Robert Fisher

Teaching thinking and creativity

Developing creative minds and creative futures

Talking Music: Music for Thinking with Children

© Robert Fisher

A version of this paper was presented at the ‘East meets West: Music for Thinking’ Creativity Conference, held in Glasgow Concert Hall, May 2005.

Music, by stirring emotion, causes the appearance of the hidden nature of man, a nature which is akin to the supersensual world al-Ghazali, Islamic philosopher, c. 1100

A piece of music is a series of choices in time W. H. Auden

Music is a kind of language that you can't quite understand. Sometimes talking about it helps you understand. Amy, aged 10

Music is a source of metaphysical conundrums. What is music? What does it do? What does it mean? Music raises questions that can provide a stimulus for aesthetic, musical and philosophical discussion with people of all ages.

Music has long been thought to be ‘the medicine of the mind’, not so much concerned with our physical as with our spiritual and psychological well-being. It is a unique tool for arousing our physical, emotional and intellectual faculties.

Music starts with listening. Yet we are so surrounded by noise that we block out much that we might listen to. We listen to significant sounds but ignore the rest. Children today are submerged in a sea of technological sound. No wonder teachers report that young children find attentive listening so difficult to achieve.

Music binds us in a special way to our social and cultural context but children can easily be trapped in their own musical tastes and culture. Discussing music can be liberating when it shows other ways to think, feel and experience the sounds we hear. Musical enquiry can free children from simplistic and stereotypical responses to what they hear. Talking music can expand the mind. As Amy, aged 10, said: 'Sometimes talking about it helps you understand.'

One aim in teaching music is to re-introduce children to the rich variety of sounds in their environment, including musical sounds, and to help them to think about these sounds. Talking music within a community of enquiry provides opportunities for attentive listening, responding to and discussing the patterns of sounds heard. Music can be used in a community of enquiry as a stimulus for:

• aesthetic enquiry - exploring the place and value of music in human experience

• philosophical enquiry - exploring intellectual and emotional responses to music

• musical enquiry - exploring musical sounds, providing opportunities to categorise, distinguish, describe, connect and compare different kinds of sound, to develop musical concepts and vocabulary

Sounds and silence are the raw materials of music. Some children have little or no experience of silence. In terms of music education listening to silence is as important as listening to music. Composer Igor Stravinsky once said: 'Value your intervals like dollars.' By that he meant that it is the pauses of silence that makes music eloquent. A music or philosophy lesson should include pauses for thought or 'thinking time', that is moments of quiet reflection. If children do not experience these with teachers at school, when will they experience them? As children regain their early childhood sensitivity to sound, they will become more appreciative of silence. But we do not want to leave them in silence. We want to engage them in thinking about and talking music – so how do we do it?

Creating a community of musical enquiry

Music is not mere melody – it provides material for our minds. The following are some starting points for ‘talking music’ and for creating a community of aesthetic, musical or philosophical enquiry (Fisher 2003, Liptai 2002, 2004, 2005)

1. What is music?

Listen to examples of sounds which may or may not be music eg speech, birdsong or sounds of nature. Begin by asking them to list what they can hear, list the questions and comments they want to discuss, or ask the key questions: 'Is it music?’ Why or why not?' ‘What is music?’

Here are some questions to help the discussion of music in terms of thinking about some basic musical concepts and the value of music. What other questions might be asked?

Questions to ask about music include:

• What is music? What is not music?

• What are musical sounds and what are non-musical sounds?

• Can any noise be music or part of music?

• What does music do? What is the value of music? to you? to society?

• What kinds of music do you like? Why?

• Have your tastes changed? Why?

• Is there a difference between appreciating music and liking it?

• Why do people make music? What is the purpose of music?

• What is the difference between composing music and playing it?

• If you change one thing in a composition does it change the whole composition?

• Does music that is not written down exist?

• Does music exist when it is not being played? Where? How?

2. What can you hear?

Stimulate discussion by offering two pieces of music to investigate, compare and contrast. The two pieces of music should come from contrasting traditions, or which offer different ways of making music for example different kinds of percussion, violin or flute playing. Compare and contrast – which do they prefer and why? The following are some questions to help develop understanding of different elements and expressions of music:

Questions to ask about a particular piece of music include:

• What can you hear that is making the music? instruments? voices?

• How do you know what instruments are being played?

• How many performers are there? Who do you think they are?

• What mood or feeling does the music communicate?

• Does it have pitch? melody? rhythm? harmony? tempo? timbre? texture? structure?

• Are there any patterns in the musical sounds? What are they?

• When and where do you think the music was created? Why?

• Compare this piece of music with another you have heard. Which do you prefer? Why?

• Compare two performances of the same piece. Which do you prefer, and why?

• What do you think would be the best title for the music. Why?

