THE SPICE OF LIFE

Julie Lyonn Lieberman demonstrates on an electric instrument during a school residency in Wisconsin

Every musical style on this planet offers a rich experience to its practitioners and audiences, and each genre demands a unique set of technical and artistic skills. However, efforts over the past four decades to include roots and popular styles as well as composition and improvisation into modern string pedagogy have consistently come up against a deep-rooted methodology. Many string teachers tend to regard this pursuit as a diversion or a hobby, despite the fact that their students actually come from varied backgrounds.

There are important reasons to expand our skills. For those of us who teach, it’s highly bene cial to present a larger palette of techniques and repertoire to our students. If you’ve tended to overlook the full spectrum of the musical imagination of the string world, a more thorough understanding of the bene ts might convince you to do otherwise. First, it’s useful to look squarely at a handful of myths that have blocked forward motion into the 21st century.

COMMON MYTHS

There are at least four prevalent beliefs that continue to inhibit 21st-century string education:

• The Western canon is in a superior style

• Classical technique provides the best foundation for all players

• If you have never studied other styles, you can’t teach them

•ere isn’t enough time to integrate other styles into an already stuffed programme

Are There Really Superior Styles?

Can we say that an apple is superior to a plum? While each has a different . avour and look, both provide nutrients and are delicious as well as healthy. One could argue that it’s a matter of taste, since we’re all different. But sometimes you might dislike something that then grows on you over time.

In alternative styles, there is a difference between what a tune looks like when it’s notated and how it’s actually played. Most styles have been handed down - for generations if not centuries - by ear, and when one of these is notated, it’s often only the melodic motion that’s captured on paper, with just a general rhythmic roadmap given. Although such a tune can appear simple on the page, it’s expected that the player will know how to respect its stylistic identity - bow patterns, rhythmic groove, ornamentation, phrasing and whether or not improvisation is called for - and thereby tap into the genre’s distinguishing traits.

Asha Mevlana is a former student of Lieberman, who tours with American rock band the Trans-Siberian Orchestra

COURTESY ASHA MEVLANA

STRING STUDENTS HAVE THE RIGHT TO KNOW THE MUSIC OF THEIR COUNTRY, OF THEIR ANCESTRY, AS WELL AS THE MUSIC OF OTHER CULTURES

In addition to the classic music of western Europe, every country o ers a traditional music born of their culture, whether it’s the music of America (jazz), of India (Karnatak or Hindustani), of Spain (Galician) or of eastern Europe (Romani or klezmer). Would we only require students to read novels written by writers from a di erent country and not local authors? Would we teach only the history of Sweden to students who live in England? Every string student has the right to know the music of their own country, of their ancestry, as well as the music of other cultures. In all conscience, can we really continue to teach students that there is a cultural hierarchy in the musical world? No!

It’s essential to dispel the cultural falsehood about superior versus inferior, insofar as a jazz artist must master the full vocabulary of three- and four-part jazz chords - their pitches and chordal scales - and apply that knowledge mindfully, physically and musically across the instrument in any key. Depending on the tune, the artist must simultaneously compose extemporaneously, as well as track the melody and harmonic motion. Moreover, an East Indian musician must master hundreds of scales, thousands of gamaka (ornaments) and a myriad of metres far more complex than the 2/4, 3/4, 4/4, 6/8 and so on o ered by western European string music.

Didn’t Study It, Can’t Teach It…

The belief that you can’t teach anything you weren’t required to study while earning your teaching credentials is based on an old prototype: the teacher must know everything and be in total control at all times. Conversely, you can integrate a ‘let’s learn this together’ approach, or select volunteers to teach the class, which instils leadership skills and takes the onus o you. Currently, most students are savvier than their teachers when it comes to technology and styles they’ve heard on the internet. Sadly, some teachers have squelched student interest in alternative styles.

Not Enough Time?

You can play a recording of an alternative style as your students arrive at their lessons in order to begin to stimulate exposure and interest. In addition, there are numerous exercises and games you can integrate into your teaching that take only a few minutes and can be used as warm-ups. If you’re teaching a work of Western classical music to a string group, you could invite a student from each section to choose a core melodic theme or rhythmic idea and ask them to teach the other students by ear using call and response. If you’re working with an individual, you could select a theme from the music and teach it by ear and then in turn invite your student to choose a second melodic theme to teach you by ear. Or you could play the piece together. Fiddlers tend to play in unison if the style doesn’t call for ‘seconding’ (a rhythmic harmony part from a partner . ddler). Unison playing strengthens intonation, tone, rhythmic acuity and self-esteem.

