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About Google Book Search Google's mission is to organize the world's information and to make it universally accessible and useful. Google Book Search helps readers discover the world's books while helping authors and publishers reach new audiences. You can search through the full text of this book on the web at|http : //books . google . com/ and Ed d,ti.uil Emile Jaques-l "^i.H!-3^ >y£^ I '^ t- u^ X/-*; ^- - > w Mm^ 10, f ► HARVARD COLLEGE LIBRARY MUSIC LIBRARY r Digitized by VjOOQ IC I DATE DUE ^^irMSS*^ * rmu 'AV ^ f fOQA J I ryj^ FEB a IHB ras Digitized by VjOOQ IC Digitized by VjOOQ IC RHYTHM, MUSIC AND EDUCATION Digitized by VjOOQ IC Digitized by VjOOQ IC Digitized by VjOOQ IC / ^t^.U-^^L^t>2>t^ Digitized by VjOOQ IC Digitized by VjOOQ IC ■fllta^i^f-iiBI^ •' I Digitized by VjOOQ IC RHYTHM, MUSIC AND EDUCATION BY EMILE JAQUES-DALCROZE TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH BY HAROLD F. RUBINSTEIN ILLUSTRATED G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS NEW YORK AND LONDON XTbe ftnicfterbocher press 1921 Digitized by VjOOQIC HARVARD [UNIVER'-^lTYl LIBRARY JAN 26 t9ib. Copyright, 1931 by Bmile Jaques-Dalcrose FrimUi in th» UniUd States of Amertea /1^ Digitized by VjOOQ IC To myfriind Adolpbs Appu FOREWORD Twenty-five years ago I made my d^but in pedagogy, as Professor of Harmony at the Conservatoire of Ge- neva. After the first few lessons, I noticed that the ears of my pupils were not able to appreciate the chords which they had to write, and I concluded that the flaw in the conventional method of training is that pupils i are not given experience of chords at the beginning of their studies— when brain and body are developing along parallel lines, the one constantly communicating its . impressions and sensations to the other — ^but that this experience is withheld until the time arrives to express the results in writing. Accordingly I decided to pre- cede my lessons in written harmony by special exercises of a physiological nature aimed at developing the hear- ing faculties, and I was not long in discovering that, while with older students acoustic sensations were hin- dered by futile intellecttial preconceptions, children ap- preciated them quite spontaneously, proceeding in due course quite naturally to their analysis. I therefore set about training the ears of my pupils as early as possible, and discovered thereby not only that the hearing faculties develop with remarkable ease at a \ stage when every new sensation delights the child, and ; stimulates in him a joyful curiosity, but, in addition, that once the ear is trained to the natural sequences of sounds and chords, the mind no longer experiences the Digitized by VjOOQ IC vi Foreword slightest difficulty in accustoming itself to the various processes of reading and writing. Nevertheless, the musical progress of a certain ntun- ber of pupils, whose ear developed at normal speed, appeared to me to be retarded by an incapacity to estimate with any exactitude variations of time and rhythmic grouping. The mind perceived the varia- tions, but the vocal apparatus was imable to give eflFect to them. I came to the conclusion that the motive and dynamic element in music depends not only on the hearing, but also on another sense. This I took at first to be the sense of touch, seeing that metrical finger exercises conduce unmistakably to the pupil's progress. Presently, however, a study of the reactions produced by piano-playing, in parts of the body other than the hands— movements with the feet, oscillations in the trunk and head, a swaying of the whole body, etc. — ^led me to the discovery that musical sensations of a rhythmic nature call for the muscular and nervous response of the whole organism. I set my pupils exer- cises in stepping and halting, and trained them to react physically to the perception of musical rhythms. That was the origin of my "Eurhythmies," and I was sanguine enough to believe that therewith my experi- mental labours were at an end, and that I might now proceed to construct a rational and definite system of musical education. I was speedily disillusioned! I soon discovered that, out of ten children, at most two re- acted in a normal manner; that the motor-tactile con- sciousness, the combination of the senses of space and movement, exists in a pure state as rarely as the perfect sense of hearing that musicians call ''absolute pitch." Digitized by VjOOQ IC ForewoM vii I saw the lack of musical rhythm to be the result of a general "a-rhythm," whose cure appeared to depend on a^ special training designed to regulate nervous react- ions and effect a co-ordination of muscles and nerves; in short, to harmonise mind and body. And so I came to regard musical perception, which is entirely auditive as incomplete, and to seek the connection between in- stincts for pitch and movement, harmonies of tone and time-periods, time and energy, dynamics and space, music and character, music and temperament, finally the art of music and the art of dancing. The story of my researches, my gropings, and failures, as of my definite achievements, may be found in the various chapters of the present volume. In chrono- logical order, these chapters record my ideas as devel- oped from 1897 to the present day in lectures and articles.' The reader will find in the earlier parts of the book a certain number of contradictions, and, in the latter, some repetition of views expressed previously in a different form, but it seems to me that this series of transformations and developments out of an original general principle may be of interest to pedagogues and psychologists; that is why I discarded my original intention of recasting all the articles according to a definite plan, and on a principle of unity. It may perhaps be of advantage to educationalists to have the > Certain of the last chapters have not previously appeared in print. The remainder were published (some, in part only) in the Tribune de Genhoe the Semaine LUUraire the Mercwre de France^ the Monde Musical^ the Courtier Musical, the Menestrel and the Grande Review. PinaUy oertain of them have appeared in an abbreviated form, in reports of pedagogic proceedings, such as that issued by the Association of Swiss Musicians on the Reform of Teaching in Schools. Digitized by VjOOQ IC viii Foreword opportunity of following my progress through all its stages, of which the few secondary and higher schools already launched on the voyage have as yet only tra- versed the first. They will bear in mind that the idea underljdng the conception and construction of my whole ] system is that the education of to-morrow must, before all else, teach children to know themselves, to measure their intellectual and physical capacities by judicious comparison with the efiorts of their predecessors, and to submit them to exercises enabling them to utilise their powers, to attain due balance, and thereby to adapt themselves to the necessities of their individual and collective existence. It is not enough to give children and young people a general tuition fotmded exclusively on the knowledge , of our forbears' activities. Teadhers should aim at I furnishing them with the means both of living their own , lives, and of harmonising these with the lives of others. The education of to-morrow must embrace reconstruc- tion, preparation, and adaptation; aiming, on the one hand, at the re-education of the nervous faculties and the attainment of mental calm and concentration and, on the other, at the equipment for whatever enterprise practical necessity may dictate, and at the power to re- act without effort; in short, at the provision of a maxi- mum force with a minimum of strain and resistance. More than ever in these times of social reconstruc- tion, the human race demands the re-education of the [ individual. There has been endless discussion as to the inevitable effects on the social and artistic atmosphere of the future of the present unsettled state, in which it is impossible to look ahead and prescribe the necessaiy Digitized by VjOOQ IC Foreword ix measures for the safeguarding of our civilisation and our culture. In my judgment, all our efforts should be directed to training our children to become conscious of their personalities, to develop their temperaments, and to liberate their particular rhythms of individual life from every trammelling influence. More than ever they should be enlightened as to the rdations existing between soul and mind, between the conscious and the sub-conscious, between imagination and the processes, of action. Thoughts should be brought into immediate contact with behaviour — the new education aiming at r^^ulating the interaction between our nervous and / our intellectual forces. Fresh from the trenches, sol-, diers should be able to continue the struggle in a new guise; and in the schools, our teachers, likewise, should be on the alert to combat weakness of will and lack of confidence, and to train the fresh generations by every possible means to fight for self-mastery and the power to place themselves, fully equipped, at the service of the htmian race. In matters of art, I foresee that individual efforts will continue to attract a certain public, but I believe that a new demand for collective unity will drive numerous persons, formerly estranged from art, into association for the expression of their common spirit. And from that a new art will emerge, compound of a multitude of aspirations, of different d^^rees of strength, but unanimous in the quest of an ideal and common outlet for emotion. This will lead to the call for a psycho- physical training based on the cult of natural rhythms, and which, guided by the collective will — ^working, may- be, sub-consdously — will fill an increasingly important i Digitized by VjOOQ IC X Foreword part in civilised life. In the theatre we shall be shown dramas, in which the People will play the principal r61e, emerging as an entity, instead of a mere conglom- eration of supers. We shall then find that all our cur- rent ideas on play-produdng have been formed out of regard for the individual, instead of from a recognition of the resources of a crowd in action. We shall feel the need for a new technique in the grouping of crowds — such as the brilliant efforts of G6mier and Granville Barker have not completely attained on the stage. Only an intimate understanding of the synergies and conflicting forces of our bodies can provide the clue to this future art of expressing emotion through a crowd; while music will achieve the miracle of guiding the latters' movements — grouping, separating, rousing, de- pressing, in short, "orchestrating" it, according to the ^dictates of natural eurhythmies. The development of ; the emotions will enable it to give collective expression to them, though at considerable sacrifice to the indi- ; vidual. New forms of music will come to birth, having the power of animating masses of people, training them in the many processes of coimterpointing, phrasing, and shading musical, rhythms with a view to their plastic expression. All attempts at reviving the dance have hitherto proved inadequate. A new art of dancing will accompany the new music, both alike inspired by an tmderstanding of the innumerable resources of the hu- man body, allied to the spiritual essence, idealism, and sense of form that alone can give solidity to any art in- spired by the imperative djmamic and agogic demands of the ever fluctuating human temperament. I leave for treatment in some of the following chap- Digitized by VjOOQ IC Foreword ^^ ters my observations on the manifold wajrs of corporal interpretation of the lines of musical sound. My de- sire, in this foreword, is to record my deep and fervent conviction that, now the War is over, the coming gen- eration will experience this need of forming groups for the expression of common emotion, and that a new art will be called into being, created spontaneously by all those who regard music as a magnificent and potent agent for the inspiration and refinement of himian gesture — and this latter as a pre-eminently "musical" emanation of our desires and aspirations. E. Jaques-Dalcroze. Gbnbva. Note. — The authorized school of the method in Amer- ica is the New York School of Dalcroze Eurythmics, 9 East 59th Street, New York City. There are teachers in Boston, Chicago, Seattle, and Philadelphia. All in- quiries about the work in America should be addressed to the New York school. Eurythmics is now taught in the New York Institute for the Education of the Blind and is proving very successful. It has also been applied to the teaching of music in the public schools of New York, though in a modified form, and has been taught in many private schools in the East. Digitized by VjOOQ IC Digitized by VjOOQ IC PREFACE TO THE AMERICAN EDITION The characteristic mtisical tendencies of a race come to light in rhythm. The union of nations, socially so im- portant, should be based on the interchange and balance^ of temperaments peculiar to the various races. Music, | in the Greek sense of the word, is the art in which j temperament is most concretely manifested. It is thus ! important that each race be given the means, by special training, of eoctgnalising the rhythm peculiar totjiatrace. The reduction of racial temperaments to a common levd wotdd be disastrous for the intellectual progress of hu- manity. Unfortimately international musical education attempts to measure the various sensibilities of races by a common formula, and, for the last two centuries, the schools have been reducing the rhythmic habits of the most diverse nations to a common type. Education, as I understand it, should have as its chief aim the suppression of resistances of every nature which hamper the individual in the extemalisation of his char- . acter , and should, further, enable him in the most natural manner to give expression to his sensibility and tempera- ment. Education by means of and in rhythm has noth- ing to do with metrics, a science of a purely mechanical nature. Still, rhythmics requires the helpof metrics when it is a question of creating a style. To my mind rhyth- 1 mic training should vary in its methods according to the special needs of the country in which it is given, whereas^ training in metrics is of universal application. xiii Digitized by VjOOQ IC xiv Preface to the American Edition In the case of the American people I believe Eu- rhythmies can have a beneficial influence. I have, indeed, often been surprised at the lack of knowledge shown by my American pupils of the qualities of "time," more particularly of the value of effort sus- tained for the length of time required for the constunma- tion of that effort. Intelligence is an important factor of progress; persistence in the utilisation of the intel- lectual powers is a still more important factor. The first consequence of study in Eurhythmies is continuity of effort, for rhythm is a prime factor of continuity. Further it is a factor of discipline and I think that the American child, who so easily takes possession of him- self, needs an education calculated to give him the means of perpetuating this *'self ** and of bringing it into harmony with the society of which he is called to form a part. It is not enough to be intelligent and an artist; still more needful is the desire to continue to be both one and the other; for the progress of a race de- pends on the persistence of each individual member in asserting his "self" and in bringing this "self" into harmony with that of his fellows. I have had oppor- timities for noting how the American child can vibrate and enthuse when brought into contact with art and life. Perhaps my method of training by and in rhjrthm will help him to advance with more confidence on the path of spiritual and physical self -conquest, and to pursue his aesthetic and moral development with more certain persistence and harmony of effort. Emile Jaques-Dalcroze, Gbnbva, November, 1930. Digitized by VjOOQ IC CONTENTS CHAPTSR p^Qg I. — ^The Place of Ear Training in Musical Education (1898) .... 3 II. — ^An Essay in the Reform of Music Teaching in Schools (1905) 13 III. — ** The Young Lady of the Conservatoire AND the Piano " (1905) ... 61 IV. — ^The Initiation into Rhythm (1907) 79 V. — Music and the Child (1912) ... 95 VI. — ^Rhythmic Movement, Solf&ge, and Im- provisation (1914) . .115 vti. — ^eurhythmics and musical composition (1915) 145 VIII.— Music, Joy, and the School (1915) . 165 IX. — ^Rhythm and Creative Ibiagination (1916) 183 X. — ^Rhythm and Gesture in Music Drama — AND Criticism (1910-1916) . . .199 XI. — How TO Revive Dancing (19 12) . 231 XII. — ^EURHYTHMICS AND MOVING PlASTIC (1919) 257 XIII. — Music and the Dancer (1918) . . 289 XIV. — ^Rhythm, Time, and Temperament (1919) 309 Musical Supplement • . . .335 Digitized by VjOOQ IC Digitized by VjOOQIC ILLUSTRATIONS PAGB Portrait of E. Jaques-Dalcroze Frontispiece Two Scenes from "Les Souvenirs/' Geneva, 1918 16 Crescendo of Movement . Scene from "Les Souvenirs." (i) Scene from "Les Souvenirs." (2) Scene from "Les Souvenirs." (3) A Plastic Exercise, (i) A Plastic Exercise. (2) Study in Leaping, (i) Study in Leaping. (2) Group Exercises Scene from Geneva Festival, 1914 32 48 96 128 160 192 224 256 288 304 xvu Digitized by VjOOQIC Digitized by VjOOQ IC RHYTHM, MUSIC AND EDUCATION Digitized by VjOOQ IC Digitized by VjOOQ IC CHAPTER I THE PLACE OF EAR TRAINING IN MUSICAL EDUCATION (1898) The absurdity of studying harmony without the previous acquirement and practice of inner hearing — Necessity of cul- tivating hearing faculties of harmony students — Character of exercises designed to educate the ear — Dangers of specialised studies, particularly in pianoforte, not accompanied by general studies — The place of motor-tactile faculties in musical edu- cation— Summary of special exercises for the adjustment and development of temperament. Digitized by VjOOQ IC Digitized by VjOOQ IC CHAPTER I THE PLACE OF EAR TRAINING IN MUSICAL EDUCATION (1898) One of the favourite precepts of professors of har- mony is that you must never make use of the piano to work out or take note of successions of chords. Faith- ful to tradition, I proceeded to enforce this maxim on my classes, imtil confronted by a student who naively protested: "But, please, sir, why mayn't I use the piano? How am I to hear anything otherwise?" In that moment Ught descended on me. I saw that any rule not forged by necessity and from direct observa- tion of nature, must be arbitrary and false, and that the prohibition of the use of the piano was meaningless when addressed to yoimg people lacking the capacity of inner hearing. The sense of touch may, to a certain degree, and in particular cases, replace that of hearing, and I have known composers with incomplete hearing faculties who have yet contrived to produce interest- ing work composed, as they say, "at the piano." Obviously their studies of harmony have involved the neglect of its supreme law, — ^it being impossible to con- ceive a true sequence of chords without an inner ear to realise the soimd in anticipation. One thing or the other: Those who have no ear must compose at the piano^ those who have an ear must compose without 3 Digitized by VjOOQ IC 4 Rhythm, Music, and Education the piano. The teaxiher should, therefore, regard it as his duty, in imposing on his pupils the learning of har- monies without recourse to an instrument, to create in them a sense of musical pitch, and to develop their feeling for melody, key, and harmony, by means of special exercises. Do such exercises exist? And, if they do, are they taught in our mtisic-schools? These were the questions I put to myself, and sought to answer by researches in public libraries, and a study of the prospectuses and time-tables of the colleges of music. The reply was forced from me — *'No; exercises for the development of the aural faculties of musicians do not exist, and no single college of music concerns itself with the part played by these faculties in musical training T* Let me make myself quite dear: undoubtedly there exist niunbers of books in which may be foimd exer- cises in reading, transposition, notation, and even vo- cal improvisation. But all these may be achieved without the aid of the ear: reading and improvisation through the muscular, transposition and notation through the visual senses. None of these exercises aim at training the ear, and yet it is through the latter alone that tonal effects are registered in our minds. Is it not folly to teach music without paying the slightest attention to the diversification, gradation, and combi- nation, in all their shades, of the gamut of sensations called into play by the consonance of musical feeling? How has it been possible to carry on a systematic study of music, while utterly ignoring the principal qualification of the musician? I therefore set about devising exercises to enable my pupils to recognise the pitch of sounds, estimate Digitized by VjOOQ IC Ear Training in Musical Education 5 intervals, apprehend harmonies, distingtdsh the differ- ent notes in chords, follow the contrapuntal effects in poljrphonic music, distinguish keys, analyse the rela- tions between hearing and vocal sensations, sensitise the ear, and — ^by means of a new system of gymnastics applied to the nervous system — open up between brain, ear, and larjmx the necessary channels to form of the entire organism what one might call the tnn^ ear. . . . And I assiuned, in my innocence, that, having invented these exercises, notWng remained but to apply them in special classes. . . . Alas! the difficulties I had met with in devising my scheme for the development of the ear were nothing to those that now faced me in my endeavour to introduce the system. Let me recall the weighty objections marshalled against me. The true musician (it was said) should possess, as it were, instinctively, the necessary qualifications for the practice of his art, and no amoimt of study could supply gifts that must come nattu^lly or not at all: the student's time being strictly limited, it was undesirable to embarrass him with additional labours tending to distract his absorption in finger exer- cises: his instrumental studies were already adequate to his musical needs, etc. . . . Some of these argu- ments are soimd enough in their place. It is evident that a person should not attempt the serious study of music without particular gifts for the purpose, includ- ing an aptitude for distinguishing sounds, and, need- less to say, a certain sensibility of nerves, and elevation of feeling, without which no musician can pass muster. Apart from that, however, the fact that instrumental classes are filled with individuals imable either to hear Digitized by VjOOQIC 6 Rhythm, Music, and Education or to listen to music, justifies us in asserting that even the conservatoires admit that it is possible to learn to sing and to play the piano without being a bom musi- cian. Why, then, confine ourselves to training the fingers of these pupils? Why not try to cultivate their aural perception? As regards naturally good musicians who devote themselves to the study of composition or orchestral conducting, may one not claim that daily exercises in distinguishing degrees of intensity and pitch of soimds, sense-analyses of tones and their combinations, poly- phonies and harmonies, in every key, might conceiv- ably render their ear even more sensitive, their mtisical susceptibilities even more delicate? Apart from that, I maintain that in the study of harmony proper (even in classes such as those of the Paris Conservatoire, where only students possessing absolute pitch are ad- mitted) sufficient attention is not devoted to the deter- mination and analysis of the relations undoubtedly existing between soimd and dynamics, between pitch and accentuation, between the varying tempi of musi- cal rhythms, and the choice of harmonies.- The music courses are too fragmentary and specialised: those re- lating to the piano are not collated with those in har- mony, nor harmony with those treating of the history of mtisic, nor is the history of music duly applied to a study of the general history of peoples and individuals. Syllabuses are profuse in their subject matter, but there is no coherence in the tuition. Each professor is confined to his own narrow domain, having practically no contact with those of his colleagues who specialise in other branches of musical science. And yet, as all Digitized by VjOOQ IC Ear Training in Musical Education 7 music is grounded in human emotion on the one hand, in the aesthetic research after combinations of sotmd on the other, the study of soimd and movement should be collated and harmonised, and no one branch of music should be separable from the others. Style in music varies according to climate and lati- tude, and, by corollary, according as temperaments are influenced and modified by social atmosphere and con- ditions of life. The divergencies of harmony and move- ment which characterise the music of different peoples spring, then, from the nervous and muscular state of their organisms, apart altogether from their divers hearing faculties. Ought we not therefore to devote more attention, in teadiing music, to the motor facul- ties of the pupils, to that ensemble of reactions, imptdses, pauses, recoils, and movements, whether spontaneous or deliberate, that constitute temperament? I have often been struck at observing the difficulty small children have in following, while marching, a very slow movement in music, in halting or stepping out suddenly at command, in relaxing their limbs after an anxious moment, intaldng their bearings and following each other's movements on being taught the gestures to accompany a song. What wonder, considering the time that must be lost between the volition and the realisation of their movements, that in practising a song their little larynxes should be tmskilled, their vocal chords inflexible and inexact, their breathing ill- regulated, to say nothing of their attempts to punctu- ate and measure the time, and to emit each note at the right moment ! Not only, then, should the ear and voice of the child receive adequate training, but, va Digitized by VjOOQ IC 8 Rhythm, Music, and Education addition, every part of his body which contributes to rhythmic movement, every musctilar and nervous ele- ment that vibrates, contracts, and relaxes tmder the pressure of natural impulses. Should it not be possible to create new reflexes, to undertake a systematic edu- cation of nerve-centres, to subdue the activities of too excitable temperaments, to regulate and harmonise muscular synergies and conflicts, to establish more di- rect communications between the feeling and imder- standing, between sensations which inform the mind and those which re-create sensorial means of expres- sion ? Every thought is the interpretation of an action. If, up to the present, muscular movements of hand and fingers alone have sufficed to create in the spirit a dis- tinct consciousness of rhythm, what far more intense impressions might we not convey were we to make use of the whole organism in producing the effects necessary for the evocation of the motor-tactile consciousness? I look forward to a system of musical education in which the body itself shall play the rdle of intermediary between sotmds and thought, becoming in time the direct medium of our feelings — aural sensations being re-inf orced by all those called into being by the multiple agents of vibration and resonance lying dormant in our bodies; the breathing system punctuating the rhythms of words, muscular dsmamics interpreting those dictated by musical emotions. The child will thus be taught at school not only to sing, listen carefully, and keep time, but also to move and think acctirately and rhythm- ically. One might conmience by regulating the me- chanism of walking, and from thence proceed to ally vocal inovements with the gestiu-es of the whole body. Digitized by VjOOQ IC Ear Training in Musical Education 9 That would constitute at once instruction in rhythm, and education by rhythm. Alas! when I consider the enormous pains I am at to persuade music teachers of the possibility of contriving exercises to enable children to listen to soimds before exe- cuting or writing them, to evoke the thought of a note before its interpretation, I ask myself whether this training of nerve-centres will ever enter the realm of practical politics. People will have nothing to do with new ideas, so long as the old contribute to their self-satisfaction, and once they have acquired the habit of accepting them at their face value. Every step towards emancipation to which they have condescended apx)ears to them immutable and definitive, and the truth of to-morrow is denoimced as a lie to-day. And yet human thought develops little by little, despite all resistance; our ideas clarify, our powers of quick decis- ion strengthen, our means of action increase. Who knows but that a day will dawn when professors the world over will recognise the possibility of adding to the divers modes of stimulating sensibility, by processes of adaptation, variation, and substitution, and music teachers will depend less exclusively on analysis, and more on the awakening of vital emotions and the con- sciousness of mental states? On that day will emerge on all sides new methods, based on the cultivation of combined hearing and tactile sensations, and mine will be the silent gratification accorded those who, in mo- ments of oppression, have yet been able to murmur the t\j&mal:''E pur si miwv^t'' Digitized by VjOOQIC Digitized by VjOOQ IC CHAPTER II AN ESSAY IN THE REFORM OP MUSIC TEACHING IN SCHOOLS (1905) Mustc regarded in the schools of io-day as of minor impor- tance— CuU of singing in the colleges of music of the i6th and 17th centuries — Objections of reactionaries — Music should be taught only by musicians — What must be exacted of stu- dents— Futility of a musical education that does not inculccUe love of music in children — Necessity of gradually eliminating those who have no musical gifts, and forming special classes for children with inaccurate ears and voices or lacking in ade- quate rhythmic capacity — Syllabus of courses and classifica- turn of capacity in children — How to develop **relative** pitch — Keys and scales — Exercises necessary to develop sense of rhythm — The step and the beat — Musical shading and im- pravisation. II Digitized by VjOOQIC Digitized by VjOOQ IC CHAPTER II AN ESSAY IN THE REFORM OP MUSIC TEACHING IN SCHOOLS (1905) It is not enough for a select few of the artists and amateurs of a country to be better instructed than their predecessors, for the musical standard of that country to be raised and maintained. If the masses are not capable of following — even at a distance — ^in the steps of that select few, an impassable barrier will sooner or later be erected between the two elements of a people that in these days must unite if they are to co-exist. If the intellectual aristocracy alone is equipped for progress, the ill-trained masses will be imable to follow; the leaders of the movement — ^finding themselves iso- lated, and needing the co-operation of the main body — will be obliged either to turn back and rejoin them, or, contintiing their solitary course, be lost in obscurity. I shall be told that it is the fate of reformers to pursue the path of enlightenment in solitude, and that the masses always overtake them in the end! . . . The masses will not overtake them imless given the neces- sary eqtiipment and unless sufiSciently keen and coura- geous to traverse, without relaxing, every step of the course. The educational methods of the last centuries are certainly not calculated to enable our children to comprehend and assimilate modem artistic develop- 13 Digitized by VjOOQ IC 14 Rhythm, Music, and Education ments. Our artists have forged new implements of creation; these implements must be adjusted to the hands of amateurs, who must then be trained to handle them, and finally entrusted with them at an age when they are most ripe for 'prentice work, when their hands are flexible and easily adapted to new methods, before the fire of ambition has been snuflfed out by disappoint- ment and world-weariness, before they have acquired the habit of doing things in the old way and are thus prevented from successfully coping with the new. . . . Obviously, no evolution, no progress can be accom- plished without the co-operation of youth. It is in virgin souls that new ideas take firmest root. "Bend the green twig as you will," runs an old Persian pro- verb, ' 'only fire can straighten it out again ; but you want a mallet to drive a pile." The earlier we instil tastes and convictions in a man, the more sure we may be of durability and solidity. We should regard the diild as the man of to-morrow. The progress of a people depends on the education given to its children. If it is desired that musical taste shall not remain the prerogative of the cultured few, but shall penetrate the real heart of the whole people, I repeat that a genuine musical education — ^like the teaching of science and morals — should be provided at school. It is evident that religion has ceased to inspire our teachers to preserve for musical studies the place they formerly occupied in the general educational scheme. Many good people find themselves wondering why the schools continue to teach singing at all, since no oppor- tunity is given the children of displaying their attain- Digitized by VjOOQ IC Music Teaching in Schools is ments either in the churches, on secular holidays, in their recreation, or as a rhjrthmic assistant and com- plement to their courses of gymnastics. These good people, who point out that the teaching of music to-day serves neither a practical nor an ethical aim — ^but ministers merely to the annual delectation of school inspectors — ^have every excuse for losing interest in musical studies, and regarding them as of no impor- tance. But if they would take the trouble to reflect upon the matter, they would recognise that these studies could and should be given a very definite, prac- tical, and ethical aim, and thenceforward they would do their utmost to encourage and stimulate their development. Private music lessons are virtually confined to the children of well-to-do families, whose parents are actu- ated generally either by snobbishness or by respect for tradition. Tlie music master, for whom such lessons provide a livelihood, can hardly be expected to reject a pupil who shows no aptitude for the work. For the same reason, none of our amateur conservatoires will turn a pupil away, be he deaf or idiot. This has the deplorable result of investing a multitude of musical dtmces, steeped in affectation, with a reputation for talent — ^most people being tmforttmately under the im- pression, that they have only to take lessons in order to know something, and that, having "gone in for" a particular subject, they must necessarily tmderstand it. And there is the other side of the picture. While the affluence of some parents enables them to provide a musical education for children utterly unfitted for it — to the serious detriment of the art — poverty alone Digitized by VjOOQ IC i6 Rhythm, Music, and Education deters other parents, to its even greater detriment, from making similar provisions for their genuinely talented children. Making music a compulsory school subject is the only sure means of mobilising the vital musical forces of a country. Were it imdertaken in the right spirit, efficiently organised, and confided to intelligent and competent teachers, every child would at the end of two or three years be put to the test: those who showed talent being enabled to continue their studies to the point of attaining the maximum development of their faculties, the remainder, those devoid of all musical taste, being relieved from the biu-den of lessons of no value to them, and thereby conferring an almost equal benefit on the art, in being debarred from med- dling with it, and clogging its progress by ridiculous pre- tensions. The Coadi, in La Fontaine's fable, would probably never have arrived at its destination, had the pretentious fly been joined by others; a swarm of them, with their buzzing and erratic aerial manoeuvres, would have exasperated the coachman and distracted the horses. . . . Heaven preserve us from our musical flies! ** Talent," said Montesquieu, "is a gift confided to us by God in secret, and which we display without knowing it." If every child were compelled by law to pass an examination conducted by artists, and to subject him- self for a few years to competent control, no single promising recruit would be allowed to pass into ob- scurity, neither would the hopelessly immusical evade detection and its logical consequences. The classification of capacities and incapacities once Digitized by VjOOQ IC Two Scenes from Les Souvenirs. Geneva, 191 8 Digitized by VjOOQ IC Digitized by VjOOQ IC Music Teaching in Schools 17 established — the former receiving due encouragement, the latter rendered comparatively innocuous, the teach- ing of music could obviously be practised on a more effectual basis. The results would now depend on two important factors, with which we shall deal presently at greater length: the method of teaching, and the choice of teachers. Once our educational authorities realise their responsibilities and set about providing a sotmd primary musical grounding for every moderately gifted child, and a more thorough training for every exceptionally talented one, not only will they have in- troduced into school life a new element of vitality, recreation, joy, and health, not only will they have recruited to the ranks of art a large nimiber of adepts whose later co-operation must prove invaluable (asstu*- ing and strengthening the existing choral societies, and encouraging the formation of orchestras composed entirely of local talent), but they will also have assem- bled for future purposes a host of embryonic teachers, of proved learning and appreciable talents, and — still more important — au courant with the latest methods of instruction. These advantages should satisfy the most sceptical as to the desirability of reforming the system of musical education in vogue to-day, even though our motives have no longer the religious and traditional character that actuated our ancestors in the i6th and 17 th cen- turies, in their zest for musical erudition. In those days music was studied with a view to adequate par- ticipation in the musical side of religious ceremonies. The acquirement of musical taste was accordingly a result of studies imdertaken for this definite purpose. Digitized by VjOOQ IC i8 Rhythm, Music, and Education To-day, when religious ardotir has manifestly ceased to inspire all but the most primitive vocal eflEorts, it be- hoves us to enquire whether the retention of any form of musical tuition in the curriculiun of our schools is not a mere survival of routine, and, if so, whether it is not time we replaced this tradition (now that its origi- nal meaning has disappeared) by a more vital incentive to progress. , Whether this take the form of a desire to strengthen musical taste and to prepare for the study of classical and modem masterpieces, or for hygienic considerations, is not (for the moment) material. The essential thing is that we should know exactly why we are to retain music in our current curriculum. We can later — assuming we are satisfied as to the public utility of such retention — proceed to enquire as to whether this generation is in advance of the preceding ones. Shotild it appear that absolutely no progress has been made, it is our business to ascertain the cause of this status quo, and thence set about devising means for securing a better record for the coming generation. The progress of the man is one of the results of his preoccupations as a child. Sotmd ideas instilled in the schoolroom are transformed later into deeds, provided that a cognisance of their means of accomplishment is accompanied by an estimate of the effort necessary for the purpose, and by genuine love of the art, in whose cause the effort is to be made. By this means alone can we make sure of our country keeping pace with the times, of otir choral societies facing the futtire instead of burrowing in the traditions of the past, and of virtu- osity becoming a mere means of expression, instead of the whole end of musical training. By this means akme Digitized by VjOOQ IC Music Teaching in Schools 19 can we tempt beauty to our firesides, and fill the void caused by the decline of religion. Our professionals, better supported and understood by amateurs, will no longer seek conquests in other lands, preferring to re- main in the coimtry which they best tmderstand, and of which consequently they can best sing the beauties. The time will return when the People express in melody its simple joys and griefs. Children, having rdeamt to sing in unison the old songs that charmed their forefathers, will feel inspired to create new ones, and we shall see the end of that lamentable division of singing at our music competitions into two parts : — ^folk- songs and artistic songs. It goes without sajdng that, if, after due reflection, the principle of teaching music in schools at all is con- demned, a consideration of the suggestions that follow will be so much waste of time. If, on the other hand, the necessity of music study is granted. . . . But there! ... At this very moment, as I prepare to marshal my facts and extract the logical conclusions, a sense of disquiet steals over me, forcing me to ask whether it is, after all, worth while to affirm and reaffirm what is, only to be faced with the imperative and urgent task, alike of musicians and patriots, of clamouring in season and out of season for what oughl to be, demanding as of right, a thorough overhauling of our educational system and resolved, in its cause, to devote whatever necessary time . . . but at these words I seem to see emerging from their tombs the grinning skulls of myriad reformers of the past. "The necessary time," repeat their mocking voices out Digitized by VjOOQ IC 20 Rhythm, Music, and Education of graves where lie buried so many old bodies with so many young hopes: **Have you any idea, poor mortal, of the incalculable hours, days, years involved in your 'necessary time*? The time occupied by cotmtless authorities in 'giving the matter their atten- tion,' by committees in discussing it, by fools in failing to tmderstand it, by fanatics in opposing it, by arrith istes in making promises, by the same worthies, after arrival, in forgetting them! Your 'necessary time' will extend far beyond the remaining years of your life, and, at your death, be sure all your fine schemes for reform will be buried with you, as were ours with us! Cut your coat according to your cloth; nobody will ever obtain a really radical reform. Limit your de- mands to a minimimti: possibly this 'minimum' will be accorded after a long and persistent campaign — ^but don't make the mistake of asking for too much, or you will get nothing at all. . . . Only discouragement and disappointment lie in wait for those who seek the good of other people at the expense of the smug self- satisfaction of the Powers That Be. Live happy, thinking only of yourself, and satisfied with things as they are, since the rest of the world accepts them!" But — strange phenomenon — these words, instead of damping our ardour, only reawaken and renew it! Is it so certain thet every new idea is received with this universal indifference? Is not such an idea well within the realm of practical politics, provided it arrives at the right moment? And is not this moment, in our case, actually imminent, now when so many artists, hitherto isolated, are coming together in response to a yearning for mutual love and tmderstanding, for esprit Digitized by VjOOQ IC Music Teaching in Schools 21 de corps, in the common cause of progress and the pur- suit of beauty? Yes, the hour has struck when, by the coalescence of individual eflEorts, the ideals of our re- formers the world over will be attained. And as for the "necessary time" for their attainment, we will face it with imabated confidence, marching ever forward side by side, our eyes fixed on one goal, our hearts beat- ing with a common fervour.' The teaching of music in our schools fails to produce anything like adequate results, because our educational authorities leave the whole control of the tuition in the hands of stereotyped inspectors. As these are nomi- nated by pure routine, and no attention or encourage- ment is given to the initiative of any oflBcial who may feel tempted to deviate from the beaten track, the con- sequence is that no innovation of principle or practice has found its way into the curricultun from time imme- morial* The theories of Pestalozzi and Froebel on the musical training of yoimg children have been adopted only by private schools. The highly original educa- tional experiments of Kaubert, about the year 1850, received absolutely no recognition in high quarters. The value of Swedish drill was only appreciated after a campaign extending over 15 years. The brilliant sys- tem of analysing and explaining musical rhythm and expression advocated by Mathis Lussy, our compa- triot, and one of the greatest of modem theorists, has not, up to the present, attracted the attention of our * The Board of Education of the Canton of Geneva has jtist introduced eurhythmies as an experiment in three classes of primary schools, and, as an optional course, in two classes of the Girls' High SchooL (1919.