Season One: Episode Twenty-Two
Elemental Music, Orff Schulwerk, and Art Informing Music with Drue Bullington
Drue Bullington Bio
Drue Bullington teaches elemental music and movement at Brownstown Elementary School in the Conestoga Valley School District in Lancaster, PA. He earned his Bachelor in Music Education and Masters of Music in Music Education with a certification in Orff Schulwerk from West Chester University of Pennsylvania. He holds a second Master's Degree in Online Teaching and Learning from Wilkes University. He serves on the executive board as secretary for the American Center for Elemental Music and Movement (ACEMM). Drue is a Teacher Educator in a number of AOSA Orff Schulwerk Levels around the country.
ACEMM:
If you're looking for a wonderful place to learn more with musical colleagues, consider coming to the ACEMM Retreat and Jamboree this summer 2019. It's like summer camp in the Catskill Mountains of NY for music teachers! Drue will be one of the presenters! Check out their website for more information: https://acemm.us
TRANSCRIPT FROM THE SHOW
Jessica: Thanks Drue for coming on the podcast.
Drue: Of course! It's great to be here. I'm looking forward to it. By the way, I have a cup of coffee here since it's our afternoon tea.
Jessica: That's right! Nice! I have water, but I'm actually not a coffee drinker so...
Drue: It's okay. You'll grow up someday.
Jessica: Ha! I will grow up someday. Thank you for that. I would love to know what your first experience with the Orff Schulwerk experience was like.
Drue: Well, my very first experience was in the basement of the music building at the West Chester University Music School. And my professor was Ann McFarland and this was the very first time I was taught as though I was a kid again. And I remember feeling so thrilled at the invitation to play with music in such a joyful and childlike way.
And it felt a little like being in the Chronicles of Narnia. That I was in this big house of seriousness at the School of Music Conservatory world and then all of a sudden I'd stumbled through the back of this wardrobe into this new landscape that was completely new and captivating. And I was hardly able to believe that this was a thing that they wanted me to learn how to do. How to be playful and reactive to the moment and kind of live in the now of music making instead of get out my Schirmer Book of Preludes and Fugues and, you know, make sure that you have the e minor fugue memorized for Tuesday's lesson kind of a thing. So I was really, I was gobsmacked by the whole experience and I have been captivated since that day so I thank Ann McFarland for that, giving me that opportunity.
Jessica: And was that during your undergrad studies?
Drue: Yeah! My junior year of my undergraduate studies. So we had an elementary music methods course and it was in three parts. And I thought it was a great thing in reflection looking back. I was able to have my first experience in music education at the elementary level was Kodály. And that was like five or six weeks long and then we had... another teacher came and she was the Dalcroze teacher. And then the Orff teacher was the last one. So we had Kodály, Dalcroze, and Orff and we had to get comfortable with each of those approaches and methods really before we could go into our secondary methods next. So that was the system and I really thought it was valuable because I had the awakening to all three of those possibilities at once, you know, in the same semester.
Jessica: That's great. And so, loaded question here, but how would you describe the Orff Schulwerk approach to someone who has taken a levels course and experienced it or even to someone who hasn't had a levels course?
Drue: So to someone who hasn't had a levels course, I would describe it as the opportunity to personally and really fully experience the sequence of music learning and skill acquisition from early childhood through adulthood again. So it's an opportunity to really revisit all of those experiences that you've had as a musician along your pathway to come into your full self as a music maker as an adult. And then it's the important opportunity to be in that environment in a carefully curated situation just for the learners that provides that community where you can become bonded and share these experiences with other humans that value them as highly as you do. And lastly, it's an opportunity to develop your pedagogical philosophies, your skills, your materials, and the things that you can use to build an experience in your classroom that truly reflects who you are as an artist and a teacher and a human. So that would be my explanation and the invitation I would give to someone who is outside and thinking about getting more information and participating in an Orff Schulwerk levels course and workshops. Those are the things that you could expect and why they're valuable, you know, at the ten thousand foot level.
And then to someone who's already been in their levels, it's sort of, it's hard to explain. You just say your levels experience and share it with someone else and it's, it's always different, you know. That's the beauty of it. The sharing is so very contemporaneous. It's so tied to the moment and who's in the moment with you. And that's one of it's powerful aspects as well.
And then to get, to come full circle, the idea of like the whole umbrella of Schulwerk to me? Which is outside of the levels courses. What is it entirely? I feel like it's the openness. The invitation to just really explore the possibilities of creating in the moment. Creating movement, creating new ways of thinking, and how do I connect with someone? You know, Orff Schulwerk says to me, or the learner in general, that they're welcome here and they're welcome like, just who they are. In this moment, you're so welcome here and you have amazing things to contribute and let's start sharing. What can we create in this moment? And I think that's the power of Orff Schulwerk as well. For anybody of any age. So that's the levels course experience for me.
Jessica: Yeah. I definitely agree with that. I always said I feel like I finally came home when I finally did my Orff levels because I'd been looking for how to merge music and movement and singing and playing of instruments. And you just go in and take those levels courses and all of a sudden it was like, 'Oh this is home!' You know. It's just, it's such an amazing experience. One of the things that you shared at the North Texas Orff Chapter was you talked about how, and you just kind of mentioned in briefly, but you talked about how the processes and ideas within the Orff Schulwerk are something that crosses over into our everyday life. The idea that Orff Schulwerk is really a way of life. And I was just curious if you could kind of expand on that.
Drue: Yeah, I think it's a way of being. If we're...now that I've been working as an Orff Schulwerk teacher and elemental music teacher and movement teacher for eighteen years, there's something that happens in the pathways of your mind as you do this work because you're in these moments with students who are vulnerable and growing and shifting and exploring and experimenting with the materials around them and the world around them and with their peers around them. And it just happens that there happens to be this little microcosmic music class where that happens, but then you find yourself guiding these learners success through those challenges and you trust that process because you're willing to be in it with them. Knowing that at any time, you know, unexpected things could happen and you have to respond to them and still try to say yes to them and move forward with them and try to let go of the feeling of resentment that comes up whenever it's not going... you know, when the expectation isn't met and that cognitive dissonance comes up with, 'this is what I expected, but this is what happened.' And valuing what is happening vs. what you expected is where I was coming from, I think in that workshop as well, but in general, valuing what is happening and taking from it what you can and those experiences to move forward. You don't have the opportunity to explore what your expectation was. It's no longer a possibility because that didn't happen.
And you know, in the metaphor of life where you zoom out of your classroom to your whole self. You know, in your relationships in your family. Your professional relationships with your colleagues. Your long-term goals for your career and your family. Maybe your children. The things you want to do in your life. Your goals that you're setting. Having that Orff Schulwerk kind of wiring in your mind is undeniable for me. That when you do this work, you bring that with you and you become willing to accept the thing that is happening so much more easily than I would have twenty years ago. You know, I was much more of a bulldozer about, "I'm going to make this happen." And I was also like that in the classroom before I was really fully cooked as an Orff, you know. And I don't know that I'm ever going to be, but I certainly hadn't come to any level of maturation as a teacher, pedagogue. And in those moments I was just going to bully my way to the success that I was seeing from my expectation.
So I really think it's about adapting a peaceful outlook, like I'm going to accept what is coming up and work with that because it's the material of the day. This is what I've been given. And I think that is also powerful because our students come with a lot of stuff and having that kind of gratitude, like I'll accept you as you are and I'm grateful that you are coming here and we're gonna work together and I'm going to give you the space to be you. So when I look around at my colleagues in the country, who are these Orff educators whom I've really come to value and respect, I sense in them the same kind of outlook in the world around them and I really value that and it inspires me.
You know, having that peace and acceptance of what's coming up in your world is a lot like accepting from your students what comes up in their classroom and trying to be responsive and creative in that way as well.
