Blog

Very Young Composers and El Sistema, Day 1

May 26, 2011
We are here in Caracas, Venezuela for two weeks, as part of the NY Philharmonic’s Very Young Composer Program. Finally into our third day, I feel that our rhythm is established. We wake up early, talk about the plan for our young El Sistema composers, establish program goals as we soak in the experience of the previous day, all over a breakfast of passion fruit in the pleasant outside area of our hotel.

Every day, we meet with twenty kids from around 2:30-5:30pm. Our kids range in ages 10-17, have varying degrees of experience composing, and all of them passionately play an instrument. For some, their instruments are an appendage, their natural voice. We are assisted by one of the great leading women composers of Venezuela, Diana Arismendi, with two of her students from the conservatory.

I am immediately struck by a few of the kids, and enamored with all of them…

Elimilec: a young girl, 11, has only one channel of communication: her cello. Without it, her eyes glaze over, and she seems lost. She does not fit amongst the kids, and she composes every day to the same film: a contemporary story about a young girl, who is lost.

Astrid, a curly haired girl with a smile that could light the sun, plays me the national hymn when prompted, and is able to play it in a fashion so concentrated, that even the arrival of all her classmates with loud voices and jokes and pokes can’t get her to stop till she accomplishes her task.

Luis, a young boy, 14, is returning to the program, and with great pride jumps ahead of the others with an abundance of melodies, harmonies and rhythms. He shyly suggests we speak english, as he wants to practice.

(This is Luis conducting one of our composing warm-ups. When I asked how many wanted to become conductors, about 15 enthusiastically raised their hands).

The kids come to us from Montalban, Monday through Saturday (this 6 day approach is essential to the El Sistema model). Montalban is a largely middle class neighborhood in Caracas that has a wealth of education programs and is perhaps the most innovative nucleo in the El Sistema program. It began with 120 kids and now has the structural capacity to hold over one thousand kids, aged 2-16 (16 is when they are ready for the superior level of musical instruction). All kids who want to pursue a life in music can do so and are given work.

There are two main words that impact me as I reflect on my days thus far:

Joy and Dignity

Joy
We were fortunate to hear the Orquestra Juvenile Teresa Carreño on Tuesday night, led by the amazing Maestro Christian Vasquez.

The joy with which he communicated his vision to the superb orchestra was infectious. It was a joy that can only be born of the knowledge that you are doing what you love, and will have a place for that love, for the rest of your life. As he coaxed warm sounds from the already impeccable orchestra (playing Beethoven’s 9th), it couldn’t escape your mind that the unity with which they played was also a reflection of the social construct that leads El Sistema: it is not about the individual, rather, the collective good.

Dignity
There is a dignity provided by the musical system in place that is precious. In our current musical ecology in the USA, artistic (and economic) dignity, as coined so eloquently by Ben Cameron, is very hard to achieve. If our North American musical system gives us something, it is persistence, strength, attention to individuality. But what it does not give us, is a natural place to exist. We must create that place as artists, and are lucky that in the past ten-fifteen years, conservatories have become increasingly more aware of this, with programs like New England Conservatory’s Entrepreneurship program, and Juilliard’s Mentoring program. However, what El Sistema does, is nurture music from age 2 up in a systematic way with follow through. This revolutionary act has been in place since 1975, and the fruits of it’s persistence are now rightfully shining world wide as societies swiftly attempt to join the movement and replicate it’s structure, while trying to understand how to assimilate a social movement into individualistic democratic societies that have fragmented funding structures and fragmented beliefs.

Our goal, while on a smaller scale, is similar, and also contains reverse movement. Jon Deak, composer bassist Micah Brashear and I are here to learn as much as we can about El Sistema while incorporating composition. Dani Bedoni, the international liaison and visionary connective tissue of El Sistema, met Jon Deak several years ago while he was running his NY Philharmonic Very Young Composer program in Vail. Being an instinctual, brilliantly effective mastermind, she immediately forged a relationship with Jon, and this is our second year here. Jon is one of those rare people with poet hearts, who pairs persistence with an unwaivering desire to make sure as many kids possible get the chance to compose for the symphony orchestra. He has changed many lives.

