Giovanni Piazza Learning from Orff Instruments Formany yearsnow, modern musical education for children has been influenced by the innovative experiences of experimental educational music, leaping the wall which traditionally divides “sound” from “noise”, “genuine” music from “phony” music, “beauti- ful” music from “ugly” music. Imyselfhavere~ elaborated in an educational key the creative musical experience I gained as a musician/ composer with the Nuova Consonanza improvisation group. However, I realized that, ata certain point, musical education programs for children aimed at stimulating spontaneous creativity and an uninhibited rapport with sound tended to predominate over new approaches to music at the traditional level. And so the problem of a correct rapport with the Western musical system continued to be addressed with academic methodology, as if to say: children, creativity is like playing a game, but Music with a capital Mis hard work. (Italian is perhaps the only language in the world in which the same word isnotused for playing musical instruments, suonare, and playing games, giocare.) As a composer I have always been especially attracted to Orff instruments because they can beused to provide ascholastic model of the “cultured” ensemble. At the same time, I have never ignored the educational value of popular or homemade instruments and the “desecrating” use of traditional instruments. Consequently, among the many educational programs’ ve developed during the long years of my Schulwerk activities, especially in the fields of composition and improvisation, 1 have paid particular attention tothe possibilities of exploiting in unconventional ways the traditional structure of Orff instruments to encourage an experimental approach to understanding some of the basic structures of our musical system. The re-invented istrument We all know it’s not easy for achild to relate to an established instrument, as it should be. Since it’s impossible to introduce a piano or a violin in another guise, the initial impact is usually overcome with an unorthodox approach, designed to separate the as it should be from as it should be played. With Orff instruments the problem doesn’t exist, because they can be easily introduced as they should not be or rather, dismantled.(Most of the illustrations are taken from "Music at School with Orff Instruments, Vol. 2." By G. Piazza, published by Amadeus, Mozzecane VR 1991)This transforms the severe look of the scale into the more friendly looking components of a kit spread out on the floor, like Lego pieces ready to be assembled creatively. My hypothesis, when I first proposed this project to four-year-old children, was that they should build the scale themselves using their own powers of deduction guided by the lenghts of the bars. The results were quite unexpected: fas eu, @ What's the point of these invented instruments? To play them: like any other instrument. The children, either alone or in pairs (which helps overcome shyness and stimulates mutual creativity) improvise short pieces. What happens at this stage deserves close attention, It’s not musical intuition which guides these improvised explorations in unknown territory. Instead, it’s the eye which guides the child’s hand to the instrument's most striking and unusual configurations. Rhythmic intuition supports and scans the beat of the mallet. The ear listens. The sense of aesthetics evaluates the acoustic consequences of the percussive action and encourages repetition or further exploration, The repetition of the eye-hand-ear circuit not only builds up experience but also produces recognizable musical and structural elements, which are all implicit in the instrument's acquired visual appearance and are much ‘more evident than they would be by using the conventional undifferentiated scale arrangement of the bars. It would not be wrong to say that these mini-compositions are stimulated by the transformation of specific visible features into corresponding sound features or rather, the transformation of anon audio shape into a characterized sound construction. This is the methodological starting-point of our experimental journey: to encourage the child to discover what the different shapes he or she creates on the resonator can become in sound terms. It’s the instrument itself which teaches the child what it can do. Theory comes later. Since a short article cannot take into accountall the recreational and creative stages in this journey (not to mention those stimulated by the curiosity and inventiveness of individual teachers), I will illustrate only those I consider essential. Scales and strange melodies (From this point until the assembly of Orff. instruments in their conventional appearance, activity is only possible on instruments with 13, bars with only one socket.) After working with the invented instruments, the re-composition of the scale is an easy next step, especially if the class is already aware of it. Using the instrument as it should be each child should try to play a familiar melody. The difficulties involved are immediately apparent. Andso, we go back to our destructive game, but with a litle more logic and method. The child has observed that finding a melody within the scale requires selecting notes, some close together, others far apart, some ascending, others descending. Playing the scale is easier: all the notes are in order from beginning to end, fromlefttorightor vice-versa. Let’stry inverting the process by placing the bars at random on theresonator, making sure that each one is supported at both ends after we've noticed that this is the only way the bars resonate correctly. (some bars are resonate less than others because they are not in the right place on the