Jessica: Yeah. I love that. I took note about what you said about valuing what happens rather than looking back at what you had expected. Enjoying what does come of whatever heads your way. One of my favorite things about the Orff approach is this idea called elemental forms. I love that it allows us to build musical knowledge and skills with our students within a structure and that it also provides freedom, but with perimeters. So can you share a bit about how you would describe elemental form and what it is.
Drue: Elemental forms are containers in which learners can place a small rhythmic or melodic pattern and allows them to easily remember the order of those patterns based on a highly predictable nature of this basic memory game of same vs. different. So at it's base form, or at it's basis level, it's most simplistic, an elemental form is:
Is it repeated?
Is it the same thing two times?
Or is it something and then something new?
And then once students, you know, in kindergarten or first grade are able to move past that then they can have something - then something different - that original thing again - and then something different to end. And so that then the forms are extended. The power of the elemental form is really in the repetition and that there's either repetition or contrast. And organizing the repetition and contrasts and then it, you know, levels of similarity as they get more advanced. So I think that it's just simplistic repetitions: same and same vs. different. And everyone can manage that and it's easy to remember when it's done that way and structured that way.
Jessica: The biggest thing that I think is useful about elemental forms is the ability to use speech a lot within them and obviously rhythm from the speech, but how does speech play a part in the creation of elemental form?
Drue: All speech is the fastest route from a simple conversation like we're having now to a musical experience. We speak every day. A lot. Children speak a lot and the freshest, newest knowledge that they have is their vocabulary that's building. And being used on a repetitive basis, it's the thing that they take and use everywhere they go. And simply adding a pulse to a conversation walks us over a very short bridge from talking to making music. And I think that if you're mining the students' vocabulary for the already well-practiced, deeply internalized word problems, that they've and then just trying to sort of fit them into this rhythmic building blocks, then the syllables can match and they're already really quite accented and unaccented in the students' minds.
So they're already building the sensibility of meter within their regular spoken conversations and just pulling that and refocusing it just slightly into a musical context makes it really easy for the students to experience that without having to feel like they've had to go through a process of being taught a technique. Or have a really music, teachy moment where you have to become proficient as a singer or as an instrument player. Or even to use body percussion in those ways, you know. That's so far outside them. You know, the closest thing to them to get to share is their voice with their language. So that's the thing that you use most often.
The thing that I think is most powerful about speech is that it gives us the smoothest entreé into the music making and it keeps the feeling of just the joyful play in the learning experience without that more pedestrian, 'it goes like this' playing kind of stuff, you know.
Jessica: Right. I also like that it can be used with our youngest students, but become more complex with our older students so it's not boring to them as they continue to grow. There's always more we can do with it.
Drue: Yeah, I think that comes from the nature of the vocabulary that you're using. If you're using a complex, more complex subject and vocabulary, you know, landscape for them and then become more complex with more layers and interlocking speech pieces and things, I think students are happy to do that. Even in high school. I've had high school kids that are really fascinated by those things.
Jessica: Hm. Yeah. What are some ways using elemental form that we can guide students into improvisation and composition experiences? Which would be, you know, even at young ages they're able to create within speech, but maybe even beyond that with body percussion or rhythmic elements or even melodic elemental forms?
Drue: It's sort of an interesting question because it so matters with which group you're working. And the way that I would approach that in sixth grade would be very different from how I would approach it in first grade. So I'm going to aim for the middle of the road and I'm just going to tell you what happened in third grade.
Jessica: Sounds good!
Drue: In third grade we're working on refining and reinforcing the idea of four sixteenth notes. So the...whatever you call it...tikatika or du-te-da-ta, but it's just four sixteenth notes on one beat. And the comparison of that to a pair of eighth notes - two sounds on one beat - and with the pulse, the quarter note. So in third grade we've been working on the Ding Dong Diggidiggi Dong canon which is, you know, a staple of the Schulwerk, but I have a slightly different take on it. I have a whole story that I tell and all about this cat and what happens to it and it ends up that it's a Himalayan cat. So that fits the rhythm of the four sixteenth notes and , you know, other cat words. There's just Cat is the quarter note, the steady beat. So Cat-Cat-Cat-Cat. And then at one time the Himalayan cat, he was a kitten or she was a kitten, so it's Kitten-Kitten-Kitten-Kitten or Himalayan-Himalayan-Himal... So then understanding those and then playing with that. And there's this little images of a cat's face and there's an image of a kitten. There's an image of a Himalayan and then we just move those around. So the students don't ever see the notation first, but they're just playing with these ideas.
And then, you know, is literally a four white box - four white boxes with the black rim around them and the cats, you know, the white board. They can move the cats around and we can compose and so, a very simply, you know, this is a building block of one beat, but this still works the same as if this was a two-beat building block in first and second grade. You know, the students, I just say, 'Okay in each block I just want you to put...I'm not putting anything there for them to read, but I'm pointing with a mallet to each block and I ask them to say, maybe, in each block 'Cat' for four times and then 'Kitten' for four times, and then 'Himalayan' for four times until they understand that structure.
So the sense of the structure is really important. And then I ask them to just use 'cats' and 'kittens,' but they decide what. But I don't give them time to plan; I just point and they have to start speaking 'cat' or 'kitten' when I'm pointing. And then I allow them then, 'Okay you can now use 'Himalayan' one time. So they choose where 'Himalayan' is going to go. And then we have someone, you know, we transfer it to body percussion and they keep their speech a secret and then they do a body percussion thing and the students have to decode that and tell us the words. So I'm getting farther into it, into the improvisation, you know.
That was in a previous class so today we just had little square cards. One was blue, one was yellow, one was purple. The blue card had a quarter note on it. The purple card had a pair of eighth notes and the yellow card had four sixteenth notes on one beat. And so I said, "You know, this is a picture of one beat for the musicians and this is a picture for two for the purple one and the Himalayan one (sunny yellow) is four beats - four sounds on one beat rather. But which one would you guess is more like the word cat?" And they all said, "Blue." And then which one is going to sound more like 'kitten?' And they were like, "Purple." And then I said, "So this yellow one is not just any yellow; it's sunny yellow." So then they have the sunny yellow. "Which one is that?" "It's Himalayan." So they made this connection. They we just started playing with the cats, kittens, and sunny yellows - or Himalayans, but then we did the colors. So blue, purple, sunny yellow, but now they have a visual connection with the notation, the musician notation.
So I've got two schema going really, like the Himalayan cat theme and then just colors and notation. What was cool was I gave them a bunch of packets of these and just gave them a template on paper and said, "Here. Go with a partner and create and see what you can do." But then I said, "Okay but now you're allowed to create only the first half and then your partner has to create the second from their imagination. They have to improvise it." And so, you know, that's where it goes in a playful way. You're starting with something kind of concrete and you have this model. Then you take apart the model bit by bit and rebuild a model. And in then in the last place you give the students the opportunity to build a model of their own and leave some openness for some creativity with a partner or something along those lines. Or create your own ending. Make different endings. Things like that.
The long sort of thread that I'm pulling through there is that it's all about the structure and the ability of the students to have enough freedom but that they don't feel overwhelmed. And the thing that will keep them from being overwhelmed is that they have a structure in which to feel safe. And so that's the beauty of the elemental forms and how speech and improvisation and composition can all go together.
And really the need for composition is we like our idea. We want to write it down so we don't forget. And when that starts coming from a student, then I know, "Okay, here's your pencil. You're motivated enough to want to write this. I'll show you how." And then that's where we end up and that's really the intention of Carl Off and Guild Keetman from the beginning was to say, "It's music for children. Here are the volumes of Music For Children, but it's your job as a creator of pedagogical context for students that you're creating a volume of your own, whether you know it or not, that's on the other side of them that's music by children." So it might not be all stapled and bound together, but your life's work in the classroom is the music by children volumes that are growing next to the Music For Children models.
