and physicality.

Next step. How to bring outcomes into teaching?

Sample of music – Stravinsky 3 Just another exercise for instance on motion.

Helena

So the Stravinsky piece is like a little exercise, a technical exercise. There are clear rules: musical fragments and then play around with them and embellish - it’s easy to find a point of access.

I’m using this improvisation to understand more and work more creatively with the possibilities and constraints of my work as a teacher.

Then here from my reading, I found a really useful idea that gives a framework for understanding different levels of improvisation (from management, Ryle). It sees improvisation within a continuum: interpretation à embellishment à variation à impro, and having a bank of ideas is really useful.

Why is it useful? Because in the context of teaching, it starts to open up a big range of possibilities. It isn’t always appropriate to jump in the deep end with free or complex improvisation.

So, to give an example from my teaching: Eg with Aimara, working on scales in 6ths, wanting to get away from mechanical playing, also very out of tune. I didn’t have my oboe with me. So, having understood the basic pattern starting on C, she chose a musical quality “lontano”. We improvised alternate phrases —- demo ——

Results: we both became immersed in the musical line; forgot about notes; sound quality improved, intonation improved massively, it became a musical experience.

I could connect to her easily, and could begin to trust myself to teach musically – ie to draw on my musicianship, and tacit musical skills in the conversational/structural parts of teaching as well as the musical ones. This was a powerful process, from relatively simple starting points.

Sample of music – Stravinsky 4 to end the session.

——————————————————-

PART 2- shift to conversation pillar CONVERSATION

Bart

Conversation as key competence

Now let’s look to the conversational side of our work. With our students, with our colleagues, with our management, with our professional network: conversation is a key issue, a key competence for every professional. But are we competent?

What worries me is that conversation often is so strongly formatted. So fixed. As if performed from score. We are polite, wait for the other, don’t confront each other. A lot is locked out.

Can we get the quality of playing into the conversation? That question is leading in part two.

Starts playing plucked cello

Helena

In reflecting on our improvisations, I begin to realise that we are constantly taking on roles (consciously or unconsciously) – initiator, follower, soloist, accompanist, supporter, provocateur, listener, disappearing into the other’s sound, validator.

I notice that some of these roles are more easy for me than others in improvising, perhaps because of my instrument:

• eg the long slow solo (often middle register)
• being a 2^nd oboe player, disappearing into the texture might be too, though I don’t seem to use it much yet!

I notice in teaching that I tend to adopt relatively few different roles!

But I also notice that taking on particular roles can have a powerful effect – these too can maybe be tools, - here’s an example

My example is about the role of a moto perpetuo, which can have a galvanising effect, and produces an interesting platform for soloing.

This was something I noticed from an improvisation: it came to place which was rather stuck, out of ideas on my part. Then came the moto perpetuo which was both galvanising and came to be transformational.

Play the clip/live

The next step for me then is to think about how I may develop such roles myself in our improvising, and in my teaching.
After all, the long slow soloist as a role isn’t always so useful as a teacher! And 1-1 teaching tends to have such a set format!

1 example:

In this instance I was working with a student who was really struggling with motivation, wondering what she is about, low energy, difficult to engage. So I decided to use the moto perpetuo, this time not by playing it on the oboe (quite difficult), but by conceiving the lesson in this way. So we didn’t start in the usual way “Hello, how are you, how are things?” but I gave a lot of energy, a fast approach, straight into playing, then with lots of punctuated activities, high rhythmic energy in changing the goal posts and type of task

When I tried this, it seemed to have a strong effect – I’m not sure she was even conscious of the change in the lesson style, but her energy level rose, greater connection to the playing, getting through more work — and it seemed to create a framework for her to continue working. Motivation increased and she begins to find some of that galvanising force herself.

Bart

How to pimp group conversation

Let’s leave the one-to-one tuition now for the next step: the group conversation in group teaching, in mentoring groups, with professionals to develop curricula or whatsoever. Our work is full of that. How to catalyse, or even better how to Pimp the conversation?

For me it is an eye-opener to reflect on conversation exactly like we did on improvisation. Participants can be seen as personages. Tension lines follow natural dramatic rules. Crisis is often followed by catharsis.

Conversation gets better when art and creativity come in, literally as a sample of a film, some poetry or music or by challenging the participants to be imaginative with an improvisational attitude.

And the good thing? Similar to improvisation we can practise conversation as well. It is not that long ago that the ancient Greek regarded dialogue as one of the arts. We are able to do that. So let’s do it.

Now for some dramatic exploration: when I leave my chair…

Music sequence:

Helena

This exploration can be liberating. It brings in the possibility of releasing from my normal place: seated or standing playing. It makes me realise how fixed I tend to be as a personage behind the instrument.

There is a constant – doing something musically – using the existing musical skills.