The main questions we have are: how do we get these kids composing music that is original to them, and how do we negotiate the individualistic streak of composition with what they do so well: work in systematic group structures.

An interesting fact has emerged: using the voice leads to more original output. When they compose with their instruments, they immediately write what they know. We are here to make sure that we coax from them the most original sounds in their heads: the voices they may not know they have.

It is yet to be seen how our Very Young Composer curriculum sustains in other countries, and specifically in El Sistema. We are learning so much as we teach. We know that we must rely on habit and repetition, as these are the pillars upon which their every day lives are structured. And, we are at a great advantage here, as continuity is the recipe for their musical lives, and continuity is any composers best friend. To imagine a young country of composers, with the joy of knowledge that they can express themselves and that there is sustainability to that dream, is almost to beautiful to bear.

Last night, in the company of the warm, intelligent and courageous Abreu fellows, we dined at Dani Bedoni’s open aired welcoming home. They are finishing their five week journey, we are beginning ours. I spoke to an older gentleman, from Caracas with Italian roots and a deep love of opera and classical music. When I told him we were here at Dani’s bequest to inspire El Sistema to embrace composition as once of its threads, his eyes sparkled and he said: I did not know everyone could compose. In the three languages we spoke in common, I made sure to tell him, that not only could everyone compose, it was as essential and as possible as learning multiple languages. His eyes moistened, and with great cariño, we said good night.

I’ll end with the composition they wrote for us, as a gift to us on our first day.

Off to teach.

Soon,

Paola

Blog Entry #2

IMAGINATION INTO TECHNIQUE

The past few days have been so packed with music, it’s been hard to break it down into coherent thoughts! I have a myriad of sounds, emotions, pictures, and kids’ music combining to create a colorful collage in my ears, mind and heart.

First, I would like to break down the plan for our stay as it is an example of how we’ve had to boil down what would typically take 3-4 months into under two weeks of pure intensity. There is a continuity, an unstoppable flow, and overflowing excitement. The only draw back that I immediately sense is that, because of the lack of time, we must combine the lessons, meaning that many of the ideas have less time to percolate. Logistical issues, like our not initially requesting a blackboard, translate into kids not copying down important lessons for the first two days, and as we know, breaking things down and repetition is manna for young minds.

All that said, these kids are really advanced! Their fluidity and early success on their instruments has made them enthusiastic and open young composers. And now into our second week, I can confidently say their writing will blow us away.

The first few days, we did group activities, then broke out into two groups of ten. I eventually settled in with the younger kids aged 8-12. The work was challenging at first; getting the kids to concentrate when they are using their instruments and are not practicing was quite a challenge!

Before we arrived, Diana Arismendi and her teaching artist/composers worked with the kids several times to get them prepped to the idea of composing. Together, they covered improvisation on their instruments and created a group melody together.

We decided early on that the four major building blocks which we would concentrate on during our Caracas stay would be:
Melody, Rhythm, Harmony and Structure. In addition, we also teach orchestration in the form of instrument visits. We call them “instrument interviews”, and the kids are the investigators. The instrumentalists are then asked to answer questions only through sound.

Our assignments for the first four days was the following:
1. Collect sounds in the journals. This could come in the form of: “today I heard a siren” or, “a spooky door creaking in my room”, “my parents whispering in bed behind closed doors”, or “a cat, screaming!”)

2. Write a melody for the visiting instrument (or write a rhythm for the percussion visit).

During the “instrument interviews”, the performer interprets these sounds on their instrument. Usually what emerges are some extended techniques as well as general techniques specific to that instrument. A spooky, creaky door becomes a glissando or a sul ponticello passage on the cello. A cat screaming illuminates the top range of a clarinet. A siren becomes a perfect example of tremolos and how to notate them, while a whispering parent can become an example of blowing through the holes of a clarinet or harmonics on the violin.