Jessica: And not all of the pieces are going to be this perfectly wrapped up, succinct musical piece. I would think that there will be some pieces where, you know, the students play with it, but it's not always just for performance.
Drue: It's rarely for performance! And the performance is the time that it's happening for them. And every now and then you shine one up and roll it out, you know, you parade it out of the classroom and everyone thinks you've hung the moon. And for you, you're going, 'This really wasn't the best way for us to spend our time. They were really ready to move on and this is actually a form of frustration in their lives.' I mean, I've honestly thought that. And some of the students, it's valuable to share for so many reasons and some students really love that. And some students are like, 'I'm ready for the next thing. Let's do the next thing.' It's just interesting how that all works.
Jessica: It is, but I love how you can tie together this piece from the Volumes and I mean we can pull a piece from the Volumes and play it exactly as it's written. Or you can play around and manipulate the elements within that piece and then have students play around with it and I love that. I also love that you added the colors so that the colors, like you said, they've got more than one schema going and linking colors and notation and the cats, but yet it was all inspired from this piece Ding Dong DiggiDiggi Dong. And did your students ever end up ever playing the piece as it is in the Volume?
Drue: It's part of the long plan and they will play it by the end of the year in the next couple of weeks. That's where we're headed. And the point of it is that we are always like, sort of like having a sly little touchstone with it. We're always like touching home and then running away out into the woods of possibilities and then we come back and see, 'oh here's the model!' and then touch it again and experience a little of it again. And so far they're just singing the song. And they're singing the cat song exactly like it's written in the volume and in the end the plan is that we're going to be improvising accompaniments to it and we've experienced that already today as well. We improvised accompaniments for, you know. "Can you sing and play? Can you sing the cat song while you play this part?" And they're like, "We can do it!" and I'm like "Okay! That means you're ready to have - you can play it and have the higher level experience with it." So...
Jessica: Something that you shared at the workshop was that you shared a way of taking pieces of art and integrating them alongside music or even creating music out of art, which I thought was just really clever. How did you begin to play with this idea of art influencing music?
Drue: The first experience I had with that was with my level II teacher who is Judith Thomas-Solomon and she's just a master at connecting and relating all kinds of arts and unifying them for students into a musically artistic experiences. Our Level II class actually went to the BrandyWine Museum, which is the museum where all the Wyeth paintings are. And I'm pretty sure that in that workshop we did a Wyeth painting and I talked about that. And I've always, ever since then, I've been in this enamored state of the BrandyWine Museum and the Wyeth artists. But we sat on the floor in this old mill - a museum that used to be a mill - and we drew sketches of famous Wyeth paintings and the ones that resonated with us. We created poetry in response to these artistic paintings or pieces and then we set these poems into elemental melodies and then eventually arranged them so that we had this piece that we were excited to share with our students when we got back to school that we created. So there were so many levels of connection there for me as an art lover, as a musician, as a composer, as a teacher, pedagogue, all of these things. And we did all that in our workshop or in our Levels courses, in my Levels course. Ever since then I've always jumped at the chance to share things like that with my students in the classroom at my school or in workshop settings. So that's, you know, that's been a gift that Judith gave to me that I want to keep sharing.
Jessica: Yeah, I just thought that was really neat because I'm one of those people where - I'm the same way in aquariums - where I can go in and look at things and I just go, 'Oh that's a great fish' or 'Oh what a nice drawing,' but if I don't really know much about the painter or about the fish species or whatever, then I don't appreciate it as much because I don't know what it takes to have created it or the story behind it. But I loved the idea of pulling elements out of a painting and it just came more to life. So what are some ways that you use art to guide students?
Drue: Well, students really need a time to experience art work on a personal level. And since we're talking about that experience in the workshop, I really tried to build in time for the participants to have an experience with each of the art works that we worked with and give them a chance to really talk to themselves about what matters to them and then talk to each other about it and share. A lot of times, as guides to this artistic work, we're really quick to explain to learners what it is, which becomes sort of difficult for them because it doesn't mean that to them. And allowing them to really more fully explore what it means to them first and get a little bit of substance from their perspective of what it is in their mind, it gives a little bit of credence to allowing them to really think about what somebody else might think about it too because they have a perspective, rather than them just being talked to about something that they don't have any buy-in with. I hope I'm being clear about that, but it's mostly just - does this art, you know, deciding what matters to them about the art work.
And the most success I've had is really giving the students a chance to talk to each other about the art work and then share out. What are your feelings and perspectives? And how do they feel about this art work? And sharing it with your peers and then they're able to bring those aspects of the feelings and perspectives the art gives them into a movement and music exploration. And it kind of all goes back to the impression, my whole impression of the Orff Schulwerk, is that you have amazing things to contribute. In this case, it's the: What do you see? What do you feel? What do you notice? Wonder about this art work? And once the students are in that frame of mind with you, they're willing to be open to having an exploration of that piece and you can guide them because their thoughts are front in their mind first before your thoughts are sort of shoehorned in, you know. You're not planting your, you're not, you know, holding hostage their ability to think about the art work because you've already usurped their opportunity to have formed their own impression by pretty much just plastering yours in their mind first.
So giving them the chance to really be centered in what really matters to them first, I think, is the biggest win you can get. And then guiding them from that. Having that central in their thoughts as you go forward is really powerful.
Jessica: Not telling them what they see, but asking them what they see.
Drue: Yeah.
Jessica: Yeah. That's powerful. Is there an art work that you could share with us and kind of walk us through how you would create a musical experience for students out of?
Drue: Absolutely! So the thing that I think is very difficult - we're in a very unconventional situation here having a talk about music through the lens of artwork in a podcast, but I think we can do it if we keep our subject pretty easy to visualize. So I've sort of chosen the idea that maybe we can explore the Mona Lisa. By all accounts the most famous painting in the world by the master Leonardo Da Vinci.
I'm going to ask you, since you happen to have a picture there on your iPad to look at, about the Mona Lisa and just what do you notice? I mean it's something that we've looked at for years, but what do you really notice when you look deeply into the Mona Lisa's whole painting. All of it. Not just her face or her smile, which is probably what most people would recognize best. Maybe just pick out two or three nouns that you see that are appropriate for school, but that you could share. What do you see?
Jessica: For me, it's a road. I'll call it a mountain for lack of because I can't tell if it's a mountain or a hill. I mean, so not focusing on her face?
Drue: You can focus on whatever you want. I'm just saying that there's a lot more there than just her face or her smile, but if you want to look at her face it's hard not to. I agree.
Jessica: 'Cause I was looking. She looks kind of sly and I've read different things that say that the eyes were painted multiple times so there's - I don't know - but just kind of...sly is more descriptive, but I would be curious as to what the background symbolizes. Why there's this curving road and then there even appears to be a bridge crossing water. So road, mountain, bridge, sky...
Drue: So you've done a great job so far. You've named like four nouns and you also went into something that you might say that we could do second which is we could talk about her eyes. You said her eyes have a descriptor, which they also rhyme so "sly eye, sly eye" which is interesting. And I kind of gave you a hint there but if repeat that two times you end up with a bit of an ostinato just:
sly eye, sly eye
And then what if you decided that to keep saying "sly eye" over and over again feels awkward. So then you have 'sly eye' and then a bit of a break. And then maybe the pulse will come from that. You'll get the pulse from the students if they're saying 'sly eye.' If it feels like it's in three. If it feels like it, you know, it could feel like it's in 6/8 ('sly eye...sly eye'). You'll know right away.
Sly eye, sly eye - that's in 4.
Sly eye (hm hm)
So you can take your cue from how that develops out of the students and it comes through the speech right away like we talked about earlier. But now you have an ostinato that's sort of started and then maybe some other like how could you describe the mountain? Or the hill that you were talking about - what's the descriptor for that?
Jessica: Say Rocky Mountain.