} Digitized by VjOOQ IC 22 Rhythm, Music, and Education educational authorities. Not that this is so remarkable, seeing that, so far as I am aware (I can only pray that I am not mistaken!) music is absolutely unrepresented on our pubUc bodies, nor have these latter ever mani- fested the slightest disposition to confer with profes- sional musicians. ' I say I can only pray that I am not mistaken, and that by some chance some stray musician has not, in this or that canton, been summoned to take an active or consultative part in the oflBdal school- board proceedings, for we should have to conclude, from the actual condition of things, that his influence had been absolutely nUl It is preferable to believe that the failure of our public bodies to assure a development of musical studies compatible with the means and powers at their disposal, is not deUberate. * * Not deUberate" — that is to say, the result merely of taking no inter- est in the question, and of never suspecting its im- portance. Music, outside of genuine artistic circles, is held in very light repute not only by our educational authori- ties, but even by painters, sculptors, and men of let- ters; and it is by no means tmusual to find jotunalists, otherwise full of zeal for the artistic development of their country, treating music as a negligible quantity, and greeting musical events, either with the smiling indtilgence of the condescending patron, or with an equally insufferable affectation of superiority, explicable only in the light of their abysmal ignorance of the art. ' The Board of Education for the cantons of Geneva and Vaud have recently appointed a commission of musicians to reorganise musical instruction in our schools. On their proceedings depend all our hopes of a real reform (1919). Digitized by VjOOQ IC Music Teaching in Schools ^3 One would have thought that this same neglect and disdain was hardly likely to be met with in France, where at least a smattering of music forms part of the indispensable equipment of the litUrateur; but, alas, this smattering usually remains a smattering. And if ^ to her credit, we can record with envy the introduction into French schools of the highly interesting collection of chansons of Maurice Bouchor, we cannot lose sight of the fact that the system of musical education gen- erally in vogue with our Gallic neighbours is even more rudimentary than our own, as witness — ^among other things — the lamentable decline of part-singing in France, the shameful dearth of musical societies, the popularity of the gutter songs of the cafS-chantant, and the extinction of the oratorio. In German schools the reign of pedantry is everywhere in full force, and the suggestive cotmsels of eminent specialists like Karl Storck have not yet attracted the notice of scholastic authorities. What is worse, the Froebel schools have fallen into a state of decay. Only Belgitun and Holland appear fully to appreciate the importance of a sound and well-organised pedagogic system. And yet our coimtry is among those whose scholas- tic institutions command almost tmiversal admiration, thanks to their excellent organisation generally, and to the enterprise and enlightenment of most of our boards of education. How, then, does it come about that only the teaching of music — and of artistic matters in gen- eral— should be neglected and abandoned to routine? The answer is that our scholastic authorities have no understanding of music, and no ambition to acquire one. I shall be told that it is manifestly uimecessary Digitized by VjOOQ IC ^4 Rhythm, Music, and Education for a geographical expert to be represented on a school board to sectire an adequate teaching of geography. Granted; but only because no member of such a board would be found incapable of realising the value of geography and the importance of obtaining competent instructors in the science. For this piupose he only requires to have received himself a general all-round education, to have a sound judgment, good hearing, and ... to be able to read. The same applies to other subjects of special training, such as gymnastics. . . . There again, it is not necessary to be an expert to re- cognise its utility and advocate its extension. Indeed, the arguments in favour of the training and hygiene of the body are furnished by the body itself. And the practical means of developing the flexibility, and of securing the balance, of limbs are easy enough to grasp; for that, again, it is sufficient to be able to read intelligently. But music is another matter altogether. Those who have gone through life with an imtrained ear cannot be expected to appreciate the necessity of furnishing others with an ear attimed to fine percep- tions by the diligent practice of special exercises. Those who themselves cannot distinguish either melodies or harmonies are hardly the best advocates of a system designed to secure these accomplishments for others. And, while they may accept it out of respect for tra- dition, they will be unable either to select the best method for training the ear, and rendering it capable of analysing the relations and combinations of sounds, or to appreciate the merits of the experts to whom they may delegate the responsibility of selecting such a method. The spirit of music expresses itself in a lan- Digitized by VjOOQ IC Music Teaching in Schools 25 guage of its own, which otir scholastic authorities are unable to read. And, unfortunately, they will not allow others to read for them. And yet with them rests the exclusive right of nominating teachers and deciding on methods. . . . That is why music has no share in the general prosperity of our educational system. That is why children learn neither to read, phrase, record, or emit sounds in our schools. That is why our sons and daughters grow up dimib. **But look here," protests Mr. So-and-So (a familiar and ubiqtiitous type), ** there is stirely no need to have a competent general direction to make the teaching effective. At that rate, you would want singing lessons given in our schools by specialists. And yet, as things are, qtiite ordinary masters produce the happiest results." **I am not denying, Mr. So-and-So, that there are good masters in our schools ; but there are also bad ones, and this would not be the case — or it would hardly ever be — if we had a competent and well-informed direction, and if the training of teachers were more complete so far as music is concerned. Bad teachers must pro- duce bad pupils. If you take the average of those who are successful at examinations, you may be sure that it is far smaller than it would have been if all the teachers had been well chosen. And that, bear in mind, is the principal count in my indictment. I contend that, on leaving school, the greatest possible nimiber of pupils should have received a musical education ade- quate for the artistic requirements of modem life, and for the application of natural faculties normally and logically developed. These capable masters you speak Digitized by VjOOQIC 26 Rhythm, Music, and Education of — Can't you see what different results they would obtain if their own education had been properly con- ducted? I am not here going to analyse their methods in detail — indeed they vary according to the country — but I think I may assert, without fear of contradiction, that one and all are based on theory instead of on sen- sorial experiment. No art is nearer life itself than music. No art has developed and is still developing more rapidly, no art has inspired so many ingenious theo- rists or so many systems of teaching, — growing ever more and more simple, — proof positive of their peda- gogic value! To choose between these systems is admittedly diflBcult, and we are not reproving the au- thorities with having chosen wrongly. Our grievance is that they have neglected to choose at all, that they have preferred in every case — without a single excep- tion— to retain the methods of the past. What is the infallible criterion of the worth of a system of instruc- tion? Surely the practical results of the system, the technical accomplishments of the pupils who have fol- lowed it. Let us for a moment consider those accom- plishments. After their fourth or fifth year of musical tuition in our primary schools, are fifty per cent, of the pupils capable: 1. Of beating time to a time played rUbato by the master? , 2. Of reading at sight accurately and in time either the first, or second part of a folk-song with words? 3. Of discerning whether a melody simg to them is in C. F, G, or B flat? Whether it is in 2, 3, or 4 time? Whether it is in a major or minor key ? Digitized by VjOOQ IC Music Teaching in Schools ^7 And that, I submit, is not asking much. One would exact much more of students of a foreign language, who would be expected, on examination, to read and write with tolerable accuracy. And remember that I am referring to only 50 per cent, of the pupils. . . . After five or six years of study in secondary and higher grade schools, are the pupils capable : 1. Of achieving what we have asked of the pupils of primary sdiools? Are fifty per cent, of them capable: 2. Of writing a simple melody heard for the first time, and a more diflBcult melody that they know by heart, but have never seen written? 3. Of recognising whether a piece played to them is a gavotte, a minuet, a march, or a mazurka? 4. Of improvising four bars in any key? 5. Of appreciating a modulation? 6. Of appreciating at a first hearing a change of time? 7. Of explaining clearly, and illustrating, a single rule of musical prosody, and of "setting" two lines of verse? 8. Of quoting and illustrating a single rule of phrasing or shading? 9. Of quoting the names of three celebrated composers with their most important works? 10. Of giving a summary statement of the difference between a ballad, a sonata, and a s)rmphony? Questions i, 2, and 3 correspond to the sort of tests one might apply to a sixth-year student of English or German in writing an English or German phrase to dictation, or replying in English or German to a ques- tion put in the same language. Digitized by VjOOQ IC 28 Rhythm, Music, and Education **But wait a minute," will exclaim our Mr. So-and-So, * * I don't follow you. Do you really expect school child- ren to know all those things?" "Why not, sir?" **Why not, indeed! Ask a child just leaving school to beat a rvhato in time, to guess the key in which a folk-song is written. ... To expect the students in the higher schools to be able to improvise and modulate and tmderstand musical prosody and good- ness knows what not ! The mere idea of bothering these tmfortunate children, whoVe already more than enough to do, with the names of the classical composers and their works!" "What are they to be taught, then!" "The notes, rests " "Rests with a vengeance!" "The notes, sharps, flats, symbols ... all that sort of thing: in short, music 1'' "Are not the questions I have suggested putting to pupils related to music?" "Yes, but " "But what?" "But they are too difficult." "Not a bit, my dear sir, not in the least. They are of a most elementary nattire. One and all relate to solf 6ge, not to harmony, and the last two do not require any theoretical training at all — any more than a good Swiss requires to study history for six years to be able to speak of William Tell, or Winkelried or General Dufour!" "Still, our children are not taught that sort of thing." "Then their education is incomplete." Digitized by VjOOQ IC Music Teaching in Schools 29 **Do you expect every child in a class to have a good voice and a good ear?" "Those who have not should be removed from the class, as we would exclude a blind man from a musketry course, or a legless man from gymnastics." "That's not the same thing." "It is precisely the same thing, I assure you." ' * But how on earth can you expect children to assimi- late that store of knowledge on a single hour's lesson a week?" "If an hour is not enough, they must be given two, or any number . . . any nimiber, that is, that may be required to make the lessons profitable. But don't be alarmed, Mr. So-and-So, one hour will be quite sufficient once children are brought up to sing outside school hours, and music is made to play a part in their everyday life. One thing or the other: either music lessons should be organised in such a way as to make children musical — that is to say, to bring out their tem- perament and hearing faculties — or they should be ex- cluded altogether from the school curriculum, and the task of initiating our youth into the beauties of music relegated to private institutions. . . . But what's the matter, Mr. So-and-So? Did I hear you mutter that a good third of the certified students of our conservatoires are imable either to improvise or to modulate? That they would be found incapable of satisfactorily answering any of the questions I have enumerated? . . . That, sir, is a serious statement to make. Would you be prepared to subscribe to it in the columns of the Journal de GetUve or the Easier Nachrichtenr Digitized by VjOOQ IC 30 Rhythm, Music, and Education **I wotild subscribe to it with the deepest regret, but I would subscribe to it." "The deuce you would! Well, we shall have to re- form the system of training in our conservatoires as well." It is the deplorable fact, as we have already stated, that singing and music are regarded at schools as sub- jects outside the essentials of education. It gratifies a certain ntunber of parents to be able to say that their children can sing, and so the schools provide a super- ficial training calculated to give them the appearance of having studied music. It never — ^unless by chance — awakens in their senses and heart a real love for music; it never makes music live for them. They are trained merely in its external side, and its emotional and really educative qualities remain hidden from them. They are not even taught to listen to music. The only music they hear is that in which they are set to execute. And on what principle are they taught the art of singing? It is a matter simply and solely of imitation. One wonders when our authorities will abandon this system of parrot-training; when they will begin to recognise the importance of making singing lessons an integral element in the life of the school, permeating with music every side of its activities; tending to poetise them with its melodious charms, to vitalise, brace, and strengthen them with its rhjrthm; when they will initiate pupils, boys and girls, into the wonders to be attained by an adequate study of part-singing, creating in them, on leaving school — ^where they will thereby have become accustomed to singing with and xmderstanding one Digitized by VjOOQ IC Music Teaching in Schools 31 another — the desire to join choral societies. By so doing they will establish a point of contact between the music lessons of the schools and the ''conservatorial" studies, where at present these pull in opposite direc- tions, without the slightest attempt at a rapproche- ment — though, indeed, as things are, this would be somewhat in the nature of an alliance between the blind and the paralysed . . . and in public perform- ances they will have school choirs accompanied by or- chestral societies, drawn from the conservatoires, with a consequent valuable exchange of tastes for these branches of musical activity. The rub will come in the selection of teachers. A wholesale dismissal of the present staffs will have to be made, to considerable heart-burning, and a clamotir of protests. But, indeed, the ntunber of music teachers in primary schools, utterly unfitted for their work, is simply appalling. All of them have spent the requisite time at the correct institutions, but how many have profited by it? In how many cases has not the final "satisfedt" in the teaching certificate examinations been accorded a candidate who has estab- lished his qualifications in every branch except music, out of reluctance to pluck him on the strength of deficiency in a mere artistic subject of minor import- ance! These persons will become proficient teachers in every domain save that of music; they will train their pupils admirably in geography, arithmetic, lit- erature; they will teach them to become good and right- thinking citizens, but — ^being themselves deficient in instinct and taste for music — they will fail to awaken Digitized by VjOOQ IC 32 Rhythm, Music and Education the musical instinct and taste of their pupils. They will thus be responsible for the suppression of these instincts and tastes over three or four generations, and for the lowering of the musical level of an entire district for an indefinite period, thereby restricting the general de- velopment of the country as a whole. The influence of these teachers is so pernicious, from our point of view, that we cannot allow sentimental considerations in their favour to stand in the way of the interests of the musical culture of a whole people. The danger of retaining as music teachers pedants without either the ear or the voice for their vocation is so patent that it seems incredible that, intelligent and enlightened in- dividuals, as are the majority of administrators, shotild not long ago have recognised the urgent necessity of putting matters on an entirely new footing. We shotild not omit to mention that those among the present staffs who are really good musicians, with a genuine love of music and a keen interest in its pursuit (and we know a number of them) would have nothing to fear from the revolution we are advocating; it would be a public loss to deprive them of their posts. Zealous in their devotion to music, they ask no better than to be allowed to assimilate new methods, and to be given the opportunity of completing their training in peda- gogy. As regards masters whose musical incapacities would bring them under the ban of the new order, we can hardly think that they would care to complain. To give lessons in a subject in which one is neither learned nor interested must be a severe trial for a man of any sensitiveness; nothing is more unpleasant than to know oneself incapable of doing what it is one's Digitized by VjOOQIC g a; > O o &! u o Digitized by VjOOQ IC Digitized by VjOOQ IC Music Teaching in Schools 33 business to teach others to do. For this among many other reasons, it is of the first importance that the mtisical education in primary schools — as well as in the higher schools — should be in the hands of musicians. On the musical talents of the master depend the whole progress of the pupils, and, indeed, any interest in their lessons can only be roused by a corresponding keenness displayed by the master giving them. With all due respect to certain theorists to whom the vibrations produced by the scratching of a pen on paper are as agreeable to the ear as those produced by the "sweet sounds of music," the hearing is an import- ant element in the pleasure to be derived from music, whether exercised in the analysis or creation of soimds, or in the appreciation of their harmonic combinations and melodic successions. We would go so far as to assert — at the risk of incensing certain critics of our acquaintance — that it is hardly possible to appreciate, to judge, or even to hear music without a good ear. The most desirable method of teaching music is, there- fore, in our judgment, one which, wlule enabling the pupil as speedily as possible to appreciate melodies, rhythms, and harmonies, is most e£5cacious in the development of the auditive faculties on which musical taste and judgment tdtimately depend. From this point of view, collective training in schools offers a distinct advantage over the conservatoire system. Practical considerations obliging pupils to dispense with the aid of instruments, they must fall back on them- selves, emitting with their voices the soimds they are required to distinguish; and there is so intimate a con- nection between the vocal and the aural processes, Digitized by VjOOQ IC 34 Rhythm, Music, and Education that the development of the one virtually involves the development of the other. The mechanical production of sounds on an instnmient does not call for any special effort on the part of the ear: the latter serves merely as an agent of control, and indeed, failing it, the agency of sight or of touch is suflBdent for producing the con- ventionally rough accuracy. On the other hand, the efforts necessary to assure the accuracy of vocal sounds conduce to the steady development of atiral faculties. In other words, while training with the aid of an instru- ment may tend to develop the hearing, that based on singing is calculated to refine the listening capacities. The choice of a teacher is, then, of the highest im- portance in the training of the ear. He must neces- sarily possess normal sense of hearing, be a practical musician, and understand the laws of vocal emission. He must be versed in singing and in the principles that regtdate breathing and artictdation, possessing a special knowledge of the vocal registers of children. At the present day no attempt is made to develop children's voices at school. They are given no training in pulmonary "gymnastics," and are thereby deprived of an invaluable hygienic expedient. Their head-notes go uncultivated, to the irreparable detriment of their vocal system. A music teacher shotdd know how to develop every medium of physical expression in his pupils. He shotdd be, in addition, and no less indispensably, an artist of taste and talent, and a man of tact and authority, fond of children and knowing how to handle them. **Non est loquendum, sed gubemandum/'* If, as will be admitted, it is not enough for a teacher of prac- Digitized by VjOOQ IC Music Teaching in Schools 35 tical subjects, like geography and history, to be well versed in his facts, in order to obtain satisfactory and lasting results; if such results in these subjects depend rather on the material of general interest the master can extract from them (such as the application of their moral and social inferences), by how much more should we insist on other than technical competence, in those who are to be entrusted with the artistic education of our children. The music teacher should make it his first business to create a feeling for beauty in the souls of his pupils. We are in the habit of discoursing to children of beauty without explaining what it means. It is, however, just as dangerous to "err in teaching beauty as in teaching truth." The master should also be careftd to reveal to them the existence of a conven- tional and false conception of art, in order that they may be on their guard against it. He should be able to illustrate his precepts with examples from the great masters, and to demonstrate how and by whom art has been developed down to the present day, and in what respects it is capable of further development. He should arouse in them an enthusiasm for masterpieces, and an ambition to interpret them according to the intentions of their creators. The greatest of his attributes should be the power of suggestion, and, in the words of J. F. Amid (extracted from a comparison very pertinent to the matter in hand), '*he should be able to read the child's soul like a musical score, and, merely by trans- posing the key, adapt the song without sacrificing any of its charm." It will be objected that the handling of questions of taste, and of aesthetics generally, should be left to the Digitized by VjOOQ IC 36 Rhythm, Music, and Education experts of higher schools, and that instruction in ele- mentary schools should be limited to the study of technique. On the contrary, we assert, after a careful survey of the whole problem, that it is at the commence- ment that initiation into the essence of beauty should be undertaken in conjunction with technical training. How is one ever to attain technical proficiency without a love for the object of its application? The aesthetic sense should be cultivated contemporaneously with the study of the elementary laws of the art, and, from the first lessons, the child should be made to realise that the training is directed as much to the heart as to the brain, and that he must try to love as well as to understand. The only real obstacle in the way of our scheme is the selection of instructors for the first five or six years of its application. Later on, the selection will operate almost mechanically — as we shall see in a minute — among the more talented members of the '^finishing" classes, but pending this solution of the problem, resort will have to be made to the kind offices of "interim" instructors, on whom will rest the heavy responsibility of initiating pupils into future duties of so high im- portance. The whole artistic f utiu-e of the country will lie in their hands, dependent on their zeal, conscien- tiousness, and skilfulness. Stationed in the place of honour, theirs will be the noble mission of arousing a feeling for beauty in the hearts yof their young com- patriots, and of providing, for future purposes, a school of competent instructors, alive to the practical value of their art, and fired with the ambition to propagate it and stimulate love for it. Digitized by VjOOQ IC Music Teaching in Schools 37 If, from the point of view of the artistic development of the people, the compulsory teaching of music in otu: schools offers the inmiense advantage of bringing latent talent to light and of assuring to musical temperaments the necessary training from childhood upwards, it would be highly dangerous that this tuition should be the same for highly gifted, less gifted, and ungifted children indiscriminately. We must never forget that we are concerned with the teaching of, not a science, but an art. '*A child may have a taste for science," says La Rochefoucauld, "but not every science will agree with him." Not every child is bom an artist and while we may find cases where musical instinct, dormant or otherwise concealed, is brought to light by careful handling, most often training will only avail with children more or less predestined to come under its influence. As Sancho Panza proclaimed: **He who hasn't enough has nothing." In proverbial parlance, the most beautiful girl in the world can only give what she's got; where there is nothing to give, the Devil loses his rights; you can't get leaves from a dead tree, or an omelette without eggs; sauce doesn't make fish; not every one is fated to go to Corinth ; catch your hare before you jug it! . . . All of which goes to prove that no manner of means will succeed in making a child musical, if he hasn't the germ of music in him from the first. The moral wotdd seem to be that only the most gifted children should receive a musical training at all. But, as our old friend Sancho Panza concludes: "A single rotten apple will contaminate the whole basketf td ! ' ' And this proverb, based on the observation Digitized by VjOOQ IC 38 Rhythm, Music, and Education of a natural phenomenon of universal application, puts us on the road to an important reform. The complete lack of aptitude of a few pupils in a class will prejudice the progress of the class as a whole. We must, therefore, after a certain period of observation, disqualify from further musical tuition every pupil who lacks a good voice, a good ear, and a sense of time and rhythm. People will stand aghast at the complications this system of elimination threatens to introduce into the organisation of lessons, but these are more apparent than real. There are fortunately very few cases — at most five per cent. — of complete musical incapa- city, both auditive and rhythmic,' and, by reason of their rarity, they are as easy to recognise and classify as cases of idiocy in general school work, or of crimi- nality in everyday life. After a year of musical train- ing (the results of an entrance examination will not be conclusive, since false voices are curable by practice, while careful exercises will often rectify inactivity of the ear and insensibility to time) — after a year, let us say, of mtisical training, the teacher will have been able to pick out any members of his class totally incap- able of following the course, and will transfer them to special classes. There will always remain the resource, should they still desire to study music, of following a course at one or other of the conservatoires ! The first classification, by the elimination of "incurables," will enable the class to proceed to its second year's activity under far more favourable conditions, and will be fol- lowed by a series of successive classifications, which we will now proceed summarily to indicate. By this means *S«e Chapter XIV infra, pp. 309, et seq. Digitized by VjOOQ IC Music Teaching in Schools 39 the organisation of lessons will be established on a clear and practicable footing. Let us assume the whole course to occupy six years. After the first year a few pupils find themselves, on examination, withdrawn from the class. The same ex- amination will establish that the remaining pupils are gifted in varying degrees in sense of rh5rthm, vocal accuracy, and hearing capacity. Some will possess all three qualities, others the first two, others again the latter two. Those who have a good voice and ear, but are devoid of instinct for rhythm, will be set a double cotu'se of a particular rhythmic training, of which we will treat later on, and which is included in the syllabus of the first year. While repeating this special course, they will continue the ordinary studies of the second year. At the end of this year an examination will enable a fresh classification to be made, which, after definitely eliminating untrainable voices, will divide the remaining pupils into the following categories : — (a) Pupils recognised from the first as possessing all three qualities, together with those who at the first examination, showed signs only of two qualities, but have acquired the third in the course of their second year's training. (b) Pupils with bad voices, but possessing the other two qualities. (c) Pupils with undeveloped hearing faculties, but pos- sessing a sense of rhythm and a capacity, thanks to the flexibility of their vocal apparatus, of singing accurately in association with a choir (a fairly common phenomenon). {d) Pupils with good ears and voices, but lacking in gense of rhythm, Digitized by VjOOQ IC 40 Rhythm, Music, and Education This classification will enable the master to divide the pupils of the third year into two parallel sections : The first (Section I.) will comprise pupils from classes (a) and (b). The latter (those with untrainable voices, but with good ear, and rhythmic sense inherent or acquired) will take no part in the singing, but will confine themselves to listening to the singing and beating time. Section 11. will consist of members of class (c) who, in the course of the third year will endeavour to perfect their hearing faculties, and members of class (d)y who will continue their training in rhythmic movement. After the examination at the end of the third year, a penultimate classification will be made. Those mem- bers of class (b) who may have acquired during the year the qualities in which they were previously deficient will be transferred to Section I. All those who remain devoid of rhythmic sense will be definitely eliminated. Section I. will thus comprise all those who possess the three qualities necessary to make the complete musician, as well as those with an instinct for rhythm, a good ear, and a bad voice. Section II. will be composed of pupils with an instinct for rhythm, but whose ear, while incapable of analys- ing chords and appreciating musical nuances, is yet sufficiently accurate to control the natural precision of the voice. These two sections will proceed to train concurrently, during the following two years of the course, at the rate of an hour a week. A final classification will take place at the end of the fifth year, and will yield the following results; Digitized by VjOOQ IC Music Teaching in Schools 41 Section I. will be divided into two. Section I. (a) will consist of members of Section I. who show particular musical promise. They will be accorded during the sixth year a more complete training. Section I. (jb) (consisting of those not transferred to Section I. (a)) and Section II. will continue their previous course. Finally, at the end of the sixth year of study, the best pupils in Section I. (a) will be admitted, after an exami- nation, to a training college course designed for the training of music masters. "All that is no doubt very ingeniotis " "Hullo, Mr. So-and-So, you're back again?" "All that, I say, my dear sir, looks highly ingenious on paper, but is, in my opinion, quite impracticable. (I may tell you that your classifications have made my head ache.) In the first place, some of the classes will require to devote two hours a week to this wonderful coturse of Eurhythmies of which you said you would treat later on " "Excuse me, but there would be no question of a supplementary course for the pupils in question. They would simply be asked to attend for the second time the course that first-year pupils would be taking for the first time." "Very good, then. All the same, once you've split up the class into two sections, you'll require an hotur's lesson for each section, which makes two together, if I'm not mistaken." "Your calculation is correct, Mr. So-and-So. I pro- pose to give the class two hours a week for three years, and even three hours during the third year, when Section I, will b§ divided into (a) and (ft). But this will not Digitized by VjOOQ IC 4^ Rhythm, Music, and Education involve a reduction of hours in other branches, the lessons being shared by three sections of the same dass." "And the cost?" "The increased cost will not be very great, and will be largely compensated by the undeniable advantages of the classification. Incidentally several Swiss schools already devote two hours a week to music lessons. These will benefit materially from my method, which during the first two years will require only one lesson a week/'* ' * Granted ! I have a more serious objection to raise : your classification will be very diflficult to work in prac- tice. How is your jury going to decide that certain pupils are devoid of aural accuracy?" * * By perceiving that they are unable to recognise and reproduce intervals that will be sung to them." "And inacctiracy of voice?" "By their singing out of tune." "And sense of rhythm?" "By their incapacity to divide time into equal beats or to accentuate strong beats." "But you were speaking of relative aural accuracy." "That is possessed by those who can recognise the notes of a tune only by comparison with a given note: while those who can recognise them without reference to a standard possess 'absolute pitch,' and those who are able to analyse combinations of sound can claim to have the completely musical ear. You yourself shall furnish an example. What is this note?" > The last few years' experience has convinced me that two hours a week are absplutely necessary. — ^E. J. D. (19 19.) Digitized by VjOOQ IC Music Teaching in Schools 43 "Yes, yes, another time! ... So you expect your examiners to understand these fine shades?'' "They will be professional musicians.'* "Who will never make a mistake in their diagnoses?" "Everyone is liable to make a mistake. But be sure of this : Such mistakes as they may make will not have anything like such serious consequences as the mistakes of the present system, in allowing incompe- tents to clog the progress of classes. Besides, our examiners will commit errors only of detail, and these could easily be rectified by the regular teacher; and if he shotild share in any serious blunder, pupils could always resort to private tuition." "Between ourselves (I won't tell anyone), isn't this classification of pupils into sections of those possessing the three qualities, those possessing only two and so on — isn't the whole thing an artistic chinoiserie? Do you seriously believe it to have any practical, sensible, useful object?" "Yes, Mr. So-and-So, a highly practical, sensible, and useful object. The object of not exacting from pupils more than they are capable of giving : of carrying each one as far as he can go; of not discouraging the less gifted ones by making them associate with those to whom their labotu^ are child's play: of not exposing bom musicians to the temptation to slack, by permit- ting them to compete with their slower-witted compan- ions. I say again, music is an art rather than a science. To learn music it is not enough to be clever; it is necessary in addition to be something of an artist. To confine school music-teaching to elementary facts is to bring it down to the level of the mediocre, and to Digitized by VjOOQ IC 44 Rhythm, Music, and Education impede the free development of the naturally gifted. If you are going to deny these a more complete train- ing, you might as well give them none at all, for school- children— boys especially — have little time for private art studies. Initiate schools into art, but not spurious art. Display all its beauties to those whom a judicious examination has shown to be capable of appreciating them. As for the others, put them in special classes. These children of average capacity so segregated will no long^ have their natural instincts of emulation damped by the knowledge that, however well they work, they can never come out on top. They will progress according to their powers, and will leave school with a moderate appreciation of music, trained to fill their place in the art world, as intelligent amateurs and members of musical societies. As for the talented, they will push forward, freed from their shackles, and giving full rein to their natiu^ instincts. Their goal, further removed and higher, will be more difficult to attain: that will not deter them, once they are able to spread their wings. The teacher will lead them to the point whence they can clearly discern it, and thence, guided by their instinct, by dint of hard work, sustained by faith and courage, they will attain it . . » our artists of to-morrow!" If you ask a teacher which is the best method of tuition, he will not reply point blank, * * Mine !" — ^modesty being one of the pedagogic virtues. But the chances are that the method he will proceed to recommend will be really his. You will recognise it, incidentally, by analogy with the character of its creator. According Digitized by VjOOQ IC Music Teaching in Schools 45 as he may be a pedant, a hustler, a tool, or a poseur^ the method will be artificial, foolish, hustling, or pe- dantic. What is more, children exposed to this method, unless they possess highly individual temperaments, will turn out pedants, hustlers, fools, or poseurs. As siu^y as men are descended from apes, so surely children, trained on obsolete methods, show a tendency to revert to that status. The true educator's task should be, while guiding the child's will, to bring his individual qualities ^o light. It is better to provide him with the means of choosing between good and evil, beauty and ugliness, than to show him either only the good and beautiful or only the bad. His spirit should be kindled with a faint glow which increases with its own reflection. In Montaigne's words: "The child's imagination should be stimulated to a frank ciuiosity as to the things we wish him to learn, and guided, by judiciously whetting his appetite for knowledge." The best method of teaching is that which, from the start, offers the pupil a problem which neither his memory nor his instinct for imitation can help him to solve. After a year of preliminaries, of rhythmic exercises, which at once ap- pease the child's need for movement and recreation, and inaugtuate his physical and mental development — after a course of training for the lips and tongue pro- vided by the study of vowels and consonants — singing lessons proper may safely be embarked upon. At this stage, the commencement of the technical side of the training, the music master's first care shotdd be to make the child appreciate the difference between tones and semitones. So long as he is imable to distinguish these infallibly, whether in singing or listening, any Digitized by VjOOQ IC 46 Rhythm, Music and Education attempt at approaching another stage of the course would be an error analogous to teaching the words of a language before the letters are known. I venture to assert that nine tenths of singing and instrumental masters set their pupils to learn scales before they have attained anything like proficiency in this elementary course. Under these conditions, how are children ever to learn to recognise keys or acquire a sound compre- hension of music? Every sound method of teaching music must be based on the hearing, as much as on the emission, of sounds. If the hearing faculties of a pupil are weak, they must be developed before he imdertakes the study of theory. The noise of a drum calls for neither analy- sis nor reflection (that is why the drtmi is so essentially a military instrument). To many children, all sound is merely a noise, and it would be manifestly absurd to commence their training with a comparative study of noises. Only by the application of thought will they come to recognise the point where sound supersedes noise. Their thought diould therefore be stimulated and given a direction: there will be time enough after- wards to start training their memories. "Memory," wrote Diderot, "only preserves traces of sensations and consequent mental processes that have had the degree of force to produce vital impressions." And here we approach the vexed but important question of absolute pitch, that is, the innate and natu- ral perception of the place of each soimd in the whole gamut of soimds, and of the correspondence between the soimd and conventional word (or letter) by which it is known. There are children who, as soon as they Digitized by VjOOQ IC Music Teaching in Schools 47 have leamt the names of the notes, will announce on hearing a sound: "That's an A, an E, an P sharp." without requiring any further thought than if they were to pronounce a tree in spring as being green. Many pedagogues believe absolute pitch to be innate and incapable of acquirement by practice. Well and good; but practice can certainly create * 'relative" pitch. Once the child is sufficiently advanced to appreciate, without ever making a mistake (specialists will under- stand the importance of this "ever") the difference between the tone and the semitone, it is possible by comparison and suggestion to establish in his mind an immediate correspondence between a note and its name. This training should set in motion a constant associa- tion of sub-conscious ideas. The means of awakening and co-ordinating these ideas forms the natural basis of a sound method of music teaching. Otir space here being limited, we must refer readers to special works for further information on this subject. We pause merely to record our firm conviction, based on consid- erable experience, that relative pitch is capable of being developed, by means of training, in everyone possess- ing a good ear, provided such training be commenced at an early age and precede the study of an instrument. Absolute pitch, incidentally, is only indispensable to a musician who proposes to teach music, and if I have laboured the need for bringing it out in the child, it is only because — be it remembered — our training is designed to prepare the most talented students for the profession of music teachers. As soon as pupils can distinguish between tones and semitones, they can commence the comparative study Digitized by VjOOQIC 48 Rhythm, Music, and Education of scales, that is, the successions of tones and semitones which give the character of a key. In this connection, we venture to mention a little plan we ourselves have adopted, as a result of considerable professional ex- perience. Each scale being formed from the same suc- cession of tones and semitones, in unvarying order, the pupil will only be able to distinguish one from an- other from the position of its tonic. The inter-relations of scales will escape him, since, to his ear, the scale of A flat, for example, would be merely the melody of the scale of C transposed to a minor sixth higher, or a major third lower. But if you make him trace the succession of notes of the scale of A flat commencing from C, the tonic of the scale of C (namely: C, D flat, E flat, P, G, A flat, B flat, C), the pupil will see at once that the mel- ody differs from that of the scale of C. He will notice that the tones and semitones are not in the same posi- tions, and (being familiar with the order of tones and semitones in a scale extending from tonic to tonic) will be able, by remarking the places they occupy in the scale in question, to find the tonic for the scale, and so identify the key. By this means a pupil may learn in a year to distinguish any key. The choice of C as the initial note enables any voice to sing all the scales, identifying them from the variations involved in the order of succession of tones and semitones. In other systems this would be impracticable with children whose voices have not a large compass, or beginners restricted to a small register. Indeed, apart from the compass of the voice, the old systems depend on tedious effects of transposition, and, if they allow the singing of certain scales at their true pitch, they neglect to Digitized by VjOOQIC 00 > C O o u C O Digitized by VjOOQ IC Digitized by VjOOQ IC Music Teaching in Schools 49 inculcate the inter-relations of the scales which is practicable only by our method of varying the succes- sion of notes between the tonics of C. Another advantage of our system is that, before long, it so impresses the C on the memory, that a student is enabled to sing to pitch, without resorting to the ttming-fork. It is invaluable from the point of view of mtisic-hearing. The pupil trained by our method has no difficulty in discerning the key of any piece, thanks to the perception of the alterations eflEected in the tonic scale of C, and, accustomed to sing any interval in any setting (that is in any key), he will be able to recognise any note irrespective of the instrument that produces it. It is, therefore, of the highest importance that the teacher should engrave the f tmdamental C on the memo- ries— in the very gullets, we might say — of his pupils. ' He should also, in furtherance of his main object, im- pose, as a set-off to exercises of intonation, what one might c^ exercises of recognition or appellation, just as in the primary school reading and writing are taught simultaneously. On leaving the solf6ge course, the student should be able to name the notes in an exercise sung by another, as well as to sing them himself. To achieve this result, the master should accustom him from the first to identify the key in which another stu- dent is singing a stock exercise; next, to name or write at dictation the notes of an exercise taken at haphazard ; finally, to distinguish any notes in any key. I cannot over-emphasise the importance of this training; it pro- * Or the A, or any other note; but C has the advantage of being the tonic of the typescale. The sensation of its sound is impressed by the CMLtivation of the muscular sense. Digitized by VjOOQIC 50 Rhythm, Music, and Exlucation vides, so to speak, a double development of musical faculties. But whether oneadoptsmy system oranother is of little matter. The essential is that the study of keys should be undertaken as conscientiously and as meticulously as possible. The course should extend over two or three years, or even more — ^long enough, in any case, to enable us to say of the pupil's Imowledge of the inter-relations of the keys that, in the phrase of Montaigne: "It is not incorporated in the spirit, but attached to it; for the soul should be widened, not merely soaked in a thing, and if it is not to be enlarged by learning, better leave it alone altogether." Once the scales are mastered, the remaining musical studies — ^with the material exception of those of a rhythmic order — ^will be child's play, the pupil finding an explanation for everjrthing by reference to the scales : intervals will be seen as fragments of scales, with intermediate sounds left out; chords as notes of a scale on top of one another; resolutions as the property given to notes of a scale left suspended to continue their progress; modulation as the linking of one scale with another. . . . Everything relating to melody and harmony is impUdt in the comparative study of keys, and becomes thereafter only a question of ter- minology and classification. There remains the element of rhythm, whidi is also of the highest importance. Analogous to absolute pitch we may find an instinctive feeling for rhythm, which may be awakened and developed by practice. The gift of musical rhythm is not a mere mental Digitized by VjOOQ IC Music Teaching in Schools 5^ affair; it is physical in essence. Diderot calls it "the very image of the soul reproduced in the inflexions of the voice, the successive variations of passages of a speech,, accelerations, deliberations, sparkles, gulps, punctuated in a htmdred different ways." For our part, we r^;ard it as the reflex of instinctive corporal movements, and as dependent on the gait, balance, and general harmony of those movements. If a child, in good health and otherwise without phjrsical defect, shows some irregularity in his gait, this irregularity wiU correspond in music to an irr^^ular manner of measuring time. If, through lack of balance in his movements, he finds difficulty, according as he starts with the left or right foot, in accentuating by a stamp, each first step of an alternating series in 2, 3, or 4 time he will have the same difficulty