Chapter 5 – Whitwell on Music

Toward a new Philosophy of Music Education

Along with the return to the emphasis of performance there appeared in the nineteenth century the earliest music schools in their modern form, such as the early one founded by Robert Schumann. But these schools had their focus on technique, training performers. In these schools any instruction relative to feelings and emotion came not as a fundamental part of the music education of the beginning student, but at the end of the study of a composition, consisting in criticism of the performance of the finished composition, suggestions on how a composition should be performed. This has remained the tradition throughout the nineteenth century and for the most part until the present time.

In Europe today one frequently finds “Weekend Conservatories” organized by local civic bands where young students receive instruction on various instruments. Their long range object is to fill future chairs in the civic band and I recall once guest conducting one of these bands where there was a fifteen-year-old clarinetist sitting next to a man who had been playing clarinet in the band for 70 years! This model will be familiar to Americans who observe school bands, where the Elementary and Junior High school bands exist in part to fill the future needs of the high school band.

This tradition of how to perform as a matter of technique rather than of feeling, was reflected in the experience of my mother, for example, who was a student of a German piano teacher in 1923 in Enid, Oklahoma, who had been a student of the great Franz Liszt. This teacher passed on to each of his students one composition which he had studied with Liszt with the instruction that they were required to pass on this interpretation to their own students, as a matter of historical integrity. And so my mother continued to perform her assigned work from memory for the next 70 years in public performances with the explanation that this was how Liszt wanted the work to be played!

My mother as a piano teacher always had a class of 20 or so young piano students and she at least was thinking in the right direction. I recall her frequently telling them to play with “more expression,” although she did not elaborate on this term by speaking of specific feelings or emotion. This brings to my mind my experience as a lad of perhaps 7 or 8 years of age, during which I took “Expression” lessons from a private teacher in Kansas. She would give me various poems and coach me on using the voice to illustrate the text. For example if the text read, “He looked down the long road,” she would teach me to recite, “He looked down the l—o—n—g road,” as I pointed off in the distance. As a child I performed these poems resulting with “Ohs” and “Awes” before women groups at church.

Another rare example of a teacher attempting to introduce the emotional aspects of a composition which really impressed me was a former student of mine who was now a private piano teacher. She taught in her home and on the wall behind the piano she had arranged about a dozen pictures of faces she had collected, some with smiles, some sad, etc. After a student had played their assignment she might point to the wall and ask, “Which face matches the music you just played?” Or, she might request, “Please play the piece again and make it sound like this face,” pointing to one on the wall. The literal success of the student did not matter; what mattered was the student was being introduced to becoming aware of something beyond the notes.

This approach is similar to something I sometimes did in rehearsal with the full wind ensemble, in places where the comment was appropriate. I might say to the ensemble after a cadence, “That sounded great, but I didn’t hear any pain!” Then I would immediately repeat the phrase and the difference would always be astonishing! Thirty minutes of additional rehearsal and talk would not have accomplished what the students did on their own once their attention was focused.

Another example of this which I often used as a demonstration in clinics was based on the beginning of the final movement, a Theme and Variations, of the great C Minor Octet, K. 388, by Mozart. I have always felt that if Mozart had a choice he would have elected to be just an opera composer and there are consequently many examples of his purely instrumental compositions which sound like they should be sung by soloists. As a case in point, this movement begins with music which sounds like it should be sung by a noble in a comic opera. The very pompous forte melody sounds like it should have the words, “I am the King of Austria and every word is my command!,” as he struts across the stage. But in the first ending the character of the music changes and it conveys a feeling of doubt, “but I’m not sure!” Here I ask the eight members of the ensemble to do something in their performance to convey this sense of doubt. They could change their posture, their facial expressions while they played, their dynamics or anything they wanted or could think of etc., but I left it to them to do this with no further comment from me. I would then, after just a brief pause, have them play again from the beginning and the change in character in the first ending was always dramatic and very obvious.

These are worthy examples of an attempt to influence the performer to think beyond the notes on paper, but again after the fact, at the end of the study. What is needed, in my view, is for this kind thinking to be introduced in the early stages of the student’s study.

The issue is to introduce to the student the “meaning” of the music beyond just the notes and technique, reflecting Mahler’s famous statement that “the important things in music are not found in the notes.” The idea that music affects Character, for example, has been recognized by philosophers for thousands of years. For the readers who may wish for more information on this subject, I recommend my latest book on music education, American Music Education: The Enigma and the Solution. Here one will find discussions on music and the development of Character, Manners, Truth, Morality and Spirituality.

The goal is to create a more well-rounded student, in addition to becoming a performer on a musical instrument. This is the “Missing Link” in current music education and the following exercises and discussion represent one suggestion on how this might be done.