Drue: Perfect! So you could have the 'sly eye' and then sort of like the feeling of space there and then maybe in the space a second group can do a 'rocky mountain.' So you have this 'sly eye' for group one meanwhile the 'rocky mountain' is the second group. And it's kind of interesting the 'sly eyes' are most forward and kind of gravitate - you pull your eye right to those and the mountains are sort of separate so you might talk about the mountains and being less loud or you know you can talk about the prominence in the painting of things and adjust volume and balance that way. There's just a couple of speech things that can happen along the way and you can talk about a road. You talked about the bridge so there's a bridge in the background so you could pull out a little bit more and sort of build a complimentary speech pattern together with all of that.
The next thing you can do is - oh you have these speeches, speech pieces, speech elements and start to play with them. Maybe there's a movement that could start to happen. They could be roads. They could be traveling down the road. The people with the eye could be doing 'sly eye' when they're moving and saying 'sly eye' and moving and say it at the same time and then when they're resting they have silence in their body and silence in their voice.
And then from there you can keep going and that's just a metrical approach to it, but then maybe you have body percussion and maybe you add instruments. You could have someone conduct the piece so that there's someone who points to her face; to her eye with maybe a mallet or something and that activates the people that are doing the sly eye movement. And they could follow the road and then the road people could start to move. Or those are just a couple of ideas that are coming up for me. And that's, again, metered. It could be done all with barred instruments, unpitched percussion instruments, in a very exploratory way without speech. It could be done vocally. You could have... you could trace the vocal line of the outside of her body that goes up from where her arm is. It could go low and you could have a vocal warm-up kind of thing that traces the outside, you know (vocal warm-up on 'ooooh'), and follows the different line. You could follow the road.
These are just some very basic ideas that I'm thinking about that come up for me with just in this moment with you based on what you shared. It might be completely different with someone else. And I will say another nod to Judith - Judith Thomas-Solomon has these amazing resources that you can check out that are like Working the Word and The Word in Play, two books that she's written that give you some hints about how to work with students and talk about getting creativity and encapsulating and redistributing it into an artistic group experience. I got a lot of these inclinations from her through Level II and reflecting on those experiences.
Jessica: I was thinking it would be neat too to compare the Mona Lisa to another portrait of someone else, whether it's a soldier or even someone else that had been painted by Da Vinci, you know, and comparing the two and contrasting with those ostinato patterns and then combining them somehow. I don't know.
Drue: You could take the famous paintings. Like multiple famous paintings and make those your building blocks. You know, like 'Mona Lisa' (titi titi) or 'Mona Lisa' (tam ti tam ti). And then Starry Night (titi ta). You could, you know, you just gave me an idea.
Jessica: Yeah?! Oh good!
Drue: That might be something I explore too in the future. Just because it just came to me!
Jessica: Because why not?!
Drue: So thank you for that.
Jessica: You're welcome. And I like the idea of tracing the silhouette too - going up the side and then using the windy road and just exploring vocally. And it could be interesting too, depending on if they're using a pentatonic scale to improvise - say with the building blocks or if you're home note is a re pentatonic or if it's a mode or you know. What kind of feeling they get from that and playing around depending on what perimeters you give them and what that home note is. That could be really interesting.
Drue: Agreed.
Jessica: Yeah, I like all that. That thought behind it. So is there anything you look for in art works as like guiding factors to know which piece of art would be a great one to use with students or could really any piece of art be used in a musical way?
Drue: When I'm in a museum and I'm experiencing art, the first thing that I'm really careful to notice is: does this art work matter to me? And if so, why and how? And a lot of art work is really important and powerful and captivating to me. And also a lot of it is not any of those things to me. It's important for me to realize that this happens also for students. And that what resonates with me doesn't always resonate for them and that even though I choose that this art work is something that I want to share, it's not necessarily going to happen for all of my students, but what I try to do is model for them is when I don't like something or when it doesn't resonate with me or doesn't captivate me, what it is about it. I try to be really articulate about what it is that's keeping me from wanting to be in a relationship with this piece of art. And if I can articulate that clearly and respectfully, then I can accept it from my students if they can do that as well.
What I don't like from this is, 'well, I don't like it.' And just very flat, you know. I want them to be respectful critics. That's part of what I'm building in to these experiences and I can say that I don't get a lot of criticism from students with the art that I choose and one of the reasons is that if I do choose to share a piece of art work with students and it bombs, I just don't using it, you know.
Jessica: Right.
Drue: Choosing art work to share has to matter to me and then I try to find a way to be really present with that piece of art work and then open my mind to the possibility of 'what does it sound like? What can I hear in my mind?' But I really listen to what the possibilities are and then I try to think about an entry point. How I could get students to be somehow involved in getting that landscape that I'm envisioning is possible. And what I think is possible initially completely changes once the students have the opportunity to start being agents in the process. I really think it matters that - take the risk if you like it, share it, and talk about it. And when students start talking about it, see what you can come up with.
Asking students 'what does this painting sound like?' could blow their mind in some ways. They just won't know how to respond so you have to guide them to maybe those experiences through very small steps. And simpler art work is easier to work with initially. So I will say if it's pretty easy to see the artistic elements of the painting first, that helps I think. And then once the students can do some more simple art works, then they can advance a little bit quicker. Once they get a feel of it where they can't be wrong, that helps. You know like really basic modern art kind of things like the mobiles. I'm trying to think - the name is eluding me right now. Rothko. Mark Rothko. Like the Blanc. August de Blanc. (example: art piece from 1947) I think he does some really cool things things that kids really are easily able to engage.
Jessica: It kind of relates in a way to how we choose musical pieces as far as folk songs or just any material for our class because I find if I can relate to a folk song or if it has meaning for me, then I find I can bring more meaning or help students find more meaning in it. And I wonder if that's the same way with art works where, like you said, if it means something to you and if you, I don't know, if you find something really interesting about it, odds are it'll somehow transfer to your students as well and bring about some insight from them and then same thing with the folk songs where if I've gone ahead and taught a folk song to students and it just bombs and it doesn't go well, then I know, 'Okay maybe that one - maybe we try and find something else.'
Drue: Yeah and you know, also, I don't want to spend three or four works looking at art work that I don't like. That's gonna really... my students are going to feel that. And the same way is I don't want to sing a song with students that I don't enjoy. There are so many songs that I enjoy and so much music that I really love.
Jessica: The time is short.
Drue: Yeah!
Jessica: It's like Kodaly has that quote about only the best is good enough for children. I mean, I'm paraphrasing - it's not exact, but really finding what works best and what is best. And what works for each of us in our classroom and knowing our kids too.
Drue: I try to think of - one of the quotes that I love best is by Isabel McNeill Carley and she says that, "you should only share something that is worth remembering for your whole life." So if you're sharing with students, it should be worth their being able to remember it for their entire life. So I think about that sometimes and it's really easy to throw away some things that I might have done when you think about: should they know this when they're fifty? Should they share this with their grandchildren when they're seventy or something like that? If the answer is no, then it's pretty fast to pssshhhh!
Jessica: That's a hard challenge, too.
Drue: I think it's more of a call to action as a collector to really collect things that are of high value and intrinsically worthy of being known regardless of where they are in your curriculum. As we experience life as humans, we don't follow a curriculum. I always go back to that. A curriculum is something that we've created because we have to cover our content in a school. And yet when we really learn things that are valuable, it's because someone shared them with us because they have a passion for it or there's something really meaningful about it because we taught it to ourselves because we cared about it. I think that's what Isabel was sort of challenging us to do. Even though you have all these others masters you have to serve, really try to make sure that it's valuable to know in the long run.
Final Questions:
Tea, coffee, or something else that suits your fancy - Coffee drinker, but reformed to just coffee and cream.