We discovered that the strength in these exercises comes out in the imagination and skill of the performer and young composer at hand, and, the coaxing of the teaching artist.

Because of the short nature of our visit, we do not do separate out all of the lessons for melody, harmony and rhythm. Instead, we integrate them into the instrument visits. For the clarinet visit, I decided to combine melody writing and form. We created a story about a monkey as a group, then wrote what we thought would be the call of the monkey versus the theme of the story. This turned into a perfect discussion on motif versus melody. The main lessons on developing melody I tried to emphasize was using repetition, a beginning middle and end to their melody, and utilizing stepwise motion versus skips. They have a natural sense of melody and development comes in the form of improvising on their instruments. I also have them use their voices when I am working at the computer as it helps some of them develop their work faster.

The timeline is an essential part of discussing structure. Especially for smaller kids, it gets them to organize their thoughts in a linear way, which is how they are taught in school, so it comes more naturally. I try to get them to put as much thought into the timelines; but an important aspect of the timeline is revision. The kids tend to get to be able to translate a musical idea spurred from the emotion and story arc from the timeline, and then, once they get writing, the music takes them where they want to go, and most of the time to unexpected places. So revising the timeline once they are almost done with their pieces helps them bridge the abstract process of writing music with the fun and more orderly part of drawing the timeline. On a practical note, the coloring, drawing and copying part of the timeline can help keep a class orderly: it is hard to get the kids to write all of the time. As composers, we often take breaks, so it is only natural that kids have a hard time concentrating for three hours straight. So some of the breaks can come in the form of coloring and perfecting the timeline, and, practicing the parts they have written so they can play it for me (what they write is not always what they hear in their head).

Most of the younger kids loved the idea of writing their own Carnival of the Animals and have all lovingly chosen an animal that they can identify with. A few kids have more abstract ideas, and this freedom to choose the themes of their compositions is totally necessary. A lot of the stories center around losing one’s parents, being lost then found, or nature.

Jon and I discussed the older kids’ theme extensively on our plane ride down from NY. We settled on a musical Facebook. The drawback of the timeline is that it can reflect structure in terms of form, melody, emotion, dynamics, etc. but it does not necessarily reflect the vertical harmonic nature of music. So, we decided on a two part approach to Facebook…in essence, an identity piece.

First, you have a musical tree. You are at the top. You create a theme that describes who you are. That is your main melody. Then from there, you branch off to what your main interests are, who you are going to describe in your story, and like a tree, some of these are higher and lower to the top–all of them overlap in space somehow. Then, you place those events and people on a timeline, and that is when you translate your events in time. We were hoping to have this two part activity illuminate the vertical and horizontal nature of music making.

I decided to approach harmony on the spot with the younger kids. So, for example, if we have a melody of the monkey, what can we do to add to that melody? A kid shouts out: hold a note! Then, we have someone play a bird chirping, which the kid translates as a tremolo. Another kids tries another melody on top of that. That spurs a talk on held notes versus counterpoint. We also tried canons, and imitation. With the older kids, we identified an especially juicy passage in one of the compositions, and repeated it several times, with the main cello line climbing each time to a high register. This impromptu improvisation on the passage spurred a conversation on minimalism. With the smaller kids in NY, I often have them help each other with harmony. I pair them and ask them to help each other out by trying the different approaches to harmony that we discussed in class. This does not work here. Partly because I do not have enough time to model the activity, and partly, because this type of team work takes a classroom teacher who understands the class dynamic and knows which kids can truly work together.

Enter computer. The computer has become an unexpected savior in this experience. We have eight days total of composing work, back to back, before we have to produce a concert of their music. Expectation is high. ALL El Sistema concerts rock, and this has to match that level.