Can also take outside of own instrument – again liberating – I have the sense of being able to use whatever resources we have, working in whichever context we have.

My experience is also that in stepping out from behind the instrument, this can be strong and fun – I will do wild things, or funny things, or competitive things, which I don’t do so much with my real instrument, where I am very serious!

I stay accompanying! She walks over to the piano.

MUSIC PIANO QUATRE MAINS

Bart jumps suddenly from behind the piano:

Helena continues with inside flageolets like ritual gongs

The element of play

My favourite book is Homo Ludens from the famous Dutch Historian Johan Huizinga. It shows the element of play as basic in the constitution of man. Not just an issue in culture. No, an actual source of culture. Playfulness is not just fun. It’s more fundamental.

Our story continues. Some dark tones are still missing. Delicate. Difficult. Dealing with power and fear.

We still hear the gong like flageolets dying away

Part 3

Bart

power

In the lesson room. The student: “I’m always so shy. O I really cannot play without the score. O you are so wonderful to help me through this barreer. Playing with you opens a new world. It shows me myself in a new way. I really feel uplifted and so on”.

The experience is rather strong and I touch sometimes deep things in people I work with. Wonderfull that we can do that in improvisation. In regular conversation this is not possible. But how to handle it? How to prevent misuse of power?

Helena

The nature of this work, improvisation and reflective practice, is that it has to be built on an environment of trust – but this is not the trust of a student to a master, but altogether of something else, ie not a trust of dependency, but a trust in which each can own their experience.

So this relationship marks a shift away from the tradition of the 1-1 master-apprentice model.

I notice the importance of listening in improvising.

Much research in teaching says teachers talk more! (Burwell 2005; Gaunt 2006) Implications of this are that student independence, responsibility in learning are inhibited.

The role of Silence in improvisation and teaching

I notice how easy it is to fill the silence, to be self-absorbed, to fill the space

Silence can be of course rather intimidating and difficult, but it is also important in development, giving space for a voice to emerge, a thought to form; and also being able to hold the awkward moments and help to move through them (this is opposite from the Masterclass situation, which is usually filled with activity).

I notice the importance of mirroring and responding to what is offered. (as in mentoring)

As in conversation, reflecting back their words (repeated or paraphrased) (is familiar in therapies and eg mentoring (reference to Renshaw (Renshaw 2006) and/or nursing paper) (Brooks 2006), can be a way of considering and strengthening meaning (and in the meaning being shared rather than held by only 1 person), and then also as a starting point for transforming what is said and understanding.

It seems to me that these elements are vital aspects of 1-1 instrumental teaching and mentoring contexts too.

Bart

Fear

Something about fear. I must have been 4 or 5. Christmas time. A small record was produced in the children school. Full of expectation we listened at home. All children followed the line. I was out of tune, even more than that. It was kamikaze.

I took some singing lessons when I was 20. A beautiful teacher put me on the ground, letting me breath heavily and pushing meanwhile my chest. Embarrassing. I gave up using my voice ever again. Than (almost fifty) came an improvisation where someone started singing. I felt really urged to do something too. Terrible fear. Trembling all over. And the reason I tell you (the audience) is because I noticed that this fear is an essential part of processes of change, processes of developing identity and strengthening creativity. You cannot do without it so I better mention it than look over it.

Helena

Improvisation is literally “unforeseen”. However much you are skilled, there is an element of allowing yourself to be unskilled when improvising, or not totally in control. You have to be open to the unknown and embracing a developmental process.

As an orchestral musician, this is quite a difficult thing to embrace., because the culture these days is rather something else (the bullet-proof world of perfection)

But it links directly to performance which is genuinely alive, and to art as a real generative and regenerative source in society.

My own fear: the 1^st time we improvised, in the Hague, it was difficult to do it, rather than talk about it. We didn’t know what we would do! In Western Classical music, improvisation these days is not so highly valued.

EXAMPLE

Arpeggio’s just upcoming and dying,

Although there is fear involved, what we find in this research is that we don’t have a patchwork, we have an integrated process which is really strong in encompassing 3 critical elements:

• Triangle of skills, play/spontaneity/creativity, and context.

The skills – that we come directly from our musical experience and expression.

Embracing all three is vital, I believe, in the developments of our fields.

Conclusions.

I’d like to go back to the start: can we from music itself contribute to conversation and along those lines bridge to larger society with all kind of new demands? This is what we research and develop in the project improvisation and conversation.

Next steps will be:

- contribute on groups on mentoring with the triangle guildhall, royal conservatoire, groningen.

- collaborative research project guildhall, rc. (also film, theatre, dance)

- five conservatoires,

- walter maas huis: (pwc, bank, university, )connecting conversations, art and business- connect with wider society. belief that musicians foster a lot of tacit knowledge that has value for personal ‘mastery’.