Artists, song, or genre - Cosmo Sheldrake (can find him on Soundcloud)
What is something you do, or try to do, every day - Grateful for things that don't get much attention. Being grateful for the world around me.
How to get in touch with Drue - website: druebullington.com
Elemental Music, Orff Schulwerk, and Art Informing Music with Drue Bullington
Drue Bullington Bio
Drue Bullington teaches elemental music and movement at Brownstown Elementary School in the Conestoga Valley School District in Lancaster, PA. He earned his Bachelor in Music Education and Masters of Music in Music Education with a certification in Orff Schulwerk from West Chester University of Pennsylvania. He holds a second Master's Degree in Online Teaching and Learning from Wilkes University. He serves on the executive board as secretary for the American Center for Elemental Music and Movement (ACEMM). Drue is a Teacher Educator in a number of AOSA Orff Schulwerk Levels around the country.
ACEMM:
If you're looking for a wonderful place to learn more with musical colleagues, consider coming to the ACEMM Retreat and Jamboree this summer 2019. It's like summer camp in the Catskill Mountains of NY for music teachers! Drue will be one of the presenters! Check out their website for more information: https://acemm.us
TRANSCRIPT FROM THE SHOW
Jessica: Thanks Drue for coming on the podcast.
Drue: Of course! It's great to be here. I'm looking forward to it. By the way, I have a cup of coffee here since it's our afternoon tea.
Jessica: That's right! Nice! I have water, but I'm actually not a coffee drinker so...
Drue: It's okay. You'll grow up someday.
Jessica: Ha! I will grow up someday. Thank you for that. I would love to know what your first experience with the Orff Schulwerk experience was like.
Drue: Well, my very first experience was in the basement of the music building at the West Chester University Music School. And my professor was Ann McFarland and this was the very first time I was taught as though I was a kid again. And I remember feeling so thrilled at the invitation to play with music in such a joyful and childlike way.
And it felt a little like being in the Chronicles of Narnia. That I was in this big house of seriousness at the School of Music Conservatory world and then all of a sudden I'd stumbled through the back of this wardrobe into this new landscape that was completely new and captivating. And I was hardly able to believe that this was a thing that they wanted me to learn how to do. How to be playful and reactive to the moment and kind of live in the now of music making instead of get out my Schirmer Book of Preludes and Fugues and, you know, make sure that you have the e minor fugue memorized for Tuesday's lesson kind of a thing. So I was really, I was gobsmacked by the whole experience and I have been captivated since that day so I thank Ann McFarland for that, giving me that opportunity.
Jessica: And was that during your undergrad studies?
Drue: Yeah! My junior year of my undergraduate studies. So we had an elementary music methods course and it was in three parts. And I thought it was a great thing in reflection looking back. I was able to have my first experience in music education at the elementary level was Kodály. And that was like five or six weeks long and then we had... another teacher came and she was the Dalcroze teacher. And then the Orff teacher was the last one. So we had Kodály, Dalcroze, and Orff and we had to get comfortable with each of those approaches and methods really before we could go into our secondary methods next. So that was the system and I really thought it was valuable because I had the awakening to all three of those possibilities at once, you know, in the same semester.
Jessica: That's great. And so, loaded question here, but how would you describe the Orff Schulwerk approach to someone who has taken a levels course and experienced it or even to someone who hasn't had a levels course?
Drue: So to someone who hasn't had a levels course, I would describe it as the opportunity to personally and really fully experience the sequence of music learning and skill acquisition from early childhood through adulthood again. So it's an opportunity to really revisit all of those experiences that you've had as a musician along your pathway to come into your full self as a music maker as an adult. And then it's the important opportunity to be in that environment in a carefully curated situation just for the learners that provides that community where you can become bonded and share these experiences with other humans that value them as highly as you do. And lastly, it's an opportunity to develop your pedagogical philosophies, your skills, your materials, and the things that you can use to build an experience in your classroom that truly reflects who you are as an artist and a teacher and a human. So that would be my explanation and the invitation I would give to someone who is outside and thinking about getting more information and participating in an Orff Schulwerk levels course and workshops. Those are the things that you could expect and why they're valuable, you know, at the ten thousand foot level.
And then to someone who's already been in their levels, it's sort of, it's hard to explain. You just say your levels experience and share it with someone else and it's, it's always different, you know. That's the beauty of it. The sharing is so very contemporaneous. It's so tied to the moment and who's in the moment with you. And that's one of it's powerful aspects as well.
And then to get, to come full circle, the idea of like the whole umbrella of Schulwerk to me? Which is outside of the levels courses. What is it entirely? I feel like it's the openness. The invitation to just really explore the possibilities of creating in the moment. Creating movement, creating new ways of thinking, and how do I connect with someone? You know, Orff Schulwerk says to me, or the learner in general, that they're welcome here and they're welcome like, just who they are. In this moment, you're so welcome here and you have amazing things to contribute and let's start sharing. What can we create in this moment? And I think that's the power of Orff Schulwerk as well. For anybody of any age. So that's the levels course experience for me.
Jessica: Yeah. I definitely agree with that. I always said I feel like I finally came home when I finally did my Orff levels because I'd been looking for how to merge music and movement and singing and playing of instruments. And you just go in and take those levels courses and all of a sudden it was like, 'Oh this is home!' You know. It's just, it's such an amazing experience. One of the things that you shared at the North Texas Orff Chapter was you talked about how, and you just kind of mentioned in briefly, but you talked about how the processes and ideas within the Orff Schulwerk are something that crosses over into our everyday life. The idea that Orff Schulwerk is really a way of life. And I was just curious if you could kind of expand on that.
Drue: Yeah, I think it's a way of being. If we're...now that I've been working as an Orff Schulwerk teacher and elemental music teacher and movement teacher for eighteen years, there's something that happens in the pathways of your mind as you do this work because you're in these moments with students who are vulnerable and growing and shifting and exploring and experimenting with the materials around them and the world around them and with their peers around them. And it just happens that there happens to be this little microcosmic music class where that happens, but then you find yourself guiding these learners success through those challenges and you trust that process because you're willing to be in it with them. Knowing that at any time, you know, unexpected things could happen and you have to respond to them and still try to say yes to them and move forward with them and try to let go of the feeling of resentment that comes up whenever it's not going... you know, when the expectation isn't met and that cognitive dissonance comes up with, 'this is what I expected, but this is what happened.' And valuing what is happening vs. what you expected is where I was coming from, I think in that workshop as well, but in general, valuing what is happening and taking from it what you can and those experiences to move forward. You don't have the opportunity to explore what your expectation was. It's no longer a possibility because that didn't happen.And you know, in the metaphor of life where you zoom out of your classroom to your whole self. You know, in your relationships in your family. Your professional relationships with your colleagues. Your long-term goals for your career and your family. Maybe your children. The things you want to do in your life. Your goals that you're setting. Having that Orff Schulwerk kind of wiring in your mind is undeniable for me. That when you do this work, you bring that with you and you become willing to accept the thing that is happening so much more easily than I would have twenty years ago. You know, I was much more of a bulldozer about, "I'm going to make this happen." And I was also like that in the classroom before I was really fully cooked as an Orff, you know. And I don't know that I'm ever going to be, but I certainly hadn't come to any level of maturation as a teacher, pedagogue. And in those moments I was just going to bully my way to the success that I was seeing from my expectation.
So I really think it's about adapting a peaceful outlook, like I'm going to accept what is coming up and work with that because it's the material of the day. This is what I've been given. And I think that is also powerful because our students come with a lot of stuff and having that kind of gratitude, like I'll accept you as you are and I'm grateful that you are coming here and we're gonna work together and I'm going to give you the space to be you. So when I look around at my colleagues in the country, who are these Orff educators whom I've really come to value and respect, I sense in them the same kind of outlook in the world around them and I really value that and it inspires me.
