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| Harold B. Rhodes |
There are two opposite approaches to performing music: Reading
and improvising. The reading musician
derives his inspiration from a printed musical score. Striving
to render, as accurately as possible, the
appropriate emotion and meaning symbolically indicated by a composer
through musical notation. The
improvising musician relies scarcely at all on the printed page
(and in some cases, is actually is musically
illiterate.) But the improvising musician has stored in his memory
the vocabulary of music acquired by usage,
and thus can perform a wide variety of music by ear.
The are serious disadvantages in adopting either of these
extremes. The reading musician relies too heavily
upon interpreting, in a literal manner, music composed by others.
Since reading musicians tend to avoid
becoming deeply involved in the creative process, they are
woefully ignorant of musical structure on its
various levels. This lack of involvement is undoubtedly the
principal reason for the extremely high dropout
rate among preteen children studying musical instruments. The
world is full of musical dropouts who in later
years can sit on a piano and play a few bars of “fur
Elise.” Representing the pitiful sum total of all they
had
learned in several years of lessons.
On the other hand, the improvising has acquired a chord vocabulary,
and can play “by ear” quite spontan-
eously. However, there is often a significant amount of wasted
effort in the trial-and-error process of working
out a musical arrangement and it’s stylistic ingredients.
The best solution is, of course, a balanced blend of
these two approaches. The well-rounded musician should be able
to make of any melody as well as to have
instant access to conventional written language of music.
My piano method is a unique blend of these approaches. In
the same way a child first learns to talk “by ear”
and later learns the written languages, Our student first learns
to be guided by his or her ears, and quickly
becomes accustomed to musical language relative to its position
on the keyboard. When notation is
introduced a few weeks later, there is already the comforting
familiarity and excitement of discovery well
known to any one who has observed a group of children at their
first reading lesson. My piano method
promotes an excitement and understanding of music through rapid
accomplishment and satisfaction.
Students are never frightened by the complexity of theoretical
knowledge to which they are exposed.
They are never told that learning is difficult, complex, advanced,
etc. Each degree of success in the various
stages of materials satisfies, but at the same time leaves
a thirst for more and more knowledge. |
