Musicianship and Guitar Playing Using a Kodaly Approach
Published: 1997 Author: Luke Dunlea
Luke Dunlea’s Jigsaw Guitar Course, with its innovative Kodály-based approach, now runs to three children’s books with one accompanying teacher’s manual. A fourth children’s book and second teacher’s manual are in preparation. At the time that this article was written, only the children’s book one and teacher’s manual had been completed.
Composer Zoltán Kodåly (1882–1967) revolutionised music education in his native Hungary by putting aural perception and singing before the development of instrumental technique, carefully grading intervals in order of singability. His system of instruction makes much use of traditional songs as a teaching tool, along with solfa singing, rhythm syllables and hand signs.
Contents: So how do they start? | …like the string family | …the sky is the limit! | …sound to sight, concrete to abstract | …oh no! solfa…! | …Fernando Sor an ally… | …a great transposing instrument | …what, no pitch names…! | Great expectations…! | Canons for more advanced thinking*
GUITARISTS, like most instrumentalists, need better training as musicians. They are prone to locking themselves away for hours at a time, practising finger mechanics, unable after a frighteningly long time to accompany themselves on the most simple of folk songs. It seems to me they miss the point in the task of building the necessary technique to become a concert guitarist, of making music grow from the inside.
They need to sing more to make a song and dance of it!
The normal approach in many tutors is to forget that music is about sound; although this is extraordinary, it is currently an epidemic in music education across the board. It seems more important to announce proudly the absolute pitch name in an early grade examination than to sing the phrase in solfa. Why? In Music Curriculum for Secondary Schools (London: Schools Council, 1982) John Paynter has written: ‘We have made important what is examinable instead of making examinable what is important.’
The guitar is well equipped to adapt to solfa: the finger patterns easily relate to the movable doh. A full ‘soh’ pentatonic scale can be played without moving the fingers in position (using the second finger as doh on the second string). Young children can move about the instrument without the need to rote learn ledger lines and many different key signatures. They are freed up to explore the instrument in a meaningful way while learning the intervallic relationships. They can demonstrate aural dictation, improvise, and learn a repertoire of folk songs. Later this repertoire can be explored as tonic-dominant harmony study while also learning tirando technique.
Years ago, I remember, most colleagues of mine came to the guitar via the popular culture of the 60s. In this way they learned chord shapes and accompanied songs with various levels of complexity; some played rock and the blues, with the better ones developing an instinctive ability at improvisation. Later, possibly when musical curiosity was awakened, the study of the ‘classical’ guitar as a solo instrument was explored.
This approach is prone to leave many gaps in the students development as a musician. These gaps come back to haunt the student at music college or later in life when more might be expected from music and the guitar.
How often have guitar teachers come across students who have played for years but have never studied rhythm or the tonal function of pitch? Obviously there will always be the talented ones whose strong musical instinct will grow from any ragged beginning; but would even these players have a greater palette from which to draw if they had been consistently taught from a young age to explore the guitar as musicians?
In 1980, the Inner London Education Authority began a scheme to introduce classical guitar into London’s primary schools. This, I’m sure, wasn’t the first time the guitar was taught to children; but now began a project which was to change the guitar from an instrument largely begun in teenage years as described above, to an instrument, like the string family, taught to young people.
This, I’m convinced, is exactly what the guitar needs to develop more rounded, educated musicians fit to take on the complex world of the performing and teaching musician today. Also, and most importantly, it’s the opportunity to create an amateur player with greater understanding, capable of sharing music with others and filling our concert halls with enthusiastic and musically sensitive guitarists.
Observing children learning the guitar and trying to cope with the many discoveries of music shows the frustration caused by the lack of development of inner hearing. How can any one play a phrase when they have no idea of how it is meant to go? What is needed is for the child to develop a method of inner hearing to bring the printed page to life.
| The true tuition of children cannot ignore that the major task is the development of the child as a musician. To do this while learning the guitar in a systematic way is the task in which I am occupied. |
This approach is best if begun early. After such a systematic beginning the sky is the limit. The younger they are the better to instil a lifelong love of music. Children love to play and the more fun and game activity that can be timetabled the better for the learning environment. The ideal, which I feel we should consider, would involve each pupil in group music lessons before beginning the instrument, where elementary training in pulse, rhythm, singing, and basic understanding of notation would take place. This will make it possible to concentrate more thoroughly during the initial guitar lessons, on posture and the development of technique. Also, and most importantly, the material to be learned will have already become a part of the child’s memory; hopefully they will remember them with enthusiasm and fun. From this beginning they are just bursting to play the songs on an instrument.