in accentuating musically the first beats in bars of |, |, or |. If, in making four steps, he has a tendency to make the fourth shorter than the first, or vice versa, just the same awkwardness will be reflected in his musical execution. • . . A r^ular step is the natural apportioner of time into equal fractions, and is the model of what we call measure. The emphasis of one step in two, in three, or in four respectively creates metrical accentuation. And where, in the course of a series of equal steps, a movement of the hand emphasises now one step, now another, the gesture at once creates pathetic rhythmic accentuation. Set a child to sing while in motion; if his steps do not coincide with the beat of the time he is singing, or which others may be singing, he is lacking in a natural sense of time-measure. If he is tmable at will to accenttiate one or another of the steps, he is Digitized by VjOOQ IC 52 Rhythm, Music, and Education lacking in a natural sense of rhythm. And jtist as one may teach a deaf-mute to speak by means of lip-move- ments, which have no correspondence, in his mind, to the idea of hearing, so, by accustoming the body to regular sjrmmetrical movements under the control of eye and muscular senses, a feeling for musical rhythm may be produced in an a-rhythmic pupil. For, as La Rochefoucauld puts it: "We are more disposed to in- dolence in otir minds than in our bodies, and good physical habits conduce to good mental ones." Repeated **squad" drill produces regularity of step in our soldiers. If we could train them to co-ordinate this regularity with that demanded by musical measure they would soon learn to sing in time. In respect of accentuation, on the other hand, military training has a bad effect on the body, as on the mind. It vitiates natural balance by concentrating on the left foot and the right arm. With its invariable ''left, right," it tends to inhibit the sense of rhythmic co-ordination. If only military instructors would train their men to start off alternately with the left and right foot, to "change arms" more frequently, to accentuate their march to 3, 4, 5, and 6 time, in various tempi, and sometimes alternating the time-beat, they wotdd see how far less mechanical, and consequently less fatigu- ing, marching would become, and what far more flexible and quick-witted men they would turn out. They would further demonstrate that rhythmic-mtmco/ were developed along with rhythxmc-physical capacities, and so help to procure the introduction of these preliminary exercises into our schools. We should likewise enlist the support of mothers, if Digitized by VjOOQ IC Music Teaching in Schools S3 they could only realise how their daughters, by means of these exercises, would lose their inveterate awkward- ness and stiffness, and acquire that unaffected grace produced by harmony of movements, which is no more than complete self-expression. Once regularity of gait and correct accentuation are developed, it will remain only to enlighten pupils as to the relations between them and the division of time in music into equal parts, accentuated according to cer- tain rules. The analogy will quickly establish itself. We emphatically recommend any method, tending to the study of rhythm, by means of exercises in cadenced marching. These could quite well be taught in kinder- gartens, independently of music, in the form of gym- nastics. The child cotdd be trained in a whole series of combinations of steps, without being made aware that they were based on combinations of musical time-values. When one came later to teach him the value of notes, and to recognise their formations, one wotdd have merely to remind him of his old marching exercises to provide him with a metrical model as natural as it was easy to follow — just as there are dancers to whom the musical phrases of a ballet are only recalled by think- ing of the steps by which they have learnt to represent them. ... Is it generally realised that a child who can dance the polka has plumbed the mysteries of a I measure, consisting of two quavers followed by a crochet, and that an oarsman has similarly mastered I time composed of a minim and a crochet? Let us advance on empiric principles, in the light of these admittedly healthy activities. The child delights in all manner of games in which his body may participate. Digitized by VjOOQIC 54 Rhythm, Music, and Education Gratify this instinct, and apply it to our scheme for the education of the future. There is nothing to be ashamed of in it. Let us be children with children; it will be time enough to replace our spectacles when we come to discuss music witii adtdt amateurs. Finally, phrasing and shading must be learnt; and this part of the training will produce positive enthtisi- asm, relieving the monotony of certain exercises with a wealth of poesy and beauty. Oh, the old-school nuances of musical interpretation ! The cresc«idos, the ffs, the pp's executed to order, without a pupil knowing why, or feeling the slightest need for them; when the whole art of phrasing and shading is so easy to explain, so natural, so attractive, so susceptible of immediate response from the child the least versed in questions of technique! It should appeal especially to us Swiss, compatriots of that marvellous theorist, Mathis Lussy, ' who has codified the laws of expression into a unique book, * a monument of wisdom and artistic penetration ! I do not suggest that this book should be placed in the hands of the children themselves, who could hardly be expected to grasp its infinite subtleties, but, in Heaven's name, let us introduce it into the colleges, and set every music master to study it, and assimilate its smallest details! They will there learn how everjrthing in music can be related to ftmdamental physiological laws; how each nuance, each accent has its raison-d'Ure; how, finally, a melodic phrase, with its expressive and ' We had the misfortune to lose this man of genius in 1909. The Association des Musiciens Suisses oommissioned M. Monod to write a study of his work, and published it in 1913. ' Musical Expression: London, Novello & Co. Digitized by VjOOQ IC Music Teaching in Schools 55 rhythmic interpretation, forms an organic entity, and how intimately it is related to its harmonisation. They will be shown how melody is constructed on the model of the spoken word, and how, like the latter, it can be punctuated by commas, full stops, and new paragraphs. And, thus familiarised with the laws of musical prosody, so wonderfully expotmded by Mathis Lussy, they will assist this reformer in purging our collections of national songs of the numerotis faults that disfigure them and will learn themselves to compose choral works and ballads in which poesy and music go hand in hand, complementing and vitalising each other. Once they commence teaching their pupils the real elements of shading and phrasing, they will be astounded and delighted to observe the interest they evoke and the joy with which they are applied. We are too apt to appeal to the child's instinct for imitation, to the detriment of his sense of analysis and his inventive faculties. In Pascal's words, "It is dangerous to let the child see how like an animal he is, without also ^ showing him the grandeur and nobility that is in him." The child loves nothing so much as to construct and embellish, according to his fancy, things that appeal to him. Similarly, he wants lessons which give scope for individuality. Once he has learnt the primary rules of shading, he will never want to sing a tune without being allowed to embellish it with its natural comple- ments— rhythmic and emotional expression and accen- tuation. Reading will be mere drudgery to him. But you will have only to say: "Now sing that with expression," and his eyes will gleam, his face light up with joy. The tune will at ooce appeal to him, because Digitized by VjOOQ IC 56 Rhythm, Music, and Education he is to be allowed to give something of himself to it. He will sing it with all his soul, only concerned to add to its charm and life. And when he has come to an end, and you ask him, "What mistakes have you made?" how shrewdly he will know and tell you of the false or omitted nuances! with what conviction he will cry, "My rhjrthm was all wrong; I sang too loud, I forgot to slow down!" And how he will love to try again, to embellish it, to commimicate his vitality to it, to per- meate it with his spirit! All children feel a craving to create, and the teacher should lose no opporttmity of turning this disposition to account. He should set them, from their earliest lessons, to improvise short phrases of two bars, then four, then eight, or to replace a bar of a melody by one of their own composition. He will find them revelling in such exercises, and making rapid progress in improvising. Let him further appoint different pupils to judge their comrades' efforts, and he will note that their instinct for criticism and an- alysis is as strong as that for creation, and that, with practice, children can speedily acquire a really subtle and discriminating judgment — asstuning, of course, that they are provided with sound models on which to develop their taste and discernment. FinaJly, the choice of songs for purposes of school study is a matter of no less importance. Apart from folk-songs, the interpretation of which should be con- fined to Section H. {vide supra), the repertoire of Sec- tion I. should contain more difficult classical pieces, but adapted to the scope of children. We should like, in conclusion, to recommend to educational authorities a liberal programme of performances in public (which far Digitized by VjOOQ IC Music Teaching in Schools 57 from disturbing regular studies, provide a most whole- some diversion in school life), open air festivities, and walks to the accompaniment of singing — ^by this means turning the lessons to practical use, and introducing music into the real life of the school. . . . Music lessons will never be really satisfactory until they result inevitably in giving the child a genuine taste for singing, both solo and choral, and for listening to good music — ^the most stimulating and comforting of the arts, the only one that enables us to express the heart of hearts in us, and to sense the emotions common to all creation. . . • Digitized by VjOOQ IC Digitized by VjOOQ IC CHAPTER III "THE YOUNG LADY OP THE CONSERVA- TOIRE AND THE PIANO" (1905) Colleges of music formerly and to-day — The piano, the ear, and music — WhcU does the piano student learn outside of technique and the interpretation of the score? — Music at home and in the concert-room — Advantages to piano teachers of previous general musical education in the pupil — An appeal to professional pianists. 59 Digitized by VjOOQIC Digitized by VjOOQ IC CHAPTER III "the young lady of the conservatoire and the piano" (1905) "What a glow there is about you, Mr. So-and-So! You've got some big business up your sleeve, I'll be bound!" "Not a bit of it, only, my daughter Leonora has just passed with honours her pianoforte exam, at the College of Music. I won't deny that I'm somewhat elated by the happy event. It's gratifying to fed that one's daughter is such a good musician." "You regard her progress as a pianist, then, as proof of her musical development?" "WeU, naturally." "You are mistaken, Mr. So-and-So. A pianoforte training has not always either the object or the restilt of cultivating musical capacities. On the contrary, too often it does not go beyond providing a useless musical technique to persons who are not musical. "Formerly all musicians, without exception, were versed in every side of musical technique: to-day this all-round education is only given to composers. The schools of music are filled with young men and women possessing good fingers, lungs, vocal chords, and wrists, but lacking alike a good ear, intelligence, and 'soul.' These young people imagine that they have only to learn 61 Digitized by VjOOQ IC 62 Rhythm, Music, and Education to play an instrument to become master-musicians; and the public, for the most part, is incapable of distin- guishing between an artist and a virtuoso. In the old days, the latter had to be an artist; to-day he is often no- thing more than an artisan. Just as in former times ca- binet-makers and glass-blowers were at once creators and workmen, themselves devising the models they exe- cuted, while, nowadays, they are content to imitate the old models, or to execute the artistic conceptions of paid designers. There you have an example of artistic decline to which too little attention is given — ^but to the matter in hand. ** Three-quarters of the students who enter schools of music are not bom musicians. Before embarking on lessons suitable for students with good ear, exceptional sensibilities, and fine taste, less accomplished students should receive a preparatory training in ear, sensibility, and taste. Without that they can derive no real benefit from music lessons — they will become mere parrots or apes instead of musicians and men.'' "Do you really believe that training can make a bad ear good?" **The ear can most certainly be trained." ' ' Or that it can give a person musical understanding ?' ' ''It will develop such, if it is susceptible of develop- ment. ''That it can create musical taste?'* "It will awaken and mould it, if the germ exists." "Aha! your reply satisfies me that your famous special training will have no effect on persons devoid of musical aptitude." "The conventional system can't make a musician of Digitized by VjOOQ IC ^ Young Lady of the Conservatoire '* 63 a deaf man. The trouble is that it makes a pianist of him! and therein lies the whole folly of the business. In amateurs possessing the rudiments of taste, and a moderate ear, neither is developed, but only fingers. Those without any capacity whatever are taught the use of the pedal I and all these four-handed creatures dare to criticise music and musicians on the strength of knowing the A B C of pianoforte technique. Ah, Mr. So-and-So, the piano is the modem Golden Calf!" * * Don't excite yourself, my good sir. You artists can never keep your tempers." "Not you amateurs your tempi T' ''Come, come ! Let us discuss the matter calmly and rationally. You tell me that children should not be taught the piano?" "I didn't say that. I merely contend that an ama- teur should learn music before he touches the piano." ''But the piano is music!" "The barrel-organ is also music, but people are not taught it. However, we will discuss the matter calmly, and rationally, as you propose. Do you know what an amateur is?" "An amateur of music — derived from the Latin anuUor, from the verb amare — ^is, my dear friend, a person who loves music." "Very good. And now tell me this, my friend. Do you love your wife?" "Do I—? What a question!" "Of course you love her, I know; she has told me so herself. . . . And do you know her?" "Do I—? What ar^ you talking about?" ' ' One moment ! You know the colour of her eyes, her Digitized by VjOOQ IC 64 Rhythm, Music, and Education hair, her complexion? You know her preferences, her tastes, her aptitudes ? You know, so to speak, your way about both her mind and heart? " "Of course I do." "I admit my question was absurd. You love your wife and you know her. You love her because you know her, and if you didn't know her you wouldn't love her. Well, let me tell you, there are amateur pianists who love the piano without knowing anything of music, but simply out of a desire to imitate people who love the piano because they know it. Now I contend that one can really love and continue to love someone or some- thing, music or woman (the two things are of the same essence) only provided one knows that someone or something. And that, accordingly, before everything else, our future amateur musicians should be brought to know this music that they love, perhaps instinctively, but which they can never truly love until they know it properly." ''Well, and the piano ?" "The piano represents music in the same way as the photograph of Madame So-and-So represents your wife. The photograph recalls to you the features of a lady with whose moral and intellectual qualities you are intimately acquainted. The piano recalls to your ear thoughts whose depth, charm, and poetry you should likewise be in a position to appreciate. Hie basis of the training to be given amateurs should be the study not of the mechanical means of expression, but of the thoughts that are to be expressed. Once a child can sing correctly, assimilate melodies, analyse chords and melodic successions, distinguish rhythms, phrase infal- Digitized by VjOOQ IC "Young Lady of the Conservatoire** 65 libly, appreciate fonns, produce vocal shadings and accentuations with taste — well, then, you may justi- fiably sit him down before a piano. After fotir years of apprenticeship at the instrument, he'll know more than he'd have leamt in six years without having first studied aural training, and, what's more important, he'll know it better." '•Well, well, well! If you insist, we'll grant you your solfdge; all the same, fingers are an important element in pianoforte playing, and solfdge alone won't make them flexible." •'Your point is a sound one. The fingers of the pianist of the future will necessarily be submitted to a special gymnastic course conducive to flexibility. But this course will be independent of the study of the piano, and will not be of a specially musical character." • • In that case, the fingers will play incorrectly, the mo- ment they're put to the piano, despite all your solf^e." •* Perhaps but the ear, as a result of the thorough training accorded it, will at once correct the mistakes of the fingers, and control the latter. Thus, from the first lesson, the fingers will be subservient to musical taste, whereas, under the present system, finger exer- cises/orm the taste." "The cart before the horse?" *• Exactly ! I take off my hat to you. Not only have you come round to my way of thinking, but you take the words out of my mouth." •'You were speaking of piano lessons to commence after fotir years of solf ^e. How are you going to con- duct these lessons?" "With a view to the attainment of their aim. . . . Digitized by VjOOQ IC 66 Rhythm, Music, and Education Tell me, what is your daughter Leonora learning at the moment, after — ^is it not? — twelve years at the Conservatoire?" ''Eleven and a half only, my friend! Leonora is at present studying Liszt's second Rhapsody, a pretty hard piece, I can tell you!" "Splendid! And how long has yotir daughter been on the Rhapsody?" "Only two months. But she's got it at her finger- ends at last." * * Splendid ! And having it at her finger-ends, she has it in her head as well, I suppose. She understands the structure-^ — ?" "Seeing that she knows it by heart!" "She can follow the modulations?" "Of course!" "She told you so?" "I never asked her." "Her master asked her, I expect?" "No doubt." "Splendid! And what was Miss Leonora playing before the Rhapsody?" "Beethoven's sonata, *Les Adieux.' " "Does she still play it?" "Not exactly. You know these very diffictdt pieces require the deuce of a lot of keeping up." "But . . . she knows Beethoven?" "What a question, such a well-known composer!" "I mean ^e knows other works of his besides that sonata?" "She has played also the Concerto in E flat and the 'Ruins of Athens.'" Digitized by VjOOQ IC "Young Lady of the Conservatoire" 67 "And what about the pieces she hasn't played?" **If you imagine she has time to leam pieces she can't play!" "She could leam the principal motifs of other famous sonatas, of the quartets, of the nine Symphonies." "Well, I confess " "And to come back to the Concerto, does she know that it was written with orchestral accompaniment?" ' * Of course ! It's written on the score. ' ' "She knows what an orchestra is?" "Who doesn't?" "She can distinguish a bassoon from a clarinet?" "I should hope so." "An oboe from a flute?" "Pooh! the oboes are held vertically, the flutes horizontally." "But I was speaking of their sounds." "Oh,/M/ ..." "Does she know an English horn?" "Who doesn't ken John Peel ? ' Oh, the sound of his horn brought me from my bed! ' " "I see. And so an English horn is just a horn?" "Made in England." "Delightful! . . . Now tell me, Mr. So-and-So, if you'll forgive my indiscretion. I take it your daughter, in the bosom of her family, of an evening, will run through the most exquisite passages of the classical and modem composers ? ' ' "Not very often. In the first place — to be qtiite honest — ^her time's not all that it should be. . . . Besides, she has so little leisure for playing. . . . She's always working at her latest piece." Digitized by VjOOQIC 68 Rhythm, Music, and Education ''Quite. And this latest piece, what is her object in learning it?" **To train her fingers." "And her object in training her fingers?" ''To be able to play her piece." "Hm! and where will she play it?" "At her college exam." "Is that all?" "Possibly at a students' concert." "What for?" "To show the progress she's made, and accustom herself to playing in public." "Does she intend to become a virtuoso?" "Oh no, but " "Before whom will she play at this concert?" "Before a gathering of friends." "Will the press be represented?" "NaturaUy." "And the papers will mention your daughter?" ' * I should think so. They've already cracked her up." "They've mentioned her name, your name?" "They have indeed! And I was really rather proud, I can tell you. You should have heard my friends at thecaf6! . . . All, except Dr. Thingtminiybob, whose daughter has never been chosen to play at a concert. He looked rather glum. . . ." "Well, I congratulate you. But will you bear with me a little further?" "Go ahead!" "Does Miss Leonora take part in ensemble playing?" "Once a week at the College." "Not in her home?" Digitized by VjOOQ IC "Young Lady of the Conservatoire" 69 ''My dear sir, unfortunately, neither her mother nor I play a note.'' ' * But at the Collie she has her comrades — ^her pianist and violinist friends? Possibly she has made the acquaintance of a handsome young 'cellist?'' "What an idea!" "I only thought ... A college, congenial surround- ings, a sincere desire to make music, reading interesting new works . . . and duet-playing is so delightful! . . . However! And, no doubt, your daughter studies singing?" "Of course!" "How splendid for you! How you must revel in the exquisite ballads of Schubert, Schumann, Faur6, Wolff, Cornelius, Robert Franz, Max Reger, Grieg, Sibelius, Chausson, Ropartz, d'Indy, Debussy, de Br6ville! . . . What a treat for you!" "Hm! Leonora doesn't go in for ballads so much. The opera's more her line." "Oh! Does she intend to make it her career?" "Good Lord, no! She sings excerpts from operas, because they give them to her to sing!" "All the same, she must, as a singer, be well up in the classical and contemporary masters of song?" "Not particularly. She knows a little Schubert and Schumann, I believe, . . . the best known." "But the others, the numerous others?" "She hasn't time." "Of course. I was forgetting. . . . Another question. When your daughter calls on one of her friends, and is asked to try the piano, is she able to improvise a few chords?" Digitized by VjOOQ IC 70 Rhythm, Music, and Education **No; but she always has a piece in reserve for these occasions." "But can she improvise? It's so useful, after finish- ing one piece, to be able to lead up to the next by a few modulations." **She doesn't require to; she's never asked for more than one piece." "But for her own purposes?" "Oh, she doesn't bother about leading up to another piece when she's by herself." "She can accompany songs, I suppose?" "She's tried her hand at it; but, you know, singers are so difficult to follow. ..." "Can she transpose accompaniments higher or lower at request?*' "Not herself. She gets them written out for her." "If you recall a tune of your youth, can she play it by ear?" "You're joking! She's only an amateur, not a real musician." "Still, I suppose she can rattle off, for the benefit of her young brothers and sisters, folk-tunes which she doesn't happen to possess in print?" "Oh, we've always the means of buying them." "At your family parties, she can oblige with a little dance music, I presume?" "Sometimes; but, you know, we don't like her to play dance music. ... It requires such a lot of practice to keep time properly." * * I agree, it requires practice. And in twelve years — I beg your pardon, eleven and a half — ^it is evident that — But tell me frankly, do you not sometimes re- Digitized by VjOOQ IC "Young Lady of the Conservatoire* 71 gret that your daughter isn't able to play dance music, and with the right verve?" "I won't conceal it from you, I do regret it." "And the rest — do you regret that, too?" "The rest?" "Yes, the rest : those lost evenings at the fireside with your daughter reeling off beautiful melodies while her mother sews and you smoke your pipe; those missing accompaniments from ear to the tunes of yotir youth; that knack, as her hands wander over the keys, of refreshing heart and ear by some impromptu strains — to give form to her thoughts, her dreams, her little joys and sorrows? . . . The rest? All the' other things I enumerated, and which look so easy, and which your daughter can't do, though she can execute so admirably that difficult Rhapsody of Liszt that you are so fond of hearing — and that, I'll bet, you've heard often enough.'* "Well, the piano is in the drawing-room, next to my study. ..." "That's nice for you, isn't it?" "No, it isn't nice for me, I can tell you! And if it weren't for her concerts and the papers and Dr. Thing- ummybob — But you're leading me on to make such confessions, . . . you mocker!" "Say, rather, comforter. The story of Miss Leonora is the story of nearly every young girl who spends twelve years of her life " "Eleven and a half!" "Who spends eleven and a half years of her life in practising scales to enable her to play Liszt's second Rhapsody— which a pianola, without any practice, Digitized by VjOOQ IC 12 Rhythm, Music, and Education can play far better — and who, a fortnight after the exam, or concert, won't be able to play eight bars of it without breaking down ! She devotes eleven and a half years of her life to studying the piano without giving a moment's thought to music, without knowing any- thing of the great composers and their styles, and their works; without being able to express her own thoughts by a few simple chords; without knowing how to accompany or transpose, or play chamber music; without even being able to provide dance music for her friends; without giving her father and mother a little satisfaction, which isn't just pride, ... for 1*11 bet Miss Leonora declines to play her grand Rhapsody in her own family circle?" ''Resolutely!" "She declines because she's always between two diffi- cult pieces; one of which she is learning, the other for- getting; the result being that she can play only one or the other at a given hotu-, a given minute. She and her ntunerous comrades have neither understanding nor love for music. For proof, you have only to wait till they marry, when they give it up without a pang. Your regrets, Mr. So-and-So, which are shared by all fathers, by all real musicians, satisfy me that I am right in advocating a reform of our system of teaching music. This reform is simple and practicable. It ap- plies not only to the piano, but to every instrument, and to the voice. It consists in including in the curriculum practical exercises for the training of the ear and the taste, and for the awakening of the individuality of the pupil; in familiarising amatetu-s with the beautiful, in acquainting them with the styles of the classical Digitized by VjOOQ IC "Youiig Lady of the Conservatoire*' 73 masters, in enabling them to compare and analyse them ; in furnishing them with a mechanism adequate for reading fairly difl&cult pieces without mistakes, and with the technical and aesthetic equipment for interpret- ing works with feeling, but without sentimentality, with ^passion, but without hysteria, with rhjrthm, but with- out show. Always provided that pupils, gifted with powers of so high an order as to enable them to in- terpret pieces of extreme virtuosity, instinctively and witihout the slightest sacrifice of style, be permitted to pursue their technical bent; but not, in Heaven's name, before the moulding of their spirit and heart to the understanding and love of the art! . . . We as- pire by these means to produce a race of amateurs who will attend concerts no longer out of snobbishness, but from a yearning for beauty, who will appreciate the works they hear, because they have taken the trouble to familiarise themselves with their structure and ana- lyse their content. Pupils destined for an artistic career will no longer have their progress impeded by the participation in their studies of budding ama- teurs. They will strive incessantly to overcome the technical diflBculties that are daily intensifying; and will take up the study of philosophy, ethics, and aes- thetics, indispensable to the artist of to-day. As to those pianoforte teachers — and they are many — who, victims of circtmistances, are obliged to inculcate the technique of the piano into young people ignorant of the fundamental laws of music, they will heave a sigh of relief at finding themselves discharged from their thankless occupation as teachers of scales and arpeggios and will be only too happy and proud to change their Digitized by VjOOQIC 74 Rhythm, Music, and Education vocation to that of the music-teacher of old — ^initiators into the cult of eternal beauty.** ''I quite realise the importance of this reform: I appreciate all its advantages. . . . But the applica- tion of your ideas, the programme to be carried out, the technical means of accomplishing the artistic results you have in mind — ^what a complicated, if not utterly impracticable, business!" ''On the contrary, nothing will be simpler. We have first of all to submit our scheme to the professional musicians of our country ; to put this question to them : 'Is it possible to teach musically gifted children (i) to listen to and to hear music; (2) to read it; (3) to phrase and shade without merely imitating models; (4) to transpose; (5) to improvise; (6) to learn melodic and harmonic laws; (7) to possess a general idea of the progress of music throughout the ages, to know the great composers and their most important works, and to be able to quote them, and from them ; and (8) finally to understand and fed — ^that is, to lave — ^music?*" "There will be nothing further to ask. If our musi- cians reply in the affirmative, the reform will be accom- plished, for the means are easy in the extreme. It is simply a question of teaching what wasn't taught before.*' "And what, in your opinion, will be the reply of the musicians of our country?" "The reply will be in the affirmative." "And what will become of children absolutely anti- pathetic to music?" "Oh, they'll have to be eliminated." "You are an extremist, my friend I But having Digitized by VjOOQIC "Young Lady of the Conservatoire*' 75 received this reply in the aflSrmative, how will you next I?" ''We will approach the adherents of the old sjrstem, and we will say to them : 'Gentlemen, you have devoted time enough to the musical development of our people. We recognise and thank you for your perseverance, your zeal, your noble and artistic intentions, but we are persuaded that you are working on wrong lines. We want you to make our children musicians, and not mere virtuosos. The new methods are quite practicable. We will answer for them, if you will come into line, thereby rendering the highest service both to art and to your cotmtry.* . . . And what do you think the really intelligent and musical spirits among them will reply to that?'* "They will reply in the aflSrmative." "And the others — those that don't?" "Oh, they'll have to be eliminated." "You are an extremist now, Mr. So-and-SoI" Digitized by VjOOQIC Digitized by VjOOQ IC CHAPTER IV THE INITIATION INTO RHYTHM (1907) Ear, voice, and consciousness of sound — Body and con-- sciousness of rhythm — A nalysis of relations between movements of voice and those of whole muscular system — Movements in time and space — Necessity for developing vitality of muscular movements to make music alive — Gesture and rhythmic reac- tions— Birth of rhythmic thought (rhythmic feding) — Poly- rhythm and polydynamics— Physical capacity of different races — Necessity for collaboration of parents to establish a composite rhythmic culture. 77 Digitized by VjOOQIC Digitized by VjOOQ IC To my dMT fHsmd CHAPTER IV "^^i^!^' THE INITIATION INTO RHYTHM (1907) To be completely musical, a child should possess an ensemble of physical and spiritual resources and capaci- ties, comprising, on the one hand, ear, voice, and con- sciousness of sound, and, on the other, the whole body (bone, muscle, and nervous systems), and the conscious- ness of bodily rhythm. The ear enables us to perceive sound and rhjrthm, and to control this perception. The voice provides the means of reproducing sound, enabling us to realise the idea the ear has formed of a sotmd. Consciousness of sound is the faculty of the mind and whole being to "place," without recourse either to the voice or to an instrument, any succession or combina- tion of sounds, and to distinguish any melody or har- mony by comparing the sounds of which it is composed. This consciousness is acquired after repeated experi- ences of both ear and voice. By means of movements of the whole body, we may equip ourselves to realise and i)erceive rhythms. Consciousness of rhythm is the faculty of "placing" every succession and combination of fractions of time in all their gradations of rapidity and strength. This 79 Digitized by VjOOQIC 8o Rhythm, Music, and Education consciousness is acquired by means of muscular con- tractions and relaxations in every degree of strength and rapidity. No schoolmaster would set a child to draw some- thing with which he was not familiar, and before he knew how to handle a pencil. Nor would he begin to teach him geography before, having learnt to walk and gesticulate, he had acquired an elementary sense of space; i^or direct him to draw a map until he could not only handle a pencil and trace lines, but had also acquired both a sense of space and an idea of the lie of the coimtry. No one can exercise several faculties at the same time before he has acquired, however crudely, at least one faculty. Consciousness of sotmd can only be acquired by re- iterated experiences of the ear and voice; consciousness of rhythm by reiterated experiences of movements of the whole body. Since the practice of music demands the simultaneous co-operation of ear, voice, and muscu- lar system — and it is obviously impossible, in the early stages of music study, to train all these musical media at the same time — the question arises as to which of them should be attended to first. The movements that produce the voice in all its shades of pitch and loudness are of a secondary order, depending on the elementary rhythm of breathing. We are therefore left to choose between the muscular system and the ear, confining otu-selves to the capacity of each of these — ^not of forming sotmd, since this depends on the special muscular activity of breathing, but of exe- cuting and perceiving rhythms. The muscular system perceives rhjrthms. By means Digitized by VjOOQ IC The Initiation into Rhythm 8i of repeated daily exercises, muscular memory may be acquired, conducing to a clear and regular representa- tion of rhythm. The ear perceives rhythms. By means of repeated daily exercises, sound memory may be acquired, sharp- ening and stimulating the critical faculties. This will enable the student to compare the perception of sound rhythms with their representation. If, at this stage — working on the principle that execu- tion should precede perception and criticism — ^we com- pare the f tmctions of the ear with those of the muscular system, we arrive at the conclusion that the first place in the order of elementary music training should be accorded the muscular system. It may be objected that the perception of rhjrthm by a child does not necessitate its execution on the part of the child himself, the rhythmic and metrical move- ments effected by an object or by other individuals being equally capable of awakening in his body and mind the perception of those movements; and that, on the other hand, only the memory of rhythms perceived outside of himself will enable him to realise them in his own person. . . . However logical this argiunent may sound, I adhere to my opinion, fotmded on the observa- tion that a child's body possesses instinctively the essential element of rhythm which is sense of time. Thus: — (i) the beats of the heart, by their regularity, convey a clear idea of time, but they are a matter of unconscious activity, independent of the will, and therefore valueless for the purposes of execution and perception of rhythm. (2) The action of breathing provides a regular division of time, and is thus a model Digitized by VjOOQIC 82 Rhythm, Music, and Education of measure. The respiratory muscles being subject to the will, in however qualified a degree, we are able to operate them rhythmically, that is to say, to divide the time and accentuate each division by a stronger mus- cular tension. (3) A regular gait furnishes us with a perfect model of measure and tlie division of time into equal portions. Now the locomotor muscles are conscious muscles, subject to absolute control by the will. We therefore find in walking the nattu-al starting-point in the child's initiation into rhythm. But walking is only the starting-point, for the feet and legs are not the only limbs set in motion by con- scious muscles, and so available for the awakening and development of the consciousness of rhythm. This con- sciousness demands the co-operation of all conscious muscles, and thus a training of the whole body is re- quired to create rhythmic feeling. We may remark, in passing, that herein lies the complete condemnation of the present method of musical tuition, which consists in teaching a child an instrument before his organism has a clear and distinct consciousness of measured and rhythmic muscular movements. Muscles were made for movement, and rhythm is movement. It is impossible to conceive a rhjrthm with- out thinking of a body in motion. To move, a body requires a quantum of space and a quantum of time. The beginning and end of the movement determine the amount of time and space involved. Each depends on the gravity, that is to say (in relation to the limbs set in motion by the muscles), on the elasticity and muscu- lar force of the body. Digitized by VjOOQ IC The Initiation into Rhythm 83 If we assign in advance the ratio between the mtiscu- lar energy to be deployed and the quantum of space to be traversed, we determine thereby also the quantum of time. If we assign in advance the ratio between the muscu- lar force and the quantum of time, we thereby deter- mine the quantum of space. In other words, the finished movement is the product of the combination of muscular energy and the space and time involved in its formation. If we assign in advance the amounts of space and time it is incHspensable, in order to eflEect a movement in harmony, that we should have mastered our bodily mechanism: a lack of control would cause us either to exceed the space or curtail the time, while, on the other hand, a too long retention would result in either leaving a portion of the space uncovered or in exceed- ing the time. Neither weakness, stiffness, nor inat- tention should be permitted to modify the formation of a movement, and a properly executed rhjrthm re- quires, as a preliminary condition, complete mastery of movements in relation to energy, space, and time. To summarise the preceding observations, we may establish the following conclusions: — 1. Rhythm is movement. 2. Rhjrthm is essentially physical. 3. Every movement involves time and space. 4. Musical consciousness is the result of physical experience. 5. The perfecting of physical resources results in clarity of perception. 6. The perfecting of movements in time assures con- sciousness of musical rh3rthm. Digitized by VjOOQIC 84 Rhythm, Music, and Education 7. The perfecting of movements in spax^ assures con- sciousness of plastic rhythm. 8. The p«fecting of movements in time and space can only be accomplished by exercises in rhythmic movement. As trainers of body and ear, we are faced with two important questions. I . Should we exercise the limbs of a child ? Certainly we should. Music requires finger exercises, and hygiene demands the training of the rest of the body, without music. No harm is done in training the fingers of a pianist without reference to sound. Indeed, we have found numerous people, of good musical ear, so captivated by sound that they lose all sense of time, dtu-ation, and accentuation, and thus accustom them- selves to ignore it or treat it as of secondary importance. (Vide the so-called "d la Chopin" school of pianoforte playing.) If at the conunencement of a lesson sound is eliminated, rhythm attracts the whole attention of the pupil. Rhythm is the basis of all art. But in gym- nastics, of the hygienic and athletic orders, the body is exercised without reference to rhjrthm; and the smattering of regularity and symmetry with which the bodily movements of the class are invested, to facili- tate the supervision of the simultaneous movements of its members, serves neither to awaken nor to produce rhythmic consciousness. To develop the sense of rhjrthm in a child it is not enough to set him to execute regular and simultaneous movements; he must be ac- customed to movements of divers intensity, producing divisions of time whose different durations are in a musical rhythmic relation. Digitized by VjOOQ IC The Initiation into Rhythm 85 2. Should limbs other than the fingers be trained with a view to the appreciation of rhythm? Every conscientious observer will reply with an emphatic affirmative, for he will have noticed that defects in musical rhythmic expression are invariably results of physical defects in the musician. Moreover, while the most difficult exercises in complex movement are achieved with the greatest ease by pupils endowed with a sense of musical rhythm, however defective their physique, the simplest exercises present enormous diffi- culties to those who lack that sense, be they never so well proportioned. A person of rhythmic propensities always presents a certain harmony, an effect of perfect corporal balance; and physical grace can only be ac- quired or developed in children in corresponding degree to their instinct for rhythm. It may be noted that there is an intimate connection between rhjrthm in all its shades and gesture. A com- plete musician, to mark a sharp, vigorous accentua- tion, will shoot out his clenched fist; his thumb and first finger will unite to describe a fine, acute touch ; his hands will sway apart to indicate an effect of delicacy and softness. . . . His body is an involuntary medi- tun for the expression of thought. But there are in- complete musicians in whom this capacity for corporal expression requires developing with as much care as would be devoted to the exercising of weak fingers or rigid joints in a piano student. When a pupil at the piano commits an error in rh3rthm, the limbs of his teacher involtmtarily seek to rectify it, not merely by beating the time (that is a con- scious gesture, with a definite pedagogic aim), but by a Digitized by VjOOQIC 86 Rhythm, Music, and Education spontaneous effort of the whole body to put the accent in the right place. Not merely one of his limbs, but all his limbs simultaneously, stiffen, infusing energy into his muscles and conveying to the pupil the image of what he should have sensed in committing the error. For he himself should have been guided by the representation of rhythm, reflected in all the muscles of his body. The consciousness of rhythm once attained, thanks to the necessary exercises, produces a constant reciprocal in- fluence of the rhythmic action in its representation, and vice versa. The teacher, in expotmding rhythm by gesttu-e, transposes into movement the representation of his own consciousness, and involuntarily seeks, by this manifestation, to awaken its representation in the pupil, in order that the latter may forthwith transpose it into the form of movement appropriate to him. The rejwesentation of rhythm, the reflex of a rhythmic ac- tion, is potential in all our muscles. Inversely, rhyth- mic movement is the visible manifestation of rhythmic consciousness. The one follows the other in uninter- rupted sequence. They are indissolubly linked to- gether. Observe the movements by which a conductor of an orchestra, endowed with temperament, represents and transmits rhjrthm. Does he confine himself to move- ments of the arm alone in seeking to convey to the instrumentalists the image of the rhythm they are to create? By no means. His knees will stiffen, his foot will press against the platform, his back will straighten, his finger and wrist movements harden. His whole body will be seen to co-operate in his representation of the rhythm: each articulation, each muscle, contribut- Digitized by VjOOQ IC The Initiation into Rhythm 87 ing to render the rhythmic impression more intense; the aspect of his whole person becoming, in short, the reflected image of the movement of the music, and ani- mating the executants — ^his own representation of the rhythm being transmuted to them. Another example. After my little (or big) pupils have practised eurythmics for a certain time, I give them ' 'exercises in interrupted marching. * * They will execute a few bars of a rhythmic m^ch, then halt for a bar (later, for several bars), in the position of the last exe- cuted bar. The duration of the interruption, the pause, must be estimated and accentuated only in thought; it being strictly forbidden to cotmt out loud, or imder the breath, or to move any limb. Yet what do I find? Those who have not yet attained confidence in the faculty they are on the way to acquire (that of thinking in rhythm) seek to deceive me (and themselves too, perhaps) in employing muscles other than those of the leg to execute the rhythm. I catch movements of an eyelid, a nostril, a toe, even an ear, and I have had expressly to prohibit the beating of time with the tongue (while scarcely in a position to control it!) . . . And every musician, by experimenting on himself, will find that, after counting one or two bars mentally, he will feel resonating in his whole organism, so to speak, the echo of the time- value, and that, while he appears to be immobile, his muscles are invisibly collaborating with his mental process. Man instinctively feels rhythmic vibrations in all his conscious muscles; that is why it behoves a teacher of rhythm to train through and in rhythm the whole mus- cular system, so that every muscle may contribute its Digitized by VjOOQ IC 88 Rhythm, Music, and Education share in awakening, clarifying, moulding, and perfecting rhythmic consciousness. The training of the physical will, or the disciplining of the nerve-centres, consists not only in developing the necessary activity of the muscles, but also in learn- ing to reduce these to inaction in cases where their intervention is not required. This training has no place in the regular courses either of music or of gym- nastics, yet it is of the highest importance. Every piano-teacher will have noticed that pupils, on being initiated into the use of the pedal, find it much more difficult to remove their