You know, having that peace and acceptance of what's coming up in your world is a lot like accepting from your students what comes up in their classroom and trying to be responsive and creative in that way as well.
Jessica: Yeah. I love that. I took note about what you said about valuing what happens rather than looking back at what you had expected. Enjoying what does come of whatever heads your way. One of my favorite things about the Orff approach is this idea called elemental forms. I love that it allows us to build musical knowledge and skills with our students within a structure and that it also provides freedom, but with perimeters. So can you share a bit about how you would describe elemental form and what it is.
Drue: Elemental forms are containers in which learners can place a small rhythmic or melodic pattern and allows them to easily remember the order of those patterns based on a highly predictable nature of this basic memory game of same vs. different. So at it's base form, or at it's basis level, it's most simplistic, an elemental form is:
Is it repeated?
Is it the same thing two times?
Or is it something and then something new?
And then once students, you know, in kindergarten or first grade are able to move past that then they can have something - then something different - that original thing again - and then something different to end. And so that then the forms are extended. The power of the elemental form is really in the repetition and that there's either repetition or contrast. And organizing the repetition and contrasts and then it, you know, levels of similarity as they get more advanced. So I think that it's just simplistic repetitions: same and same vs. different. And everyone can manage that and it's easy to remember when it's done that way and structured that way.
Jessica: The biggest thing that I think is useful about elemental forms is the ability to use speech a lot within them and obviously rhythm from the speech, but how does speech play a part in the creation of elemental form?
Drue: All speech is the fastest route from a simple conversation like we're having now to a musical experience. We speak every day. A lot. Children speak a lot and the freshest, newest knowledge that they have is their vocabulary that's building. And being used on a repetitive basis, it's the thing that they take and use everywhere they go. And simply adding a pulse to a conversation walks us over a very short bridge from talking to making music. And I think that if you're mining the students' vocabulary for the already well-practiced, deeply internalized word problems, that they've and then just trying to sort of fit them into this rhythmic building blocks, then the syllables can match and they're already really quite accented and unaccented in the students' minds.
So they're already building the sensibility of meter within their regular spoken conversations and just pulling that and refocusing it just slightly into a musical context makes it really easy for the students to experience that without having to feel like they've had to go through a process of being taught a technique. Or have a really music, teachy moment where you have to become proficient as a singer or as an instrument player. Or even to use body percussion in those ways, you know. That's so far outside them. You know, the closest thing to them to get to share is their voice with their language. So that's the thing that you use most often.
The thing that I think is most powerful about speech is that it gives us the smoothest entreé into the music making and it keeps the feeling of just the joyful play in the learning experience without that more pedestrian, 'it goes like this' playing kind of stuff, you know.
Jessica: Right. I also like that it can be used with our youngest students, but become more complex with our older students so it's not boring to them as they continue to grow. There's always more we can do with it.
Drue: Yeah, I think that comes from the nature of the vocabulary that you're using. If you're using a complex, more complex subject and vocabulary, you know, landscape for them and then become more complex with more layers and interlocking speech pieces and things, I think students are happy to do that. Even in high school. I've had high school kids that are really fascinated by those things.
Jessica: Hm. Yeah. What are some ways using elemental form that we can guide students into improvisation and composition experiences? Which would be, you know, even at young ages they're able to create within speech, but maybe even beyond that with body percussion or rhythmic elements or even melodic elemental forms?
Drue: It's sort of an interesting question because it so matters with which group you're working. And the way that I would approach that in sixth grade would be very different from how I would approach it in first grade. So I'm going to aim for the middle of the road and I'm just going to tell you what happened in third grade.
Jessica: Sounds good!
Drue: In third grade we're working on refining and reinforcing the idea of four sixteenth notes. So the...whatever you call it...tikatika or du-te-da-ta, but it's just four sixteenth notes on one beat. And the comparison of that to a pair of eighth notes - two sounds on one beat - and with the pulse, the quarter note. So in third grade we've been working on the Ding Dong Diggidiggi Dong canon which is, you know, a staple of the Schulwerk, but I have a slightly different take on it. I have a whole story that I tell and all about this cat and what happens to it and it ends up that it's a Himalayan cat. So that fits the rhythm of the four sixteenth notes and , you know, other cat words. There's just Cat is the quarter note, the steady beat. So Cat-Cat-Cat-Cat. And then at one time the Himalayan cat, he was a kitten or she was a kitten, so it's Kitten-Kitten-Kitten-Kitten or Himalayan-Himalayan-Himal... So then understanding those and then playing with that. And there's this little images of a cat's face and there's an image of a kitten. There's an image of a Himalayan and then we just move those around. So the students don't ever see the notation first, but they're just playing with these ideas.
And then, you know, is literally a four white box - four white boxes with the black rim around them and the cats, you know, the white board. They can move the cats around and we can compose and so, a very simply, you know, this is a building block of one beat, but this still works the same as if this was a two-beat building block in first and second grade. You know, the students, I just say, 'Okay in each block I just want you to put...I'm not putting anything there for them to read, but I'm pointing with a mallet to each block and I ask them to say, maybe, in each block 'Cat' for four times and then 'Kitten' for four times, and then 'Himalayan' for four times until they understand that structure.
So the sense of the structure is really important. And then I ask them to just use 'cats' and 'kittens,' but they decide what. But I don't give them time to plan; I just point and they have to start speaking 'cat' or 'kitten' when I'm pointing. And then I allow them then, 'Okay you can now use 'Himalayan' one time. So they choose where 'Himalayan' is going to go. And then we have someone, you know, we transfer it to body percussion and they keep their speech a secret and then they do a body percussion thing and the students have to decode that and tell us the words. So I'm getting farther into it, into the improvisation, you know.
That was in a previous class so today we just had little square cards. One was blue, one was yellow, one was purple. The blue card had a quarter note on it. The purple card had a pair of eighth notes and the yellow card had four sixteenth notes on one beat. And so I said, "You know, this is a picture of one beat for the musicians and this is a picture for two for the purple one and the Himalayan one (sunny yellow) is four beats - four sounds on one beat rather. But which one would you guess is more like the word cat?" And they all said, "Blue." And then which one is going to sound more like 'kitten?' And they were like, "Purple." And then I said, "So this yellow one is not just any yellow; it's sunny yellow." So then they have the sunny yellow. "Which one is that?" "It's Himalayan." So they made this connection. They we just started playing with the cats, kittens, and sunny yellows - or Himalayans, but then we did the colors. So blue, purple, sunny yellow, but now they have a visual connection with the notation, the musician notation.
So I've got two schema going really, like the Himalayan cat theme and then just colors and notation. What was cool was I gave them a bunch of packets of these and just gave them a template on paper and said, "Here. Go with a partner and create and see what you can do." But then I said, "Okay but now you're allowed to create only the first half and then your partner has to create the second from their imagination. They have to improvise it." And so, you know, that's where it goes in a playful way. You're starting with something kind of concrete and you have this model. Then you take apart the model bit by bit and rebuild a model. And in then in the last place you give the students the opportunity to build a model of their own and leave some openness for some creativity with a partner or something along those lines. Or create your own ending. Make different endings. Things like that.
The long sort of thread that I'm pulling through there is that it's all about the structure and the ability of the students to have enough freedom but that they don't feel overwhelmed. And the thing that will keep them from being overwhelmed is that they have a structure in which to feel safe. And so that's the beauty of the elemental forms and how speech and improvisation and composition can all go together.
And really the need for composition is we like our idea. We want to write it down so we don't forget. And when that starts coming from a student, then I know, "Okay, here's your pencil. You're motivated enough to want to write this. I'll show you how." And then that's where we end up and that's really the intention of Carl Off and Guild Keetman from the beginning was to say, "It's music for children. Here are the volumes of Music For Children, but it's your job as a creator of pedagogical context for students that you're creating a volume of your own, whether you know it or not, that's on the other side of them that's music by children." So it might not be all stapled and bound together, but your life's work in the classroom is the music by children volumes that are growing next to the Music For Children models.