…sound to sight, concrete to abstract
Much musical experience should precede symbolization. The teaching order is always sound to sight, concrete to abstract. At each stage, pitch and rhythm training are taking place. Co-ordination and the development of polyphonic hearing should be encouraged with ostinato patterns to go with already learnt songs; simple ensemble should take place. To begin with, the material should be pentatonic to best enable the child to develop singing and inner hearing and to have a systematic approach to the learning of scales.
To achieve the above ideas I’ve begun to use extensively ‘relative solfa’ in my work. This enables me to address issues of note function and to encourage an aural-finger relationship with the guitar.. Every new pitch is learnt as a sound to be sung and shown in hand signs, which are easily learnt and are a useful tool for demonstrating pitch relationships. For those of you as yet unfamiliar with solfa here is a brief overview:
| What is relative solfa? | ||||||||
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| In relative solfa every major scale is sung to the sound doh ray me fa soh lah ti doh while every minor scale is sung to the sound lah ti doh ray me fa soh lah. | ||||||||
| In this way a series of tones and semitones are remembered which in turn corresponds to the major and minor scales. Look at the following: | ||||||||
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| the solfa major scale | d | r | m | f | s | l | t | d' |
| the absolute pitch names | C | D | E | F | G | A | B | C' |
| the solfa natural minor scale | l | t | d | r | m | f | s | l' |
| the absolute pitch names | A | B | C | D | E | F | G | A' |
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| When the key changes, the solfa remains the same: | ||||||||
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| the solfa major scale | d | r | m | f | s | l | t | d' |
| the absolute pitch names | G | A | B | C | D | E | F# | G' |
| the solfa natural minor scale | l | t | d | r | m | f | s | l' |
| the absolute pitch names | E | F# | G | A | B | C | D | E' |
| the solfa major scale | d | r | m | f | s | l | t | d' |
| the absolute pitch names | F | G | A | Bb | C | D | E | F' |
| the solfa natural minor scale | l | t | d | r | m | f | s | l' |
| the absolute pitch names | D | E | F | G | A | Bb | C | D' |
As you can see from the above this is why it is also called the ‘movable doh’ system. If you come to this from a ‘fixed doh’ understanding, in which case doh means C and ray means D, etc, then you are advised to learn the English letter names for the absolute pitch names . That way the solfa can be retained as a language of sound in which relationships and functions may be explored.
Solfa performs two functions. It teaches us sight-singing and enables us to recognize immediately characteristics of keys and tonality. It helps us to understand the internal features such as the harmonic structure underlying a melody; in short, not just notes but their functions.
Through the learning of solfa we can come to understand the sounds we hear. We learn a means to identify intervals and using such information we can begin to translate the written musical score into sound.
| Further to all the personal uses to which solfa can be put, it is an invaluable tool for the teaching of pitch to young students and offers a systematic approach. Training with solfa develops the essential skills of inner hearing, sight-singing, and harmonic understanding. |
The classical guitarist Fernando Sor seemed to have been equally aware of the need to develop the sense of tonal function in an aspiring musician. In his Method for the Guitar he makes it quite clear where he expects the student to come from. Note the following account:
I make great distinction between a musician and a note-player. The former is he who considering music as the science of sounds, regards the notes only as conventional signs representing them, and which by the sight convey the result to the mind, as letters communicate words and words ideas. The latter is he who considers it the science of notes, who attaches great importance to their names, the real acceptation of which is unknown to him, and who waits to be able to understand for the period when he shall study harmony; meanwhile seeing them only as so many orders – to press such a string with such a finger in such a place on the guitar – and it is the finger which conveys to his head, through the ear, the result of all the combinations of notes. The note player succeeds, by dint of practice, in making an acquisition, which is to music what the motions of a rope-dancer are to dancing: he considers an isolated sound, how it is named, and to what key on the pianoforte it corresponds; but, while guessing at it, frequently it happens that he sings out of tune, as it might happen to a rope-dancer that, with all his equilibrium, he might not be able to make a regular pirouette on the floor.