Many string teachers have stated they don’t have enough time to teach skills for styles other than Western canon. But if you schedule a piece of music for your school concert that calls for new skills, the typical amount of rehearsal time you allot to prepare each piece for performance will automatically be justi. ed. To date, there are a number of string orchestra scores available in numerous styles. . e best tend to be composed by practitioners of the style, rather than classical composers.

The Opinions of the Administration and Parents

If you try to introduce something new into your programme, and either the parents or the administration oppose you, remember: you are an educator. This is an opportunity to educate administration and parents regarding the value of offering a multicultural programme for the purposes of instilling leadership skills in your students and educating them about what’s possible on their instrument. A particularly useful argument can include the fact that - in the US, at least - conventional string teaching programmes often don’t receive the same level of funding as chorus or band ones because string education tends to be trapped in the past and often doesn’t include a balance between traditional, contemporary, electrics and technology, or the wide array of styles found in choral and band programmes. It’s time to move string pedagogy into the present and future.

DIMENSIONAL EAR TRAINING

The Western canon tends to focus on two skills as pertains to Thear training: the ability to identify the pitches in a melodic phrase as well as its rhythmic content. However, learning a new style helps to build up additional listening skills that can be translated into right- and lefthand techniques:

• To create new ideas over a chord progression, a multi-style player must master time increments. This entails hearing in 4-beat, 4-bar, 8-bar, 12-bar and 32-bar sections without having to count. This skill supports the ability to improvise in any musical style, including roots, blues, swing, pop/rock and jazz.

• Rhythmic subtext: multi-style players must learn to ‘audiate’ (in other words, mentally hear) each style’s unique rhythmic groove. The ability to hear the rhythmic subtext makes it far easier to capture the style, whether it’s the shu.e bow stroke for Appalachian music, swing bowings for swing and jazz, or the Irish lilt, to name a few examples.

Fiddler and ex-Lieberman student David Finch has toured the US with Woody Sez, a show about folk singer Woody Guthrie

AN EAST INDIAN MUSICIAN MUST MASTER HUNDREDS OF SCALES, THOUSANDS OF GAMAKA AND A MYRIAD OF METRES FAR MORE COMPLEX THAN THOSE OFFERED BY WESTERN EUROPEAN STRING MUSIC

• Ornamentation: it’s essential to be able to recognise and duplicate variations in each style’s approach to vibrato, grace notes and slides, as well as rhythmic techniques like the ‘chop’. Other important listening skills involve hearing and replicating an array of accents, identifying whether they fall on a down-beat or an up-beat, where they occur within the bar, and whether they are applied at the inception, a third of the way through, halfway through, three quarters of the way through or at the tail end of the note or phrase. It is also important to be able to hear the differing ways of physically producing a surge in volume.

• Vertical technique: not all styles sound out every note equally within the phrase. Some are ghosted while others pop out. Learning to listen out for this will enable the player to detect nuances in pressure, and thus exercise control over the vertical motion of the left hand in regard to .nger pressure. These left-hand nuances will automatically stimulate variations in bow pressure.

• Style-appropriate bow patterns: the Western canon often invites symmetrical bow strokes, while many other styles employ asymmetrical bowings. The ability to hear the difference is the .rst step towards a dialogue with one’s bow arm in a style-speci.c manner.

THE FOUR MOST COMMON PROBLEMS FOR CLASSICALLY TRAINED PLAYERS

Musicians with a classical background spend an enormous amount of time mastering skills needed for the Western canon. These skills don’t always help them play new styles authentically because repetition trains muscle memory, which converts movement patterns into automatic and unconscious habits. Yet true artistry depends on the ability consciously to craft a musical phrase. The most common technical defaults that occur when a classically trained player attempts to play in a new style include:

• The player applies a legato/vibrato sound to everything they play

• The player accentuates the down-beat or entrance to most notes

• The player doesn’t hear/feel/articulate the appropriate rhythmic groove

• For styles that incorporate improvisation, the player does not apply rhythmic phrasing, in.ection or ornamentation that’s specific to that style or doesn’t understand the rhythmic and harmonic structure of the music

NEW SKILLS ENRICH OLD ONES

There is still a prevalent belief that students can only develop laudable skills through playing Western repertoire. Here are some of the skills students can gain from learning other styles:

Composition and Arranging

Student projects can include how to generate backing tracks using programmes like Garage Band or Band in a Box. A student could also determine how to extract a melodic theme from an orchestral piece and write a harmony part to perform with a fellow student. Alternatively, students could choose a piece for their concert and compose an original introduction and/or ending for it. This process heightens appreciation for classical works.