foot than to place it there, and more difficult to place it on a weak than on a strong beat. Repeated practice will overcome this inability of the foot to isolate itself from the influence of the hand; indeed, this special faculty comes naturally to gifted pupils. But is it wise to confide to Mother Nature the tuition of the less gifted? And would not even bom eurhythmists arrive far earlier at their goal if they were subjected to muscular training before attempting instrumental studies? It is the same with students of the violin, where bow hand is so difl&cult to free from the influence of the left hand, and it is also much more difficult to withdraw the fingers from the strings than to place them there. The explanation is that a decrescendo of muscular innervation is much more difficult to accomplish than a crescendo, just as the gradual acceleration is easier than the abatement of a movement. There is another important reason why, for the rhythmic training of man, it is necessary to exercise aU his limbs, and that is — that a child is rarely bom Digitized by VjOOQ IC The Initiation into Rhythm 89 polyrh5rthmic. To create in him the sense of simultane- ous rhy thms» it is indispensable that he shotild be made to execute, by means of different limbs, movements rep- resenting different durations of time. These exercises will enable him to subdivide bars into even shorter intervals of time. One limb, for example, may execute the quarter-values of the time, another the eighths, a third the sixteenths — or, by way of variation, one the quarter- values, another the same in syncopa- tion— and by this means he will attain the necessary facility in dissociating movements to enable him to practise and observe pol)rrhythm. While precise relations of time, space, and energy determine the form of the movement, rhythm demands different forms of movement for different accentuations (in other words, different degrees of muscular energy). Accordingly, the study of poljrrhythm involves that of polydynamics. Let us return to the conductor, who will express vio- lence with one hand and tenderness with the other, and at the same time signalises rhythms of different diu-ations, and we have a perfect illustration of the com- bination of poljrrhythm with polydynamics. It is es- sential that the rhythmician should possess absolute freedom of limb. To sum up: music is composed of soimd and move- ment. Sound is a form of movement of a secondary, rhythm of a primary, order. Musical studies should therefore be preceded by exercises in movement. Every limb — first separately, then simultaneously, finally the whole body — should be set in rhythmic motion; the resulting formations, i.e., the relations between the Digitized by VjOOQ IC 90 Rhythm, Music, and Education energy, space, and time involved, being carefully col- lated and regtdated. The mastery of muscular energy being essential for the perfect realisation of rhythm, the mtiscles should be subjected separately and simultaneously to dynamic exercises, involving gradations of force, successive transitions, and sudden contrasts — ^likewise contrasting simultaneous contrasts. The child should also be trained to introduce inter- vals of time between the movements to be set to rhythm or measure, so as to become conscious of his capacity for representing rhythm and acquire the mental per- ception of movement. He should then be taught to distinguish the movement from the soimd in musical rhythms, and to transpose them corporally and plastic- ally. Thereby his perceptions will be sharpened, his experience enlarged, his judgment moulded, and his ear habituated to discern rhythmic values without the aid of his eyes, and — once pitch is acquired — he will be able to hear soimd without the aid of his physical ear. By these divers methods of forming rhythmic con- sciousness, the pupil will come to appreciate time- values and their notation; his respiratory muscles, fully trained, will be entirely under his control, and he will be ready to imdertake, without risk to his voice, the study of tonality. When the tonal sense in its turn has been formed by daily exercises of the ear and voice, then will be the time, and not before, to resort to instrumental studies. The pupil, who will have ac- quired a perfect confidence in his consciousness of rhythm and sound, with a rich experience of forms of movement and perfect mastery of a well-trained mus- Digitized by VjOOQ IC The Initiation into Rhythm 91 cular system to draw on, may henceforth devote his whole attention to his instrument, practice at which will have become no longer a torture, but a delight. I have often noticed, in hearing my children's songs executed in different countries, that the children of southern climes have a nattiral aptitude for the accom- plishment of supple and graceful movement, but lack precision and force in executing energetic and emphatic gestures; while children of northern cotmtries possess the facidty of effectively pimctuating rhythms by means of gesttire, but not that of balancing and shading successions of roi^ded movements. We may conclude from this that the rhythmic character of the music of a coimtry will conform to the physical aptitudes of its inhabitants, for, as is well known, grace and flexibility (in conjtmction with lack of continuous accentuation) are the distinctive features of the spirit of "Mediterra- nean" music, while the Teutonic musical characteristics are vigour and force of accentuation, allied to a too sudden and rapid opposition of forte and piano— thaX is, lack of flexibility in shading. I claim that special courses of training will furnish the Southern child with the faculty of accentuation, the Northern with the desired flexibility, thus affecting positively deep-lying tendencies on tihe one hand, and negatively on the other. All these principles sotmd extremely simple, and it is probably owing to that simplicity that they are no- where practised. It would seem (to adopt somebody's analogy) that music is regarded as a fortress that has to be assailed on all sides at once. Those in possession extol its magnificence, splendour, and immensity, they Digitized by VjOOQ IC 92 Rhythm, Music, and Education insist on the number of wings and annexes that belong to it, and then are surprised to find people fight shy of it, though they themselves have pronoimced it accessible only to a highly select few. And yet it is open to every one, provided the proper equipment is secured in advance. Undoubtedly there are impediments to the realisa- tion of our ideals. One of them is the prejudice of parents on the subject of the corporal education of their children. They manifest an extraordinary jealousy on the subject, as though they regarded physical culture as their exclusive province. They raise no objection to other people filling their children's heads with ideas quite foreign to their own, but they will not have their bodies tampered with, fhey will not allow you to give them balance, to render them vigorous and supple, and to bring out their natural grace. . . . ''Grace," they tell you, ''develops coquetry," but without adding that "intellectual grace" necessarily involves coquetry of the mind! . . . "Render the mind flexible — by all means. But hands off the body!" . . . The amazing inconsistency of it ! . . . Once this prejudice has been obUterated from the mentalities of parents and headmasters of schools, musical progress will begin to be realised. The first task of educational reformers should be the education of parents. And yet there must be many among them who share the ideals and aspirations of these reformers, and would willingly col- laborate with them and dream the same dream of the future. . . . But, alas, so many men do not dream, and are con- tent to sleep! Digitized by VjOOQ IC CHAPTER V MUSIC AND THE CHILD (1912) The fundamental qualities of the bom musician — Divers functions of the ear — Musical education from an early age — Influence of environment — Nuances of rhythm — A -rhythm and its cure — Education and Sensibility — When should instru- mental lessons be commenced? — Study of composition — Emo- tion and Thought — Pianoforte and Singing a school — Child- ren should be taught not only to interpret music, but, before everything, to hear and absorb it — Children's concerts — Influence of school music lessons on musical progress of society — New educational ideas. 93 Digitized by VjOOQ IC Digitized by VjOOQ IC CHAPTER V MUSIC AND THE CHILD (1912) There are many more musical children in the world than parents believe. A small child may take no in- terest in music, not care for singing, march out of time in following a military band, and absolutely refuse to take piano lessons, and yet be not wholly lacking in musical feeling. Musical aptitudes are often deeply latent in the individual, and, from one cause or another, may fail to find the means of manifesting themselves — just as certain springs flow imderground, and are only brought to the surface after a stubborn pickaxe has opened up the way. One of the functions of education should be to develop the musical instinct of children. But how is this to be awakened at an early age? and what are its external signs? To be a complete musician, one requires a good ear, imagination, intelligence, and temperament — that is, the faculty of experiencing and commimicating artistic emotion. As regards the hearing, we cannot do better than adopt Lionel Dauriac's definition in his Essai sur Vesprit musical, where he describes a musical ear as "a faculty of the soul." Certainly the mere recogni- tion and apprehension of sotmds does not entitle a person to claim the possession of a good musical ear. External aural sensations shotild, in addition, create an 95 Digitized by VjOOQ IC 96 Rhythm, Music, and Education internal consciousness and state of emotion. There are musicians of marvellously trained ear, who do not love and respond emotionally to music; others, imperfectly developed aurally, who are yet real artists, capable both of interpreting and creating. Many parents imagine that the mere possession of a clear and accurate voice implies musical talent. This is far from being the case. As everyone knows, it is rhythm that gives meaning and form to juxtapositions of soimds. A child who can improvise, in a charming voice, successions of notes, without order or measure, may be a far inferior musician to one who has no voice but can improvise satisfactory march-rhythms on a drum. It is generally supposed that the mere distinguishing of the names and relations of notes heard constitutes a good ear. Now this is a mistake, for the varying pitch of notes is only one of the qualities of sound. The ear should be able to distinguish the different degrees of tonal intensity, of dynamics, of the rapidity or the slowness of successions of soimd, of timbre, of all that expressive quality of sotmd we designate as musical coloiu". It is the possession of this quality, in my opinion, that augurs best for the musical future of a child. There is no need to despair of a child of six who may find a difficulty in reproducing melodies vocally or on the piano, so long as he is capable of dis- tinguishing melodies, and of responding to gradations of sotmd, contrasts of forie and piano, variations of speed — ^in other words, to musical nuances. Parents often say: ''It's no good giving our child music lessons; he's got no voice." Yet, on examina- Digitized by VjOOQ IC 00 C C c^ g C 8 CO Digitized by VjOOQIC Digitized by VjOOQ IC Music and the Child 97 tion, an expert might find that the child in question was very far from having no voice, but that he was merely incapable of co-ordinating his vocal system with the sounds he was asked to imitate. The fault may lie with his ear, which may be quite sound but is unpractised. What is involved in making a mistake at the piano? Merely the playing of notes not indicated in the score. Yet musicians with a fine ear may — like Rubenstein — constantly play wrong notes ; and they remain far better musicians than the numerous pianists in whom ear and temperament conflict, although their fingers never fail them. If a child has no intuition of the conventional accuracy of harmony, he will usually be incapable of judging whether his mother is playing right or wrong chords on the piano. But he should be taught to appre- ciate the nuances of music, and to judge whether she is plajdng softly, loudly, in treble or bass, quickly or slowly, near or far from him, legato or staccato; and she can show him the difference between a crescendo and a diminu- endo, by placing him behind a door to be gently opened or closed while the music is in progress. And when he listens to a military band, she can point out to him that each instrument has a different voice, that the big trombone has a deep intonation like papa, and that the clarinet speaks like mama, while the flute squeaks like Aunt Matilda. What an obvious opportunity is missed by parents, who must know how children love stories, in not at- tempting to rouse their interest in music by plajdng little pieces of a realistic order, illustrative of a story whose characters consist of personages lending them- Digitized by VjOOQ IC 98 Rhythm, Music, and Education selves to musical treatment, such as galloping horses, little mice with their short, quick, movements, chiming bells, etc. I have foimd children follow with intense interest the little descriptive pieces of Schiunann, Rei- necke, Burgmein, Ingdbrecht, D6odat de S6verac, Pibich, and the like. Long before he knows how to produce the sounds himself, the child may thus be taught to listen to music. And this is perhaps the best way in which a mother, so long as she is careful not to overdo things — to stop at the first yawn — may arouse in her child not only an interest in, but the indispensable love for music. The important thing, as one cannot repeat too often, is that the child should learn to feel music, to absorb it, to give his body and sotil to it ; to listen to it not merely with his ear, but with his whole being. Aural sensa- xions require to be completed by muscular sensations — phenomena of a physiological order produced by the permeating influence of sotmd vibrations. There are persons, deaf from birth, who can yet appreciate and distinguish pieces of music of different styles, by means of sensations of a tactile nature, by the kinds of in- ternal resonance, which, according to the rhythms of the music, vary in intensity and form. The ear is closely related to the larynx, and there is undoubtedly a reciprocal influence between the hearing and the vocal system. I have known many yoimg people who, on hearing a sotmd, have experienced a sensation at the back of the throat. The cultivation of the voice will help to de- velop the ear, provided, of course, the pupil is made aware of the connection between the sounds he hears Digitized by VjOOQ IC Music and the Chfld 99 and the resulting pressure in the larynx. The mere thinking of a tune arouses in the throat the muscular movements necessary for its vocal emission. It is there- fore desirable, in order to develop the child's ear, to cultivate also his voice. Environment is another considerable influence. We know how quickly children can pick up accents. I knew an English child in London, who spoke both French and English with a Vaudois accent, his nurse having come from Vaudois. A governess with a harsh voice may have a very bad influence on the child's ear. One cannot be too careftil in seeing that, from the tenderest age, the child hears only good music. "A man's education commences at his birth," as Rousseau observed. "Earliest habits are the strongest," wrote P6nelon. Rollin relates that Roman children, from their birth, were disciplined in the purity of their mother tongue. As Montaigne expressed it, "Our worst vices date from our infancy, and our strongest influence throughout life is our nttrse." In his interesting book entitled, UEducaiion mu- sicalCy^ Albert Lavignac asserts his conviction that "many children fail to become musical through their parents allowing their musical instincts to die of neg- lect. A father who desired his daughter to become a dancer wotild carefully watch from her first steps to see that her legs were straight. Similarly we shotild be on the look-out for deformities or deficiencies in the aural system." It would be so easy to devote a few minutes a day to setting the child to imitate a note played on the piano, ' Published by Delagrave, 15 Rue Soufflot, PariA. Digitized by VjOOQ IC 100 Rhythm, Music, and Education or to sound the A on a pitch-pipe or a tuning-fork, and ask him to find the note of the same sotmd on the piano. There are numerous similar experiments to whidh one can and should subject children of an early age. We cannot repeat too often that musical instinct does not always emerge of itself, but requires to be brought out by a training in association of ideas. Twenty years ago, I wrote some little songs, and set children to punc- tuate them with bodily movements. I frequently noticed that children who did not care for music, and detested singing came to love the songs, through love of the movements. The two essential elements in music are rhythm and sound. Often a taste for rhythmic movement will lead a child, possessing only slight audi- tive faculties, to appreciate music. Sensibility is closely allied to sensation. To be a sensitive musician, it is necessary to appreciate the nuances, not only of pitch, but of the dynamic energy and the varying rapidity of the movements. These nuances must be appreciated not only by the ear but also by the muscular sense. Berlioz devotes an interesting chapter to the need for studying rhythm as part of one's musical education. He was preaching in the wilderness — more's the pity! The study of rhythm conduces to develop not only the instincts for time, symmetry, and balance, but also — thanks to the training of the nervous system involved — the sensibilities. However gifted a child may be, in respect of his aural faculties, he will only become a good musician if he possesses temperament. In the words of the proverb, **We may be armed at all points Digitized by VjOOQ IC Music and the Child loi like a battle-ship, but we cannot progress without a boiler." What makes music expressive? What gives life to successions of musical sounds? Movement, rhythm. The nuances of rhythm are perceptible simultaneously by the aural and muscular senses. In the conventional music lesson an attempt is made, via the memory, to give the child a feeling for movement; never an tmder- standing of movement. This latter should be inculcated by observation and exercise of the instinct for compari- son. A feeling for movement can only be acquired (if it is not possessed instinctively), by means of physical exercises. How many people notice the imgainly move- ments of their friends, while they themselves are unable to move gracefully — though they are quite unaware of the fact! It is not that their muscles are necessa- rily intractable; frequently their nervous system is dis- ordered. The nervous system is an accumulator of energy that can be trained to expend and recuperate its potentialities, on normal lines, and thereby assure the flexibility and force necessary for musical purposes. A-rhythm is a malady usually caused by the inability of a man to control himself, from a predominance of intellect over nervous functioning. "Will not followed by execution is useless. Will is not enough ; power is the essential." In Ribot's phrase, "The aim of education is to transmute the conscious into the unconscious, and to establish harmony between these two states." The senses are not adequately provided for in our schools; that is why so few of our people are artistic. Art is not a domain accessible only to an Slite. "It is within reach of all those who are capable of co-ordinating Digitized by VjOOQ IC 102 Rhythm, Music, and Education their senses, by reference to an ideal of beauty and harmony."' Georges Delbruck most rightly insists on the vital- ising effect of training the senses, and on its influence on the development of artistic feeling, temperament, and individuality. Were this training provided by our schools, our musical standard would, in a very few years, be considerably elevated. Under present con- ditions, children can leam to love and tmderstand music only outside of school hoiu^. The method of teaching it leaves, in my opinion, much to be desired. Parents are apt to confuse music with the piano. One is only a real musician if one plays the piano ! Ask a person if he is musical, and he will often reply in embarrassment: **I wish I were. If only my parents had made me leam the piano! But I love music, and never miss a concert ! " And yet these persons may be far better musicians than many reputed pianists;" for, while some of these may be consummate artists, there are others who do not really care for, or who care for only their own music: who, at a concert, can appreciate only "sttmts," have no discrimination for style or con- struction, and are neither stirred nor interested by the most moving works. If the training of their sensibili- ties had been tmdertaken before they commenced their pianoforte studies, their appreciation, taste, and tem- perament would probably have been far more devel- ' Georges Delbruck: "L'^ucation de la dtoiocratie'' (LaRenaissancg CorUemporaine, lo Rue Oudinot, Paris). * Vide Chapter III, "The young lady of the Conservatoire and the Piano," supra, pp. 6i, et seq. Digitized by VjOOQ IC Music and the ChOd 103 oped. Similarly, if young men or women, after study- ing the piano without appreciable result, were to leave it alone for a time, and cultivate general musical capacities, they would probably acquire the incentive to continue their pianoforte studies with advantage. But the dear mammas, with their naive candour, are convinced that musical development depends exclu- sively on learning the piano. What a mistake ! Piano- forte lessons, unless preceded by training of the ear and by rhythmic movement, frequently damage the aural and rhythmic faculties. The sense of touch de- velops, to the detriment of the hearing. The following experiment was made by a friend of mine, Director of a conservatoire in a highly musical city. Twelve child- ren of the same age, never having studied music, and selected from a large number, as presenting equal and average musical qualifications and similar hearing faculties, were divided into two groups of six. One of these groups confined itself to stud}ring solf^, the other commenced pianoforte lessons. After a year an examination was held, which established the fact that the faculty of distinguishing sotmds had sensibly de- teriorated in the second group. The solf^e students were then initiated into the study of the piano. After a single year's work, they had overtaken their comrades, who had by then devoted two years to it. This experi- ment proves that the study of solf^ge, prior to com- mencing pianoforte lessons, is not a waste of time for the pupil. Quite the contrary. It is nothing less than lunacy to set a child to study an instrument before he has bwn trained to appreciate Digitized by VjOOQ IC 104 Rhythm, Music, and Education rhythm and distinguish sotmds. Undoubtedly there are **infant prodigies" to whom this generalisation is not applicable. But, while these may be pennitted to strum and improvise ad libitum, it is highly inadvisable to give them pieces to learn. Too often, the triple labours of finger exercises, reading, and understanding music produce a nervous fatigue that persists through- out their lives. And what anomalies in pianoforte lessons proper! Unfortunate girls, without a grain of music in them, will practise three or four hours a day for six to twelve years to achieve a certain finger virtuosity that is kept up only until their marriage, after which their fingers rapidly resimie their pristine stiffness and in- flexibility. Lionel Dauriac has well said that * 'marriage extinguishes the accomplishments of three-quarters of our daughters. Once they no longer have time to devote five or six hours a day to martyrdom at the piano, they renounce music and close their pianos. And they would close their understanding of music as well, if their masters had not forgotten ever to open it!" As for composition, the pupils of most of our col- leges of music are taught the external forms of musical expression before they have experienced any feeling worthy of expression; they are taught harmonies before they are capable of hearing them inwardly; they are shown how to write counterpoint in two parts before they are sufficiently developed to compose a single melody at all agreeable to the ear. Most teachers of composition will bear me out when I assert that very few of their pupils, before embarking on their courses, have \mdergone this preliminary training in regulating Digitized by VjOOQ IC Music and the Child 105 excesses and vagaries of temperament, rousing it when inactive, submitting it to analysis when it tends to immoderation, detaching it therefrom as a curb to introspection. Patient and persistent practice in coun- terpoint is indispensable to a composer, forming the basis of his musical education; but it should not be undertaken before he is capable of assimilating its substance — that is, before his spirit has been saturated in melody, his natural rhythm has found a medium of expression, and music has become a part of him — his whole organism responding in unison with the impres- sions and emotions that assail it. It is only by experience, be it remembered, that the inner ear can be formed and trained. No training can be undertaken before some sort of control has been established. In studying drawing, whether landscape or portrait, the student must be brought into immediate contact with the object he is to reproduce. The same applies to music. The atiral sensations conveyed by the instrument serve both to indicate mistakes and to suggest the means of rectifying them. Professors of harmony, who oblige their pupils of inferior hearing capacity to dispense with the piano, thereby destroy their instinct for comparison, and make of them mere mathematicians, intellectuals, who become slaves of automatic thought and construction, and whose in- spiration, dependent on the nervous influx produced by sound-sensations, gradually dies out. The fact of the matter, as we see it, is this: Musical thought is the result of a state of emotion, and a musical "score" may record this emotion. But its expression requires from time to time to be controlled by sensations. And Digitized by VjOOQ IC io6 Rhythm, Music, and Education it is impossible, in an art so sensuous as music, that the memory of harmonies can as eflEectively recall the original emotions as the actual experience of the aural sensations. In the same way, a painter, imagining a landscape or portrait, and proceeding to depict it with- out a model, is far more liable to lose touch with Nature than he who pictorially expresses his emotion while in immediate contact with Nature or a human physio- gnomy. Did not Courbet declare that, before painting, it was necessary to teach the eye to observe Nature? What a pity that tuition in the colleges of music the world over tends always to produce virtuosos instead of good amateurs! And what a happy idea it was of M. Femand Bartholini, fotmder of the Conservatoire of Geneva, to devote that establishment exclusively to the education of amateurs, in order to raise the standard of the public and spread the love and appreciation of music in home and concert-hall ! If the child's musical education followed the dictates of common sense, it would no longer be necessary for composers to record on paper all the nuances to be followed in execution. The pianist would shade and phrase the music without the need for indications. Poets do not denote the man- ner in which their verses should be shaded, and music is only a language. The laws of musical expression originate in the human organism, bom of the observa- tion of the natural course of our physiological life. Does this not point to the necessity for "musicalising" the student generally before confining him to instru- mental studies? So musicalised, the student will make far more rapid progress at his instnmient. Can we not wait till a ghilcj is $even or eight before attempting to Digitized by VjOOQ IC Music and the Child 107 teach him the piano or violin? In that case we might commence his musical training, on simple and natural lines, from the age of five or six. Par be it from me to set myself against the piano and its tuition ! I hold that the piano is the most com- plete of all instruments, as well as the most useful, since it gives an idea of harmony, of polyphony, and even of orchestral tone. But pianoforte teachers will themselves agree with me that it is too much to expect them to teach simultaneously the technique of the in- strument and the first elements of music' Parents should therefore refuse to entrust their children to them until they have first taken a course in elementary music. And tJiis course, tending by human means to instil a love for music, and at the same time to bring its pursuit within reach, should be provided by our schools. How are we to convince those who administer our national schools — and when will parents demand of them — that music should form an organic part of school life? Singing at school should be a form of ex- ultation, as well as a means of collective discipline, for, as Guizot affirmed, "music cultivates the soul and thus forms part of the education of a people." And Luther wrote: "One cannot doubt but that music contains the germ of all the virtues, and I can only compare with sticks or stones those whom it leaves cold. Our youth should be reared in the con- I This point of view has already been expressed; but one must not be afraid of repetitions where it is a case of expounding an idea that is seldom practised, and on the practice of whidi, nevertheless, depends any real reform in musical education. Digitized by VjOOQ IC io8 Rhythm, Music, and Education stant practice of this divine art.*' And Shakespeare exclaimed: The man that hath no music in himself, Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds. Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils; The motions of his spirit are dull as night, And his affections dark as Erebus: Let no such man be trusted ! Our schools do not give music suflBcient prominence or provide adequate time for practice. Those who suggest that a short daily singing lesson be included in the curriculum, are met with the emphatic reply: **Out of the question! Every master of a special sub- ject— mathematics, geography, languages — is clam- ouring for extra time. ... If one submitted to all their claims, twelve hoiu^ a day would not suflSce to include all the branches of learning." On the surface this reasoning appears sound, but it is based on a false assumption. Actually, music, like gymnastics, is pri- marily not a branch of learning, but a branch of educa- tion.' The school, before everything else, should aim at moulding the physical and psychic personality of the child; at preparing him for life. If we postponed the study of Roman history till we had reached 20, our general development would not be affected. But to commence our gymnastic exercises and music prac- tice at an adult age would be to lose most of the benefits they should provide. Gjnnnastics mean health ; music >A number of headmasters oppose any reform in singing-lessons because they hold singing to be a secondary branch. This fallacy should be strenuously combated. Digitized by VjOOQ IC Music and the Chfld 109 means harmony and joy. Each of them provides a refuge and a reaction from overwork. To make students sing daily, if only for a quarter of an hour, would be analo- gous to setting them every day, between each lesson, even, a few physical exercises. The singing of ballads and songs would thus become a natural practice with schoolchildren, while singing and music lessons formed part of the school curriculum. These should be devoted to the study of musical science, and should be in pro- portion to the other branches of learning. They should inculcate a knowledge not of singing, but of music and how to listen to it. There is something prof otmdly ludicrous in the fact that, while musical instinct is based on the experience of the ear, a child is taught exclusively to play and sing, never to hear and listen. How strange that a master should never think of saying, "Now keep quiet and listen for a minute; I am going to play you a min- uet of Haydn's or a rondo by Clementi and you shall tell me what you think of it." To my mind, musical education should be entirely based on hearing, or, at any rate, on the perception of musical phenomena: the ear gradually accustoming itself to grasp the relations between notes, keys, and chords, and the whole body, by means of special exercises, initiating itself into the appreciation of rhythmic, dsmamic, and agogic nuances of music. Think of the poor mites driven on to the platform the moment they can play a little berceuse^ to show off their finger training before an audience of parents, and even, if you please, musical critics! It does not occur to anybody that it is these Digitized by VjOOQ IC no Rhythm, Music, and Exlucation very children who ought to be listening to music ! Con- certs for children, such as are held in Germany and England, are tmknown in Switzerland; but at least our teachers might make use of the lessons themselves for providing their pupils with the pleasure of hearing good music, combined with the opportunity of forming tastes and developing critical faculties. One of the advantages of singing is that it enables the child to share with his parents the benefits of school training. Every song a child brings with him from school en- riches, rejuvenates, ennobles, elevates, brightens, unites, and vitalises the family life. Just as the circle formed by a pebble dropped into water widens and spreads by the elastic action of rhythm ; so the folk-song introduced by the child into his family circle, extends its influence, breaking through the portals of the home, and poten- tially refining a whole district with the joy of its rhythm and the lesson of its poesy. A child who forms a taste for singing and good music will retain it all his life. Our male choirs for the most part confine themselves to an inartistic repertoire: too many of our soldiers are content with comic songs: the men in our mixed choral societies have great diflBculty in reading music: the singing in certain churches is de- plorably bad: the cantor is out of touch with the organ — ^the female voices with the cantor, the male voices with the female — and the organ, obliged to wait at the end of a verse for the men to catch it up, in spite of all its anxiety to lead the singing, begins the new verse itself behind the rest. Our musicians are reduced to lament- ing that our people have not the instinct for music; they will go to a concert only to hear a popular singer's Digitized by VjOOQ IC Music and the Child i" "top notes/' never to an organ recital, or to hear chamber music. . . . And yet Herbert Spencer, the pioneer psychologist in education, who, in 1849, com- plained that English girls received no corporal training in their schools, achieved such wonders by his influence that those same girls, twenty years later, had become the premier sportswomen of the world! And he could write in i860 that a scientific education might train chidren not only to appreciate art, but to feel the need for it, and that it was capable in fifty years of revolu- tionising the mentality of a whole people! Undoubtedly a time will come when the teaching of music will form an organic part of the life of the school. Once the idea is comprehended, its application will remain only a matter of days. And will not the day when all cotmtries lay down their arms provide an occasion for establishing in Geneva — at the Rousseau Institute, for example — a centre of educational experi- ments from which every country may derive benefit? Progress is in the air, new ideas fly from country to country. M. Ed. Clapardde is inaugurating an ingen- ious system at once natural and scientific; schools on new lines are being founded and developed in all parts of Switzerland. Dr. Rollier, Dr. Cramer, and many others, are making a success of the "sun cure." The day is approaching, I am convinced, when the music cure will attain recognition. On that day our children will have acquired a new vital impulse. If our grand- parents had received the musical education I am advo- cating, we ourselves would better love and appreciate music. Let us not deny our descendants these added musical faculties, this more complete artistic joy! Digitized by VjOOQIC 112 Rhythm, Music, and Education Through innumerable centuries men march in file before time, and the burden of life is passed from hand to hand, from generation to generation; and the will of each man may decide whether that burden shall become Ughter or heavier, and it is the duty of each one of us to see that it becomes lighter. When our mothers realise the part they play, voluntarily or involtmtarily, in the evolution of humanity, they will grasp the needs of education and help to emancipate our children from the conventions that restrict their intellectual and physical development. Parents should never lose sight of the fact that our bodies and souls are the product of fabulous efforts of development and progress through thousands of cen- turies, and that the future depends on us, as we depend on the past. It is their duty to care for the htunanity of to-morrow, to prepare the way for future progress, and to assure for their descendants nobler instincts, more elevated aspirations, and a completer happiness: there is no higher duty than to sow the good seed and prepare the harvest of joy for others. Digitized by VjOOQ IC CHAPTER VI RHYTHMIC MOVEMENT, SOLFEGE, AND IMPROVISATION (1914) Sound, rhythm, and dynamics — Harmony of imagincUwe and practical faculties — Absolute music and corporal experi- ence— The psychic force of rhythm — The study of movement awakens the whole being — The study of solfige awakens the sense of hearing {pitch, realisation of keys, and tone-quality) — The study of improvisation at the piano externalises concept tions of rhythm and solfige, and strengthens the sense of touch — Table of exercises in rhythmic movement — Table of exercises in solfige — Table of exercises in improvisation — Intimate connection between these tables. "3 Digitized by VjOOQ IC Digitized by VjOOQ IC CHAPTER VI RHYTHMIC MOVEBIENT, SOLF^GE, AND IMPROVISATION (1914) Ear training alone will not make a child love and ap- preciate music; the most potent element in music, and the nearest related to life, is rhythmic movement. Rhjrthm, like dynamics, depends entirely on move- ment, and finds its nearest prototype in otu* muscular system.' All the nuances of time — allegro, andante, accelerando, ritenuto — all the nuances of energy, forte, piano, crescendo, diminuendo — can be "realised" by our bodies, and the acuteness of our musical feeling wilj depend on the acuteness of our bodily sensations. A special gymnastic system, habituating muscles to contract and relax, and corporal lines to widen and shrink in time and space, should supplement metrical feeling and instinct for rhjrthm. This system of gym- nastics must be adaptable to the most divergent tem- peraments; for no two individuals, however well endowed intellectually and physically, will react in quite the same way — one following the instructions more slowly, another more quickly. Some succeed in execut- ing a particular exercise in a given time, but fail, on a sudden command, to commence a new exercise, and continue the first in spite of their anxiety to interrupt > See Chap. IV, pp. 79, 8a "5 Digitized by VjOOQ IC ii6 Rhythm, Music, and Education it. Others, having made a good beginning, suddenly hesitate, and finish in confusion what was begtrn with full confidence and clarity. The fact is, that for the precise physical execution of a rhythm, it is not enough to have grasped it intellec- tually and to possess a muscular system capable of interpreting it; in addition, and before all else, com- munications should be established between the mind that conceives and analyses, and the body that executes. These communications depend on the f imctioning of the nervous system. It is rare, in these days, to find a person whose mental and bodily processes are perfectly harmonised. Relations between the imaginative and executive faculties are too often compromised by a lack of freedom in the nerve ciurents, owing to the re- sistance of certain muscles, produced by the tardy transmission of mental orders for their contraction or re- laxation. The consciousness of a persistent resistance in the muscular system, or a disorder in the nervous system, produces mental confusion, lack of confidence in one's powers, and general "nervyness." This con- dition, in its turn, produces lack of concentration. The brain finds itself a prey to incessant solicitude, which prevents it from fimctioning clearly, and devoting the necessary time and repose to the control of the whole organism and the analysis of the orders to be issued for execution. The better our lives are regulated, the freer we be- come in every way. The more words included in our vocabulary, the more our thought is enriched. The more automatism possessed by our body, the more otu* soul will rise abpye m^teri^l things. Constant concern Digitized by VjOOQ IC Rhythm, Solf^ge, Improvisation n? with otir bodies deprives us of a large measiire of free- dom of spirit. Are not most men slaves of their corpo- ral functions, prisoners of matter? And, contrary to the popular idea, the premature development of in- tellect, and overspedalised studies, far from clarifying the mind, are apt to disturb and imbalance it. What is known as "absolute" music is music completely demateriaUsed — not directly addressed to our sensorial faculties, but which seeks to awaken emotion by means of developments and combinations of a metaphysical order. This transcendent form of art can only be appreciated by those who have triumphed over their bodily resistances, and yet this attainment may in- volve primary physical means. So long as the body has not been perfectly developed, there must be constant friction between sensations and feelings, and this in- cessant conflict between body and spirit will prohibit the necessary spiritualisation of matter. Music can never be rendered entirely pure imtil the body has been purified, and this can only be accomplished by seeing oneself clearly and discerning one's impurities. One of the first results of exercises designed, on the one hand, to create automatisms and to assure the ef- fective working of the muscular system, and, on the other, to establish clear and rapid commimication be- tween the two poles of our being and encourage the expansion of our natural rhythms — one of the first results of these exercises is to teach the child to know and control himself, and, as it were, take possession of his personality. Initiated into the marvellous mechan- ism of this body of ours, provided for consecration as a worthy dwelling-place for the soul — confident of achiev- Digitized by VjOOQ IC ii8 Rhythm, Music, and Education ing without effort or preoccupation any movement suggested by others or by himself, — ^the child will feel rising and growing in him the will to make full use of the abundant forces in his potential control. His im- agination will likewise develop, inasmuch as his spirit, freed from all constraint and physical disquietude, can give free rein to his fantasy. Functioning develops the organ, and the conscious- ness of organic fimctioning develops thought. And as the child feels himself delivered of all physical embar- rassment, and mental obsession of an inferior order, joy will come to birth in him. This joy is a new factor in ethical progress, a new stimulus to will-power. The aim of all exercises in eurhythmies is to strength- en the power of concentration, to accustom the body to hold itself, as it were, at high pressure in readiness to execute orders from the brain, to connect the con- scious with the sub-conscious, and to augment the sub- conscious faculties with the fruits of a special culture designed for that purpose. In addition, these exercises tend to create more niunerous habitual motions and new reflexes, to obtain the maximum effect by a mini- mum of effort, and so to purify the spirit, strengthen the will-power, and install order and clarity in the organism. The whole method is based on the principle that theory should /9/fote; practice, that children should not be taught rules until they have had experience of the facts which have given rise to them, and that the first thing to be taught a child is the use of all his faculties. Only subsequently should he be made acquainted with the opinions and deductions of others. Before sowing Digitized by VjOOQ IC Rhythm, Solfege, Improvisation 119 the seed, you must prepare your soU. In respect of music, especially, the present practice is to put an im- plement in the hands of children, who have no idea what to do with it. We have frequently deplored the fact that they are taught the piano before they have shown any musical propensities,' before they can hear soimds or appreciate rhythms, before their feeling for sounds and rhjrthmic movement is developed — before their whole being vibrates in response to artistic emotions. The aim of eurhythmies is to enable pupils at the end of their course, to say, not *'I know," but *'I have experienced," and so create in them the desire to ex- press themselves; for the deep impression of an emo- tion inspires a longing to communicate it, to the extent of one's powers, to others. The more we have of life, the more we are able to diffuse life about it. "Receive and givel" is the golden rule of humanity; and if the whole system of rhythmic training is based on music, it is because music is a tremendous psychic force: a product of our creative and expressive ftmctions that, by its power of stimulating and disciplining, is able to regulate all our vital ftmctions. The actual practice of individual rhjrthms (as also the method adopted for the purpose) is more than a pe- dagogic system. Rhythm is a force analogous to elec- tricity and the great chemical and physicai elements, — an energy, an agent — ^radio-active, radio-creative — conducing to self-knowledge and to a consciousness not only of our powers, but of those of others, of hu- manity itself. It directs us to the unplumbed depths > See Chapter III, p. 13, and Chapter V, p. 95. Digitized by VjOOQ IC 120 Rhythm, Music, and Education of our being. It reveals to us secrets of the eternal mystery that has ruled the lives of men throughout the ages; it imprints on our minds a primitive reUgious character that elevates them, and brings before us past, present, and future. Thus it seems to me to be destined — ^in a far distant future, when suflBcient high- minded people can collaborate for the piupose — to create more intimate relations between mental and nervous processes, and to imite all the vital forces of the individual. But confining myself to my r61e of musical pedagogue, I can here only insist on the tremendous part played by rhythm in the formation of musical individuality, and indicate the nature and scope of the exercises invented up to the present, and their dose connection with those relating to the subjects of ele- mentary musical training next in order of importance, namely, those of the hearing faculties (solf^ge) and of the capacity of spontaneous creation (improvisation). THE STUDY OF RHYTHMIC MOVEMENT AWAKENS THE WHOLE ORGANISM The study of rhythm awakens: I. Feeling for bodily 2. Aural perception of rhythm — rhythm — and (i) develops, by means of a (2) develops, by means of special training of the mus- a special system of aural cular system and nerve training, the capacity for centres, thecapacity for per- perceiving and expressing ceiving and expressing nu- nuances of force and time- ances of force and elasticity diu-ation of sounds, sponta- Digitized by VjOOQ IC Rhythm, Solf^ge, Improvisation 121 in time and space — ^like- neous and deliberate appre- wise concentration in the dation of sounds — ^likewise analysis, and spontaneity concentration and sponta- in the execution, of rhythm- neity in their analysis and ic movements, enabling vocai expression, enabling pupils to read, mark, and pupils to read, mark, finally create rhythm (both and finally create soimd mentally and physically). rhythms (both mentally and physically). The study of soLPfecE awakens: the sense of pitch and tone-relations and the faculty of dis- tinguishing tone-qualities. It teaches the pupil to hear, and to reproduce men- tally, melodies in all keys (single and simultaneous), and every kind and combination of harmony; to read and improvise vocally; to write down and use the material for constructing music himself. The study of pianoforte improvisation combines the principles of rhythm and solfdge, with a view to their musical extemalisation, by means of touch ; awakens the motor-tactile consciousness, and teaches pupils to interpret on the piano musical thoughts of a melodic, harmonic, and rhythmic nature. The following exercises are designed to train, on these principles, body, ear, and mind. Rhythmic Movement I. Exercises in Muscular Relaxation and Breathing, — ^The pupil is trained to reduce to a minimtun the Digitized by VjOOQ IC 122 Rhythm, Music, and Education muscular activity of each limb, then gradually to apply its powers. Lying on his back, he relaxes his whole body and concentrates his attention on breathing, in all its processes; then on the contraction of a single limb. He is then taught to contract simultaneously two or more limbs, or to combine the contraction of one limb with the relaxation of another. This enables him to note its muscular resistances, and to eliminate those that serve no purpose. Exercises in breathing may be associated with those of innervation, and applied to all positions. 