Later he writes:
The true knowledge of the scale is the key to all musical knowledge; but it must be observed that to understand it thoroughly, and not merely to be acquainted with it, are two different things. That true knowledge is indispensable in regard to harmony.
Again later, with regard to note learning he suggests playing all the notes on each string but with the function of the note in mind (e.g. on string 6 play from E as if the note was in turn the tonic, supertonic, mediant, etc):
not only is a knowledge of the fingerboard acquired but also another great advantage quite disregarded in the modern way of sol-fa-ing which leaves the care of it to the harmony,[*] the only master, as it would appear to me…this advantage arises from considering every note with respect to its place in the key, and not only as an isolated sound, of which I have no idea indicating any musical relation otherwise than the ear.
[*] Here it appears Sor is noting the still common practice of studying harmony with a separate teacher when the guitar is a very able instrument on which to study the subject
…a great transposing instrument
The guitar makes a great transposing instrument, especially when we consider finger patterns. For me, however, the problem has been that these finger patterns have been taught without any reference to sound. I am suggesting a possible way of gaining an aural relationship with these finger patterns which, in the fullness of time, will make it possible to hear a phrase and instantly play it on your instrument.
With this in mind in the initial stages of my new method Jigsaw Guitar Course: Musicianship and Guitar Playing Using A Kodály Approach , I introduce the notes of two pentatonic scales as pitch relationships. We begin with the descending minor 3rd - beneficial both as the first interval to sing and as a solid beginning for the left hand (on string 4 using finger 3, while playing with the thumb). The subsequent notes are introduced in accordance with Kodály teaching practice sm / lsm / smd / lsmd / mrd / smrd / lsmrd. These notes are said to ‘live’ in a Bass House played with the right-hand thumb and the Treble House played with the right-hand fingers. I encourage tirando thumb strokes with i m & a planted on strings 3 2 & 1. Familiarity with intervals can also be achieved as they relate to each pitch as sound.
| It must be remembered that the expectation of Jigsaw Guitar Course is the continued development of the child. By the time they are about to leave primary-school education they will be well versed in the absolute pitch names and have an increased knowledge of scales, note functions and intervals, both aurally and on the fingerboard. |
To explore some of the many possibilities this approach offers I’d like to continue with an analysis of the following:
- playing in higher positions
- awakening the aural relationship between the fingers and the interval
- developing polyphonic hearing
- incorporating the study of basic harmony
Take the following folk song:
As will be seen, it is all playable in the VII position. The range offered is an octave from D and is pentatonic; the notes are D E G A B D. The tonality is major with G as the tonal centre. In relative solfa this scale is known as s l d r m s and as such is meant to be a conscious ‘inner’ sound. In other words the syllables are never spoken but always played or sung. (The letters represent, for those unfamiliar with solfa, low soh, low lah, doh, ray, me, soh.)
This scale should be developed as an aural physical relationship. Therefore the 2nd finger will be taught as ‘doh’ anywhere on the 2nd string initially. The material chosen will be increasing the pupils musical knowledge and will be developing an open hand position. The remaining notes of the scale are introduced in relation to each other. The following simple canon in 3/4 only offers d m s .
Already the pupil can play a simple arpeggio understanding the aural relationship with the fingering. The teacher here will sing and/or ask the pupil to offer another possibility remembering that they must offer it as sung pitch, as more or less anyone will be able to tell you an alternative, the following combinations dms, dsm, msd, mds, smd, sdm; the student is required to identify the combination offered and to immediately sing it in solfa. This is followed by an instant playing on the guitar. As the song is a simple canon the pupil should be encouraged to play while singing at a one-bar distance. This will awaken the ability to hear two lines at the same time, an ability I’m sure you will agree is essential to the playing of Bach. (Of course in Bach, the performer will have to keep many more lines going in their inner hearing, but when at present do we begin to teach this?)
The note ray will next be introduced.
