Music is culture bound. When it comes to musical learning most cultures
start with the voice, as it is the key to the rest. The baby copies the pitch
of
its mother’s voice just as it copies her in learning to speak its ‘mother
tongue’. What it learns to do, will depend on what it hears about it.
The idea of what is aesthetically beautiful and socially acceptable varies from one part of the world to another and from one subculture to another, just as fashion in dress or hairstyles.
For centuries the court or church/temple musicians were members of the same group or caste, and the skills and repertoire were handed down aurally from one generation to the next. Some societies developed a form of musical notation - that of Western Europe is one of the most elaborate and widely used today. But there are many parts of the world - Africa and the Indian subcontinent, for example, where that aural tradition is still in use. In fact a system of notation as rigid as that of Western Europe could not be used to convey the rhythmic or pitch subtleties of these musics, or indicate the details, as improvisation plays such a large part. Western ‘Pop’ music relies less than formerly on the use of notation for its propagation.
That does not mean that musical training is any less rigorous. In fact, common aural activity in ‘pop’ is in many ways more demanding, as aural memory has to be cultivated to a very high degree. In those cultures where notation is used, its effective use depends upon the cultivation of the ‘inner ear’ which should always precede the study of notation.
The New Curwen Method, which relies on the association of a sound, a syllable and a gesture, is absolutely in line with traditional methods of musical learning all over the Indian subcontinent: in Africa drumming is taught in the same way, by a series of mnemonics which convey the different pitches as well as the rhythm the drum pattern is to reproduce. The other basic requirement for the development of musicality is the ability to perceive and maintain a steady rhythmic pulse. In India it goes with a precise mathematical awareness of the passage of time which few of us trained in the Western manner would easily master; in Africa the whole effect of the complex polyrhythm depends on the ability of the musician at the centre to keep a steady pulse. In both these societies music was closely associated with dance, and the rendering of sound and dance patterns with the utmost accuracy was usually an important aspect of religious observance. The Indian tradition is at least 2,000 years old and the African one is also as old, if not older than the European one. The big exception is of course religious chant, the best known of which is Gregorian chant (Plainsong).
The New Curwen Method should, in line with methods of learning in so many parts of the world, be used more widely, so that amateur as well as professional musicians develop the most important faculty of aural discrimination, essential for the listener if music is to be more than the medium through which a mood is conveyed, and if its full meaning, in whatever context, is to be grasped.
© 2006 John Curwen Society