Ensemble Interaction

When students are buried behind music stands they never look at one another and remain intent on playing their own part while barely listening to the rest of the ensemble. Studies have proven that reliance on the eyes(in this case, the eyes fixed on the sheet music) tends to eclipse the other senses by up to 75 per cent. Any warm-up without looking at music notation tendsto stimulate the ears and invite improved ensembleinteraction.

Creative Musicianship

When we teach our students to create their own music, we provide them with craftsmanship skills, ownership, co-creative participation, pride and an orientation towards listening and thinking that will serve them throughout their lives.

Sam Barfeld, another of Lieberman’s former students, has toured with Bruce Springsteen and is the author of Latin Violin

CHRISTER MÄNNIKUS

ONLY A SMALL PERCENTAGE OF CLASSICAL STUDENTS BECOME PROFESSIONAL MUSICIANS. YET THERE ARE MANY JOBS AVAILABLE FOR PLAYERS WHO HAVE MASTERED A WIDER RANGE OF SKILLS AND GENRES

TODAY’S JOBS IN MUSIC

Most amateur ddlers play regularly for the entirety of their lives, enjoying community events that welcome those of all levels and ages, and perpetuating the joy associated with music making. By contrast, a large percentage of classically trained students su er through the competitive hierarchy that traditional pedagogy has established and give up by the time they are in their late teens or early twenties. Only a small percentage of our classical students become professional musicians. Very few are able to nd permanent positions in orchestras and chamber groups, and only a handful create successful lives as soloists. Yet there are many jobs available for players who have mastered a wider range of skills and genres. Atypical week for one of my former students might start with the performance of a concerto, followed the next night by her playing in a bar on a solid body electric instrument, followed later by a gig that calls for a pickup on one of her acoustic instruments while playing in a jazz ensemble. She represents today’s string player: ready for anything and everything.

AMPLIFICATION AND SPECIAL EFFECTS: WHAT’S THE POINT?

As Paul Davies, inventor of the Spur semi-acoustic violin, expressed to me: ‘. rough the years, the violin as an object has come to represent not just a musical instrument, but an icon of 18thto 20th-century Western art. As a design it has had a Baroque belljar put over it with a sign attached saying, “Do not touch.”’

As I demonstrated special effects on my NS Design electric violin during a workshop with US string teachers in the state of Georgia, one participant remarked to me, ‘I hate the sound of the electric violin, so I’m never going to include one in my programme.’ As delicately as possible I responded that as educators we might nd that decisions based on the world our students live in might be more powerful teaching tools than decisions based on personal taste - while maintaining a balance with traditional objectives, of course.

We are beholden to our students, and whatever gets them to practise more is a winner. In addition, exposure to a wider array of options has been proven to engage students more deeply and better prepare them for the world they live in. . is includes the use of technology. So what is the main takeaway here? As stated inthe opening of this article, if you’re an educator, your choices shouldn’t be based solely on yesterday but rather on today and tomorrow. Do we want to engage and retain tomorrow’s potential professional string players or let the art diminish and die?

The options available for ampli cation today include a pickup or system installed within the body of the instrument; a small, easily removable pickup mic; or a solid body instrument. The use of ampli cation shouldn’t be associated solely with rock and pop music. Many classical players require ampli cation for church and wedding jobs or in spaces that weren’t designed acoustically for string performances. You may wonder, ‘Why not just use a standing microphone like in the old days?’ .The answer is simple. .link about all you’ve gone through to choose your instrument and bow, and the type of strings and rosin you use. Why would you want to use a mic that was never designed for the wide array of harmonics our instruments emit? Every player needs to learn about the options available and choose a system they have control over and that re. ects their taste, rather than relying solely on the sound engineer, who often knows nothing about how to support the sound of an acoustic violin, viola or cello.