we can all make music

ear, ear

in praise of aural culture

We promote introducing new songs to singing circles vocally/aurally, unassisted by duplicated lyrics and scores. There are many reasons for this, both practical and philosophical:

The connections developed are direct and unmediated
The process embraces those who can't read (either words or music)
It maintains and maximises eye-to-eye contact (and hence the sense of connection)
It is sensual learning unmediated by symbols
It encourages participants to 'embody' the songs (like the songs from our childhood that we cannot forget)
It takes advantage of technology and honours tradition simultaneously (participants are encouraged to record the songs they like)
It acknowledges natural learning processes - we all learnt to speak before we learnt to read
It emphasises the need to listen - an essential and wonderful aspect of singing together
It eliminates the protective shield (thus maximising engagement)
It allows the leader to offer the immediate sensation of singing together (rather than spending time finding the right sheet, reading, preparing, practicing)
It promotes oral/aural transmission/learning as a skill worth valorising/maintaining
It promotes memory (especially 'embodied' memory) as a skill worth valorising / maintaining
It eliminates the need to copy materials
The call and response transmission process is immediately engaging and active

This does mean that most of the songs in our repertoire are quite short and that conducting techniques include the physicalisation of the tune. We've found that these 'limitations' actually add to the experience.

Nor are we totally against music literacy (that is, the practice of recording and uncovering music through written lyrics and notation). We know that singing leaders often find written reference material very useful for the purpose of reaching the point of being able to pass a song on to their circles, and we provide these materials (and training to help them make good use of them).

But fundamentally, we begin with aural transmission because we believe in the innate musicality of all human beings. This belief has profound ramifications: not least, in putting music on the same level as language. Contemporary linguistic theory affirms that the capacity to communicate using sounds is innate, or, to use contemporary jargon, 'hard-wired'; we believe the same goes for music.

In which case, the development of musicality is not learnt but uncovered. Just as a child discovers how to speak, so the capacity to make music is discovered rather than acquired. ('Development' in this usage is the exact opposite of 'envelopment': unwrapping the potential that is in all of us).

And just as formal grammatical rules and extended vocabulary can be taught to children who already understand the essential dynamics of speech, so it is with music. The facility to make music, just as with the facility to speak and to understand speech, comes before the facility to read, to write, to appreciate the symbolic frameworks we have invented to surround these innate human qualities.

And the ramifications continue: children are creative with language from the moment they start using it: so can, and should, they (we) be with music. Yes, hearing and learning the stories and songs of one's culture are an essential part of growing up, but it should not be at the expense of developing one's own stories and songs.

And more: children learn language through using language - as much, if not more, through testing their own expressiveness as through listening to the intense beauty of those artists who have transformed the mundane into the sublime.

And even more: the facility to converse develops through making conversation, through exchange, through doing it together. So can, and should, it be with adults, and with music.

we can all make music

ear, ear

in praise of aural culture

making a sound world together