2. Metrical Division and Accentuaiion. — ^The pupil is trained to distinguish different times by marching the beats and accentuating the first beat of each bar with a stamp of the foot. Gestures with the arm ac- company each step, and emphasise the first beat by means of a complete muscular contraction. On the weak beats, steps and gestures should be executed with a minimum of muscular effort. Then, on a sudden command, at the word **hopp," the pupil must con- trive to prevent his arm from contracting, or his foot from stamping. Or, again, the word **hopp" may be made to convey the order to stamp suddenly or con- tract the arm on a different beat, or to substitute a leg movement for an arm movement. It is extremely difficult to separate leg from arm movements, and it is only by dint of repeated exercises that, eventually, distinct automatisms are created. 3. Metrical Memorisation. — ^After "hopps" have in- dicated various distinct movements; the pupil has to Digitized by VjOOQ IC Rhythm, Solfdge, Improvisation 123 recall these movements, and in the order in which they were executed. These exercises thus constitute a form of analysis, and conscious and deliberate application, of sub-conscious movements. The pupil must have exe- cuted each movement before he explains and notes it. 4. Rapid Conception of Bar-time by the Eye and Ear. — Once the pupil can execute movements in a certain order and substitute, at the word "hopp," one move- ment for another, he becomes capable of dispensing with definite commands. These are replaced by aural and visual symbols, representing their sensations. Series of bars are played to the pupil, whose ear dic- tates appropriate movements; or, again, the sight of the movements executed by others, or noted on the blackboard, calls for their spontaneous expression by direct imitation. 5. Conception of Rhythms by Muscular Sense. — ^The body possesses a certain number of natural rhythms, which manifest themselves in a definite time and with a certain degree of energy, according to tem- perament. The perception of the degrees of muscular tension is accompanied by that of the variations of time-duration, and strengthened by the sensation of greater or smaller amplitude of the movements in space. This amplitude depends on the greater or lesser degree of resistance of the conflicting muscles. By means of a whole series of graduated exercises, the pupil is trained to adapt different musctdar processes for short and long durations respectively, to estimate durations according to the sensations of tension and extension of muscles, of opening and closing of limbs in space, to co- Digitized by VjOOQ IC 124 Rhythm, Music, and Education ordinate the different dynamic forces of the body, and to apply the measure of space to the control of the duration and intensity of muscular contractions. The master should be careful to see that the co-ordination of movements does not rob them of their spontaneity. 6. Development of Spontaneous Will-power and Facul- ties of Inhibition, — Musicalrhythmconsistsof movements and repressions of movements. Musicians with irregu- lar rhjrthms are those whose muscles are too slow or too quick in responding to mental orders, who lose time in sub- stituting one movement for another, or who cannot check themselves in time, or else check themselves too hastily, ignoring the art of preparing repressions of movement. Special exercises will enable the pupil to check move- ments suddenly or by degrees, to change a forward for a backward or sideward step, and vice versa; or to effect a jump, at command, without breaking the time, and right himself with a minimum of effort, again without breaking the time. 7. Exercises in Concentration. Creation of Mental Hearing of Rhythms. — The practice of bodily movements awakens images in the mind. The stronger the muscular sensations, the clearer and more precise the images, and thereby the more metrical and rhythmic feeling is de- veloped ; for feeling is bom of sensation. The pupil who is able to march in time, and according to certain rhythms, has only to close his eyes to imagine himself continuing to march metrically and rhythmically. He continues the movement in thought. If his movements are slack, his imaginative representations of them will likewise Digitized by VjOOQ IC Rhythm, Solfege, Improvisation 125 be slack. The precision and regtilated dynamic force of musctilar automatisms are a guarantee of the pre- cision of thought-automatisms, and the regular devel- opment of imaginative faculties. The study of repressions of steps prepares us for rests in music. These, if devoid of movement, are by no means devoid of life. The study of periods intercepted by rests teaches the pupil the laws of musical phrasing. 8. Exercises in Corporal Balance, and to Produce Con- tinuity of Movement. — Ease of movement depends on balance. The conception of movements extending over long beats is fortified by stability of attitude, and the assurance of continuity in the movements. This continu- ity should be capable of operating in all degrees of mus- cular energy, and of being interrupted at will. The clear perception of continuity and interruption assiu*es that of the balance of rhythmic bars and the conception of their divers processes of construction, all of which relate to the science of opposition and contrast. 9. Exercises for the Acquisition of Numerous Automa- tisms, and their Combination and Alternation with Actions of Spontaneous Volition. — Muscular actions, after con- stant repetition, pass outside the control of the brain. New reflexes can be created, and the time lost between the conception and realisation of the movement reduced to a strict minimum. The cultivation of automatisms should be eflEected in all nuances of tempo. Conformity with these nuances depends on the perception of the degrees of muscular energy necessary for eflEecting the movements. Automatisms should be capable of replace- Digitized by VjOOQ IC 126 Rhythm, Music, and Education ment by others without effort; they may be combined and harmonised over different parts of the body. The pupil should also learn to combine automatisms of his limbs with those of speech and song. The laws gov- erning the natural rhythmidsation of verbal rhythms are similar to those relating to the balance of sotmd rhjrthms, whether vocal or instrumental. 10. Realisation of Musical Note-values. — Notes of long dturation are formed by the adding together of notes of short duration: this is the Greek conception of rhjrthm. The pupil trained to express a crotchet by means of a step forward, will divide up longer notes by movements made while in that position. A minim will be interpreted by a step forward, followed by a knee-bend of the body, etc. When the pupil has ac- customed himself to these various movements indi- cating divisions, it will suffice for him to execute them mentally and to take his step forward by a movement of uninterrupted progression. This will maintain the exact duration necessary, for he will be mentally mak- ing these divisions. 1 1 . Division of Beats. — Exercises in the dividing of notes of long dturation are resumed, but by an inverted process (the modem conception of duration) . Each crot- chet should, at command, be subdivided into two {duo- lets), three {triolets), or fotu* (guadriolets) shorter steps, etc. This division may naturally be facilitated by a mas- tery of bodily balance and the means of transferring the weight of the body; by a diminution of the activity of constraining muscles, and by the perception of the Digitized by VjOOQ IC Rhythm, Solfege, Improvisation 127 rdations between space and time. For the execution of syncopation by anticipation, the step that has to be made at a particular moment and in a certain time is replaced by a shorter step effected in half the time, the second half of the time being occupied by a knee-bend. For the execution of retarded syncopation the step is prolonged half the time, and the movement forward replaced by a bending. This is the most difficult exercise of the course. The most musically gifted people can execute it with ease only after some months of practice. Once the student can perform it without trouble, he is recognised as having attained an elementary flexibility sufficient for the acquisition of a feeling for expressive accent {accent pathStigue). Children usually have less trouble in acquiring this flexibility than adults. 12. Immediate Realisation by the Body of Musical Rhythm. — ^This is a question of the spontaneous repre- sentation of musical time- values and degrees of force by muscular and respiratory actions, transposing sound- rhjrthms into plastic rhythms. The exactitude and promptitude of the execution depend on the utilisation of acquired bodily automatisms, and on the development of the faculties of psychic concentration. The mind has no time to record all the elements of the musical rhythms: the body expresses them before the brain has even a clear idea of them. This is a phenomenon identical with that of verbal expression. A word once heard is repeated without analysing its formation. It is only after hearing it in thought that all the letters forming it can be transcribed. Digitized by VjOOQ IC 128 Rhythm, Music, and Education Once the corporal expression of musical rhythms has become comparatively easy, one may develop the stu- dent's powers of concentration by setting him, while executing a rhythm already heard, to listen to a second: one automatism being in operation while another is preparing; the body in the past, the mind intent on the future. 13. Exercises in the Dissociation of Movements, — These are exercises preparatory to the execution of dy- namic nuances. Just as, at the piano, one hand may play forte to the other's piano, so the plastic expression of vitalised musical rhythms demands conflicting nu- ances of muscular innervation in different limbs. Special exercises enable the student to contract a certain muscle in one arm, while the same muscle in the other arm remains decontracted. Other exercises show him how time may be subdivided in one way by one limb, in another by a different one — e.g., by the execution in a given time of three equal movements with the feet and two, four, or five with the arms. Even more than the others, these exercises contribute to the development of concentration. 14. Interruptions and Repressions of Movements. — Balance and ptmctuation of bars and phrases of "cor- poral speech," according to the laws of musical phrasing — ^Antitheses and contrasts — Study of anacrusis — ^The different ways of breathing — The different ways of checking and interrupting steps and gestures. 15. Double and Triple Speed and Slowness of Move- ments.— These exercises constitute a bodily preparation Digitized by VjOOQ IC W9^^ > O e Digitized by VjOOQIC Digitized by VjOOQ IC Rhythm, Solf^ge, Improvisation 129 for the musical processes of developing a theme known as ' 'augmentation" and * * diminution. * ' It may be noticed that, in their fugues, composers usually confine them- selves to doubling or quadrupling the speed or slowness of their theme. A new element in rhythmic develop- ment is constituted by trebly augmenting or diminish- ing the speed of a binary rhjrthm. 16 and 17. Plastic Counterpoint and Polyrhythm. — These exercises are simple transpositions in the cor- poral sphere of current exercises of musical technique. The advantage of these transpositions is that they accustom the organism to experience simultaneously im- pressions of various kinds. One can imagine coimter- points of all kinds. The interesting and useful thing is to experience — live — them organically. Polyrhythm is facilitated by the cultivation of automatisms. An arm will execute a rhythm automatically, while the mind regulates the execution of a second rhythm by another limb. 18. '* Pathetic'' AccenttuUion — Dynamic and Agogic Nuances {Musical Expression). — All the preceding ex- ercises aim at developing feeling for time and rhythm. The following exercises tend to awaken the student's temperament, and to cause his body to vibrate in tmison with music. They **place" the different degrees of am- plitude of movements, the crescendi and decrescendi of innervation, teaching the body to pass rapidly from one expressive nuance to another, seeking to arouse the per- sonal music of different individualities, and to establish lines of rapid communication between the aural and Digitized by VjOOQ IC 130 Rhythm, Music, and Education motor systems by an attempt to perfect the harmoni- sation of the nervous system, trained to unmediate activity or passivity, as occasion demands. In short, they endeavour to co-ordinate external music with that within each of us, and which is only the echo of our indi- vidual rhythms, our sorrows and joys, our desires and powers. 19. Exercises in Notation 0} Rhythms. — ^The stu- dent is trained to record a rhjrthm he hears or sees executed. 20. Exercises in Improvisation {Cultivation of Imagi- native Faculties). — The student, upon command, has to improvise a series of bars in 2, 3, 4, 5, or 6 time, etc., or to invent rhythms, utilising given elements, with or without anacrusis, with pathetic accentuation, rests, syncopations, etc., in phrases and sentences; likewise combined rhythms. 21. Conducting Rhythms {Rapid Communication to Others — Soloists or Groups — of Individual Sensations and Feelings). — Being given a rhjrthm that the students know by heart, a student has to conduct a performance of it by indicating in expressive gestures the agogic or djmamic nuances. 22. Execution of Rhythms by Several Groups of Pupils {Initiation into Musical Phrasing). — ^Each rhythm of a musical phrase is expressed by a group of students, the ensemble of the groups punctuating the different episodes of the complete work. Digitized by VjOOQ IC Rhythm, Solf6ge, Improvisation 131 It must be understood that these exercises do not profess to constitute the whole artistic training of the student, but they must, in due course, inevitably de- velop his self-knowledge; — ^revealing to him his nimier- ous motor faculties, and augmenting the sum of his vital sensations. Art cannot dispense with knowledge of life. Only by familiarising the student with life can we develop in him a love for art and the desire to pursue it. Aural Training (SoLFfecE) After a year's rhjrthmic training, the student passes into the soK ^e class. He will continue the above series of exercises, the master adapting them to the needs of a musical voice and ear. After developing the student's mental hearing and physical expression of rhythms, he will proceed to train his power of hearing, realising, and creating musical sounds in rhythm. Appucation of ExERasES IN Rhythmic Movement TO THE Study of Solf^e I. Contraction and Decontraction of the Muscles of the Neck, and the Breathing Muscles. Rhythmical Gymruis- tics for the Lungs. — The study of diflEerent methods of vocal attack, and the enimciation of consonants. Con- flicting movements of arms, shoulders, and diaphragm. Combination of vocal attack with the corresponding attack in beginning to march. Distinguishing divers nuances of intensity of sounds. Connection between breathing and vocal emission. Study of vocal registers. Digitized by VjOOQ IC 132 Rhythm, Music, and Education 2. Metrical Division and Accentuation. — DiflFerentia- tion of bars by means of vocal and labial accentuation. Attacking sound at a definite moment at or without the command. Rapid substitution of a corporal movement for an attack of sound — of an attack on a consonant for one on a vowel. 3. Metrical Memorisation. — The master signifies by "hopps" a series of attacks of sound regularly measured and accentuated. The student memorises their number and accentuation, and repeats them. 4. Rapid Conception of Time by the Eye and Ear. — Study of musical sjmibols, stave, and clefs. Metrical expression by breathing movements, or vocal sounds, of series of meastu-ed notes written on the blackboard or sung by the master. 5. Perception of the Pitch {of Sounds Sung) by Means of Dynamic Muscular Sense. — ^The student learns to differentiate vocal sotmds, from the sensation produced by the varying degrees of tension of the vocal chords, and according to the localisation of sound vibrations. His hand, laid on his chest, neck, jaw, nose, or brow, enables him, by means of the different forms of reso- nance of vibrations, to realise the pitch of the notes emitted. Study of the relations between the intensity and pitch of sound. Study of major and minor keys. Recognition and imitation of selected notes in the scale. Divers modes of setting a series of notes to rhythm. Reading melodies. Digitized by VjOOQ IC Rhythm, Solf^ge, Improvisation i33 6. Application to the Voice of Exercises in Spontane- ous WiU and Inhibition. — Substitution, to order, in a melodic rhythm, of the voice for bodily movements, and vice versa. Spontaneous accentuation and punctu- ation at signs from the master. Sudden checks and restunption of the song at other signs. 7. Exercises in Concentration. Creation of Mental Hearing of Sounds. — The student sings a melody or a scale. At the word "hopp,*' he ceases singing and con- tinues the melody or scale in thought. Aural perception of the harmonics of a sound. Distinguishing the tone of a particular voice (from a medley of others singing or talking, etc. 8. Association of Continuous Bodily Movements with Sustained Vocal Sounds. Their Combination with In- terrupted Movements. 9. Exercises in the A cguisition of Vocal A utomcUisms, and their Combinations and Alternations with Vocal Expressions of Spontaneous Will. — ^The student sings a scale according to a certain rhythm. At the word **hopp," he continues the scale on another rhjrthm. ... Or he may, after singing a series of thirds or fourths, etc., sing another interval at command. . . . Or again, while singing the scale, he may have to jtunp to one or other of the notes at a sign from the master, etc. 10. II, and 12. Application of Rhythmic Exercises to Vocal ** Realisation.'* — Chains of rhythms, i.e., imita- Digitized by VjOOQIC 134 Rhythm, Music, and Education tion in canon, bar by bar, of a melody sting by the master. . . . Study of rests. 13. Exercises in Dissociation. — The student sings Jf while the body makes movements pp II II pp .1 l« M g " " ff ^lile one limb moves < and another > «i II pp ** " > " < " <> " " ff " pp " '* 3 notes while the anns or feet execute 2, 4, or 5 movements, and vice versa, etc. 14. Study of Rests and Phrasing. — ^Anacrusis — Rests occupied by mental singing — Sentences and phrases — Law of contrasts and antitheses — Contrapuntal phrasing. 15. Double and Triple Speed and Slowness of Move- ments. — ^The student, while singing a melody, must, at the command **hopp," effect the double speed or slow- ness of a bar or beat. The arms beating the measure continue their movements in the original tempo. Com- binations and contrasts of double or triple speed, or slowness of sound, with that of limbs. 16 and 17. Plastic Polyrhythm and Counterpoint. — The student will sing a rhythm while marching only the second half of each note- value, or vice versa. He will learn to sing a melody while executing a different rhythm by means of bodily movements. He may exe- cute a canon: singing the first part, clapping his hands for the second and marching the third. He will listen to a two-part rhjrthm in the same time and proceed to Digitized by VjOOQ IC Rhythm, Solf^e, Improvisation 135 sing first the higher, then the lower part. He will listen to a succession of chords, and reproduce each vocal line, one after the other, etc. 18. Emotional Accentuation — Dynamic and Agogic Nuances {Musical Expression). — ^The student is trained to accentuate the important notes of a rhythm, to ac- celerate or retard, effect crescendi or decrescendi, — ^first by instinct, then by analjrsis. Study of the relations between the pitch and accentuation of sounds.' 19. Exercises in Notation of Melodies, Polyphonies, and Harmonic Successions. 20. Exercises in Vocal Improvisation. — The student sings a melody upon a given rhjrthm, or improvises rhythms upon successions of notes of equal duration. 21 and 22. Conducting of Rhythms. — The student learns a melody by heart, then conducts it before a group of students, who interpret it according to his in- dications. The same for melodies in several parts. As will be seen, all these exercises in solf^ge corre- spond, number for number, with those in rhythmic movement. The student will also learn to distinguish keys, according to the method described in my Essay in the Reform of Musical Education (pp. 8 et seq.), and applied in the three voliunes on SolE^ge already referred to. He may then commence the study of > See the rules of phrasing and accentuation in the 3 vols, entitled Les Gammer et les TonalitSs (Jobin ^ Qe, Publishers, Lausanne), Digitized by VjOOQIC 136 Rhythm, Music, and Education harmony. Control of the progressions is assured by his feeling for movement, faculties of concentration, hearing, and listening (cultivated by his rh3rthmic train- ing), and sense of muscular force regulating the ac- curacy of the voice. Before transcribing successions of chords, he will feel them resonate within him. Appre- ciating the connection between melody and movement, there will remain the co-ordination of movement, melo- dy, and harmony. He will then be in a position to tm- dertake the study of Pianoforte Improvisation, i.e., rapid and spontaneous instrumental composition. For this section of musical education, whidi is the sjmthesis of all the others, the student will require a special technique for fingers, hand, and arm, etc., facilitated, like that in solf ^e, by his training in rhythm- ic movement. The above exercises will therefore have to be adapted to new requirements created by instrumental technique. These will naturally embrace the special and universally known exercises, without which it would be impossible to acquire perfect virtu- osity. But we must point out that what pianists call "technique" is too often confused with simple rapidity. Dancers of the old school, though possessing extraor- dinary velocity, are devoid alike of balance in execut- ing continuous movements and of feeling for correct nuances, phrasing, and successions of harmonised ges- ttu-es — and yet they pass, with spectators and critics, for past masters in virtuosity, the word virtuosity being, to them, synonymous with velocity! The same Digitized by VjOOQ IC Rhythm, Solf6ge, Improvisation 137 is apt to happen with regard to instrumental virtuosity, which becomes a mere exercise in rapid movements, failing to produce that unity of perceptive and reflective sensorial and analytical activities, which alone can con- duce to perfection of style. Every musical manifesta- tion should rest on a joint physical and intellectual basis, demonstrating the inseparability of body from soul. If instnunental technique is to produce a mere mechanical flexibility of fingers, why not replace these by even more efficiently flexible machines? For our purposes the ideal technique can only be attained by a constant collaboration of fingers and brain, allying muscular sensations with emotional feeling. A musical virtuoso requires more than mere agility and physical power, vitality, and instinct for decorative effects: he requires, in addition, diversity of touch, in slow as in quick movements, in nms as well as in melodic phrases ; balance of dynamic effects; the art of musical "breath- ing," that is, of establishing regulated contrasts; and the art of adapting to his particular temperament the individualistic effects of the great composers. " I know few pianists capable of treating a "run** as a simple acceleration of speed in the musical realm of ideas and feelings, and who refrain from isolating the particular line of the run from the ensemble of divers opposing or converging lines constituting the architecture of the piece. * We should mention the remarkable work by Mile. Blanche Selva, on Pianoforte Technique in which may be f otmd highly interesting ob- servations on the physiology of movements at the piano. The exercises of the Selva method, like a number of the Leschetizky, Philipp, and Matthay methods, are based on direct observation of the natural rhythms of the band and arm. Digitized by VjOOQ IC 138 Rhythm, Music, and Education Before touching the piano the student should possess the muscular mechanism necessary for its mastery — at least, as regards the practising of preparations and repressions of movements, and combinations of sjmer- gic and constraining muscles. He should likewise be familiar with the elements of soK^e, and possess the ear to enable him to compare mentally soimds on paper with those he is about to produce on the instrument. The following table of exercises is foimded on the pre- ceding two, with which the reader would do well to compare it. It does not include the regular exercises in harmony and counterpoint, which are indispensable for pianoforte improvisation, and which may be prac- tised concurrently with our own. Application of Exercises in Rhythm and SoLFfecE TO Practice of Pianoforte Ibiprovisation 1. Exercises in Muscular CarUr action and Decontrac- tion. — Study of the different mechanisms of the arms ; at- tacking soimds by means of different starting-points in the movement of the arm, forearm, and wrist. Study of articulation of the shoulder, forearm, wrist, and fingers, in associated and dissociated movements (iso- lated and combined articulations) ; divers articulations of the fingers (phalanges, cushions, and tips) wrist raised or lowered, etc. Dissociated movements, verti- cal and horizontal, legato and staccato. Technique of the pedal. 2. Metrical Division and Accentuation. — Study of the scales with regular accentuations, and equal time- Digitized by VjOOQ IC Rhythm, Solf^ge, Improvisation 139 measures (duolets, triolets, qiiadriolets, quintolets, etc.) in every tone and tempo. The same with arpeggios and successions of chords. Regular accentuations in unequal beats (alternations of duolets and triolets, quadriolets and sextolets, etc.). Irregular and pathetic accentuations at the word "hopp." Application of all these exercises to different rhythmic formulae. 3. Metrical Memorisation. — ^The student plays scales and successions of chords not specially accentuated. By means of the command **hopp," the master calls for a series of notes, regularly or irregularly barred and ac- centuated. The student memorises their number and accentuation, and repeats them (without "hopps*')- 4. Rapid Conception of Time by the Eye and Ear. — The master plays softly, at a second piano, scales in various times of rhythms. The student at once imi- tates (in syncopation) the rhythms and accentuations, noticing the repetition of accents, which he afterwards reproduces from memory. The same with successions of chords. The student plays chords or melodies upon rhythms indicated on the blackboard. 5. Sttidy of Rhythms in Space by Means of the Muscu- lar Sense. — ^The student, with his eyes closed, directs his arms to different points of the keyboard, and meas- ures the distance between these points, according to the greater or lesser amplitude of the movements, and the difference of the muscular sensations they call forth. While pla3dng a scale, the master's "hopp" instructs him to skip an octave, two octaves, or a third, fifth, etc. Digitized by VjOOQIC 140 Rhythm, Music, and Education 6. Application of Exercises in Spontaneous WiU and Inhibition to Piano-playing, — ^The master's "hopp" calls for pauses and resumptions of playing, changes of rhythm and tone, chords, transpositions, variations of pace, alternations of nuances, etc. 7. Exercises in Concentration. Mental Hearing. — While executing a succession of chords, the student pauses to hear mentally the chord he ought to play. Playing only three parts in a chorale for four voices, and following the fourth part in his mind, etc. 8. Associations of Arm and Vocal Movements. — ^The student sings a continuous melody, which he accom- panies by chords or scales, and vice ver^a. 9. Exercises for the Acquisition of Numerous Auto- matisms, and their Combination and Alternation with Actions of Spontaneous Volition. — The student executes a fixed rhythm, concentrating on its melodisation and harmonisation. At the word * 'hopp,** he must invent a rhjrthm of a diflEerent order. Or, vice versa, the * 'hopp " evokes a modtilation simultaneously with a change of rhythm, or a change of rhythm in only one of the hands, etc. The voice follows the melody played on the piano ; at '*hopp*' it suddenly opposes a different melody or another rhythm — ^the "hopp" elicits changes of time, suppressions or additions of beats, or fragments of rhythms, etc. 10. II, and 12. Application of Rhythmic Exercises to Pianoforte Execution. — Practice of agogic nuances, cal- Digitized by VjOOQ IC Rhythm, Solf6ge, Improvisation 141 culated accelerandi and ritardandi; of s}mcopations, by anticipation and retardation; of subdivisions of time- durations, etc. 13. Exercises in Dissociations of Movements. — ^The two hands plajdng with contrast of rhjrthm, time, nu- ances, phrasing, tone-quantity, or tone-quality. 14. Study of Rests and Phrasing. — Sentences and phrases; different kinds of rests and anacruses. Laws of contrasts. 15. Double and Triple Speed and Slowness of Move- ment.— The student plays scales or successions of chords and, at * ' hopp, * ' augments or diminishes the pace doubly or trebly. Agogic augmentation and diminution of given rhjrthms. Combinations of double and half, triple and double speeds, etc. 16 and 17. Plastic Counterpoint and Polyrhythm. — The student's left hand plays a note or a chord on the second half of the beat executed by the right hand. And vice versa. Counterpoint in duolets, triolets, quad- riolets, etc. Different rhythms, and beats in either hand, and exercises in canon. Study of various kinds of counterpoint — pianoforte cotmterpoint to vocal themes and vice versa. Polydynamics. 18. '* Pathetic'' accenttuUion — Nuances — Laws of Ex- pression.— Study of relations between harmony and rhythm," chords and accentuations, agogics and d3ma- > See fifth part of the Dalcroze method: L'lmffrovisaHon et Vaccom- pagncmcfU au piano (Jobin & Cie, Lausanne). (In preparation.) Digitized by VjOOQ IC 142 Rhythm, Music, and Education mics, touch and hearing. The part played by mod- tilation in the development of musical themes, and in expressions of spontaneous emotion. 19 and 20. Notation and Improvisation ofBhythms. — The student improvises a bar at the piano; then no- tates it as a figured bass. Pianoforte improvisation of rhythmic accompaniments to vocalised melodies. In- vention of rhythmic melodies to accompany barred successions of harmonies. 21. Conducting Rhythms. — The student improvises freely at the piano, under the direction of the master or another student, who beats the time and indicates the dynamic and agogic nuances. 22. Improvisation at Two Pianos {or in Quartet). — Two students improvise alternate sentences or phrases. A comparative study of the above three series of exercises will serve to show the necessity for conscien- tious research into the elementary relations between the three principal branches of musical education. It is significant that no previous study of harmony or composition has indicated the reciprocal influence of rhythms and d}mamics on melodies and harmonies. In fact, musical education hitherto has failed to estab- lish any correlation between the different constituents of music, treating each as isolated and specialised. Our musical mentors of to-morrow will have to work towards the general harmonisation of these elements. Digitized by VjOOQ IC CHAPTER VII EURHYTHMICS AND MUSICAL COMPOSITION (1915) Rhythm in nature — Theory of the bom musician — Experi- ments in musical rhythm — Contrasts between movement and its arrests, sounds, and silences — New method of noting time- values — Unequal beats — Analysis of the elements of a rhythm — Rhythmic activity in dissociation and opposition — Musical periods and the art of phrasing — The emotional effects of rests — Agogic nuances — Twice and three times as fast and as slow — Rubato — Observance of the sense of timerduration — New education and methods. 143 Digitized by VjOOQIC , Digitized by VjOOQ IC CHAPTER VII EURHYTHMICS AND MUSICAL COMPOSITION (1915) Have you ever found yotirself on some fine siunmer's day lying on a grassy slope, watching the trees quiver- ing with life, and above them the clouds ploughing a blue sky, whilst a soft breeze stirs the leaves and branches and causes the cornfields to imdulate. . . . At first you will be conscious only of a vast collective movement, a colossal harmony of sotmds and rhythms . . . then, little by little, yotir eye ^d ear may dis- tinguish details of the symphony, and discern in this harmonious conglomeration a "whole polyrhythm of in- comparable richness. Each larger rhythm will split into nimierous distinct groups of smaller rhythms, and blend or conflict with other movements of a diflFerent order, the aspect varying infinitely according to the degree of force of the wind which brings it to birth. Nattire, in her eternal movement, vibrates both in time and out of time. The mighty rhythm of the tmi- verse is a compoimd of myriads of sjmchronising rhythms of infinite diversity, each possessing individual life. One cannot witness this polyrhythm without won- dering that such rhythmic profusion as nattire pours forth, whilst providing virtually the painter's whole inspiration, so seldom appears to move or inspire the musician. Music is a combination of rhjrthm and »<> 145 Digitized by VjOOQ IC 146 Rhythm, Music, and Education soiind. How comes it that, since Beethoven, our mu- sicians have sought progress only in harmony and tone, and have lost the mastery of soimd-movements in which the great Flemish composers and John Sebastian Bach excelled? The ear is capable of appreciating not only variety of tone-quality, nuances of intensity and difference of pitch, but also the infinite variety of time-values and duration. Primitive peoples manifest, with regard to polyrhythm, far more ingenuity and originality than oiu'selves. Would it not be worth a musician's while to devote as much care to the study of agogics and djmamics as to that of melody and harmony ? At least, one would suppose that the experiments of fellow-musidans, particularly sensitive to soimd-move- ments, would not be without interest to him. But this is apparently not the case, since so many music professors find our attempts at education "by rhythm" useless or fantastic. It might be worth our while to reason with them, in the hope of converting them; but life is too short, and we prefer creative work to bandying words. One can tmderstand an inability to recognise the equal importance of rhjrthm and sotmd in music, but I maintain that no true musician, enter- ing a hall of machinery in full movement, could fail to be captivated by the whirr of the fabulous symphony produced by the magic of combined and dissociated rhythms, and to be tempted inevitably to extract the secrets of this moving and quivering life that animates nature, man, and his work alike. There is a theory regarding the **bom musician," according to which no amotmt of musical study can Digitized by VjOOQ IC Eurhythmies i47 have any influence on temperament. On this is based the verdict of certain seers that rhythmic movement can be of no direct service to the art of music; for (they tell you) , on the one hand, it has nothing to teach the bom musician, and, on the other, a person not bom a musician can never be made one ! This theory, which is held by many musicians, will not "hold water.** Etirhythmics reveals to the bom musician a host of sub-conscious resources, which he could otherwise acquire only by dint of long years of laborious and repeated personal researches and experiments. On the otiher hand, alone among all systems of musical education, eurhythmies is capable of awakening dormant or moribtmd tempera- ment, of provoking in the organism the conflicts neces- sary for establishing the control and balance of resistances, and of bringing to consciousness, by means of the harmonisation of cerebral and motor centres, and the canalisation of nervous forces, undreamt of among all systems of musical education, eurhythmies is capable of awakening dormant or moribund tem- perament, of provoking in the organism the conflicts necessary for establishing the control and balance of resistances, and of bringing to consciousness, by means of the harmonisation of cerebral and motor centres, and the canalisation of nervous forces, undreamt-of sources of creative and artistic vitality. It is impossible for those specialising in music to judge eurhythmies from a public demonstration. The minute work of analysing and constructing rhythms can ooly be appreciated in the lessons, and then only by persons who are themselves actually taking part with their whole body and mind, i.e., personally experi- Digitized by VjOOQ IC 148 Rhythm, Music, and Education endng them. A public demonstration can exhibit only the results, conveying no idea of the enormous difficul- ties body and mind encounter in combating nervous resistances, and in performing their rhythmic functions in calm and concentration. But, apart from its general bearing on the hiunan organism, eurhythmies exercises a furtiier influence on the art of music itself — an influence that will assimie a definite shape only when creative artists of all kinds have thoroughly assimilated its principles, put them into practice, and extended their scope. ... At the same time, fifteen years of assiduous research have accumulated a sufficient amount of evidence of the potential creative powers (from the strictly musical point of view) of the method to justify the pubUcation of its principles. It would require a whole volume to expotmd the detailed processes of otir experiments, and the concatenation and association of ideas which they have brought to Ught, and it is to be feared that a simi- mary exposition of certain of our claims will appeal to some minds as mere amiable paradoxes. We are con- fident, however, that others, better trained, will im- mediately grasp the essentials of our system, and it is to them that we dedicate these suggestions which only time can fully justify. In no other system is rhythm treated with the peda- gogic care accorded to other branches of musical science. Berlioz, in a too-Uttle-read chapter, deplores the omis- sion from conservatoire programmes, of special classes in rhythm, and indicates the nimierous researches that might be undertaken, and the profound studies to Digitized by VjOOQ IC Eurhythmies i49 which a musician should devote himself, in this totally tmexplored region of musical movement and dynamics. He, however, neglected to place musical rhythm, and to give a clear idea of the part it plays in musical composition. We can judge a work of architecture only in relation to the space in which it is constructed; and, similarly, musical rhythms can be appreciated only in re- lation to the atmosphere and space in which they move. In other words, musical rhythm can be appreciated only in relation to silence and immobility. Study the condi- tions of silence and you at once create the necessity — from the human as from the aesthetic point of view — of furnishing it with its nattiral counterpoise — sotmd — ^which, in breaking it, sets in reUef its enormous recu- perative, and, consequently, emotional capacities. Mu- sical rhythmics is the art of establishing due proportion between soimd movement and static silence, of oppos- ing them, and of preparing for the one by means of the other, according to the laws of contrast and balance on which all style depends; according to the nuances of time and djmamics that constitute the individuality, and the nuances of tone, pitch, and intensity of sotmd which create in music that higher element of a mysti- cal and impersonal nature, that connects the individual with the universe. A rest in music is simply an inter- ruption of the sound, or a transference into the region of internal hearing of phenomena of external hearing.' Unfortunately, the ambition of most of our present-day musicians would seem to be to annihilate silence in sound; and a regeneration of the art of music will > The rest, while devoid of movement, is by no means devoid of life. (Se« Chapter VI, page 125.) Digitized by VjOOQ IC 150 Rhythm, Music, and Education largely depend on the place our future geniuses will assign to "rests" in the architecttire of rhythm. The realisation of the possibilities of the infinite variety of time-durations is also in an embryonic stage, and an inexhaustible source of new emotions will enrich the art of musical expression once its scope, at present lim- ited to the emplo}nnent of harmonic, contrapuntal, and orchestral nuances, is extended to include all the new emotional resources contributed by nuances of sound- duration. All art is based on contrast. An accelerando or ritardando attains vitality only by contrast with the normal tempo. Ntiances of time exercise an irresist- ible and inevitable influence both on melody and har- mony; and the development of the latter will depend not only on the extent to which musicians of the future concern themselves with agogic and dynamic varia- tions, but also on the direct influence of htunan emo- tions on dturations of sotmds, of beats, and of bars — on the reciprocal relations of these, and on their contrasts with the higher and inexorable serenity of silence. New NotaHonof Musical Time-values. — Before treating of the relations of time- values, it will be convenient to es- tabUsh certain new forms of writing these. Long notes in compound time have up to the present been recorded by means of a sltir between two or more notes of ordinary duration (^.^. 9/8 ^^.J.