Some kids, like Jose Gregorio (a returning ten year old), have a natural musical mind. He did not know how to write out a score, but had written all the parts out with corresponding measures. With the exception of a few bars where he had misnotated a fast repeating passage, the translation from his parts to my score on the computer was pretty straight forward. When we heard the piece for the first time in Sibelius, he put his head in his hands and said: “Pero Profe, it’s ALL wrong!!!!!!”. I was shocked, I had copied all the notes exactly, and I wondered, perhaps he had it differently in his head?! He then explained that I had not put in the dynamics, the articulations, “nothing!!”, and it was not how he imagined the performance. Inside I chuckled. This was too cute. But I genuinely expressed that I would get to those details very soon, but could we talk about the notes first? He agreed, and then slowly for him, the joy of hearing everything together, was huge. His piece had a duet for contrabass (he plays the bass and Jon is his hero), then it goes into a minimalist section for ensemble that is passionate and intense, and then, it ends with a slow melodic passage for flute, clarinet and cello. When I try to suggest any development or adding percussion, he immediately says “No. This is exactly what I want.” I ask him to consider it overnight, and he agrees. The next morning, he says he has given it serious thought, but he wrote exactly what he wanted. I respect his decision.

Other kids have written amazingly chromatic melodies, and just need help developing them and harmonizing them. On the computer, we talk about options, and the computer quickly gives results. You want to hear this in the violin and flute, here it is….you want to hear something dissonant…well what kind of interval? Here is a second…an octave…a third. We can hold this note here, tremolo there, repeat this. A lot of our talk is about development and/or repetition, as their journals are so dense with musical information that unpacking it and letting the music sit, for some results into twenty-odd pages of music.

I’ll finish today’s talk on my kids with Elimilec, my cellist with the sad eyes. She has been talking about a film “The Boy who Lies”, every day. Finally, yesterday, I was able to find the film and watch the trailer. It is about the mudslides here in Venezuela. The homes (shanty towns) are devastated. A boy, who has lost more than his mother, travels the country. His story changes with each person he meets. Sometimes it his mother who dies…..sometimes his father.
I wonder why she identifies so much with the film. The music she writes is to the film, and it is extraordinary. Sad, lyrical, detailed. Her classmates had taunted her a lot in the first days, asked why she had to be in their class, calling her bipolar. This didn’t surprise me…kids can be mean. But it did make me tell them that I was so excited about her work because I too loved to write for film.

Yesterday, a few kids gathered around my computer to listen to her work. There was a sense of awe, and she was very proud. For those seconds, she totally fit in.

The reason I believe our system of teaching composition works so well with El Sistema, is because along the same lines, it captures the energy of kids imagination and integrates technique systematically over years. We get the kids writing immediately, and from those early successes comes the desire to unpack more about the process. Each writing exercise contains a learning tool for composing. So if I may, I would add this tag line to the NY Philharmonic’s Very Young Composers Program: Imagination into Technique.

————-
Outside the classroom, on a personal note, I must say that there have been so many amazing experiences…it is hard to recount them all!

We had the fortune of meeting Maestro Abreu….he was kind, warm, and supportive of the project. It was a joy to watch him, as he listened to Christian Vasquez conduct the orchestra before they left on tour. They were playing Saint Saens Third Symphony, and he listened intently. At the end, Christian knelt before the Maestro, leaning in to get his last comments. Abreu blessed him and the orchestra, applauding their efforts.

Yesterday was our first day off. Dani Bedoni designed an amazing day for us….We heard Beethoven’s 8th and 9th played miraculously, followed by a five hour lunch in a parrot haven, followed by a visit to the home of Rodrigo Guerrero’s parents (Rodrigo is El Sistema’s international relations coordinator ). His father is a lawyer as well as an accomplished harp player and musicologist. We spent the evening listening to him play, learning about music from Venezuela. An hour later, in an impromptu setting, an amazing folk group, Penta Corde, also part of El Sistema, joined us, and played us their original work and favorite tunes from the country. The poetry they sang was beautiful…. things like “eyes the color of wells” encased in folkloric waltzes, joropos, and passajes….
You can friend them here:
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=13649196269#!/group.php?gid=13649196269&v=wall

More soon,

Paola

Blog Entry # 3

Riding home now, from Caracas. The last 48 hours have included 20 new pieces of music that were given wings to fly. I have the kids faces and expressions imprinted in my memory…their excitement, frustrations, what I learned, what could make this even better for next time.