Jessica: And not all of the pieces are going to be this perfectly wrapped up, succinct musical piece. I would think that there will be some pieces where, you know, the students play with it, but it's not always just for performance.
Drue: It's rarely for performance! And the performance is the time that it's happening for them. And every now and then you shine one up and roll it out, you know, you parade it out of the classroom and everyone thinks you've hung the moon. And for you, you're going, 'This really wasn't the best way for us to spend our time. They were really ready to move on and this is actually a form of frustration in their lives.' I mean, I've honestly thought that. And some of the students, it's valuable to share for so many reasons and some students really love that. And some students are like, 'I'm ready for the next thing. Let's do the next thing.' It's just interesting how that all works.
Jessica: It is, but I love how you can tie together this piece from the Volumes and I mean we can pull a piece from the Volumes and play it exactly as it's written. Or you can play around and manipulate the elements within that piece and then have students play around with it and I love that. I also love that you added the colors so that the colors, like you said, they've got more than one schema going and linking colors and notation and the cats, but yet it was all inspired from this piece Ding Dong DiggiDiggi Dong. And did your students ever end up ever playing the piece as it is in the Volume?
Drue: It's part of the long plan and they will play it by the end of the year in the next couple of weeks. That's where we're headed. And the point of it is that we are always like, sort of like having a sly little touchstone with it. We're always like touching home and then running away out into the woods of possibilities and then we come back and see, 'oh here's the model!' and then touch it again and experience a little of it again. And so far they're just singing the song. And they're singing the cat song exactly like it's written in the volume and in the end the plan is that we're going to be improvising accompaniments to it and we've experienced that already today as well. We improvised accompaniments for, you know. "Can you sing and play? Can you sing the cat song while you play this part?" And they're like, "We can do it!" and I'm like "Okay! That means you're ready to have - you can play it and have the higher level experience with it." So...
Jessica: Something that you shared at the workshop was that you shared a way of taking pieces of art and integrating them alongside music or even creating music out of art, which I thought was just really clever. How did you begin to play with this idea of art influencing music?
Drue: The first experience I had with that was with my level II teacher who is Judith Thomas-Solomon and she's just a master at connecting and relating all kinds of arts and unifying them for students into a musically artistic experiences. Our Level II class actually went to the BrandyWine Museum, which is the museum where all the Wyeth paintings are. And I'm pretty sure that in that workshop we did a Wyeth painting and I talked about that. And I've always, ever since then, I've been in this enamored state of the BrandyWine Museum and the Wyeth artists. But we sat on the floor in this old mill - a museum that used to be a mill - and we drew sketches of famous Wyeth paintings and the ones that resonated with us. We created poetry in response to these artistic paintings or pieces and then we set these poems into elemental melodies and then eventually arranged them so that we had this piece that we were excited to share with our students when we got back to school that we created. So there were so many levels of connection there for me as an art lover, as a musician, as a composer, as a teacher, pedagogue, all of these things. And we did all that in our workshop or in our Levels courses, in my Levels course. Ever since then I've always jumped at the chance to share things like that with my students in the classroom at my school or in workshop settings. So that's, you know, that's been a gift that Judith gave to me that I want to keep sharing.
Jessica: Yeah, I just thought that was really neat because I'm one of those people where - I'm the same way in aquariums - where I can go in and look at things and I just go, 'Oh that's a great fish' or 'Oh what a nice drawing,' but if I don't really know much about the painter or about the fish species or whatever, then I don't appreciate it as much because I don't know what it takes to have created it or the story behind it. But I loved the idea of pulling elements out of a painting and it just came more to life. So what are some ways that you use art to guide students?
Drue: Well, students really need a time to experience art work on a personal level. And since we're talking about that experience in the workshop, I really tried to build in time for the participants to have an experience with each of the art works that we worked with and give them a chance to really talk to themselves about what matters to them and then talk to each other about it and share. A lot of times, as guides to this artistic work, we're really quick to explain to learners what it is, which becomes sort of difficult for them because it doesn't mean that to them. And allowing them to really more fully explore what it means to them first and get a little bit of substance from their perspective of what it is in their mind, it gives a little bit of credence to allowing them to really think about what somebody else might think about it too because they have a perspective, rather than them just being talked to about something that they don't have any buy-in with. I hope I'm being clear about that, but it's mostly just - does this art, you know, deciding what matters to them about the art work.
And the most success I've had is really giving the students a chance to talk to each other about the art work and then share out. What are your feelings and perspectives? And how do they feel about this art work? And sharing it with your peers and then they're able to bring those aspects of the feelings and perspectives the art gives them into a movement and music exploration. And it kind of all goes back to the impression, my whole impression of the Orff Schulwerk, is that you have amazing things to contribute. In this case, it's the: What do you see? What do you feel? What do you notice? Wonder about this art work? And once the students are in that frame of mind with you, they're willing to be open to having an exploration of that piece and you can guide them because their thoughts are front in their mind first before your thoughts are sort of shoehorned in, you know. You're not planting your, you're not, you know, holding hostage their ability to think about the art work because you've already usurped their opportunity to have formed their own impression by pretty much just plastering yours in their mind first.So giving them the chance to really be centered in what really matters to them first, I think, is the biggest win you can get. And then guiding them from that. Having that central in their thoughts as you go forward is really powerful.
Jessica: Not telling them what they see, but asking them what they see.
Drue: Yeah.
Jessica: Yeah. That's powerful. Is there an art work that you could share with us and kind of walk us through how you would create a musical experience for students out of?
 |
| Mona Lisa by Leonardo Da Vinci |
I'm going to ask you, since you happen to have a picture there on your iPad to look at, about the Mona Lisa and just what do you notice? I mean it's something that we've looked at for years, but what do you really notice when you look deeply into the Mona Lisa's whole painting. All of it. Not just her face or her smile, which is probably what most people would recognize best. Maybe just pick out two or three nouns that you see that are appropriate for school, but that you could share. What do you see?
Jessica: For me, it's a road. I'll call it a mountain for lack of because I can't tell if it's a mountain or a hill. I mean, so not focusing on her face?
Drue: You can focus on whatever you want. I'm just saying that there's a lot more there than just her face or her smile, but if you want to look at her face it's hard not to. I agree.
Jessica: 'Cause I was looking. She looks kind of sly and I've read different things that say that the eyes were painted multiple times so there's - I don't know - but just kind of...sly is more descriptive, but I would be curious as to what the background symbolizes. Why there's this curving road and then there even appears to be a bridge crossing water. So road, mountain, bridge, sky...
Drue: So you've done a great job so far. You've named like four nouns and you also went into something that you might say that we could do second which is we could talk about her eyes. You said her eyes have a descriptor, which they also rhyme so "sly eye, sly eye" which is interesting. And I kind of gave you a hint there but if repeat that two times you end up with a bit of an ostinato just:
sly eye, sly eye
And then what if you decided that to keep saying "sly eye" over and over again feels awkward. So then you have 'sly eye' and then a bit of a break. And then maybe the pulse will come from that. You'll get the pulse from the students if they're saying 'sly eye.' If it feels like it's in three. If it feels like it, you know, it could feel like it's in 6/8 ('sly eye...sly eye'). You'll know right away.
Sly eye, sly eye - that's in 4.
Sly eye (hm hm)
So you can take your cue from how that develops out of the students and it comes through the speech right away like we talked about earlier. But now you have an ostinato that's sort of started and then maybe some other like how could you describe the mountain? Or the hill that you were talking about - what's the descriptor for that?
Jessica: Say Rocky Mountain.