$ or 15/8 ss^*^.).. Inin- troducing bars of 5, 7, and 8 beats, also tmequal beats and rhythms in which agogic nuances of a highly subtle and delicate nature are obtained by successions of dif- ferent and varied time values, the necessity arises of amending our system of musical notation with a view Digitized by VjOOQ IC Eurhythmies 151 to recording, no matter what gradations of time, by reference to a single fixed symbol. The following is suggested: as a dot after a note (^ • ) prolongs the latter by half its value, two dots, one on top of the other (o :) shall be taken to prolong it by a quarter of its value, and three (oj) by an eighth of its value. (See Appendix, Ex. I.) Time Signatures. — ^We propose a new method of indi- cating the time of a piece at the beginning, or changes in the course of its development. In many cases the present signatures are neither dear nor consistent. In indicating a f bar the figure 3 denotes the number of beats, and the 4 the duration of each beat; but in writ- ing f the figure 6, instead of denoting the nimiber of beats, denotes their sub-divisions, etc. It would be pre- ferable to utilise the first nimiber to indicate consistently the nimiber of beats, and to denote the duration of each beat by the sjmibol corresponding to that duration. (See Appendix, Ex. 2.) Alternating Bars. — ^There is no reason to insist upon regular bar-lengths throughout an entire piece. In most folk-songs the melody is subject to irregularities of meas- ure. It is only in the conventional and classical works of the last two or three centuries that we find a systematic division into regular bars. Far be it from us to object to this classical regularity of bar-time, but, seeing that every irregularity in a work of art must be the product of an emotion, we suggest that the question of the employ- ment of irregular bars should be the subject of special analysis on the part of every musician. We have set Digitized by VjOOQ IC 15^ Rhythm, Music, and Education out briefly the divers causes of an emotional nature that may justify the exceptional use of irregular bars in the most scientifically constructed music. (See Ap- pendix, Ex. 3.) The Coincidence of Metre and Harmony, — Every change of time or rhythm calls for modifications in the harmony. Metre and harmony have a reciprocal influ- ence on each other, and a succession of notes scanned in threes requires a different harmonisation from one scanned in fours. The same sounds may be treated either as integral parts of the harmony or as unessential notes, according to the metre. And the resulting vari- ations of harmonisation, apart from their metrical sig- nificance, constitute an excellent exercise for the student of harmony. (See Appendix, Ex. 4.) Anacrusis and Phrasing. — The unity of a musical phrase depends not only on the shape of its melody, but also on the logical use of its rhythmic elements. If we closely analyse any classical work, we shall find that the impression of order which it conveys is due to the fact that no element of form alien to the main idea, which is the product of a general emotion, is allowed to enter other than as a contrast to the elementary rhythm, on which the initial theme is based. Mathis Lussy, one of the pioneers in the study of the physiology of rhythm, has written a book wholly devoted to anacrusis, which every musician has read or should read.' This is not the place to insist on the importance of the anacrusis ^VAnaarouse, by Mathis Lussy (Heugd, ^teur, 2 bis, Rue Yvn- cnne, Paris). Digitized by VjOOQ IC Eurhythmies 153 in musical phrasing. An analysis of the elements con- stituting a very simple rhythm (see Appendix, Ex. 5) will, however, indicate the profound modifications in the plastic aspect of a rhythm, and in its influ- ence on the sound of that rhythm, introduced by an anacrusis. Contrasts of Activity and Repose. — Having established the relations and manner of combination of the divers elements of a rhythm, we must next show how — by the repetition of rhythms, alternating either with rests (con- trasts of activity and repose) or with the opposition of different rhythms — one achieves the logical construction of musical phrases. All art is based on contrasts, on antitheses. Picto- rial art depends on contrasts of light and shade, on contrasts and shades of colotir. The art of architecture consists of contrasts of lines and plastic material. In music, the simple development of primordial rhythmic elements produces an effect of monotony. After every form of activity, our htmian nattire requires to recuper- ate by resting or changing the nature of its movement. To study the nature of contrasts — the nuances of ac- tivity and of its antitheses, and of their carefully bal- anced manifestations, and the harmony of opposing movements in the individual tmder the influence of feelings and sensations — ^is to surprise the secrets of sentient and sensitive life itself. (See Appendix, Ex. 6.) We have now shown the fundamental laws according to which balance may be established between the dif- Digitized by VjOOQ IC 154 Rhythm, Music, and Education ferent elements of a rhjrthm — between a rhythm, its repetition, and contrasts of silence or coimter-activity. There remains for us to trace the results of our system in so far as they involve the introduction in logical se- quence of the elements of a dynamic and agogic order. These are the direct product of spontaneous emotion, creating individual life in the social order and diversity in unity. Let us treat first of the irregularity of beats, and endeavotu" to show how, once the alternation of uneven bars is admitted, we are led, in attempting to combine two such measures so as to form what we may call a compoimd measure, to originate a new means of ex- pression : unequal beats. Unequal Beais. — Regular compoimd bars are produced by the grouping at double or triple speed of regular bars. Just as we may vary these by introducing imeven bars, so uneven groupings of notes of short duration may be formed. These will produce at first sight an impression of irregularity. But their conscious and persistent repe- tition will create a new regularity and sjmimetry which will prevent their compromising the unity of the metre. Incidentally, this manner of grouping exists in embryo in the alternating accentuations of six quavers in | and I times. (See Appendix, Ex. 7.) Many musicians fear that these disparities and irregu- larities may prejudice unity of style, by producing abrupt and jerky phrases and rhythms. It is, however, an established fact that every series of uneven time- values repeated at regular intervals gives an impression Digitized by VjOOQ IC Eurhythmies 15S of regulariiy, in the same way that the twelve-foot rhjrthm, of an alexandrine, since Victor Hugo, is re- tained intact, though those twelve feet, previously sev- erable only into 6 and 8, may now be spUt into sections of three fours, four threes, six twos, and even into varia- tions of four and eight, three, five, and four, etc. Par from abruptness, the style has thereby acquired a new flexibility. Exactly the same is happening in music. It is necessarily difficult to describe in words the broad value of this new means of musical expression and shading already used by a few musicians like Ravel, Cyril Scott, Stravinsky, etc. Those who are impervious to the psycho-physiological appeal of these emotional irregularities could never be moved to employ them, or — if they were, would not be able to employ them naturally. Education may, however, if tmdertaken in time, repair all such deficiencies. (See Appendix, Ex. 8.) Changes of Pace. — ^The subdivision into three shorter notes of an isolated beat, in a bar whose regular beats are twofold — or vice versa — ^may be adopted in the suc- ceeding bars as a regular subdivision, and thus initiate a quicker or slower pace, as the case may be. That is the real meaning and purpose of the agogic nuances desig- nated under the approximate indications of un poco piU lento or un poco piU animato; it may also help us to ap- preciate the so-called rvbato in Hungarian music, which is not a real rubato, but whose eflfects of contrasted move- ments are produced by the establishment, as time-unit, of neither the crotchet nor the quaver, but the semi- quaver. (See Appendix, Ex. 9.) Digitized by VjOOQ IC 156 Rhythm, Music, and Education Rests, — ^The rest in music is the negative equivalent of the sound-duration that it replaces; and, inversely, sound is the positive equivalent of the rest for which it is sub- stituted. The art of music might derive enormous benefit from a new conception of musical sotmd as con- trapuntal to silence (rests) instead of as obliterating the latter, as is the present practice. Actually, the maxi- mum time occupied by rests in the course of a sym- phony lasting three-quarters of an hotir is not more than two or three minutes. We smile at the ineptness of a painter who overloads his canvas with colour, but it never occtirs to us to question the taste of the com- poser in according an infinitesimal place to the sole element of contrast that can throw soimd-movement into adequate relief — the rest. A rest serves to conceal preparation for succeeding activities. The length of this preparation for future action depends on the cause of the preceding arrest of activity. Movement may be suspended — (a) by sudden exhaustion; (J) by progressive exhaustion. The interruption, that is, the rest, may be followed — (a) by an immediate restmiption of energy and activity; (6) by a slow recuperation of energy. In each of these cases, the preparation for the rest, and the resumption of movement, are of different na- ture and speed. Through rests, music may acquire a third dimension — length, breadth, and depth (the rest, Uke a note-value, penetrates, so to speak, the voltmie of the rhythm). Provision is made for rests in every art, save music. Digitized by VjOOQ IC Eurhythmies 157 which alone pours itself out in a constant flow of nerv- ous energy, in incessant volubility, insuflBciently punc- tuated for breathing purposes. Imagine four persons all talking vigorously at once. . . . According to the classic sjmiphonic procedure, there may be an occa- sional lull, while one or other of them is silent. But there will awajrs be at least one to continue the discussion. And with what prolixity and self-assurance ! This shows a fundamentally false conception, the complete rest forming one of the most natural elements of contrast. A rest, while deprived of movement, is by no means deprived of vibration. . . . While the sound is ar- rested, the external rhythm becomes internal, and con- tinues to vibrate in the hearer's organism. Silence may be more eloquent than speech. Succeeding soimd, it perpetuates the latter in the soul of the auditor — whether in music, or in conversation. We recall Molifere's couplet: '* A sigh, or a blush, or a look of despair, Or even a silence, the heart may lay bare." (See Appendix, Ex. 10.) Twice and Three Times cls Quickly and Slowly. — Un- der the impulse of particular emotions rhythms may quicken or slacken. Musical form, established on sotmd traditions, admits the possibility of a double or quadruple, half or quarter, speed of binary rhythms; of triple or sextuple, third or sixth, speed of ternary rhythms. Why not double the speed of ternary, or triple that of binary rhjrthms — ^an entirely new devel- Digitized by VjOOQ IC 158 Rhj^m, Music, and Education opment ? Why not halve the speed of quinary rhythms, quintuple the speed of binary rhythms? Music is composed, in Schumann's phrase, with our heart's blood. Why be content with such a pedantic circulation of that blood? The circulation depends on oiu* nervous system, on oiu* general or particular emo- tional state, or temperament, that modifies from day to day the circtunstances of otu* life, the acuteness of otu* desires, our prejudices, our revolts, our appeasements, and our submissions. Is not variety the essence of art ? And may not variety exist in time-values and their infinite degrees as well as in harmony and tone-colour? It may be objected that a poet may remain perfectly natural while conforming to the classical exigencies of lyric expression. Granted; but in poetry, it is a ques- tion of arranging words rhythmically to express pre- existent thoughts, whereas in music it is the rhythm itself, produced by emotion, that most commonly gives birth and form to the melodic idea. A mtisical education should therefore encourage the free development and progress of rhythm. Every aug- mentation of this faculty, in providing new media of expression, will contribute to the enrichment of music as a whole. (See Appendix, Ex. ii.) The realisation of original, beautiful, and finished inspirations demands an adequate organism. Unfor- tunately, too many ideas and visions fail to attain expression through lack of flexibility and mobility in the exponent. A musician, steeped in the classical traditions of rhythm and measure, will never be able to avail himself of the achievemwts of eurhythmies. Digitized by VjOOQ IC Eurhjrthmics i59 until he has assimilated the media of expression pro- duced by the practice of one or other system of educa- tion by and in rhythm. Exercise develops our organs. Musi(^ educationalists have only to meet in S3rmpathy, and collaborate, for the cause of eurhythmies to be won. In twenty years* time, the new methods we are advo- cating will have become classic. For the time being we are up against not only the indifference, but even the resistance of certain musicians. These negative spirits — ^who disparage or denounce original works without attempting to understand them — ^are often mere "grousers," disillusioned alike as to themselves and their calling. Others scorn the new out of venera- tion for the old. They, at least, may be respected, and even have their uses, acting as signposts on the road to progress, reminding pioneers that their work can live so long only as it constitutes a logical evolution out of past endeavotu*. Etu*hythmics requires for its ideal manifestation the intimate, whole-hearted col- laboration of a great pianist, a great singer, a great master of harmony, a great conductor, and several ac- complished instrumentalists — one and all devoting heart and soul to their work. Durable artistic works are not created out of mere intuition: they demand a com- plete mastery of their art, by the acctunulation of experience on experience. Artists of the present day are manifestly deficient in feeling for simple time-dura- tions and their potential nuances. They are careful to avoid wrong notes and wrong harmonies, but remain blissfully unconscious of correct time- values. Has one ever known a critic protest against mistakes of this sort? And yet, for musicians who have studied eu- Digitized by VjOOQ IC i6o Rhythm, Music, and Education rhythmics and possess the time-sense, the degrees of time-duration constitute a scale of shades to be as carefully followed as variations of pitch. Inter alia, a whole new literature for the organ will be produced once organists have acquired this sense of time — that instru- ment being deprived of all nuances of a tactile nattu^. Obvioudy, a revolution in style cannot be accom- plished in a day. Every style is the product of the ideas and practices of the period. But how are modem ideas ever to take definite shape so long as our musicians refuse to discard the methods of the past, to adopt even the means of attaining progress; while they refuse even to investigate the claims of those whose instinct informs them of possibilities of expression hitherto un- thought of? Education by and in rhjrthm is in effect no more than a collation and development of the ideas that are everywhere in the air. Thus unequal beats, unconsciously employed by a few of our musicians, are in constant use in the East. The whole art of musical expression may be enriched by the new sensibility resulting from the acquisition of a sense of time-dura- tion and all its nuances. In seeking to initiate compos- ers of to-morrow into the logic of unequal bars, unequal beats three times as fast and other rhjrthmical devices, our intention is by no means to influence them to com- pose in a new style, but merely to assure a greater scope for the expression of their genuine emotional impulses. Admittedly, our illustrations are for the most part examples of irregular form; but, on the one hand, irregularity, as an exceptional device, will serve to throw regularity into relief, and, on the other, a succession of irregularities constitutes, in effect, a new form of regu- Digitized by VjOOQ IC Digitized by VjOOQ IC Digitized by VjOOQ IC Eurhythmies i6i laxity. The alternation of styles is a powerful means of miisical expression, since in music, more than in any other art, contrast plays an active part in the structure. It goes without saying — ^we lay stress on the repeti- tion— that the utilisation of these divers new rhjrthmic processes for purposes of musical composition will be possible only after a careful process of assimilation. The initiation of musicians, susceptible only to external phenomena, into the harmonic devices of men like Debussy, Sch6nberg, or Stravinsky, can inspire only artificial, insincere, and consequently inexpressive pro- ductions. Similarly, the application of the many means of modifying rhytiuns by doubling and tripling the speed or slowness of isolated beats, by dissociations or irregular groupings of sounds, etc., will produce only illusory effects of virtuosity, so long as this new tech- nique is not sufficiently engrained in the composer as to be directly and unconsciously subservient to his men- tal processes. It is to be feared that much water will flow under the bridge before our rhythmic education will have sufficiently penetrated and modified mentali- ties and organisms for its potential effects to be em- ployed with ease and grace. Our primary concern — ^as we have said before — ^is that musicians trained in the methods of yesterday should devote themselves to the study of those of to-morrow. Not until then will piano- forte masters realise the beneficial influence of educa- tion by and in rhythm on the study of instnmiental technique, and teachers of composition appreciate the necessity of ever more closely co-ordinating sound and movement — ear, feeling, and temperament. Digitized by VjOOQ IC Digitized by VjOOQ IC CHAPTER VIII MUSIC, JOY, AND THE SCHOOL (1915) The school in relation to society and the family — The nervous system and sensibility in general — What is music? — Various musical pedagogues realise their deficiencies and the need for reform — The present curriculum — Essence of music — Rhythm and tonality — Personal rhythmic experiences and mental deodopment — What should be taught in music lessons at pri- mary schools ? — The ear and temperament — The joy of self- knowledge — Joy and will-power — Joy and the social sense — Good habits— Art and school files. i«3 Digitized by VjOOQIC Digitized by VjOOQ IC CHAPTER VIII To Albiet Malche MUSIC, JOY, AND THE SCHOOL (1915) School is a preparation fox life: in other words, the child, on leaving school, should be in a position not only to fulfil the divers obligations of social life, but also to exercise his will in his practical affairs, according to his particular temperament and without impinging on the rights of others. And the training, at school, of his brain, body, will, and sensibility, should be under- taken simultaneously; no one of these four indispensable factors being neglected in favour of another. Imagine the horrible, possible consequences, for example, of developing body at the expense of brain ! And of what use is brain without will? And again, must not brain and will combined remain ineffectual, so long as they are not regtdated, controlled, and harmonised by moral sensibiUty? I contend that schools ignore the training of sensi- bility, with deplorable results on the development of character. It is — to say the least of it — strange that with the existing prevalence of netirasthenia, no attempt is made to direct the boundless desires arising from ill- controlled feelings; that, in newly developed countries, where, for the most part, will-power is concentrated, with a marked absence of scruple, on the attainment of commercial success, educationalists show no anxiety 165 Digitized by VjOOQ IC i66 Rhythm, Music, and Education to awaken the moral sense of the coming generation, while in countries where too long established traditions have a cramping influence on the development of indi- viduality, no resort is made to expedients for arousing temperament. And yet the means are at hand whereby the coming generation might be trained to a greater flexibility of spirit, a firmer will-power, an intellect less dry and exclusive, more refined instincts, a richer life, and a more complete and profound comprehension of the beautiful. A mere professional musician should perhaps hesitate to approach a problem of such enormous scope. So many pedagogues regard music as a mere secondary branch of knowledge, entitled only to the last and least place in the school curriculum : a poor, beggarly subject, scarcely worthy of notice. And yet the greatest minds of ancient and modem times have assigned to it an edu- cational r61e of the highest significance. To the charge of trespassing on the domain of education proper, the musician has only to invoke the authority of Plato and most of the Greek philosophers. He might likewise re- fer to Montaigne, Helvetius, Locke, Leibnitz, Rousseau, Goethe, and Schiller, for evidence that every healthy educational system — that is, every system based on the intimately reciprocal reaction of body and mind, feeling and thought — assigns a pre-eminent place to music and the arts subservient to it. The fact that, in our schools not more than one or two hours a week are devoted to music, goes far to show that the word ''music'' has acquired an entirely new significance in otir own educational system: it has come to stand for the mechanical production, or, rather. Digitized by VjOOQ IC Music, Joy, and the School le; reproduction of sounds — a practice that depends ex- clusively on imitation, and the end and aim of which is to cram the child's mind with a certain number of sen- timental tunes of the stock pattern. This certainly is a conception of music very different from that associ- ated witii the great names mentioned above. For these masters music represented a sort of compromise be- tween inspiraton and form, the art of self-expression by personal rhythm. Far be it from us to bring charges against any one. We have no desire, in freely expressing our profound convictions, to offend a host of educationalists, many of whom, incidentally, are entirely at one with us in the matter. These, we believe, hold, as we do, that in many cases the relegation of music to the background of the school curriculum is due to lack of musical knowledge on the part of the teaching staff. It is grati- iying to us to know that a considerable number of members of the teaching profession recognise the inade- quacy of their education in music, and declare that, tiiemselves never having received a good musical edu- cation, they are unable to bestow such on others. It is beyond dispute that, at the present time, there is, almost from all sides, an urgent call for the reform of our musical education. Yet the greatest confusion pre- vails as to the means of effecting this reform; other- wise it would be simply unaccountable that, despite the protests of all musicians, not music, but a mere imitation of music, continues to be taught in most schools. No heed is paid to the appeals of competent authorities; and, whenever this important question is r$d3edi the dullest dil^tt^tism appe^u^ to preside Digitized by VjOOQ IC i68 Rhythm, Music, and Education over, and too often to have the last word in, the discussion. We shall be told that music occupies too modest a place in the school cturiculimi to admit of the reforms urged by specialists, no matter how beneficial these may appear to be. We entirely dissent from this view. One cannot have it both ways. If one's daughter complained that the height of her heels — as ordained by the ourent fashion — prevented her from walking properly, one would reply : * ' Then you must scrap them — unless you prefer to make yourself ridiculous." And to the pro- posal that music lessons, throughout the whole coiu'se of training, must be limited to one hour a week, we likewise reply : ' * Rather abolish music altogether from your time-tables." One must have time for everything — ^for music as for every other branch of study. If you r^ard music as superfluous, leave it alone; but if you attach importance to it, and the conventional time- tables prove an obstacle, remove the obstacle. Before everything else, one must make stu^ that the teaching of music is worth while. And there must be no confusion as to what is to be understood by "music." There are not two classes of music; one for adults, drawing-rooms, and concert-halls, the other for children and schools. There is only one music, and the teaching of it is not so difficult a matter as scholastic authorities are apt to suggest at their congresses. Under an ideal social system, everyone will make it his duty to dis- pense his art and learning freely about him; every true musician, both composer and artist, will devote an hour daily to the giving of music lessons for the benefit of the public; — ^then, and not till then, will the Digitized by VjOOQ IC Music, Joy, and the Scho6l 169 problem be solved. We have a long way to travel before that point is reached. Yet, may we not legiti- mately ask of those upon whom the whole musi(^ training of otir youth depends, that they shall at least regard music not as a pastime, but as an art ; — that they shall treat it, and teach others to treat it, with respect if not with love, as becoming to an art that, in a well- organised social scheme, shotild impress every manifes- tation of beauty with the cachet we call style. So long as society is badly organised, so long will man be unable to give thought to beauty. Once given the opportunity, he will become a devotee of art, so far as his innate capacities will allow him. It is not the function of education to develop isolated individuals. Its aim is far removed and higher : nothing short of the progressive development of the race, the perfecting of its thought and taste. One cannot cure the disease of ignorance by increasing one's own know- ledge. It is a question of taking precautionary meas- ures for future guidance, of influencing the outlook and disposition of the coming generation, and so mould- ing it as to ensure the transmission to f uttu-e generations of a strongly social instinct and more intense love of truth. To confine mtisical education to the teaching of a few patriotic songs is to give the child "an idea of the ocean by showing him a drop of water in a glass." A tune is nothing other than a feeling expressed in a particular language — music. What is the use of giving children sentences to learn by heart in a language of which they are ignorant? This absurdity is enacted daily in our ^ooU in th^ nam^ of riiusiq lessons! W^ shall be told Digitized by VjOOQ IC 170 Rhythm, Music, and Education that this is an exaggeration, that the lessons are not confined to the teaching of patriotic airs, that children are also taught to read music at sight. Admitted that in some schools children actually are taught to read music. But how are they taught? It is not so much the result as the method that matters (for our present purposes). It is possible, by means of certain mathe- matised and muscular processes, to contrive to read music without possessing the slightest feeling for to- nality. But it is precisely feeling for tonality that should be created before everything — ^forming, as it does — apart from rhythm — the whole essence of music. Tonality is the vertebral column of harmony. A melody, deprived of all time and rhythm, may yet express feeling by means of gradations and contrasts of tone and of modulations. A method that professes to teach children to read music, and is not based on the study of tonality or scales — the relations between tones and semitones — must be dismissed as inadequate. It may produce certain ephemeral results, but it can never contribute to the musical progress and general development of the race. And yet, as educationalists, our aim must be ever in that direction. This alone justifies, in the first instance, otir forcing children to attend school. In their homes, they are surrounded by the influence of tradition; school widens their hori- zon, teaching them that man's duty does not consist in working for the passing moment, but involves pre- paring for the future. The most important element in music lessons should be their general effect of awakening in the pupil a love for the art; for that purpose i1^ i§ neqe^sarjr — passing Digitized by VjOOQ IC Music, Joy, and the School 171 from the general to the particular — to initiate him into the two primordial elements of music : rhythm and tone. Rhythm is the basis of all vital, scientific, and artistic phenomena. It produces alike the element of order and measure in movement and the idiosyncrades of execution. The study of rhythm conduces to the for- mation of an individuality for all ptirposes of life — that is, a manner of expressing oneself according to the rhythm most natural and native to one's being, which again is largely dependent on one's constitution, blood circulation, and nervous system. Rhythm is ignored in our present educational s}rstem. A vague attempt is made to inculcate some idea of time, but children leave school without knowing the meaning of rhythm. No one, surely, now doubts that rhythm originates in the body itself! And it is worth noting that the most gifted of all artistic peoples, from the rhythmic point of view — ^the Greeks — in marking the rhythm of their verses, designated the rhythmic luiit by the term **foot," which usage has passed into most modem languages. And yet we have long ceased to scan verses by means of bodily movement, and rhythm has become a purely intellectual conception. That is why children find it so difficult to acquire a feeling for music rhythm, in reading at sight. And we are reduced to the necessity of deliberately severing, for purposes of school training, the two fundamental and equally important elements of music — ^movement and tone. To teach them simultaneously would confuse the child and compromise the whole effect of the train- ing. The child must therefore forego the study and analysis of keys, until he is well practised in rhythmic Digitized by VjOOQ IC 172 Rh5^hm, Music, and Education movements. The image of these experiences m corpor- al rhythm, impressed and re-impressed on his mind, will awaken and develop his rhythmic consciousness; just as, later on, the image of the tonal experiences of the ear, likewise repeatedly engraved on the memory, awakens and develops a feeling for tone. This com- prises all that is required in the way of musical educa- tion at school. We now propose to put a few simple questions, by the replies to which, we may judge whether the present system is worth preserving, or whether a reform of musical education is really necessary. 1. Are you of opinion that the child should learn the meaning of words before he is taught to read or write them? The answer will presumably be in the affirmative. 2. Do you believe that a child will instinctively shun any disagreeable sensation — for instance, that he will keep away from fire before he has been burnt? Answer: No. 3. Do you believe that an oyster, encrusted in shell, can understand the delight of a hare in scampering over meadows and woods? Answer: No. 4. Do you believe that a myope could follow with the naked eye the flight of an aeroplane crossing the frontier? Answer: No. 5. Are you of opinion that one can hear music bet- ter with a good than with a bad ear? Answer: Yes. Digitized by VjOOQ IC Music, Joy, and the School i73 6. Are you of opinion that, by training, even medi- ocre faculties may be developed? Answer: Yes. The unanimity of the replies all intelligent folk will return to these questions justifies us in declaring that the present system of musical education should be com- pletely reformed. We must begin by setting children exercises in hearing music; for, strange though it may seem, in very few coimtries is this the present procediu*e ! We must again apologise to those of our colleagues who have improvised hearing-exercises in their particu- lar classes. We realise that many of them share our views, and we are extremely gratified. But we are now speaking of our school syllabus, according to whidi music lessons comprise making children hear what they do not understand, read what they cannot understand, and write down what they have never learnt or felt. I may be told that in every dass there will be found some pupils who hear and understand perfectly. Granted; but they do so, not as a result, but in spite of the training. It does not follow, in our opinion, that any one who can read music competently must neces- sarily be musical. A person without any feeling for music may read with great facility, while another may read extremely badly and yet possess exceptional mu- sical gifts. The essential is that one should have a good ear, and so be able to appreciate the infinite nuances of pitch and of dynamism of soimds, developments, and oppo- sitions of rhythm, and contrasts of tonality;' and that musical training should develop inner hearing — that is, » See Chapter V, p. 95. Digitized by VjOOQIC 174 Rhjrthm, Music, and Education the capacity for hearing mtisic as distinctly mentally as physically. Every method of teaching should aim, before everything else, at awakening tliis capacity. We hold also that it shotild conduce to the development of the individuality, and the perfecting of the whole mechanism of thought and feeling; achieving, in short, the co-ordination of experience and memory, experi* ence and imagination, the automatic and the conscious, the conscious and the requisites of temperament and fantasy. The training of sensibility and temperament should precede that of the ear, for rhythm (a product of the balance of active nervous forces) is a f imdamental ele- ment of music, as of every other art, and, indeed, of every vital manifestation. And even if his hearing faculties should later prove insufficient to qualify the child to pass for a musician, in the ordinary sense of the word, the training we advocate will have served to enable him, so to speak, to enter into his individuality. Initiated into the marvellous mechanism of his body, given to him for consecration as a worthy dwelling- place for the soul — confident of achieving without effort or preoccupation any and every movement suggested by others or of his own volition — the child will experi- ence a growing yearning to make full use of the abtm- dant forces in his control. His imagination will likewise develop as his mind, released from all constraint and nervous disquietude, gives full rein to his fantasy. Ftmctioning develops the organ, and the conscious- ness of organic functioning develops thought. And as the child feels himself delivered from all physical em- barrassment and mental obsession of a lower order, Digitized by VjOOQ IC Music, Joy, and the School 175 added to the sense — acquired by the practice of com- bining his individual efforts with those of the rest of the class — of participation in a collective movement, he will conceive a profoimd joy, of an elevated charac- ter, a new factor in ethical progress, a new stimulus to will-power. I call this joy "elevated," because it will not be based on external circtunstances. It will be distinct from pleasure, in that it becomes a permanent condition of the being, independent alike of time and of the events that have given rise to it; an integral element of our organism. It will not necessarily be accompanied by laughter, as is gaiety; it may qtiite well make no ex- ternal display; it will flower in the hidden recesses of the ego, in tiie mysterious garden of the soul, where the sap of our individuality is secreted, a sap that can- not be squandered — ^whidi may be applied in every direction, and never exhausted. Joy arises in the child the moment his faculties are liberated from any re- straint, and he becomes conscious of his control over them, and decides on the direction in which that con- trol shall be exercised. This joy is the product of a joint sense of emancipation and responsibility, com- prising a vision of our creative potentialities, a balance of natural forces, and a rhjrthmic harmony of desires and powers.' Germinating in the creative faculties, innate or acquired, this joy increases in proportion as our powers develop and our will frees us from the shackles that have burdened us from birth. The gift of self-knowledge, conferred on the child by an education •"Joyisasoul-foroe." . . . " Joy iUummates thought" . . . **JaU ei Action" by Henri Bois, Sociiti d*SdUion de Toulouse^ 1910. Digitized by VjOOQ IC 176 Rhythm, Music, and Education calculated to cultivate every vital spiritual and physi- cal faculty, will produce a sense of liberation and independence. This self-knowledge Will mean that his education has effected a thorough co-ordination, not only of imagination and its practical activities, of per- ceptions and feelings, but also of the different kinds of impulses and emotions. Who could resist a feeling of joy at acquiring the power of rapid association of ideas, the capacity of more speedy and clearer-sighted analy- sis of the motives of futiu*e actions, and more distinct presentiment of the effects of present ones? **Joy," in Bergson's words, * *is at once heat and light. * * In certain exceptional persons this light glows from birth. But this is not the case with many children, and it is the fimction of teachers, by care and perseverance, to create in their obscure souls the ray of joy which at first may glimmer faintly and intermittently, but which eventually will illtmiinate and keep ablaze a whole hearth of light and heat, ever increasing in warmth, lustre, and beneficence. This light will illuminate not only the present, but the future. It will guide htunanity along its present path and to its ultimate destination. Not from without do we receive and assimilate it: it must arise from within ourselves, and irradiate from the centre of our being. We cannot contain it. Irre- sistibly, it must spread its lustre upon those about us, not only those in our immediate neighbourhood, but upon apparent strangers. Who, indeed, possessing this quality of radiance, could resist a yearning to exercise it for the benefit of others ? How should even the most hardened egoist be content to keep to himself an influ- ence exuding with such force and such splendid spon- Digitized by VjOOQ IC Music, Joy, and the School i77 taneity from the springs of his being? The more joy we inherit, the more we are tempted to impart it among those to whom it has been denied. And so, like the soldier of Marathon, who bounded away, his heart leaping with ecstasy, to spread the glad tidings, till, disregarding and gradually exhausting his powers, he collapsed at the moment of annoimcing the victory, but who expired in the joy of having accomplished his mission, — so we, too, must expend our forces, not only in exulting over our hardly regained faculties and the joy that has come to birth in us, but also in freely disseminating this joy among our conu-ades. And how is this joy created and nurtured and made durable? Simply by the realisation of our ambition to utilise to the full all that is capable of utilisation in us, and to master, by unceasing endeavour, new proclivi- ties producing, in their turn, subconscious impressions of such force, as to burst forth from us, pervading our whole environment. Our whole lives depend on habits. Our misfortunes arise from bad, as our joys from good ones. The mere rectification by an effort of will of some habitual tendency, however insignificant, will serve to give us the self-confidence necessary for under- takings of far greater scope. Who can achieve the little, can achieve the great. Once the child has planted his foot firmly on the path of progress, he will find it com- paratively easy to keep a straight course, without wast- ing his energies. The difficulty is not so much to exercise powers as to wiU such exercise. Once arrived at our destination, what matters the time we have taken! The essential is that we should have been able to make the journey, and have known where we were going. Digitized by VjOOQ IC 178 Rhj^hm, Music, and Education Only good habits have maintained us while on the march. The more we cultivate these, the more our power increases. Joy is attained with the first step towards progress. Thenceforward, it will intensify un- ceasingly; rendering us capable of the highest and most unexpected achievements. Finally, combining with our subconscious forces, it will take firm root, and, fol- lowing the inevitable law of life, bring forth buds and fruits and flowers. It stands to reason that the attainment of this per- manent state of joy, at once sensorial, emotional, and intellectual, must intensify the child's imaginative and artistic faculties. ^Esthetic emotion is a product of the refinement of the senses, susceptibility of the nervous system, and mental flexibility. Whatever the child's natural artistic proclivities, a conscientious study of the phenomena of movement, both in himself and in natme, cannot fail to produce a more vivid compre- hension of art as a whole. Art is compound at once of imagination, reflection, and emotion. Reflection tem- pers and refines the imagination ; imagination gives life to style, and emotion ennobles and sensitises the pro- ducts of sensation, reflection, and imagination. The question may be asked whether it is really worth while to train hundreds of yotmg people in artistic pursuits for the purpose of public performances. Cer- tainly, in these troubled times, little thought is given either to art or to the stage. But this has been a charac- teristic of all periods of abnormal stress. Besides, artistic studies are not designed solely for the training of professional artists: they aim also at forming a public capable of appreciating artistic representations. Digitized by VjOOQIC Music, Joy, and the School 179 of entering into the spirit of them, and of feeling the emotion they may have served to express. Scholastic instruction is not enough. Training of the senses and mind alone can raise the public taste to such a pitch that, in the ideal of Adolphe Appia (one of the purest artists of our time), the public shall actively collaborate in sjnnbolic and poetic spectacles presented by men of genius. For my part, I am convinced that education by and in rhythm is capable of awakening a feeling for art in all those who undertake it. That is why I will continue my agitation for its introduction in our schools, and for the enlightenment of our educationalists as to the important and decisive r61e art should play in popular education. So far as pictorial, architectural, and sculptural art is concerned, it is not enough that there be schools in which the representation of lines, colour, light and shade, relief and grouping, is taught: the students of these schools must be trained to respond with their whole being to the rhythmic movement that raises, sets, balances, harmonises, and animates works of statuary, architecttu-e, and pictorial art. Nor is it enough to teach students of our conservatoires to inter- pret masterpieces of music with their fingers. Before everything, they must be initiated into the sensations that have inspired the composition of these works, the movement that gave life to their emotions, and the rhythm which has regulated and refined them. A Bach fugue is a dead letter to those who are unable to feel in themselves the conflicts produced by the coimter- point, and the sense of peace and harmony evoked by the synergies. Digitized by VjOOQ IC i8o Rhjrthm, Music, and Education A true pedagogue should be at once psychologist, physiologist, and artist. The complete citizen should leave school capable not only of living normally, but oi feeling life. He should be in a position both to create and to respond to the creations of others. Digitized by VjOOQ IC CHAPTER IX RHYTHM AND CREATIVE IMAGINATION (1916) The man of genius and the crowd — Futility of teaching rules of construction and classification before awakening artistic imagination — Technique and invention — Temperament and style — Order and balance — Methods and Kfe — The individual ethic — The integral muscular sense — Irregularity of time- values — Organisation of work. 181 Digitized by VjOOQ IC Digitized by VjOOQ IC CHAPTER IX RHYTHM AND CREATIVE IMAGINATION (1916) Individuauty of Style, originality of technique, and imaginative power do not of themselves constitute the quality of genius in a work of art. The distinction between a man of genius and a man of talent is that the latter remains isolated from artists specialising in branches of art other than his own — ^isolated, moreover, from the common thought of the people to whom he belongs, even though he be associated with a school, or, for that matter, the foimder of one. A genius is the direct product of a general spiritual and social develop- ment— the representative of "milieu** — and his work constitutes the spontaneous expression of the soul of a race. His power consists in uniting in one compre- hensive movement the individual movements of iso- lated minds; in grouping in a single mighty rhythm the particular rhythms of his contemporaries. Often enough the aesthetic effects of the man of talent present a more vivid appearance than those of the creative genius: the latter being less ostentatious because more serene, less picturesque because more composite. Too many artists, in expressing complex emotions, will be f otmd to sacrifice their innate sense of form. Too many, again, only possess a sense of form from lack of imagi- nation. Reasoning is so much simpler than imagining. 