Klarinet Archive - Posting 000809.txt from 2002/05

From: LeliaLoban@-----.com
Subj: [kl] A Colour Symphony op. 24
Date: Thu, 30 May 2002 21:15:23 -0400

Tony Pay wrote,
>With regard to the other matter, namely your
>"castles and actions": sometimes with students
>it's possible to get them to begin to be in touch
>with some of these abstractions by asking them
>as to reverse the procedure of the film composer,
>and imagine a film clip to put to the music.

Here's a concrete example: A Colour Symphony, Op. 68. When I was 12 years
old, shortly after the last of the dinosaurs died, my seventh grade homeroom
teacher, Mr. Perrin, borrowed a record player from the school office to play
my class an album he'd brought from home. Mr. Perrin also coached adult
writers, and served as the faculty advisor for our school newspaper and for
the drama club. Acting mysterious, he wouldn't identify the LP, which he'd
carried in a plain manila envelope, but he asked us to stay silent and write
down anything we imagined or thought about as we listened. Leaving the
assignment otherwise open-ended, he played the whole 40-minute record for us.
Most of the kids (including several who wrote poorly because of language,
learning or behavior problems) stayed interested enough to spend nearly the
whole time absorbed in listening and writing.

At the end of the piece, when Mr. Perrin collected all the papers and stared
in ill-concealed horror at the messy stack of scribbled pages I'd given him
to slog through, I confessed that from the opening bars, I'd recognized the
music as a family favorite. He stopped me from saying any more about it,
because he didn't want me to taint other kids' impressions. The next day, he
showed us the record jacket, read us the descriptive liner notes and then
read excerpts from what we'd written. He asked us to discuss how much the
composer succeeded in communicating to us what he'd intended and how much
*finding out* what he intended influenced our second thoughts.

It turned out that several kids who had not recognized Beethoven's Sixth
("Pastoral") Symphony as such had independently set their scenes outdoors.
Several perceived the fourth movement as a battle scene. Several others heard
it as Beethoven meant it: a thunderstorm. (Having not only recognized the
music but remembered the liner notes from my parents' LP, I'd eagerly dashed
off a ghastly Beethoven-cum-Disney melodrama, far too long for the content:
terror-stricken deer leaping fallen tree trunks, skunks dodging lightning
bolts and that sort of thing. Oh well. At least it gave Mr. Perrin the
opportunity to explain the concept of judgment swayed by advance publicity.
He reminded us of that discussion a few weeks later, when we began studying
the jury system.) I recommend this assignment for teachers whose students
are old enough to know basic writing skills and mature enough to sit quietly.

Lelia
(scribble, scribble, scribble...)

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