Drue: Perfect! So you could have the 'sly eye' and then sort of like the feeling of space there and then maybe in the space a second group can do a 'rocky mountain.' So you have this 'sly eye' for group one meanwhile the 'rocky mountain' is the second group. And it's kind of interesting the 'sly eyes' are most forward and kind of gravitate - you pull your eye right to those and the mountains are sort of separate so you might talk about the mountains and being less loud or you know you can talk about the prominence in the painting of things and adjust volume and balance that way. There's just a couple of speech things that can happen along the way and you can talk about a road. You talked about the bridge so there's a bridge in the background so you could pull out a little bit more and sort of build a complimentary speech pattern together with all of that.
The next thing you can do is - oh you have these speeches, speech pieces, speech elements and start to play with them. Maybe there's a movement that could start to happen. They could be roads. They could be traveling down the road. The people with the eye could be doing 'sly eye' when they're moving and saying 'sly eye' and moving and say it at the same time and then when they're resting they have silence in their body and silence in their voice.
And then from there you can keep going and that's just a metrical approach to it, but then maybe you have body percussion and maybe you add instruments. You could have someone conduct the piece so that there's someone who points to her face; to her eye with maybe a mallet or something and that activates the people that are doing the sly eye movement. And they could follow the road and then the road people could start to move. Or those are just a couple of ideas that are coming up for me. And that's, again, metered. It could be done all with barred instruments, unpitched percussion instruments, in a very exploratory way without speech. It could be done vocally. You could have... you could trace the vocal line of the outside of her body that goes up from where her arm is. It could go low and you could have a vocal warm-up kind of thing that traces the outside, you know (vocal warm-up on 'ooooh'), and follows the different line. You could follow the road.These are just some very basic ideas that I'm thinking about that come up for me with just in this moment with you based on what you shared. It might be completely different with someone else. And I will say another nod to Judith - Judith Thomas-Solomon has these amazing resources that you can check out that are like Working the Word and The Word in Play, two books that she's written that give you some hints about how to work with students and talk about getting creativity and encapsulating and redistributing it into an artistic group experience. I got a lot of these inclinations from her through Level II and reflecting on those experiences.
Jessica: I was thinking it would be neat too to compare the Mona Lisa to another portrait of someone else, whether it's a soldier or even someone else that had been painted by Da Vinci, you know, and comparing the two and contrasting with those ostinato patterns and then combining them somehow. I don't know.
Drue: You could take the famous paintings. Like multiple famous paintings and make those your building blocks. You know, like 'Mona Lisa' (titi titi) or 'Mona Lisa' (tam ti tam ti). And then Starry Night (titi ta). You could, you know, you just gave me an idea.
Jessica: Yeah?! Oh good!
Drue: That might be something I explore too in the future. Just because it just came to me!
Jessica: Because why not?!
Drue: So thank you for that.
Jessica: You're welcome. And I like the idea of tracing the silhouette too - going up the side and then using the windy road and just exploring vocally. And it could be interesting too, depending on if they're using a pentatonic scale to improvise - say with the building blocks or if you're home note is a re pentatonic or if it's a mode or you know. What kind of feeling they get from that and playing around depending on what perimeters you give them and what that home note is. That could be really interesting.
Drue: Agreed.
Jessica: Yeah, I like all that. That thought behind it. So is there anything you look for in art works as like guiding factors to know which piece of art would be a great one to use with students or could really any piece of art be used in a musical way?
Drue: When I'm in a museum and I'm experiencing art, the first thing that I'm really careful to notice is: does this art work matter to me? And if so, why and how? And a lot of art work is really important and powerful and captivating to me. And also a lot of it is not any of those things to me. It's important for me to realize that this happens also for students. And that what resonates with me doesn't always resonate for them and that even though I choose that this art work is something that I want to share, it's not necessarily going to happen for all of my students, but what I try to do is model for them is when I don't like something or when it doesn't resonate with me or doesn't captivate me, what it is about it. I try to be really articulate about what it is that's keeping me from wanting to be in a relationship with this piece of art. And if I can articulate that clearly and respectfully, then I can accept it from my students if they can do that as well.
What I don't like from this is, 'well, I don't like it.' And just very flat, you know. I want them to be respectful critics. That's part of what I'm building in to these experiences and I can say that I don't get a lot of criticism from students with the art that I choose and one of the reasons is that if I do choose to share a piece of art work with students and it bombs, I just don't using it, you know.
Jessica: Right.
Drue: Choosing art work to share has to matter to me and then I try to find a way to be really present with that piece of art work and then open my mind to the possibility of 'what does it sound like? What can I hear in my mind?' But I really listen to what the possibilities are and then I try to think about an entry point. How I could get students to be somehow involved in getting that landscape that I'm envisioning is possible. And what I think is possible initially completely changes once the students have the opportunity to start being agents in the process. I really think it matters that - take the risk if you like it, share it, and talk about it. And when students start talking about it, see what you can come up with.
Asking students 'what does this painting sound like?' could blow their mind in some ways. They just won't know how to respond so you have to guide them to maybe those experiences through very small steps. And simpler art work is easier to work with initially. So I will say if it's pretty easy to see the artistic elements of the painting first, that helps I think. And then once the students can do some more simple art works, then they can advance a little bit quicker. Once they get a feel of it where they can't be wrong, that helps. You know like really basic modern art kind of things like the mobiles. I'm trying to think - the name is eluding me right now. Rothko. Mark Rothko. Like the Blanc. August de Blanc. (example: art piece from 1947) I think he does some really cool things things that kids really are easily able to engage.
Jessica: It kind of relates in a way to how we choose musical pieces as far as folk songs or just any material for our class because I find if I can relate to a folk song or if it has meaning for me, then I find I can bring more meaning or help students find more meaning in it. And I wonder if that's the same way with art works where, like you said, if it means something to you and if you, I don't know, if you find something really interesting about it, odds are it'll somehow transfer to your students as well and bring about some insight from them and then same thing with the folk songs where if I've gone ahead and taught a folk song to students and it just bombs and it doesn't go well, then I know, 'Okay maybe that one - maybe we try and find something else.'
Drue: Yeah and you know, also, I don't want to spend three or four works looking at art work that I don't like. That's gonna really... my students are going to feel that. And the same way is I don't want to sing a song with students that I don't enjoy. There are so many songs that I enjoy and so much music that I really love.
Jessica: The time is short.
Drue: Yeah!
Jessica: It's like Kodaly has that quote about only the best is good enough for children. I mean, I'm paraphrasing - it's not exact, but really finding what works best and what is best. And what works for each of us in our classroom and knowing our kids too.
Drue: I try to think of - one of the quotes that I love best is by Isabel McNeill Carley and she says that, "you should only share something that is worth remembering for your whole life." So if you're sharing with students, it should be worth their being able to remember it for their entire life. So I think about that sometimes and it's really easy to throw away some things that I might have done when you think about: should they know this when they're fifty? Should they share this with their grandchildren when they're seventy or something like that? If the answer is no, then it's pretty fast to pssshhhh!Jessica: That's a hard challenge, too.
Drue: I think it's more of a call to action as a collector to really collect things that are of high value and intrinsically worthy of being known regardless of where they are in your curriculum. As we experience life as humans, we don't follow a curriculum. I always go back to that. A curriculum is something that we've created because we have to cover our content in a school. And yet when we really learn things that are valuable, it's because someone shared them with us because they have a passion for it or there's something really meaningful about it because we taught it to ourselves because we cared about it. I think that's what Isabel was sort of challenging us to do. Even though you have all these others masters you have to serve, really try to make sure that it's valuable to know in the long run.
Final Questions:
Tea, coffee, or something else that suits your fancy - Coffee drinker, but reformed to just coffee and cream.
Artists, song, or genre - Cosmo Sheldrake (can find him on Soundcloud)
What is something you do, or try to do, every day - Grateful for things that don't get much attention. Being grateful for the world around me.
How to get in touch with Drue - website: druebullington.com
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