MIrsic in edwationunderstand the duration of notes and maintaining the listener’s
attention.
The association of movement with sound makes it possible to exer-
cise remarkably effective control over the listener’s attention by ex-
tremely simple means, such as the exercise whereby the children walk
slowly or simply move their hands horizontally so long as a very soft
sound continues. They have to stop walking or moving their hands
as soon as the sound dies away.
Taking the same principle as a basis, we can soon induce the children
to begin picking out harmonies. The two hands, held at different levels,
represent a low note and a high note. Once the notes have been exactly
differentiated by moving first one and then the other, the children are
soon able to indicate when one begins and ends while the other is still
held. Such exercises are capable of infinite variation.
Other things than the length of sounds can be expressed by visual
means; variations in intensity can very easily be associated with some-
thing conveying the impression of a change in volume. Lastly, the
notes occurring in a melodic line are not to be regarded as separate
entities but as sound movements (‘one sound moving up and down’,
as the children themselves say).
Starting from this principle, sound impulses can quickly be
identified with visual impulses and if, at this stage of development,
an attempt is made to discover how the children imagine the sound
in graphic terms, they usually devise for themselves a system of
notation bearing a remarkable resemblance to the neumes. Thus we
traverse, without stopping, the various periods in the history of
music.
MEMORYThe instruments to be used for the musical development of more or
less untutored persons, irrespective of age, are rhythmic patterns, single
sounds, themes and finally, rudimentary phrases of maximum expres-
sive intensity. Only at a later stage, when the pupils have a greater
understanding of music, can they assimilate whole melodic lines. By
assimilation, I mean much more than the superficial memory which
simply permits of direct ‘mechanical’ reproduction.
The brevity, incompleteness and indeed monotony of the rudimen-
tary forms that I recommend using during the first stage of musical
development are a stimulus to creative activity.