183 Digitized by VjOOQ IC i84 Rhythm, Music, and Education The admirable offices of logic in concatenating ideas are, however, a poor substitute for the rapid processes of spontaneous emotions, creative of vivid images, thrown out haphazard in their violent course, forming in their fortuitous groupings ever new effects of combination. No adequate attempt is made in our schools to develop children's imaginative qualities; on the contrary, they are suppressed by a continual insistence on analysis, co-ordination, classification, and labelling. In our con- servatoires, students are expected to bow before the hallowed traditions and proprieties of technique, style, and imagination. Admittedly, licence does not neces- sarily conduce to beauty. Admittedly, one of the ftmctions of education is to produce clear and or- dered mentalities, trained in logic and analysis. But let us not set the cart before the horse! Wliat is the use of learning to construct before you are given ma- terial with which to construct — of knowing all about classifications before you have any ideas to classify? A musical work without form, but revealing qualities of passion and vitality, is siurely superior to a correct but stereotyped harmonic exercise! True originality is the product of individual ideas, not of picturesque processes of expression. Before inculcating the means of aesthetic expression, would it not be advisable to put your futiu*e artist into contact with life and nature, encouraging him to study their rhjrthms, to absorb and identify himself with them — and then, if you like, to interpret them? If it be at all possible, on a careful analysis of the works of master musicians from the point of view of phrasing and shading, to deduce, from observation and Digitized by VjOOQ IC Rhythm and Creative Imagination 185 comparison of characteristic passages, any general rules of interpretation, there should yet be no question of attributing to these rules the character of definite laws, or of imposing them on students as such. In a great number of cases, the strict application of general principles of style will produce an interpretation of the particular passage to be phrased, accurate in its expression. But, where art and feeling are concerned, accuracy is not enough; the artist must interpret music in his own way, guided by natural instinct, to which he should subordmate his whole individuality. The only law of shading beyond dispute is that of contrdsL This is the foundation of all rules of musical expression. But no rules can compensate for lack of temperament, and the master's first care should be to awaken the temperament of his pupils, to cultivate their aesthetic sense, and to develop their individual characteristics by every means in his power. He should therefore be careful, in expounding a new rule, to point out that this rule may be, in practice, subject to innumerable exceptions, and that an adequate musical interpreta- tion is not so much an intellectual as a spiritual matter ; he should invite his pupils to suggest other interpreta- tions, to each of which he will accord a fair hearing — even if it appears to him wrong — so as not to discourage them, and to preserve their predilection for individual expression . Undoubtedly aestlietic feeling develops some- what late in children, and it is therefore indispensable to formulate certain general rules for guidance; but the master should point out that these rules may be re- placed by others, and that the interpretation of any particular melodic passage may vary according to the Digitized by VjOOQ IC i86 Rhythm, Music, and Education character of its predecessor and successor, in the same way as, in instrumental exercises, the fingering of a scale will vary with the notes on which it commences and finishes. In short, the master should teach his pupils the art of shading and phrasing in the same way as a professor of counterpoint — a real artist, and not a pedant — ^would initiate his pupils into the composition of fugues, while indicating that the classic rules and formulas are nothing until they are vitalised by artistic feeling, love, and pursuit of beauty. Far from me be the desire to limit the time given to studies in technique, analysis of styles, and processes of notation in the time-tables of schools of music. Every musician must be acquainted with the trade secrets of his calling, and, before inventing for himself, must have learnt to imitate and reproduce. But not all invention is of a creative nature. A sound education should furnish the student with the means of extracting only such parts of his reading and analysis as will be useful to him, enabling him to strike out his own path instead of following the beaten track. Undoubtedly classical musical studies are indispensable ; but too often the method of conducting them in conservatoires is suitable only for those already acquainted with them, and in whom the master has already awakened the instinct for individual development and the distin- guishing of processes congenial to their particular tem- peraments. Too many imaginative faculties are aroused quite late in life, owing to masters having demanded only the execution of formulas, and encouraged a mere imitation — ^first voluntary, later involuntary — of the methods of composition bequeathed to us by prede- Digitized by VjOOQ IC Rhythm and Creative Imagination 187 cessors of different temperament, instead of induc- ing instinctive elementary researches, founded on the consdotisness of actual physical and emotional capaci- ties. Much has been written on the art that will follow the cessation of hostilities, as though the War itself mttst exercise an immediate influence on art. The determin- ing factor in any new development of style will be our attitude after the War, and the extent to which we seek, in the period of reconstruction and reparation, to react from past impressions, and to throw off every previous constraint, purifying ourselves of effete doctrines and automatic thoughts and productions — and so becoming capable of expressing forcibly, and in an individual manner (though, where necessary, also collectively), our new emotions — freed from obsolete forms and methods of education, and alive in every limb to the acute consciousness of the present, and the foreknow- ledge of the future. One of the first concerns of the education of the future will have to be the extrication of the rhyilims congenial to particular individualities from the influences tending to restrict their free expression, and the restoration to the child of the exclusive control of his temperament. A constant appeal will be made to his imagination; his nervous system will have to acquire the necessary flexibility to prevent the wealth of images issuing through its agency from inducing a state of hypersen- sitiveness. The body, instinct with motor force at high pressure, will have to be prepared to execute every behest of mind, and, after every such execu- tion, to keep a sufficient reserve of energy. Many parents at present shrink from having the creative Digitized by VjOOQ IC i88 Rhythm, Music, and Education imagination of their children developed. They are afraid of their becoming "artists," under the impression that it is impossible to be an artist without possessing a "kink." And if it were? Is not this "kink" the root of all wisdom? Artists, in their wanderings over un- known countries of their own creation and transfigura- tion, may surely be pardoned an occasional deviation. Their philistine brothers have no merit in never losing their way, since they keep vigorously and stolidly to the beaten track, victims — ^if they only knew it — of their lack of imagination. And yet creative artists possess qualities of memory and accuracy which would secure them the high regard of the phiUstines, were these to suspect their existence. A painter, for example, recalls every detail of the images that have arrested his eye; his mind classifies, assorts, and combines them, and transforms each active element into idealised forms charged with emotion. But the essential is that his work should be groimded in feeling. Too many of us are on our guard against artistic emotions, afraid of falling, in following our natural instincts. Our peo- ple will only become really artistic through an edu- cation in temperament and sensibility. Grace and naturalness are commonly supposed to be incapable of conscious acquisition. As a matter of fact, the natural in art is nearly always the result of careful selection, and a host of eliminations, sacrifices, transpositions, and changes of place — all of which relate very definitely to the conscious. The order, symmetry, and art of prepa- ration and balance, that constitute the harmony of a work of art, of preparation depend largely on the man- ner in which the artist has learnt to subordinate each of Digitized by VjOOQ IC Rhythm and Creative Imagination 189 the rhythmic elements of his theme to a general syn- thesis and rhythmic unity. Rhythm is the live essence of feeling, the fimdamental impulse of a movement in the form impressed on it by tlie first emotional reac- tion. Elementary rhythm requires the consonance of each of its subdivisions to enable it to retain its power of animating a continuously harmonised movement. Rhythm and metre are the bases of all art. "Poems," said Emerson, "are a corrupt version of some text in nature, with which they ought to be made to tally. A rhyme in one of our soimets should not be less pleas- ing than the iterated nodes of a sea-shell, or the resem- bling difference of a group of flowers." It is always interesting to distinguish the personality of an artist beneath the divers forms of his creation, to watch its modifications according to the whims of his aesthetic instinct, to follow the successive experi- ences dictated by his temperament. But the human value of a work of art does not lie in its display of origi- nality in manner and style: it depends on the sincerity of the pursuit, and the disinterestedness of the love, for beauty which it manifests. There is no dearth of artists, whose sole motive is an ambition to develop their "ego," and who love nature only in so far as she enables them to express and vary their personal fancies. The great creative minds, confronted with beauty, be- come oblivious of everything that does not paitake of beauty. They concentrate on expressing the emo- tion it calls forth. They humble themselves before it, becoming its passionate and faithful devotees. They are prepared to sacrifice themselves for it; they seek ever to raise themselves to its level; they lay bare their Digitized by VjOOQ IC 190 Rhythm, Music, and Education hearts for beauty to take possession of them. What are all our methods and systems, what matter if in- stincts be primitive or cultured, what is all technique and science, without love — ^love for life in beauty, and beauty in life? Certainly there exist laws which enable the artist to furnish a perfect form for the images recorded by his intuition; there are fundamental prin- ciples of ordination of lines, of juxtaposition and coal- escence of colours and sounds, but in the completed work, nothing of all this science should be manifest. Alone, the feeling of rhythm — that is, the true, ideal, creative essence, the fundamental harmony of nature — should reveal itself: a direct, spontaneous, and faithful reflection of Beauty. It is the painter's fimction to diffuse himself in the objects he sees, his works constituting an apparent ex- pansion of the intense curiosity for the rhythms of life and nature that animates his artistic consciousness. This continual preoccupation with movement in picto- rial art should commend itself to musicians. Painters must also, like them, acquire the art of associating and dissociating movements, of accentuating consonances, creating counterpoint, treating human emotions sym- phonically, and selecting appropriate gestures and at- titudes for their expression in "orchestration." "Rhythm is everywhere," as all artists are agreed; but this sacred principle must not be allowed to remain a mere statement. Only rhythm can assure the unity of human faculties and constitute that ethical individu- ality— ^if I may be permitted the term — the possession of which reveals our divers potentialities, and trans- forms the htunan organism into a confluence of ideas, Digitized by VjOOQ IC Rhythm and Creative Imagination 191 sensations, and faculties — a living harmony of inde- pendent entities voluntarily united. Creative imagination in every branch of art was obsessed in the period before the War, with the research for novel effects, completely out of touch with normal life. — (Or was it that life itself had so lost touch with its natural rhythms that the artist was no longer capable of rhy thmidsing his work realistically ?) On the rising generation falls the duty of seeking to create mentali- ties, clearer, more in conformity with instinct, and, at the same time, more disciplined; likewise temperaments at once richer in power and more conscious of their composition. Musical education of the future, for in- stance, will no longer confine itself to the laws of syntax and vocabularies, but will comprise the development of means of spontaneous expression, and the art of combining and harmonising them by the process of elimination and selection known as style. Music must become once more a living language, a vital manifesta- tion of thoughts and emotions. And, for this purpose, greater scope must be allowed in its study for the qualities of effusion, propulsion, and repercussion that characterise total expression by sound. Musicians of to-morrow must try to develop the art of regulating planes, pursuing lines, and determining and controlling pace. And this development will depend on a new orientation that has yet to be created, to replace the conventional methods of thematic development (killed for all time by Debussy) by an architecture satisfying at once the needs of emotional imagination and the exigencies of form. All young painters to- day are unanimous in their desire and resolve to dis- Digitized by VjOOQ IC 192 Rhythm, Music, and Education card the artifices of camouflage decoration in favour of all that is unchanging and permanent in form; that endures throughout the ages to harmonise elements rightly proportioned, to select only subjects directly inspired by emotion, and to retain only essential sen- sations completely and distinctly realised.* Young musicians will aim at the same ideal, concen- trating primarily on the control of emotions, on the limitation of mere easy imitation of exceptional, acci- dental, and decorative elements, renouncing the effects of mere virtuosity that obscure the really human pro- perty of conceptions, and spiritualising music by every possible means. They will be unanimous in discarding, in order to return to nature (i.e., to elementary emo- tions and simple expression), every development of an intellectual and didactic order, and every aesthetic process issuing from a momentary fancy rather than from a deep-seated sensibility, varjring in the most na- tural, flexible, and elastic manner. . . . But these new conceptions depend on a tmification of spiritual and corporal faculties, that can be achieved only by an assiduous training in movements in time and space, and a diligent cultivation of the muscular sense. This training alone can convey to the mind a feeling for time-duration — one of the elements of music most in- timately allied to sensibility (for only a feeling for move- ment can reveal to us the laws by which modifications in the acuteness of sounds unite with modifications in their time and dynamic force). Only the possession of a powerful muscular sense can enable the hearer to sub- ' Vide the interesting work by Ozenfeuit and Jeonneret, Apr^ U Cubisme {Sdiiion des CommetUaires). Digitized by VjOOQ IC X < Digitized by VjOOQ IC Digitized by VjOOQ IC Rhythm and Creative Imagination 193 stitute for the emotional state of the moment a condi- tion that will respond to the motor sensibility of the composer, and only such a sense can endow the latter with the capacity of expressing himself spontaneously, with- out permitting theories of a literary or mathematical order to trespass on the domain of purified physical sensations. The hearer of a work of music should be able to say : ' * That is yourself! " But he can only sense this constitution of the work, if it really appeals to him, by means of emotions, mutually and genuinely experi- enced, and sacrifices freely accepted. The muscular sense is at present so imperfectly de- veloped, both in the composer and in the interpreter, that the latter — especially a pianist — usually disregards the expressive potentialities of time-duration; while the former, in many cases, is imconsdous of the shortcom- ings of most of his agogic effects. In particular, rubato effects are nowadays so exaggerated by pianoforte vir- tuosi that the intimate relations subsisting between the energy expended (accentuations) and the changing forms of the soimds (time- values) are utterly distorted. The pianist, plajring without orchestral accompaniment, is apt to follow his whim in modifying the sequence and alternation of time-values and accentuations that constitute musical rhythm, and by so doing deprives himself of an infinite variety of means of expression. Incessant vagaries of rubato, compared with the pro- cesses of imagination, are as the buzzing of a fly against the window-pane to the soaring flight of an eagle. In fact, not only the aesthetic expression inherent in nuances of time, as conceived by the composer, but also the dynamic force itself, is thus vitiated — ^nuances 13 Digitized by VjOOQ IC 194 Rhythm, Music, and Education of time and energy being inseparable. Vagaries in the distribution of sound-durations can only attain aesthetic value by contrast, at the right moment, with an ordered interpretation scrupulously observant of the relations in time between the various sounds — ^just as the aesthetic value of a crescendo and a diminuendo is only established by reference to a piano or a forte, and the emotional value of a modulation depends on its contrast with a fixed and persistent tonal state. Would not the most indulgent of critics reprimand a pianist who exercised his humour for fantasy to the point of sprinkling a melody in C major with profuse sharps and flats, ''padding" simple chords, or trans- posing minor into major themes? And yet we could name a host of critics, including the most exacting, who neither condemn, nor even mention, the complete dis- regard by most pianists of time nuances! This is an inconsistency only explicable in the light of the igno- rance of most musicians of the physical laws which govern agogic shading. This ignorance is, fortunately, likely to be dispelled in the near future, now that so many thinking musicians are coming to realise the im- portance of the active and receptive functions of the motor organism, and the existence of natural laws governing the relations between movement and sound — the two mutually fundamental elements in the musical expression of human emotions. We are in the habit of jotting down fleeting impres- sions, of sketching instead of finishing compositions, of merely noting instead of arranging rhythms. The cult of picturesque details has supplanted that of form prop^. Educationists should bear in mind that» Digitized by VjOOQ IC Rhythm and Creative Imagination 195 while rhythm plays a preponderant r61e in art, serving .to tmite all manifestations of beauty and animating them with the same throbbing life, it should constitute a no less important factor in general education, co- ordinating all the spiritual and corporal movements of the individual, and evolving in the latter a mental state in which the combined vibrations of desires and powers are associated in perfect harmony and balance. "Only the soul can guide the body, along the path the mind has traced for it." Digitized by VjOOQ IC Digitized by VjOOQ IC CHAPTER X RHYTHM AND GESTURE IN MUSIC DRAMA— AND CRITICISM (1910-1916) The Individual Artist The trinity of word, gesture, and music — MusicaUsing of musdes — Stairs and inclines — Adolphe Appia's method — Nuances of movements — The training of audiences — Relation between musical and corporal dynamics — Nudity and the purification of bodily interpretations. Criticism Universal ignorance of the laws of plastic interpretation — Orchestration of the human body — Conventions and inconsis- tencies— Vanity of impressionistic judgmerUs — The rdle of the critic. The Crowd Passion-plays in Switzerland throughout the ages — Open- air festivals — The rdle of the crowd in music drama — The laws of collective gesture — Relations between the crowd and the individual artist — Mass dynamism — The polyrhythm of crowds — The training of a chorus — Gesture and lighting. W Digitized by VjOOQIC Digitized by VjOOQ IC CHAPTER X RHYTHM AND GESTURE IN MUSIC DRAMA— ANDCRITiaSM (19IO-I916) The Individual Artist Since Richard Wagner (following Gluck) prescribed for lyric drama the classic trinity of word, gesture, and music, and set himself to define the ideal method of interpreting his works, and, like Gr6try,.to lay the foundations of a school of lyric-dramatic art, the pub- lic, under the influence of its critics and amateurs, has concluded that, to the everlasting glory of the contem- porary stage, sound, movement, and speech have been definitely united in the creation of an art-form analogous to the Greek Orchesis, and that all goes well in the best of aU possible worlds. It may nevertheless be worth while to inquire whether the mere presence of the three classic elements in a lyric work suflBces to establish their tmity. Actually a cursory analysis of modem lyric works — including those of Wagner — must bring home to the most optimistic that the classic tmity has not been achieved, and is incapable of achievement under existing conditions of musical education. To tmite word, gesture, and music, it is not enough that the music should be intimately allied to the word. Digitized by VjOOQIC 200 Rhythm, Music, and Education nor that the word and the gesture should correspond. It is necessary in addition that physical movements and sound movements, the musical and the plastic elements, should be co-ordinated. If we now examine either the works or the productions of the modem theatre, we shall find ourselves forced to admit that this last union has not yet been effected. Just as verbal expression, the poetic interpretation of the text, demands precise and definite gestures, so musical expression, constituting the atmosphere of the piece, exacts of the actor a similar and absolute phjrsical submission to the rhythm that produces it. Every movement of musical rhythm should evoke in the body of the interpreter a corresponding muscular movement; every mood expressed in sound should determine on the stage an appropriate attitude; every orchestral nuance, every crescendo, diminuendo, stringendo or raUentando should be impressed on the interpreter and expressed by him, as occasion demands. I say, as occasion demands, because, naturally, as the purpose of the text does not require an appropriate gesture to each word, so not every musical rhythm calls for its physical interpretation. It is, however, essential that it should produce a mental attitude, that it should develop in the mind of the interpreter a particular image that shall animate his whole organism, if we really wish to see the ideal unity effected — ^if we wish to bring music into the heart of life. We have only to visit any of our principal opera houses and study the play of the performers, while listening to the orchestra, to perceive at once that there exists a barrier between the prche§tr^ ^d th^ stage, and th^t the Qrcb^r^ Digitized by VjOOQ IC Rhythm and Gesture ^i music acts as a mere accompaniment to the song or to the attitude of the actors, and does not really enter into them and inspire their movements. The music rises, swells, breaks out in grandiose resonance; the gesture either does not follow the crescendo, or does not convey it to the spectator. The music subsides, dies away, whispers and murmurs as in a dream — ^the attitude on the stage reveals a musctdar tension which is fortissimo/ Even musical rhythms that characterise not soul-movements, but simple motions of the body, such as walking or running or sudden arrests or starts, are not realised on the stage — or are realised incorrectly, which is worse ! Certainly there exist opera singers who feel the necessity of this tmion of gesture and music, and who endeavour to express rhythms of sound by mus- cular rhythms. But they do not succeed for want of a special training — as necessary to this end as is a special finger training to enable a musician to express himself through the medium of an instrument. Not every musician requires to express music in movement, but it is obvious that an opera singer, to be a complete artist, must possess this faculty of "realising" rhjrthms plastically. Unfortunately, if his education is incom- plete, that of his public is much more so; that is why so many non-rhythmic singers attain success in spite of this deficiency. It will not always be so; a new point of view is already in course of evolution; the study of the relations between time and space is engaging the attention of numerous aestheticians, and the time is not far distant when lack of rhythm will be counted as serious a flaw in a singer's equipment as tonal inaccuracy. Digitized by VjOOQIC 202 Rhythm, Music, and Education Before dedicating one's body to the service of art, it should be deemed necessary to perfect its mechanism, to develop its capacities, and to correct its shortcomings. It is not enough that these capacities function intui- tively, as is the case with many gifted individuals; it is necessary in addition that they should be exercisable consciously, and not depend on momentary nervous impulses. Again, it is essential that the nervous system itself should be trained and regulated so as to give the brain complete liberty of control over muscular move- ments. All movements of the body, its gait, gestures, and attitudes, should be studied not only on a flat surface, such as the boards of a stage, but on different planes, on incUnes of different degrees (where practic- able), and on staircases,' in such a way that the body may familiarise itself with space, its plastic manifesta- tions adapting themselves to the material conditions dictated by the action, and eventually imposing on the painter a new conception and treatment of scenery. Finally the organism should become an instrument of musical resonance so vibrant and of such susceptibility as to be capable of spontaneously transposing into ' Adolphe Appia first gave me the idea of evolutions on a staircase and the Russian painter Salzmann designed for my exercise a highly ingenious set of units, whereby a whole series of practicable staircases could easily and speedily be constructed. Distinguished producers such as Reinhardt, Granville Barker, and Gamier came later to adopt our methods, but only Gamier appears to me to have utilised them to really vital effect. Nowadays one sees staircases on all stages, but the producers do not know what to do with them, nor can the actors either perform or repose on them with ease. Appia wrote: "Stairs by their straight Unes and breaks maintain the necessary contrast between the curves of the body and the sinuous lines of its evolutions; their practical uses <^ering at the same time distinct facilities of expression." Digitized by VjOOQ IC Rhythm and Gesture 203 attitude and gestures all the aesthetic emotions pro- voked by sotind rhythms. In his Mise en seine du drame Wagnirien (pp. 44-45) Adolphe Appia, prophesjdng in 1895 the col- laboration of rhythm and drama, quotes two significant details from the representation of the third act, of the Walkjrrie. "Wotan arrives in a terrific cyclone that subsides as he reaches the summit. The Walkjrries have con- cealed Brunnhilde among them and seek to appease their father. The musical passage is quite short, but the incomparable poljrphony is meant to be accompan- ied by an action that impresses it on the eye, without, however, obliging the maidens to separate from each other. It is effected by a light cotmterpoint, in which the successive entries mark the timid supplication in a highly individual manner; each Walkyrie should time her entry a beat in advance of the score. The last bars expand irresistibly; the vocalists should interlace their movements corresponding to the score, and, by way of further accentuation, the whole group extended brfore Wotan might straighten itself and recoil on the hard chord that recalls the abrupt voice of the God. One cannot, in this scene, carry too far the minute search for new musical developments." It would appear to be easy to train artists according to these indications; but this is not the case. The clearest comprehension by the actors of these directions by no means assures their execution. To make with apparent ease a step in advance of a particular note, he must have gone through a whole series of exercises in advancing and halting, aiming at the acquirement of Digitized by VjOOQ IC 204 Rhythm, Musici and Education the various kinds of balance of the body, pose of the feet, and muscular innervation of the legs necessary to interpret the different sound tempi in all their shades. The gait of the actor must accord with the musical movement, and the rhythm of his steps must fall quite naturally into the rhythm of the sounds. The most perfect musician may be absolutely incapable of effect- ing a raUentando, accelerando^ or rubato in waUdng, corresponding to the acceleration, abatements, and fluctuations of his musical imagination. Nor would he be able to change his attitude in a given time — say, over a crotchet or a quaver — ^without having studied plastic anacrusis, that is, the laws of preparation of movements. He must next practise movements of the arm in all degrees of rapidity and energy, first simulta- neous and corresponding movements of both arms, then the same movements executed by the arms in diflEerent directions — ^finally diflferent movements simul- taneously, one arm, for example, making an angular, the other a circular, movement. In this form of exer- cise, movements of apparent simplicity prove exceed- ingly difficult to execute. To raise one arm in sixteen beats of an adagio while half lowering the other in the same space of time requires a perfect acquaintance with every shade of mtiscular innervation and, in addi- tion, considerable practice, before this double action will convey an impression of naturalness and ease. To one practised in the correlating of movements in time and space, the sight of a gesttire completed before or after the beat of a musical rh3rthm produces a posi- tive aesthetic pain. It is not until the arms are capable of being moved with complete freedom that their Digitized by VjOOQ IC Rhythm and Gesture 205 movements can be combined with leg movements. An infinite number of combined exercises have been con- trived, the study of which must inevitably produce harmony of all habitual movements, thereby conducing to grace, which is only another word for ease and natu- ralness, and which is attainable only through knowledge of our physical possibilities. The factor co-ordinating arm and leg movement is respiration. Singers confine their use of the diaphragm to the production of the necessary breath for the larynx, and yet breathing is not only an invaluable medium of physical balance, but, in addition, a highly powerful agent of dramatic ex- pression, and apart from the rapid movements of costal respiration by which our lyric artists so frequently express their emotion in love scenes, there exist a whole host of other movements of the torso, produced by the breath, complementary to the movements of arms, legs, and head. The latter should also be submitted to special exercises, all the more so since vocal exercises by no means encourage suppleness in the neck. . . . But the mastery of body movements constitutes a mere virtuosity, unless those movements are employed to help out facial expression. The same gesture may express ten different sentiments according as the eye gives the due. The correlating of body movements with facial play must, then^ also be made the subject of a special training; but this should not be under- taken until repeated exercises have brought music into direct commimication with the organism — ^vibrations of soimd evoking analogous vibrations in the tissues and the nervous system, which the body, susceptible of musical emotions, has learned to transform into Digitized by VjOOQ IC ^o6 Rhythm, Music, and Education plastic emotions and to realise aesthetically. The mechanism of the body is nothing imtil it has become subservient to the sensibilities, the development of which a diligent study of the translation of musical rhythms into physical movements is almost certain to promote. As soon as interpreters have learnt to express with their bodies every nuance of the orchestra, it must inevitably follow, that, after some hesitation and mis- imderstanding, the public will come to appreciate the lyrico-plastic unity thereby achieved, and will ifeel the necessity of initiating itself into this new medium of interpretation by an identical training. The time is near when the, as it were, antinomy that subsists to- day between plastic rhythms and sotmd rhythms will shock an audience in the same way as a false note in a chorus, or a wrong beat in an orchestra. A new men- tality will evolve, the old tastes will change, the tradi- tional conception of scenic exigencies will be modified, and eventually people will wonder how it was ever possible that such a divorce should have been allowed to subsist between the stage and the orchestra, between musical conceptions and physical realisations. Com- posers will then abandon current dramatic forms to adopt others more conformable to truth and nature. They will no longer permit their imaginations to give to gestural and ocular expressions and attitudes a musical form of which the rhythm and the movement are incapable of plastic realisation. Custom has trained them to regard all music without words as the ex- pression of inner feelings. Their imagination would Digitized by VjOOQ IC Rhythm and Gesture 207 often suggest more effective interpretations if they cotild command a visual representation of them in ges- ture and facial play, in place of this accepted suppres- sion. Muscular dynamics must render musical rhythms . visible, and musical dynamics plastic rhythms musical. Gesture must define musical emotion and call up its image. And to that end we must educate otu* bodies in rhythm and by rhythm. It is not necessary that we should be perfectly formed : the essential is that our movements should be harmonised, and that our habit- ual motions should be refined; in short, that we should be artists. We have all of us muscles, reason, and volition; consequently we are aU equal before Rhythm. We must vocalise our movements and establish a com- munion between them and music. To tiiat end it is necessary that we should learn to know our bodies, and that is why, without sharing the views of aesthe- ticians who, in respect of costtmie, advocate complete rettun to the customs of Greek antiquity, I myself favour for my plastic studies a return to quasi-nudity when exercising in private. Nudity provides not only a medium of control indispensable for purposes of physical expression, but is in addition an aesthetic ele- ment inducing the respect for the body that animated the great Greek philosophers. In proportion as the idea of sex subsides in the fervour of the artist, and in the passion for complete absorption in beauty and truth of expression, so our bodies take on new life, and we feel lack of respect for nudity to be a sin against the spirit. Once our operatic singers have learnt to understand the intricate mechanism of their movements and the intimate relations between their bodies, their Digitized by VjOOQ IC 308 Rhythm, Music, and Education minds, their desires, and their aesthetic instincts, they will emancipate themselves from the prejudices at present enctmibering them, thanks to their education and heredity, and will regard their bodies as mediums of elevation — as instrtmients of pure art and beauty. No longer will the Philistines snigger at the sight of Isadora Duncan dancing with bare legs. Thenceforth critics will have to insist on the yotmg Siegfried dis- carding his miserable pink tights, and on the Rhine Daughters assiuning the authentic garb of water- sprites. Purified by art, we shall see in the body the collaborator of conscience, an agent of noble will and pure imagination, an instnmient of wisdom, beauty, art, and truth. The interpreter will no longer seek art and beauty outside himself, he will have to induce beauty and truth to descend into him, to dwell with him, to become an integral element in his organism. Such are the benefits I anticipate from the cult of rhythm, as a result of which authors and actors, repudiating the old worn scenic conventions, will re- cover the purity of plastic sensation, will ally in their art the sensibiUty of the musician with that of the sculptor and painter, and will free themselves — ^thanks to a real education, on principles pure as nature and truth — ^from the tyranny of meaningless virtuosity, lying gestures, and intellectual perversities. Criticism The progress of the art of gesture is unfortunately retarded by the ignorance of critics touching the powers of expression possessed by the human body. Certainly Digitized by VjOOQIC Rhythm and Gesture 209 it is possible to appreciate the merits of a symphony without being capable of playing all the instruments of the orchestra — and to recognise the merit of a singer or pianist without having studied singing or the piano. It is, moreover, true that sound visual, intellectual, and artistic faculties may make up for want of technical knowledge, in criticising hxmian gesture, whether indi- vidual or collective. But the opinions of people tmin- f ormed as to the multiple resources of the human frame can never have other than a subjective value, and should not have the power of influencing the education of either artist or spectator. A musical critic can admittedly in- terest the public in recording the impression produced on him by such and such orchestral work, although he un- derstands only approximately the mechanism of each instrument — but he will be unable to explain why cer- tain things displease him without an appreciation of the tone and character of the different agents of sound, an acquaintance with the laws that regulate the art of grouping instnunents, and a knowledge of the essential principles of musical construction. Hxmian gesture and its orchestration conform to elementary principles of natiffe, dynamic, rhythmic, and agogic, which it is absolutely necessary to under- stand before one is justified in formulating a decision as to their artistic worth. Criticism of a work or its interpretation, in so far as these are the direct product of emotion and temperament, can only be of relative value. On the other hand, that which is the result of in- tellectual qualities, sense of form, intuition of dynamic or rhythmic effects, can be analysed. But to be in a position to analyse it, one must know something of the 14 Digitized by VjOOQ IC ^10 Rhythm, Music, and Education matter in question. By so much as the subjective opinion of a great creative artist interests us from the psychological point of view, by so much the impressions of a negative spirit, a critic who has never made any personal contribution to art, leave us cold. On the other hand, we can take an interest in an analysis based on first-hand knowledge. Every human body comprises more numerous potential orchestral effects (concatena- tion, juxtaposition, opposition of gestures and attitudes, and changes while stationary or in step) than the most complex symphonic body. To what extent, and in what manner, could and should this human orchestra ally its rhythms to those of the orchestra of sound? That is the question we have to consider. No musical critic would hold it right for the clarinets to play in a different key from the rest of the orchestra, or for a pianist to execute his part in a concerto in a different style from that adopted by the instruments accompanying him. . . . Yet we do not find two critics in a himdred commenting on the confusions of style, time, phrasing, and shading that may persist be- tween the movements of a corps de baUetf or of a solo dancer professing to interpret a musical piece. Not only is their eye so accustomed to the regular arm movements, extended, contracted, undulatory, and sinuous, that constitute the means of expression possessed by ballet dancers, that any really vital ges- ture, any effect of dynamic muscularity offends them aesthetically; but their minds have so deliberately ac- cepted the disharmony between the physical move- ments and the sound rhythms, that their ears ix)sitively cease to listen to the music once their eyes compel them Digitized by VjOOQ IC Rhythm and Gesture 211 to foflow the spectacle, and vice versa. It seems to them quite natural that on the stage the htunan body should be perpetually trying to repudiate the laws of gravity, that the ambition of the dancer should be to imitate the bird, instead of to transfigure the man, to produce the picturesque and artificial, instead of to en- noble and refine the gestures of nattu-al life. We still look back with bewilderment and regret to interpreta- tions (quite pretty from the pictorial point of view) of classical and modem compositions, applauded by capable musicians who simply did not perceive the abyss created by the dancers between the orchestral and physical S3miphonies. The truth is, musicians have no conception of the capacities of the htunan body, and neither their sight nor their muscular sense is suffi- ciently acute to warn them of the errors of style com- mitted, and of the nuances disregarded. The trouble is that so many critics, imagining themselves to possess intuitive knowledge, consider physical movement of such secondary importance as a medium of artistic expression, that they do not hesitate to hold forth ex cathedra on texts of which they do not even suspect the meaning ! " How few people," said Vauvenargues, "are capable of comprehending every side of a question! There, it seems to me, is the most common source of human error." Each time we attend a display of dancing, we are staggered by the incoherence of the spectators' opinions, and the contradictions of their sentiments. Those who object in the concert hall to the technical acrobatics of instruments, applaud it in the dancer. Those who oppose transcriptions and arrangements of classical I Digitized by VjOOQIC _ | 212 Rhythm, Music, and Education pieces, approve the most horrible travesties of them as perform^ by the artistes of the ballet. Those again who complain of the inadequate delicacy of touch of certain pianists, pass, without turning a hair, the crude, exaggerated, and frantic gestures of opera singers! Others who are dependable authorities on the pictorial or sculptural representation of the human form go into raptures over the affectations and abnormal disloca- tions of living and breathing bodies. Finally, there are critics, and these are the worst, so perverted in taste and steeped in the artifices of conventional choreog- raphy, that, far from recognising the abstmiity of these displays, they remain impervious to the efforts of pro- gressive artists to reform the dance as a simple and natural expression of emotion. Once these professional critics have written of a dancer that he has grace, a good carriage, balance, and temperament, they have said everjrthing! It never occurs to them to consider the degree of sjnnpathy he has shown for the musical thought it was his business to interpret. And yet as much importance should be attached to the processes of plastic interpretation as to those of musical execution. But there, again, what divergences of opinion these musical critics exhibit! According as nature has made them "rational," "emotional,'* or "imaginative," and psychologists such as Dr. Charles Odier can classify them as technicians and theorists on the one hand, sentimentalists and emotionalists on the other (or sub-classify the "imaginatives" as "rationalists," "im- pressionists," and "intuitionists") — ^the works and interpretations are perceived and analysed by them in a hundred and one different ways. Fortimately, the Digitized by VjOOQ IC Rhythm and Gesture 213 value of a musical criticism does not depend on the nature of its conclusions, but on the simplicity and sincerity of the musician who makes it. There is no inferior art of criticism, but there are inferior methods of practising that art. Every man who wishes to devote his life to the public appraisement of artistic works and interpretations should make it his business to be well informed and to move with the times. Unfortunately, too few critics appreciate the importance of their vocation. Many of them imagine that their critical faculties are definitely formed, and that they have nothing more to learn. Some apparently consider their task to consist in picking out, and ex- posing indiscriminately to public ridicule, defects in the works of aU kinds presented to them. It should rather consist in trying to get to the bottom of these works and considering to what extent they may, in spite of their defects, be made to serve the purposes of art. As La Rochefoucauld put it, "a sensible per- son sees things as they require to be seen. He gives them their own value, and causes them to exhibit to him the side from which they may be viewed to best advantage. ..." There are few such "sensible people" in the realm of criticism. To say "such and such a piece pleases or displeases me," without fiuther elucidation, is the prerogative of the least educated music-lover; it is the critic's function to fathom the author's motives, and to explain them to his readers, without stressing his own personal preferences. From this point of view, Robert Schumann, who could "dis- cover" a genius of so antipathetic a tendency as Berlioz, proved himself a model critic; while the ar- Digitized by VjOOQ IC 214 Rhythm, Music, and Education tides of that disinterested enthusiast, our contemporary Camille Mauclair, at once critic and creator, guided alike by principle and impulse, command the respect of artists of the most divergent tendencies, and exercise a thoroughly wholesome influence on the progress of art, as a whole. The practice of censuring any artistic conception that does not happen to conform to their particular temperament does not commend itself to those who feel it their vocation to ctdtivate the tastes of dilet- tantes tmacquainted with the diversity of musical form, and unconscious of its a£Snity with the multiple forms of emotional life. But those critics who aspire to pro- duce work of lasting educative and persuasive value, find it necessary, before hazarding an opinion on a work of unfamiliar character, to make specially careful inquiry as to its "intentions," and as to the qualifica- tions of its creator. It is easy enough to pronounce a hasty judgment, based on one's education or one's particular pre- ferences, but this rudimentary mode of informing the public is more suitable for "reporters" of art than for conscientious and sensitive analjrsts, concerned to appreciate the point of view of the creator. Unfortu- nately, with three-quarters of the writers on musical matters, book learning and an ambition to shine in the public eye by a display of erudition or cheap paradoxes, take the place of the real requisites of a serious and conscientious critic — a, passion for all forms of artistic endeavour, curiosity as to individual modes of expres- sion, a capacity to assimilate new forms of art and to extract the essence of the ideas underlying them, and Digitized by VjOOQ IC Rhythm and Gesture 215 the will to withdraw from one's own personality in order to commune with other and different personalities. It does not follow, however, because we refuse to be impressed by slaves of a school or style who condemn every work that does not conform to it, that we have any more respect for those who carry eclec- ticism to an extreme and set themselves to discover beauty where it does not exist. Only it is more common to find a critic failing to find beauty in a work because he does not want to find it, or through lack of beauty in himself. Instinct is not everything — ^the faculty and the desire to analyse would modify many of the "instinctive" prejudices of those who undertake the task of enlightening public opinion on the productions of classical or contemporary music. In the words of that shrewd artist, Jean Hur6: "The art of criticism consists in recognising beauty wheresoever and in whatever diverse forms it may conceal itself." And, before him, Leonardo da Vind wrote: "Love is bom of Knowledge." It is all important that the majority of critics should agree as to the essential qualities required for the art of dancing, and the principle that should underlie the various techniques involved. It is a matter of the reciprocal influence of rhythms and feelings in sound and plastic; a constant exchange of psychic currents and sensorial repercussions. There may be a diversity in the external means of expression, dependent on the individualities of the executants, but all dancers who are real artists — no matter how divergent their manners of bodily expression — ^must be guided by the same motive, the interpretation of music. The soul of music Digitized by VjOOQ IC 2i6 Rhythm, Music, and Education radiates, in an equal degree of intensity, from all dan-^ oers worthy of the name of artist; but just as a focus of light makes a different impression, according to the degree of atmospheric resistance, and the processes of sifting and reverberation necessitated by the various obstacles interposed between it and our eyes — so the radiating influence of vital music may appeal to spec- tators in different aspects, arising from the diversity of the physical agents of response in the dancer, whether in the structure of his limbs, or in his nervous system or temperament. To the spectator accustomed to the varieties of physical mechanism, these differences in types of gestures and attitudes will not matter. What- ever the imaginative variations in the embodiment of musical ideas and feelings, he will be able to recognise whether the latter have really inspired the corporal movements, and to distinguish fusion from mere juxta- position, creation from imitation, sincere synrhythm from vulgar synchronism, spontaneous response from considered adaptation. Every musical work comprises an element of inspiration, and another of thematic development and architecture. This latter element depends on the intellect and physique, and may be expressed differently by dancer interpreters, according as their aptitudes or understandings have formed their various techniques. But the inspiration present at the creation of the music should be revived in the transpo- sition of musical rhythms into movements in space; the same breath should animate both soimd and corporal expression. A dancer of the old ballet school should be able to express the soul of music as faithfully through the medium of the traditional processes to which his Digitized by VjOOQ IC Rhj^m and Gesture 217 limbs are accustomed, as an Isadora Duncan by her immobility, or a Sakharoff by his polymobile effects, provided thai soul has been absorbed by each of them. In the same way the really artistic spectator will not allow himself to be influenced by his personal predilec- tion for a particular technique, any more than an ideal audience of absolute music will be biassed by tastes in harmony, construction, or orchestration. We cannot, of course, control our likes or dislikes, but these should not intrude upon a general appreciation, relating to the intrinsic value and sincerity of the artistic manifesta- tion in question. Moreover, the mastery of technique being a sine qua non for purposes of representation of a work, we must be careful not to confuse idiosyncrasies