Here we notice that the left hand is developing a definite ‘scale-like’ training without just learning a series of finger patterns unrelated to sound. With the introduction of ray, the four notes suggest a tonic-dominant function. This sense of harmony can be related to the introduction of tirando technique.
Ask the student, using only the notes of G and D with the thumb , to improvise a bass line while singing and/or playing the song (both open strings, plant i and m on 1 and 2). After a few attempts it will be understood that D or low soh fits with A or ray. Next offer this simple bass line.
This line will be sung while playing as doh and soh and as their harmonic function 1 and 5. Later this can be developed into a complete accompaniment, which should be performed as a solo with the pupil singing the folk song and as a guitar duo while swapping parts.
It will be clear, as mentioned above, that no absolute pitch names are used at this point. Why is this? Well one reason is that the solfa allows the student to explore the complete instrument; the finger–aural relationship is available beginning on string 6 5 4 and 2. The second reason is that the student is learning to hear in fingering ; I suspect that the more advanced one gets it will be possible to immediately play what one hears either played to you or from one’s own inner hearing. The third reason is that the student can search for a more comfortable pitch from which to practise various singing and polyphonic exercises. The fourth reason is that the teacher doesn’t have to wade through ledger line reading at this point, making the whole activity more musical and less fraught with anxiety.
Introduce low lah. I Got A Letter also looks at syncopated rhythms and the semibreve, which requires a greater amount of inner pulsing than is sometimes appreciated. This folk song also offers material to develop tirando with a simple accompaniment. Again, the student should sing the song while playing the accompaniment.
To finish the scale the ‘low soh’ can be introduced using the beautiful folk song known as The Riddle Song. This song is in the Soh Pentatonic Scale which again offers further aural training.
To experience a minor tonality, play this Bolivian folk song, which also introduces more complex rhythms. The song may be accompanied with a simple E minor chord using only open strings. This melody can also be played with the thumb beginning with bass E; of course the solfa remains the same. Combining all three in a performance explores many techniques; playing in high position using rest stroke, playing free stroke with the thumb with ‘planted’ fingers, and playing simple free stroke.
To conclude this idea all the solfa material can and should be written into standard staff notation when the absolute pitch names and ledger lines have been studied.
When diatonic scales have been covered (a simple task) the first group of notes learnt will be the pentachord drmfs (5 adjacent notes). Please don’t think I am waiting forever to introduce this. The full diatonic scale will have been covered well before in 1st position.
Look at the next example, taken from Bartók’s violin duets. The purpose in using this example is to demonstrate how studying with relative solfa can help with musical analysis. The folk melody as used by Bartók is in rising perfect 5ths. Therefore the original soh becomes the new doh. Beginning in G Major with the GABCD pentachord drmfs in solfa the plan is as follows:
G=doh D=soh / modulation D=doh A=soh / modulation A=doh E=soh / Return
From a purely technical point of view the guitarist is dealing with a moderately demanding but realistic scale-like melody. This offers a brief movement out of the standard playing position, and a rising perfect 4th (fingers 3 & 4 in the same fret) which offers the opportunity to practise this most common of melodic intervals which endless scale practice would still avoid. As a developing musician the student is learning aurally and physically about transposition. In theory the student understands the interval relationship of the first tetrachord (tone-tone-semitone-tone) and as a result will be able to work out the need for the F# and the C# building up a greater understanding of key signatures and the circle of fifths.
Canons for more advanced thinking
The following canons are to be practised in solfa playing the melody on the guitar while following one bar later with your own singing. It is an interesting exercise to attempt two entries on the guitar with a third entry in the voice: usually it is best if one entry is taken an octave lower. Although it is best not to write this down in two parts, the following example is given to demonstrate how it works.
I hope I have stimulated your interest to explore new ideas in your guitar teaching. This work requires a joy for music as well as the guitar, a willingness to sing, clap and to play games. You will find that working with solfa and rhythm names, pushing your polyphonic and inner hearing and generally thinking in a different way will require some application. However, your efforts will be greatly rewarded. At present this is work in progress and as such any considered feedback is welcome. So let’s sing and make a song and dance of it.
By the way, why call it Jigsaw Guitar Course?
Because no piece of the JIGSAW can be discarded; the full picture comes into view only when each piece falls into place.
Copyright © 1997 by Luke Dunlea