resonator, but this will not concern us at this stage, as we limit ourselves to noing the children’s comments.) The child plays the sequence as if it were a scale: from left to right or vice-versa, with whichever hand he or she prefers and without skipping a note. alto metallophone soprano glockenspiel Each child plays his or her sequence using an individual sense of timing and expression, producing in this way, strange melodies which help to understand what is required to make real melodies: rhythm, the immediate or spaced out repetition of specific notes or a change of direction. Or the melodies can be used to create equally strange counterpoints by superimposing two ata time, after the small C bar is placed at the right end of the instrument to give a sense of conclusion to the sequence. A nonsense of 13 syllables, as many as the instrument's bars, is used to sustain the synchronism of the two players. And it's not impossible for coincidence to produce bicinia that are almost “scholastically correct”, A-LA MA-LA PU-TU- GA-LA CIU-RU- ME-LA PUP!This may lead to elementary A-B-A forms consisting in playing the sequence from left to right, from right to left and again from left to right, suitable for accompanying a short dance, a simple mime, etc. (Obviously, the experiment can be extended to include the superimposition of three or more instruments) Double-time perception and octaves From this point on, the arrangement of the bars evolves in more defined versions, each one produced either in an intuitive or a systematic way. The first arrangement is achieved by placing the bars on the resonator so that they alternate according to a long-short order. Playing this sequence from left to right obtains, apart from a rather primitive sense of melody, a well-defined binary metre. Can it be marched to? Yes, indeed. It can be transformed into a comic march by playing all the instruments in rhythm and completing the round of the eight beats with a few additional rhythmic elements. -Sr pp ee However, the instrument still looks rather disorderly. A simple touch is enough to make it more tidy, more geometric. We select the bars of the same name that chance has placed side by side. By playing them and trying to sing with them we discover the octave. Itrequires very little to rearrange another long-short sequence on the resonator, by placing in order of the scale pairs of bars of the same name: C-c, D-d etc., with the Hon its own at the end. We play the sequence again and our original ragtag and bobtail march becomes, as if by magic, a stirring march for proud Hussars. Sound and visual waves Instead of keeping to a principle of opposites like before, we set up the bars in an order graded as far as possible in ascending and descending curves. The resulting concave or convex shape might be, once again, approximate or, in the latter case, geometric.To the listener, the affinity between the visual layout and the sound profile will be obvious. A collective performance of these sequences with optional timing and delicate dynamic nuances creates a liquid, flowing musical base: unless it’s wave motion is disturbed by sudden increases in intensity and speed. Triple-time perception and triads “The sequence of long-short bars evolves into a long-medium-short sequence, resembling an organ pipe layout. ieIt's now evident that this sequence of bars will produce a triple-time effect: five ternary measures of clusters - a rousing carillon, ideal for accompanying simple improvised dances. i aves tambne It's difficult for children to discover on their own the geometrical logic of this arrangement and so it’s up to the teacher to point it out, at the same time, taking the opportunity to introduce the subject of triads. We will use this arrangement to create a vocal and instrumental structure, with three grades of choral difficulty: one, two or three voices, experimenting the superimposition of triple-time instrumental arpeggios played with simultaneous vocal arpeggios. -12-2vole The effect reminds us not only of typical Orffian procedures, but also of the use of parallel harmonies so familiar in modern everyday music. What more can be asked of four pieces of wood and iron placed on a resonator without any prior theoretical instruction? It goes without saying that the exercises described above need not be strictly linked in the course of class activity because the difference in operating and intellectual commitment between, for example, strange melodies and the long-medium-short sequence is considerable. Each exercise should be proposed at the most suitable moment and alternated with practice on the instrument in its conventional form. -13-Conclusion The game does not end here. In fact, the principle of transforming mute shapes into sound structures develops with our playing gestures, whose variations determine modifications in the musical form. Finally, the last stage in our journey is the introduction of pentaphonic scales as a reference profile, first in a purely exploratory manner, then with a more rational approach. There is always time for theory. It will be the instrument itself which will supply theoretical support and teach how it works by accompanying gradual awareness of the structural aspects of the Western musical system, at the same time progressively training playing ability, without resorting to a series of uninspiring exercises, It is not unreasonable to say that after using our notes for what they are, or rather pieces of wood and iron which resonate, the first obstacles to the necessary rationalization process are largely overcome. (For some time now, I have adopted the following three basic pentaphonic schemes which can be used collectively without any risk of harmonic saturation:)