of artistic style with that mere poverty of expressive resources which, alas ! is the idiosyncrasy of so many so- called artists. One cannot construct a work of art on inspiration alone; the most profound thought may be distorted by deficiencies in the vehicle of its extemalisa- tion. That is why an artist should never obsess him- self with any partictdar method, but should be con- stantly experimenting with those which have not come instinctively to him. And the same applies to a critic, whose analytical faculties should be adaptable to all forms of style. The understanding of art does not depend on study however profound. It is possessed completely only by those whom taste and temperament have made capable of responding to elementary emotions, whatever the nature or construction of the work, its harmonic or tonal system, or its rhythmic processes. Without this, it is im- possible either to judge or to understand a piece of music. Digitized by VjOOQ IC 2i8 Rhythm, Music, and Education We may find evidence of this in the fact that the interpretation of an unknown piano work will often seem to reveal to us great interpretative powers in a pianist whose execution of works with which we are familiar disappoints or displeases us. Similarly many conductors who have a prejudice against a particular piece eventually discover its beauties as a result of having it repeatedly played to them. May we not con- clude from this that certain critics who after a first hearing pronounce such and such a piece to be deficient in form would change their opinions if they took the trouble to study the score or even to acquaint them- selves with the motives of the composer? However, they prefer to pride themselves on their subjectivity, forgetting too often that subjectivity is only justifi- able on the part of powerful and creative personalities. How many critics are mere ''grousers/' confined to a negative attitude out of sheer creative impotence ! One thing or the other: either a critic is himself creative and accordingly entitled to express preferences and judgments founded on his temperament, or his function is that of an observer and recorder, in which case he must confine himself to studying, comparing, analysing, and directing attention witiiout drawing conclusions. To attain the right to deliver arbitrary judgments, he must be very sure of himself, follow an inflexible line of conduct, resist the temptation to modify his judgment out of friendship or personal bias, and keep his own personality and temperament severely in control. "Dionjrsius," relates Rabelais, ** would ridictde ped- ants who are pleased to expose the faults of others and to ignore their own; musicians whose flutes pre- Digitized by VjOOQ IC Rhythm and Gesture 219 serve harmony but whose manners do not; rhetoricians given to expounding justice without practising it." If dramatic and musical critics instead of constantly lamenting the deterioration of the art of gesticulation in drama, would take the trouble to analyse the corre- lations of gesture with musical rhythm, they would learn that there exist, apart from individual gestures, collective gestures, and that without a careful study of these last no representation involving movements of a chorus can attain a really musical or artistic character. The Crowd The individuals composing a chorus, however gifted, will never produce a really dramatic effect so long as they act independently of one another. Forty persons each making a different gesture, fail to convey the im- pression of a conmion emotion. Their gestures are lost in space. It is with the choric element as with music drama as a whole, each of its elements should be able to fuse with the others or temporarily withdraw from them, as necessity dictates. The gesture of a crowd should be the result of a number of modifications, almost imperceptible, of a fixed attitude imposed on all its participants. In modem spoken drama, each indi- vidual member of a crowd can act independently and gesticulate according to his fancy to give the impression of, for example, a festival, a strike, or a battle; . . . and we regard as masterpieces of this kind the extra- ordinary productions by M. P. G6mier of The Mer- chant of Venice and Antony and Cleopatra, But in lyric drama the crowd has an entirely different Digitized by VjOOQ IC 220 Rhythm, Music, and Education function. It must express the emotions of a whole commimity, to which end a very special process of training is necessary. This aesthetic education of a chorus, the study of the laws which govern collective gesture and movement, and which form an integral part of any system of rhyth- mic exercises, deserves tiie special consideratipn of all my compatriots who are gymnasts, singers, or sportsmen. More than in any other country, in Switzerland popu- lar spectacles involve the participation of numerous supers, and the happy influence of these "Pestspiele," to employ the German term, has long been recognised by our psychologists, pedagogues, and even theologians. Prom the twelfth century onwards, the Swiss or- ganised performances of Passion plays to which actors and audience repaired in procession, singing and danc- ing. These performances originally took place in churches, later they were carried into the open air. In certain cases the spectators took an active part in them and we have an account of one in which the Pi- late, reviled by two hundred actors, with diflSculty escaped with his life. In the fifteenth century, the colleges organised dra- matic fgtes under the influence of the humanist plays of Terence, and the performances of Passion plays in- creased. At Lucerne in partictdar they involved the participation of himdreds of people; at Einsiedeln, the audience sang in common with the chorus; at Berne the poet and painter, Nicholas Manuel, produced panto- mimes and carnival plays; at Zurich, Josias Murer, in his Siege of Babylon, and Halzwarth in his Saul, brought Digitized by VjOOQ IC Rhythm and Gesture 221 "a whole army" into play. Indeed, pitched battles were fought in the course of the action, and the text indicates that in the last act ''the populace, appeased, with one accord ceases fighting, Ues down, and falls asleep." There existed even at that period, then, a system of rhythm applied to crowds. The stage direc- tions are highly significant in this respect. The trum- pets sound, the populace fights, attacks, retires, argues, murmurs, takes oaths, dances, and forms processions, thus playing in the piece a rdle as important as that of the leading actors. These traditions have not been lost. If the colleges of music have decayed, and the mystery plays have prac- tically disappeared, we may set against them those great patriotic festivals of extraordinary vitality and beauty, organised by the cantons on the centenaries of their entry into the confederation. Phenomena of nature have also inspired some wonderful demonstra- tions such as the unforgettable festival of winegrowers. We may therefore pride ourselves that our country possesses a natural instinct for grouping crowds and making them live in dramatic action. In the open air, under the glare of the sun, in the prodigious framework provided by a glorious landscape and sky, in scenes where nature herself furnishes every gradation of height, depth, and density, processions pass, dance- drcles are formed, men and women fall on their knees in devotion, without requiring any partictdar technique of representation. But in a restricted area everything is different, and the framework of a space artificially confined creates special conditions of movement and grouping. Would our Swiss artists but undertake the Digitized by VjOOQ IC 222 Rhythm, Music, and Education interesting task of studying the relations of defined and lighted space with musical rhjrthm and physical move- ment, they might divert the dramatic art of Switzerland into an entirely new channel. The works are there — only the stage-technique is wanting. The impressive last scene in Chavannes' GuiUaume le Fou signally failed to produce the requisite eflFect at the Comedy Theatre owing to the producer regarding the chorus of Swiss peasants as an assemblage of isolated men, each retaining his individuality, instead of treating them as one individual, a synthetic entity. Let us, then, consider the most practicable method of bringing the crowd into direct relations with the underlying motives of Ijrric drama by means of a refining process applied to its rhythmic potentialities. We have all of us admired, at gynmastic displays, the wonderful living picture formed by hundreds of young men moving in step to music; the synchronism of their gestures produces a sensation at once emotive and Aes- thetic, and yet these gymnasts are quite unconscious of creating an artistic eflFect. Their sole aims are discipline and hygiene. They cultivate movement for its own sake, and give no thought to it as a medium for the expression of emotion. On the stage, in Ijrric drama, the crowd of supers also cultivates collective gesture, but in the interests of ideas. It sustains a double r61e, not only supporting the dramatic action, but, in addition (as in the plays of iEschylus), conmiimicating the thoughts of the poet or expressing the emotions of the spectators, thereby forming an intermediary be- tween the stage and the auditorium. When it plays an Digitized by VjOOQ IC Rhythm and Gesture 223 active part in the drama its movements constitute gestures of action. When it bears the r61e of confidant of the hero or of mouthpiece of the religious or philo- sophic truths contained in the play, its gesture partakes of the nature of music. The collective gesture of action may consist simply of a repetition by each member of the chorus of an individual movement prepared in advance, or even in the merging of a ntmiber of individual gestxires inde- pendent of each other. But where a musical gesture has to be made with the object of indicating a situation or creating an atmosphere, these individual gestures must be unified, each member of the chorus discarding his personality to subordinate himself to the whole. In other words, the producer must orchestrate the diverse movements of the actors in such a way as to obtain a unity of collective gesture. Before studying the laws by which this orchestration may be effected simply, clearly, and naturally, yet in such a way that these skilfully contrived collective movements retain an essentially htmian character, we must first under- stand the laws which establish the harmony of indi- vidual gestures. No physical movement has any expressive virtue in itself. Expression by gesture depends on a succession of movements and on a constant care for their harmonic, dynamic, and static rhythm. The static is the study of the laws of balance and proportion — the dynamic that of the means of expression. According to Pran- gois del Sarte, dynamic harmony depends on the rela- tion that subsists between all agents of gesture. Just Digitized by VjOOQ IC 224 Rhjrthm, Music, and Education as in music there are consonant and dissonant chords, so in mimic art we find consonant and dissonant gestures. ** Consonant" movements are produced by the perfect co-ordination between limbs, head, and torso, the fundamental agents of gesture. Exactly the same is the case when it is a question of harmonising different motive elements of a crowd. A crowd may act either independently or conjointly with a soloist. In the former case, it may express an afiSrmative or a negative attitude, showing hesitation or the reverse; when acting with a soloist, it introduces an element of opposition or encouragement or even of argument (that is to say, a mixture of acquiescence and resistance). In the collective movement of a crowd we have to observe both changes and successions of attitudes. Just as, in the individual, changes in the position of an arm or leg may become unaesthetic when accompanied by superfluous movements of the shoulders or in- congruous facial play, so also changes of gesture and attitudes, while walking or running, of a collection of individuals, will produce a harmonious effect on the spec- tator only by a subordination of each individual gesture in favour of the whole. The crowd must be considered by the producer as an entity, a single individual, with many limbs. The simultaneous execution of individual gestures will not of itself express the collective emotions of a crowd. Fifty persons slowly raising their arms will only produce the effect of a single strong line. In order to convey the impression of a whole people rais- ing its arms, the gesture of each isolated actor should carry on the gesture commenced by his neighbour and Digitized by VjOOQ IC be a c/3 Digitized by VjOOQ IC Digitized by VjOOQ IC Rhythm and Gesture 225 transmit it to a third in ptirstiance of a continuous movement. Similarly where it is desired to manifest an impetuous tendency, a single step forward taken by each member of the chorus will by no means suggest the advance of a whole crowd. To accomplish this, the rear members must remain stationary, other members taking a slight step, others again a longer, and yet others more than one step forward in such a way that the whole space is occupied and, in consequence, the group is extended. It is the same with dynamic gesture. The impression of a common release of energy does not depend on the amount of muscular effort contributed by each indi- vidual member. An effect of crescendo could be ob- tained without any increase of energy on the part of individuals by a simple shrinkage of the group analo- gous to that of the contraction of a muscle, or, on the other hand, an extension which will cause it to occupy a larger area. Generally speaking, dynamic effects are obtained by modifications of space, and emotive effects by interruptions of continuous symmetrical formations. A single person rising gently out of a kneeling group will produce a stronger impression than if the whole rose at the same moment. The effect will be increased ten- fold if, while he rises, those who remain kneeling bow themselves to the ground. Just as every gesture of the arm attains its maximum significance by the opposition of another limb, so a collective gesture should be set off by carefully contrived contrasted gestures. An ad- vancing body will convey a far stronger impression of its forward direction if simultaneously other bodies are seen retiring. 15 Digitized by VjOOQ IC 226 Rhythm, Music, and Education Thus pol3n-h3rthm ought to play a highly important part in the training of stage 'crowds; not alone poly- rhythm as applied to the chorus, but that formed by counterpoint between the gestures of the individual actor and those of the crowd, opposing continuous slow movement to lively and irregular movement, linking in canon gestures and steps, producing all manner of variations of attitude. The study of the relations be- tween stage gesture and space demonstrates the need of dispensing with painted representations of artificial dimensions in favour of real inclines and staircases' which permit the body to vary its attitudes in pursuit of balance. But it is not enough to have provided actors with material conditions more suitable for bodily move- ment. The essential is to give them the special edu- cation required for the utilisation of such conditions. This education must adjust the relations between space and time; hence it will be essentially musical, for music is the only art that teaches time-nuance. The chorus must reproduce the elementary rhythms of mu- sic; it must give form and a framework to the indi- vidual actions of the protagonists. In an orchestral ensemble, full freedom is allowed the individual mu- sicians in interpreting the dominant motives of the work, but their lyric expansion is continually restrained and toned down by the necessity of respecting the gen- eral form and of preserving the balance of the interpre- tation as a whole. As we have said, it is the chorus that creates the atmosphere in which the individual artists perform; the latter must obviously be permitted freedom of individual action, but only so long as they ' See page 209 of this Chapter. Digitized by VjOOQ IC Rhythm and Gesture 227 keep within the limits imposed by the aesthetic and emotional atmosphere of the piece. For the rest, each individual whether in the chorus or outside it must sacrifice his particular idiosyncrades of expression in the interests of the general impression; the crowd re- taining its special fimction of pointing the similarity and contrasts between the imaginary lives of the dramatis persofUB and the ordinary lives and rhythm of the spectators. The special training for choruses proposed by Appia twenty years ago and since practised by us, aims at giving performers the necessary flexibility for adapting themselves spontaneously to all the rhsrthms, however complex, called into play by the inspiration and what we may be permitted to call the "music" of the crea- tive imagination. This education should be imposed likewise on conductors, producers, and specialists in stage painting and lighting, whose efforts should com- bine to produce an impression of unity, for they can remain independent and isolated only at serious risk to the work as a whole. Stage lighting does not generally attempt more than a picturesque imitation of the effects of nattire, hardly venturing outside the scope of scenic decoration. Its action, allied with music, however, would create new and varied possibilities of expression. Discarding its habitual function of representing the various shades of day and night, it might participate directly in the dramatic action, accenttiating sudden changes of feel- ing, whether imptilses or reactions, permeating the Digitized by VjOOQ IC 228 Rhythm, Music, and Education decorative space with its emotive qualities. We mig^t thus be shown a crowd at first enveloped in relative darkness cutting little by little into a zone of light* different elements of the crowd disporting themselves in variously lighted parts until the collective gesture begun in twilight emerges into the triumphal light of day. Light is the sister of music. ... To reinforce the crescendo of the one by strengthening the other, to harmonise all their qualities of shading, phrasing, and rhjrthm, would be to convey to an audience, by a com- bination of soimd and light, a maximum of aesthetic sensation and to provide actors with undreamt facilities of expression. Provided, naturally, that actors should not come to use these new methods mechanically, that they should remain real artists. For art is not a par- ticular method of expressing or transcribing life. It is "life itself and the means of experiencing it." The development of sentiment and temperament does not unfortunately enter into any actual currictdum of artis- tic education. That is a grave mistake, and it seems incredible that so few artists and critics should recognise it. So far as we are concerned, if we earnestly desire these reforms it is because, to vary the maxim of La Rochefoucauld, "we know perfectly what we want." Digitized by VjOOQ IC CHAPTER XI HOW TO REVIVE DANCING (1912) Definition of dancing — The so-called ** classical** dance, and the negation of gravity — Acrobatics of gesture — Metre and rhythm — Excessive isolation of music from dancing — Dancers and composers of ballets — Creation of choreographic style — Phrasing and pace of dancing — Divers exercises infusion of music and mooing plastic — Gesture and expression — Sincerity and travesty — Plastic polyrhythm — Fiction and fact in the theatre — The dance of the future. 2t9 Digitized by VjOOQ IC Digitized by VjOOQ IC CHAPTER XI HOW TO REVIVE DANONG (1912) Dancing has always, from the time of Ludan to that of Goethe and Th6ophile Gautier, been described in dithyrambic and aerial terms, calling up vague dreams of a supernatural order, in which bodily form, emanci- pated from the laws of gravity, floated high above the reahties of human existence. These are not the terms in which I propose to frame my discourse on the dance to-day; my object is to determine within what limits the art of dancing may approach, in its conception and by purely htunan means, governed by physiological laws, the art, at present in full course of development, from which it very directly derives, namely, music. There exist, and there will always exist, exceptional beings who, naturally gifted in music and moving plas- tic, imbued with the joy of living, and permeated with the profound impression of beauty derived from human emotions, contrive to render sound rhythms visible, and to re-create music plastically, without any special training, guided solely by their intuition, and by the unconscious subordination of their physical faculties to their imaginative and emotional capacities. These are spoilt children of fortune, and education is only wasted on them. Numerous normal individuals are attracted to the 331 Digitized by VjOOQIC 232 Rhythm^ Music, and Education art of choreography by a natural taste for plastic ex- pression— ^frequently for mere bodily movement — and devote themselves to dancing, without acquiring the numerous faculties necessary for the practice of this independent and profoundly human art. For these, the training in vogue among dancers is hopelessly inade- quate. The possibility of raising the standard of this training is my present concern; only by the raising of this standard, and, in consequence, this mentality of dancers, can the dance be restored to its ancient glories. I desire to confine myself, in this study of the condi- tions and possibilities of a renaissance of choreographic art, to the technical side of my subject, and may be pardoned, I trust, for omitting the usual metaphorical and lyrical flourishes. Dancing is the art of expressing emotion by means of rhythmic bodily movements. — It is not the function of rhjrthm to render these movements expressive, but merely to control and refine them, in fact to make them artistic, by means of a "conscious change of their relations" — in Taine's expression. From remotest an- tiquity we find the dance accompanied by forms of music, aiming at the rhythmic regulation of gesture, evolutions, and attitude. This musical accompaniment may not be strictly necessary, as I will explain in a moment; but once we admit that the art of dancing involves a fusion of rhythmic sound and movement — just as, in lyric art, we find the spoken word allied to music — ^we are forced to the conclusion that the state of decadence in which dancing has 3unk in our time i$ Digitized by VjOOQIC How to Revive Dancing 233 due partly to the exaggerated development of bodily virtuosity at the expense of expression, and partly to the absolute negation of the principle of unity of cor- poral plastic and musical rhythm. ' In stage dancing, as may still be witnessed in the more important operatic performances, bodily move- ments tend neither to express feelings nor to transpose sound movements. They rarely harmonise at all with the music which is supposed to have evoked them, and the limbs that execute them are not even themselves in harmony. The arms ignore the movements of the legs, or rather they have the air of refusing to follow the latter in their evolutions. They confine themselves to main- taining balance, and might as well belong to a different body. As to the legs, their r61e would appear to consist in repudiating the weight of the body. One can under- stand how, by eliminating from their drawings the re- presentation of certain muscular contractions, painters contrive to dispel the impression of weight, with the definite object of conveying an illusion of immateri- ality (in the ascension of saints, flights of angels, etc.). But dancers, without knowing it, merely emphasise the material aspect of the body in seeking to negative its weight by a series of leaps and bounds. These are only 'Training in (so-called) "classical" ballet dancing aims at the acquire- ment of a certain number of automatisms, of an acrobatic nature, which can be Hnked together in various ways. The function of the mattre-de- ballet consists in adapting them to the divers forms of music they are intended to interpret. Once dancers have passed their final examina- tion, their technique is regarded as finished, and any artistic development considered superfluous. Throughout their career they continue to exhibit to the public the virtuoso effects which they acquired in their training, and Wbich constitute what is popularly known »$ the art of chareo^aphy. Digitized by VjOOQIC ^34 Rh3i:hm, Music, and Education effected by strenuous efforts of contraction. The im- materialisation of a body can only be expressed in dancing by the graduation of dynamic diminuendos in limbs other than the legs, since the latter, in the course of the dance, are bound to be contracted. This imma- terialisation, incidentally, cannot possibly be conveyed to the audience unless the dancer is sincerely and com- pletely absorbed in immaterial thoughts. But spiritual factdties can never be developed normally and com- pletely in a dancer who specialises in restricted move- ment and particularly in the realistic movement of leaping. A complete thought, an association of ideas and feel- ings, a "state of soul," can only be interpreted by a body wholly absorbed in that thought. Just as, in op- era, mere aimless singing, wholly concerned with virtu- osity, conveys to artists an impression of insincerity and futility, so bodily movements, where not inspired by the need for externalising feelings or interpreting a really vital piece of music, constitute a form of ridicu- lous stage acrobatics. Dancing and mimicry, in relation to the modem stage, have become inferior arts (in pantomime, gestures serve merely to express conven- tional feelings and realistic actions) through specialisa- tion in purely technical effects. Of what avail the vari- ety of these effects, or even the care of certain dancers to produce them synchronically with the measured ca- dences of the orchestra? Not measure, but rhythm, assures the originality of musical expression. It is futile for dancers who are not artists to make their steps exactly correspond with the musical phrasing — their movements express not music, but merely its Digitized by VjOOQ IC How to Revive Dancing 235 external forms deprived of all vital imptilse. Rapidity or slowness of sound or bodily movement can only be- come expressive when made to represent a state of concentration or excitement produced by stimulat- ing and emotive mental images. A slow walk or a light run can only produce an esthetic impression where the general pace of the interpreter indicates to the spectator the relations between the visible move- ments and the concentrated state of mind and soul that has evoked them. If the speed of the walk or run be influenced by immaterial causes, the general attitude of the whole body will be similarly influenced — which only proves the insincerity of most of the regular danc- ing steps, for which only the leg-muscles are required, and which furnish an analogy to the audacious scale passages so justly tabooed from modem instrumental music. There is no longer any necessity to plead the case for the old operatic ballet; the case has already been judged and lost! The public has ceased to take any interest in choreography, and artists no longer regard it as an art; but the deplorable part is that neither artists nor public appreciate the real grotmds of their contempt. We find them still extolling the merits of individual dancers of repute, from which we might con- clude that the decadence of choreographic art lay, in their opinion, in the inferiority of the standard of danc- ers. Very few performers are conscious of the discord existing between musical metre and rhythm, and the manner of expressing them plastically. The giilf sepa- rating the orchestra from the stage appears to them a Digitized by VjOOQ IC 236 Rhythm, Music, and Education normal state. The notable efforts of Isadora Duncan to revive Greek dancing seems to them all that is re- quired to reform the art of ballet; they do not notice that these dances are quite uninfluenced by music, and could dispense with music altogether! Others — includ- ing quite well-known artists and critics — preserve, or affect to preserve, an unshaken confidence in the choreo- graphic traditions, despite the complete divorce of these from their musical principles, which are based on a sincere research for natural musical expression. In short, the dancing public of to-day appears to me in an analogous situation to an audience at the opera that did not notice when (i) the rhythms of the vocal tert did not correspond with the musical rhythms, supposed to give them their value, and (2) the artists sang in a different key and time from the orchestra. Wagner strenuously combated the lack of tmity be- tween poesy and music, and accomplished something of a revolution. In the same way, artists, conscious of the gulf that separates corporal language from sound rhythms on the stage, should concentrate on bringing home to the public the real cause of the artistic inferi- ority of which they cannot fail to be conscious, and impressing on them that if dancing is no longer an art, it is only because the fundamental laws of sound and plastic aesthetics are no longer regarded. The music of movement, like the music of sound, aims at expressing the common emotions of himianity. The music that is within us, and which is composed of our nattu-al rhythms, and of the emotions that de- termine the sensations peculiar to our temperament, may assume different forms, according to the capacities Digitized by VjOOQ IC How to Revive Dancing 237 of individuals. In dancing, it must transpose itself at once into sound and movement. Sound-music regu- lates, controls, and refines plastic, which otherwise would be abandoned to the anarchy of movements. In addition, it strengthens expression by means of its stimulating properties. Plastic, on the other hand, ren- ders sounds visible and gives them a human touch. In the modem ballet, music and dancing are separated owing to the isolation of musical and choreographic training. This has been the case for so long that there exists very little ballet music suitable for dancing, and very few bodily rhythms involved in dancing that can inspire composers with original musical ideas. There is no common ground between dancers and com- posers for the ballet, nor any rapport between rhsrthms in time and those in space. ' Once it is admitted that bodily movements should be controlled by musical rhythms, it becomes important that the latter should be susceptible of corporal reali- sation. If we examine the present-day ballet music, we ' If you point out this state of affairs to a painter, he will tell you, with apparent logic, that, from his point of view, the sight of harmonious movements is more important than the sound of adequately harmonised music, and that this juxtaposition of different elements seems to him to destroy the unity of the plastic impression. Undoubtedly — ft««iitT>ing he lacks a normal feeling for music I — nothing can be more legitimate than moving plastic dispensing with music, and drawing all its resources from the human body. The trouble is that non-musical dancers, in- capable of interpreting the music which is supposed to be inspiring them, are not content to dispense with, and contrive rather to parody, it. One thing or the other, either they regard music as a mere agent of control over movements, in which case any instrument of percussion will serve their purpose, or, accepting music as a genuinely inspiring foroe, they must stdnnit themselves to its impulses, and spare us the revolting spectacle of its prostitution. Digitized by VjOOQIC 238 Rhythm, Music, and Education find that the time-units are commonly too short to enable legs and arms to express them synchronically, whence we may conclude that composers of ballet are unacquainted with the instrument for which they are writing, and are producing music, the greater part of which is impracticable for its proclaimed purposes. They accumulate technical musical devices to dissimu- late their lack of understanding of the human body, and its potentialities of expression. On the other hand, we find that when, in the course of ballet music, passages suitable for expression by the body do occur, the dancers do not even attempt to reconcile their movements with the rhythm of the music, and content themselves with adapting the con- ventional interpretation. This leads us to our second conclusion, that ballet dancers are ignorant of the laws of sound rhythm, in relation to those of plastic rhythm, and find themselves — confronted with music — in the situation of a village fiddler able to repeat by heart a certain ntunber of airs which have been crammed into him, but who, placed in an orchestra, knowing nothing of the laws of musical prosody, would seek to adapt these airs — as best he could — ^to the music he was set to read, and which was a dead letter to him. These two conclusions bring us to a third, viz., that if we wish to instigate a revival of dancing as an art, we must pro- vide an education that will enable dancers to under- stand the music they are set to express plastically, and familiarise composers with the laws of balance and bod- ily movement in all their nuances. Only in this way can there be any question of an adequate rhythmic and plastic expression of emotion, for only when we arc Digitized by VjOOQ IC How to Revive Dancing 239 thoroughly versed in the multiple signs of a language .can we effectively employ these signs to express our feelings. The art of musical rhythm consists in differentiating time-durations, combining them in succession, arrang- ing rests between them, and accentuating them con- sciously or unconsciously, according to physiological law. The art of plastic rhythm is to designate move- ment in space, to interpret long time-values by slow movements, and short ones by quick movements, regulate pauses in their divers successions, and express sound accentuations in their multiple nuances by ad- ditions or diminutions of bodily weight, by means of muscular innervations. The dancer-student (and by the term dancer I imply every interpreter of music by means of bodily move- ment, including operatic singers and conductors) should therefore undergo a double and parallel training, aS a result of which he will acquire a knowledge of, and sensitiveness to, music, and an understanding of the rhjrthms that inspire it, together with the faculty of interpreting these plastically, without sacrificing their style — that is, the alterations the composer has effected in the relations of the rhythms as between themselves. It is these alterations that express his emotions and all the dynamic and pathetic nuances comprising the emotional element in the music should be executed by the dancer by means of modifications in the regularity of muscular movements effected by his own sensibility. These modifications can only be produced as a result of special exercises, and the following seem to me indis- Digitized by VjOOQIC ^40 Rhythm, Music, and Education pensable for giving the artist a consciousness of his movements, and making it possible for him to vary and combine them artificially without strain. In the first place, the dancer must be rendered capa- ble of walking in time, whatever the movement be — which is by no means as easy as might be thought. Dancers, as a nile, do not know how to walk slowly, they cannot keep balance, and the virtuosity of their legs is confined to quick movements. If one carefully watches Isadora Ehmcan, in other respects the sworn enemy of mere technical virtuosity, and a seeker after naturalistic effects, one will notice that she rarely walks in time to an adagio, almost invariably adding involuntarily one or more steps to the niunber pre- scribed by the musical phrase. This arises from her inability to control the transfer of the weight of the body from one leg to another in all variations of pace. She disregards the laws of gravity which, from the cor- poral plastic point of view, create the laws of balance. The only art in space hitherto known to us, architec- ture, is based on the laws of gravity and balance. The human body is intended likewise to submit itself to these laws, and various muscular innervations are there for the purpose. Ordinary stage dancers are in- capable of walking slowly; we have all seen them waddle back to the wings, like ducks, after their turns. Choreographic training deforms the natural play of their joints. In my exercises in measured walking — to me the A B C of a choreographic training — ^the stu- dent learns to control the harmony of the active muscles, and their complements, from the slowest largo to a lively allegro, and to practise accelerandos, ritenutos, and Digitized by VjOOQ IC How to Revive Dancing 241 rubdtos, in walking, without losing his balance. In addition, different kinds of walking are evoked by the different pace of musical phrases and adapted to stdc- catos, legates, portandos, and the like effects of the music. There exist here as many variations as in the bow strokes of a violinist, and the same comparison will enable us to follow the special exercises and training necessitated by the different styles of walking and halt- ing, whether abruptly or slowly. To attack a phrase on the violin by an anacrusis of three semi-quavers necessitates a different position for the bow, and a dif- ferent kind of muscular activity from that required for an attack on a semibreve played pianissimo^ or on a crotchet played forte, and followed by a rest. The study of repressions of steps is of even more importance, inasmuch as the cessation of movement constitutes, for dancing ptuposes, a potent means of creating contrasts and of introducing poljrphony in the expression of feelings. In many respects, the dance may be compared with a concerto for violin and orchestra, in which the soloist engages in a dialogue with the other instruments, and where now one, now another of the two protagon- ists remains silent for a moment to enable his inter- locutor to speak. In dancing, however, the dialogue is conducted in two different languages : plastic phrases re- spond to musical phrases. The essential is that artistic and aesthetic emotion should be expressed; for the rest, plastic language has no less and varied resources than that of music. To return to our exercises in walking : it goes without saying that these are not confined to a flat surface, 16 Digitized by VjOOQIC 242 Rhythm, Music, and Education but are practised on inclines strewn with objects, and on staircases of every kind and dimension. Once we are concerned with utilising the whole body for the expression of hiunan emotion, it becomes obviously ab- surd to deprive it of opportunities of freely disporting itself in its divers modes of activity. The walk of a man will vary according to the surface on which he is moving; it is therefore necessary that, in the theatre, he should be given practice in moving on different kinds of surfaces.' Have you ever seen children danc- ing on a grassy slope? And do you know the deep impression made by the sight of a crowd of men labori- ously climbing a moimtain? Preliminary exercises in walking should be executed without the aid of the arms. These are reserved for other than the purely balancing fimctions to which ballet dancers devote them. The arms form the prin- cipal mediiun for the expression of feelings called up by dancing, and lend themselves to an infinite niunber of combinations of movements. I should say that the symbols forming the language of gesture are almost as numerous as those of the language of articulate speech. The study of gestures, their oppositions and combina- tions, is, however, unknown in operatic ballet circles where the arms serve only to maintain balance. Dan- cers of the Duncan school employ more varied, beauti- ful, and numerous gestures, but they are usually con- fined to antique models, reproducing the attitudes of Greek statues and by no means asserting the person- ality of the dancer, or expressing spontaneous and sin- cere emotion. Apart from that, they operate in space, > See Chapter X, p. 202. Digitized by VjOOQ IC How to Revive Dancing 243 without order of sequence; they are never led up to, they occur at haphazard; they are not the inevitable product of nuances of feeling dictated by the music; finally, they fail to interpret the mentalities of con- temporary human beings. In studying diction, the pupil is taught carefully to modulate his voice according to his temperament, and not in imitation of the vocal nuances conceived by others. The same applies to the study of gestture, which should depend on the shape of Kmbs, the force and flexi- bility of muscles, and the particular dispositions of the joints. To give an idea of the infinite niunber of combina- tions of gestures, let us take the movement of raising the left ann and holding it, vertically, above the head. This gesture may vary in form and expression, according to the divers inclinations of the torso and head, the degree of tension or flexion of the elbow or wrist, the position of the fingers in the hand, open or closed, and the dis- placements of the torso or other parts of the body. Again, while raising the left arm, the right may remain stationary or sink in contrast, or bend to the right or left or rear, in every nuance of tension or flexion. These various combinations of the arm may assume a totally different significance, according as the actor's eye is directed to the left arm, right arm, elbow, wrist, or fingers. They produce varied impressions according to the degree of resistance of the inhibitory muscles, and the slowness or rapidity of the movements (one arm may be raised slowly while the other makes a rapid gesture). Yet again, while the left arm is being raised, the right may execute quite a number of movements, and each of these gestures may be seen in a different Digitized by VjOOQIC 244 Rhythm, Music, and Education aspect, according to the successive directions of the eye. , Finally, the divers positions of the legs will further modify the pace and aesthetic significance of the arm gestures. According as the weight of the body is on the leg placed in front, or to the rear, and to the degree of inclination, and the condition of flexion or tension of the legs, the whole attitude will vary in meaning and value. Each of these detailed modifications in the position as a whole may, in their turn, be combined with other alterations of the original attitude, from which may be seen that the vocabulary of gesture does not lack variety. The important point, for artistic purposes, is that, according to the feeling that evokes the gesture and the physiognomic expression produced by the mental attitude, each of the varieties of gesture we have mentioned will assume a distinctive character, and reflect diversely the mtdtiple nuances of human emotions. Gesture itself is nothing — its whole value depends on the emotion that inspires it, and no form of dance, however rich in technical combinations of corporal atti- tudes, can ever be more than a mere unmeaning amuse- ment, so long as it does not aim at depicting htunan emotions in their fulness and intimate veracity. One has only to consider in this light our present operatic ballets, and the psychological effect of their activities, to realise that they outrage human dignity, arousing only the paltriest emotions, of an effeminate tendency, and eliminating the elements of vigour, initiative, courage, aggression, and revolution in favour of a sen- timental and artificial pretty-prettiness. The man Digitized by VjOOQ IC How to Revive Dancing 245 plays a negligible r61e and is really superfluous. The stimulating conflicts between resolution and weakness, doggedness and resignation, masterful love and tender- ness, struggles, perilous enterprises, the slow but sure advance of Progress, the overcoming of obstacles, resist- ances, and compimctions, the victories over self — all these must give way to the conventional travesty (or what is one to call an art in which Siegfried, Renaud, and Tristan are represented by women?) in which the man, conscious of the decadence of choreographic art, dare not assert his virility, nor aflSrm his dignity of authority, nor manifest plastically his innate aesthetic qualities, the instinct for domination and for tenacious resistance. What more repulsive spectacle can there be than that of the male dancer asstiming feminine graces? The eternal conflict of the sexes must be the keynote of the revival of the dance, and the latter can only recover its social influence and character of hirnian truth, when the eternal adversaries, whose oppositions and reconciliations form the basis of all vital dramatic art, are adequately represented and staged. Who can doubt but that, once balance has been restored, the divers nuances of expression will only appear in individuals capable of feeling emotion, when brought into contact with art, tmder the influence of sincerely felt sensations and sentiments? Part of the dancer's education will have to be devoted to his nerv- ous system; special exercises habituating the nerves to transmit the orders of the brain to the limbs en- trusted with their execution, and establishing by means of rhythm a vital and regular circulation — covering all nuances of movement — between the divers agents of Digitized by VjOOQIC ^46 Rhythm, Music, and Education the organism. Numerous automatic movements must be created, and made subservient to the conscious will, imder whose direction they may be applied or with- held, combined, opposed, or superposed. The sub- conscious manifestations of individuahty will also have to be developed, while not overburdening the nervous system, nor destroying the plastic harmony of the organ- ism. Before all else, the plastic interpreter of musi- cal emotions must, however, be made capable, by virtue of an artistic and moral training, of deeply sensing these emotions — ^for any attempt at expression on the part of one not genuindy inspired by music is a sham. . . . Consider the admirable Russian dancers, with their fiery temperament, their grace, flexibility, and imdeniable rhythmic qualities — ^watch them on occasion discard their dizzy gyratory effects, to bring out the lyric essence of a dramatic situation ! Their movement at once loses all ease and sincerity. Sentiment is re- placed by sentimentality, natural expression by grand- iloquence, each gesture of passion, shame, desire, suffering, is exaggerated to an extreme. A constant vibrato animates their movements; a continuous crude expansion asserts itself; the immodesty of simulated emotion is exposed in all its nakedness! Does this mean that the dancers lack science, tact, and intelligence? Not in the least. The cause of this exaggeration of attitudes and gestures is the lack of a close co-ordination between their sensibilities and those of the musician. The music does not directly re-act on their sensitive faculties, does not irresistibly inspire the natural means of bodily eicpression; they are unable to express music, through incapacity to take it in. Digitized by VjOOQ IC How to Revive Dancing 247 Tfie interpreter is no true artist unless he is capable not only of giving^ but — once having received, humbly and joyfully, the "message" of the work — of creating anew what he has received, and of conveying to others, transfused, the essence of that message and of himself. To the majority of ballet dancers, music is only a pretext for decorative effects in moving plastic. Beauty of gesture is sought in