3. Music for visualisation and imagination.

‘Music has the power to evoke imaginary scenes at will.’ (Debussy). Use a piece of ‘pure’ or ‘programme’ music as stimulus to imagination and visualisation. For example:

• Play some chosen music. Ask the children to close their eyes and listen. ‘What do they see in their ‘mind’s eye?’ ‘What does the music make them think of?’
• Listen to a movement of Saint-Saens’ The Carnival of the Animals. Think or visualise what animals the music might/might not represent. Justify your choice of animals by referring to various features of the music.

Can any piece of music evoke images?

4. Musical pictures: combine pictures and music

Combine art and music as a stimulus for discussion. For example:

• Show two pictures and listen to two pieces of music and discuss: Which picture goes best with which music, and why?

How free can we be in interpreting music and pictures?

5. Compose and respond

Use children’s compositions and the process of composing as stimulus for discussion. Encourage ‘inner hearing’ before composing. For example:

• Ask children in groups to choose three instruments to describe the scene of a play eg the Witches’ scene in Macbeth (as Beethoven did in his Ghost Trio)

How do you compose music? How do you judge a good piece of music?

6. Talk about opera

Use an opera as the basis for an aesthetic, musical or philosophical community of enquiry. For example:

• Choose an opera to share with the children eg Janacek’s ‘Cunning Little Vixen’. Tell the story in episodes. Discuss questions raised by each episode in a community of enquiry (for more on using this opera with children see Winyard 2005, for more on Community of Enquiry see Fisher 2003)

What does the opera tell us about human life and experience?

Conclusion

‘Where words leave off, music begins.’ (Heinrich Heine).

A musical enquiry removes the pressure of the need to have a musical vocabulary before being able to address musical experience. It switches the teacher’s focus from outcome to process, from listening to responding. The teacher is a facilitator rather than arbiter of knowledge, encouraging the expression of children’s thinking about music. The teacher places the responsibility for learning on all who are involved in discussion.

Talking music in a community of enquiry develops the habits of intelligent behaviour. These include being:

• Curious - feeding curiosity about sounds and encouraging thoughtful questions
• Collaborative – through shared discussion, speaking and listening
• Critical – through the need to support opinion with reasons and evidence
• Creative – through generating new ideas, hypotheses and creative imagination
• Caring – through developing awareness of self and care for others

The more we practice interpreting our aesthetic experience the better we get at sharing it with others. This not only can enrich our understanding of music but of other people. As Brian, aged 10, reported after an aesthetic discussion: 'Now we have talked about it I still don't like it but I can see why other people do.'

References:

Fisher R. (2003) Teaching Thinking: Philosophical Enquiry in the Classroom, Continuum

Liptai, S. (2002) Talking about Music: Developing children’s musical thinking through philosophical enquiry in primary classrooms. Unpublished PhD thesis, Brunel University

Liptai, S. (2002) ‘Good Vibrations’ Teaching Thinking Summer 2002 Issue 8 p. 24-27 Birmingham: Imaginative Minds.

Liptai, S. (2004) ‘Creativity in music and art’ in Fisher, R. & Williams, M. (eds) Unlocking Creativity London: Fulton .

Liptai, S. (2005) ‘Two pictures and two pieces of music – how are they related?’ Paper presented at MTPP Conference, Reading University, July 2005.

Winyard J. (2005) 'Cunning Little Vixens' Teaching Thinking Spring 2005 Issue 16 p. 30-35 Birmingham: Imaginative Minds.

For enquiries about Sara Liptai’s papers contact sara.liptai@dial.pipex.com

Further reading on music, aesthetics and the mind:
Alperson, P (ed.) (1994) What Is Music? Penn. University Press

Budd M. (1995) Values of Art: Pictures, Poetry and Music, London: Penguin Press

Harvey J. (1999) Music and Inspiration, London: Faber & Faber

James, J. (1995). Music of the Spheres. England: Abacus,

Johnson J (2002) Who Needs Classical Music? Oxford: OUP

Raffman D. (1993) Language, Music and Mind, Boston: MIT Press

Storr A. (1992) Music and the Mind, London: Harper/Collins

‘As poetry is the harmony of words, so Musick is that of Notes; and as Poetry is a rise above Prose and Oratory, so is Musick is the exaltation of poetry.’ (Purcell)

‘Music alone has the power to penetrate into ourselves; the other arts offer us only eccentric pleasures.’ (Honore de Balzac)

‘If I were to begin life again, I would devote it to music. It is the only cheap and unpunished rapture on earth.’ (Sydney Smith)

‘Music is a beautiful opiate, if you don’t take it too seriously.’ (Henry Miller)

About this paper

This paper may be quoted but not reprinted without permission. The reference for this paper is: Fisher R. (2005), ‘Talking Music’, paper presented at the East meets West: Music for Thinking Conference, Glasgow, 2005.

© Robert Fisher