Music and Social Learning Theory

I recently found out about social learning theory as expounded by Albert Bandura at Stanford University.  It offers a psychologist's view of the approach to teaching at which I have arrived after decades of experimentation.  The essence of it (in my words, of course) is that we learn by modeling.  When there is no leveling according to age or skills each individual within group of learners will pick up characteristics from the others, usually at a depth that far exceeds superficial skills.  In my class, which ranges from a blind autistic individual to some superior intellects, the students apparently respond to one another's motivation.  The integrity of the learning is extraordinary as each student surpasses his or her own expectations.

Bandura does not address music in his study.  The essential skill that I as teacher model is not playing so much as listening.  As I listen intently to each student, so they learn to listen intently to one another and to themselves, from many musician's standpoint, the hardest skill to learn. As for the musical standard, it is set by the composers, who seem to be included in our community of human openness.

Never have I seen young people go so far with their ability to comprehend works of the masters.   

My Moderato Instincts Backed Up

Reading Albert Einstein's exhaustive study of the life and works of Schubert I was interested to find a sentence in which he points out that Beethoven never used the term 'moderato.'   He goes on to say: "The lyrical quality--that's the answer." 

What's so Great About Print?

In a compelling interview a mime was holding forth on the virtues of wordless communication, maintaining that words are simply not up to the complexity of human emotion and the subtleties of intended meaning.

It got me thinking about the parallels between words and music notation.  Unfortunately the notation is, in too many instances, taken for the thing itself.  But sound cannot be written down. 

When we learn to read music does anyone ever introduce the notion that the sound might be other than the expectation of the sound, or are we left to puzzle out on our own the non sequitors that may reveal the most meaningful aspects of a composition? 

Really Reading Music

A brilliant student who did not learn to read music easily, though she read books voraciously, proved both to herself and to me that she not only read but really read music when she balked at playing a cadence because, she said, "It won't sound good."

I can think of no more convincing demonstration that reading music is a matter of dealing with expected sound rather than with the mechanics of producing a neutral noise which then awaits transformation into music.

She was right, by the way, in finding that the chords in question would not sound good.  A cadence in 3/4 time, they were a hemiola, i.e., two consecutive measures with strong chords every second, rather than every third beat.  This shift in accent radically changes the sound.

As a teenager obliged to accompany annual high school Messiah performances I was convinced that Handel did not know how to compose because, with the hemiolas improperly performed, many cadences felt hopelessly unresolved.

Music and the Vernacular

By chance I tuned in a live radio broadcast of a Carnegie Hall event the other evening.  Clearly a fine ensemble, the orchestra was playing music that raised the question "why?"    Trying to figure out the "who" on the assumption that the two would turn out to be intertwined, I listened on to the end. 

Sure enough.  It was the Simon Bolivar Orchestra of Venezuela, comprised of musicians now in their late 20's, all products of El Sistema, Venezuela's famous music program for public school children, conducted by their friend and fellow Sistema graduate, the extremely gifted Gustav Dudamel.  I stayed on for the second half of the program, fascinated.  The music, mostly by Mexican composers, was admirably chosen, especially as it featured a large (11!) percussion section, who got to strut their stuff big time.

I know that people are trying to organize a program for American children, modeled on El Sistema.  I attended an event over the weekend showcasing some local children and was delighted and moved by them and by their families.  Needless to say, I love what music does to all of us.

But I wonder whether the well-meaning souls who are working so hard to get this together here in the US of A will have the good sense to start the children with our music, with their music; to avoid the all--too-common insecurity of American music teachers who feel obliged to start, not just with Europe, but with Europe of the 18th century, as if that alone defined music.

Many, many contemporary American composers have produced wonderful material that addresses that very problem very effectively. 

First Movements

In the name of Music Appreciation or something equally vapid, most people learn that the first movement of a sonata is usually in Sonata Allegro form, consisting of theme A in the tonic key, theme B in the dominant, followed by a development section, and culminating in a recapitulation of theme A, still in the tonic, and theme B, now also in the tonic.  Pretty predictable, thus pretty uninteresting.

With the invention of the piano, however, whether a theme was in the key of C (no black keys) or G (one particularly unsettling black key) made a huge difference.  I found this out while studying a Mozart sonata when a theme in C major was so transformed when it appeared in G that I could hardly play it: the single black key so utterly altered the balance of tones as to make it entirely new.

I find this inherently dramatic, the opposite of predictable.

What if the purpose of the first movement is to present a cast of characters, including a masked villain lurking behind a pillar, waiting to pounce on the suspecting soprano?  What if the action is not in the elements that we would identify as obvious themes but in those at the bottom of the texture?

Forms and Expectations

Much of the meaning inherent in musical form comes from expectations aroused by reading the program.
What do you expect of a sonata?  a symphony?

How is that different from an opera?

There has to be an element of irony unearthed when our expectations are not satisfied by actual experience.  Perhaps that irony is what turned minuets into scherzi, and what makes Haydn's sonatas and symphonies such unending delights as he turns the most solid procedure on its head.

A beautiful case in point is the great Schubert B-flat Piano Sonata.  B-flat is one of the most solidly stable tonalities on the piano--indeed, until the invention of the piano keyboard sonatas were rarely in that key.  As I recall performances of the work they invariably indulge in that stability, fully pronounced in the opening chords.  That is like a story opening the words "Period.  The end" and proceeding to repeat them seemingly interminably. 

What are the hints that Schubert is interested in elements that will disturb rather than reinforce that stability?  First is that first accidental, E-natural, which I observe to be Schubert's favorite note.  Second is the mysterious tempo marking: molto moderato, which I take to indicate, as also in the G-major, Op. 79 sonata, with discretion, not pre-determined..