Musicality for Beginners: Emphasizing Notes

Greetings!

From what I gather, one of the aspects of playing that many teachers struggle to teach is musicality. Here is what I mean by that - How do you get students to develop good enough musical instincts that they can make independent decisions regarding musical nuance?

I remembered having pretty good instincts in this regard as I entered college, but my later college experience trashed these skills in favor of something radically different, and I might add, much less exciting. I struggled to remember how we were taught those valuable skills. As the section leader, if we were not given details of nuance for a given phrase, I would make those decisions and pass it along to my section members so that we could immediately start practicing doing it with a unified sound on the next playing (sometimes one of the other guys would make good recommendations we would run with).

Considering that my senior year we had an All-State player in every section (except the euphonium section), I have to imagine that this happened throughout the band. Did it happen in our second band? I'm not sure. They did have a different teacher, so who knows.

What I do know is this - we promise creativity, and I feel like we don't always deliver. There are times when the conductor must give instruction as to nuance (emphasized notes, shaping, phrasing, style, etc) to unify the band. However, often students either don't have the tools to make those decisions on their own, or they don't even understand that they're supposed to. In my educational opinion, there is nothing creative about doing exactly what is written on the page, and/or exactly what you're told to do. The creativity can only come when the student takes that music and uses what they know to give it inflection and life. The end result will be unique based on their personal musical decisions. Not only does this give them the chance for creativity, but it makes each piece more musical as we simply don't have time to cover the nuance of every phrase for every part.

So having defined what I mean by musicality in this instance, and having defended why this is important, we can get into how it is taught. I've researched this topic in multiple texts, and plan to do a series of posts outlining various steps you can take with them. This is the first step, and the greatest part of this step is that you can do it with beginners.

What They Need to Know

This is a topic for the later part of the year, either towards the end of their first book or during their end of the year concert preparation. The key skills they need are:

1. Phrasing: Every text covers this, but sometimes it is hard to enforce it when what we're primarily listening for is quality sounds with right notes and rhythms. But that's not good enough. They must play with good phrasing. One of my earlier mistakes this past semester was not enforcing phrasing after we covered it in the book. We still got it done later on, but I wish I would've done it as soon as the concept was introduced. In order to start making musical decisions, they must start to see music in phrases rather than notes.

2. Dynamics/Articulations: You will see why this is important in just a moment.

Keep in mind that musical nuance is not in the method books. It will ultimately be up to you to decide when to start doing this, but as long as they've attained a good grip on these basics, they should be ready.

Introduction: Explaining Music as a Language

In addition to the above listed prior knowledge, we can hopefully assume that the students have a basic understanding of reading and speaking a language. Explain that they're going to start learning one of the most important skills in playing music - how to project meaning into the music.

"Reading and playing music is a lot like reading and speaking any other language. Take English, for example. When you're reading a story, you can read what a character is saying, but the book won't tell you how the character is saying it. You fill that in with your mind. For example, you're reading a story about Mr. Cooper, and he says something like this:

(BTW - this is something I picked up from John Whitwell at a TMEA clinic, and 6th graders get the analogy)

I love to teach at Generic Middle School.

Now when you read it, it might sound just like that in your mind. Or, depending, you might think he says it like this:

I love to teach at Generic Middle School.

or...

I love to teach at Generic Middle School.

or...

I love to teach at Generic - Middle School.

Now I was saying the exact same words every time, but each time the meaning was a little different, right? (make sure they're following you). And the way I gave that sentence different meanings was by which word or words I chose to emphasize. 

Music is the same way. You can read and play the music notation exactly how it is written, but usually that doesn't say enough. So it's up to you to decide which notes to emphasize in the music, just like you would choose which words to emphasize in your speaking. Let's practice this...

Practice the Concept on Rhythms

This next bit comes straight out of an Ed Lisk book. You'll need to have a rhythm sheet ready to go. I would recommend 2-4 measure chunks of common time (2 measures should do it... you'll want to limit their options at first). 

First, have the class count the rhythm with the normal (typically monotone) inflection. Tell them to think about what notes they're going to emphasize as they practice the rhythm, but to count normally for now. 

They are about to experience a drastic change from the monotone counting! Once the class gets the accurate rhythm, explain the following:

"Now I'm going to call on individuals to count the rhythm again, but this time when you count I want you to emphasize a note or a beat. I'll count the rhythm as normal and then again with emphasis to show you what I mean. Listen carefully.

The normal rhythm sounds like this: 

one - two and three - four - one - - - three - four - .

Now I'm going to emphasize one of the notes:

one - two and three - four - one - - - THREE - four - .

Did you hear the difference? (make sure they're following you) Which beat did I choose to emphasize? (solicit responses) 

Now keep in mind that different people will choose to emphasize different notes, and that's normal. What makes it interesting is to see which note you chose to emphasize, so I expect everyone to decide on their own what note to emphasize. 

Who wants to give this a try? (call on someone) As (student) is counting, I want everyone else to play close attention and listen for which beat they emphasized."

You can play this game until, preferably, everyone has had a chance to do it.

Now switch to playing the rhythms. Play the rhythms without emphasis, and then give students the chance to emphasize a note. The first time they do this, count the rhythm with the emphasis you want, play it that way, and have them play it back to you. Explain that when they do this on their instrument, they basically play that note 1/2 to 1 full dynamic louder, just for that note. However, it shouldn't sound harsh. They could even wind pattern this. The point is to give them some practice in playing the emphasis before they have to play the rhythm with their own emphasis added.

Apply the Concept to a Line of Music

Preferably you can work on a line in their method book. Apply the same process of learning/playing the line just as written, and then give individuals the chance to play the line while emphasizing one or more notes. Now that you're on music, you can explain that they'll want to choose at least one note per phrase to emphasize.

You can also relate it to articulations by saying it is like playing a note with an articulation marking that isn't actually written in, but you know it should be.

During this time it is important to do a couple of things. Keep the entire class involved. Let the class coach by asking them questions about what they just heard. Could they tell which note the student emphasized? Did it sound good or was it too harsh? Was it a good note to emphasize or did it sound a little awkward. 

A good analogy for awkward emphasis is the old saying, "You're putting the emPHAsis on the wrong syLLAble." While there are more than one good choice, there are also choices that don't sound natural, and it's something they will figure out the more they experiment with it.

The second thing is to give each student a chance to do it, and not only do it but do it well. If the emphasis is at first either too extreme or difficult to hear, after soliciting the class' feedback, let them try again, and then praise the heck out of them when it sounds good.

Finally, note that when they are playing all as one section (or part), they have to emphasize the same note, otherwise it sounds like a jumbled mess. Even when adding emphasis, they should sound like one instrument/player. When they play solo, they can choose which notes to emphasize. When they play in parts, the section leader or part leader decides. The conductor always makes the final call.

They may take up most of your class, but boy will it be worth it. They are beginning to make independent musical decisions using this very simple concept. Their homework assignment will be another line, either one you worked up to a certain point before class ends or a line they already know, which they will experiment with to see what notes sound best to emphasize. They will make a decision and mark which ones they want to emphasize, and tomorrow they will play it for the class.

That's all there is to it. It's an introduction to the idea that you can and should play things that are not written, and a model for understanding one of the tools of musical nuance. Please let me know what you think in the comment section below, especially if you try it with one of your groups.

Thank you, as always, for reading, and until next time, take care!

Musically yours,
Mr. Cooper