Friday’s concert was a success. The kid’s teacher’s played their pieces, and it was definitely two layers of learning happening simultaneously. The few days before the concert were spent copying and making parts, and playing a “practice” concert on Sibelius playback where the kids practiced listening to each other, and public speaking. The rehearsal was challenging as one of the few drawbacks of El Sistema musicians is that sight reading is not their strong suit. We had a total of 6 hours of rehearsals for twenty works that ranged from 2-4 minutes.

At the rehearsal, there was a range of emotion. Because the kids really knew their works and had heard the playback several times, they were more assertive. Gabriel, a ten year old oboe player, asked the violist to play the right notes when he heard mistakes. This prompted a talk on patience, but the violist took it in stride: that is one of the things I love the most about El Sistema musicians, they are comrades, and can take and give criticism with a smile and good intent. Jose Gregorio, our young bass player, was completely distraught after his piece. The rehearsal did not go well, and was not what he wanted, and more importantly he really wanted to play in his piece, and the time was so crunched that we never made time to practice the duet within his work that he had written for him and Jon Deak. We consoled him, talked about the luxury as a young composer to hear music live, but we could do little to make his day better.

The next day was a joy, and all the works were all beautiful. Daniela Bedoni moderated and the kids spoke eloquently about their works. Eduardo, the oldest composer, said this was what he wanted to do with his life, and he dedicated the performance, to his grandparents who had sacrificed so much to be there. Luis Pichardo, another very advanced composer, simply stated, I write because I am good at it. His confidence and talent will take him far. Steven, who’s piece, Vida, had a lovely emotive shift, talked about the pitfalls of a man’s life, and the internal turn and decision to be happy. His piece was amazing, and then, he played congas in perfect style and rhythm to Valery’s salsa tinged work. Jose Gregorio’s day fared much better, as he got his bass (encouraged by Jon) and jumped in on the part he had written for himself and Jon Deak. His playing was amazing, fast, virtuosic, and surprising. He had been practicing for weeks and you could tell. The evening ended with joy, parents proud, kids asking when we would return, and lots of wishes for these bright young kids….

This morning, at 5am, we drove through the warm city of Caracas. The “favela” type homes illuminated the mountains as we wound down to the ocean, where we would take our plane. I could imagine the kids running down the winding paths, playing their instruments, laughing, and singing their melodies, as they did every day, in class.

My closing thoughts are the following: the fact that the kids had such a deep work ethic and handle of their instruments made the process of composing so much more approachable. I had worried that being so imbedded in 19th century repertoire in such a strict system at such a young age would restrict their musical individuality. Not so. The kids works were unique, and included dissonances and interesting harmonies due to their naturally wider musical palette, a result of the music they had played in orchestra. They did not just use the white note harmonies used by so many kids in the US (a result of their main instrument being the recorder). When introduced to our free approach to composition, and once it clicked that this was their chance to find their voice, and to express themselves, they for the most part jumped on board and relished having an individual experience. By using their voices, instruments, and finally, the computer, their musical horizons quickly broadened, and the results, which I will post here soon, were amazing.

I left learning so much about what it takes to create something great: persistence, and individual strength and luminescence (Jose Antonio Abreu) paired with the power of the people. We certainly know this recipe in the US, and I can’t wait till we apply that to music, and specifically, to composition and kids. Why composition? Simply, because it is the most direct voice of a musical soul, and just like learning multiple languages, kids can learn faster when they are younger, and then use music as a tool, one that generates happiness, promotes individuality and understanding, for the rest of their lives.

I can’t wait to return, and to see what these kids write next. I can’t wait to apply what I’ve learned. Special thanks to our determined and visionary host and liaison, Daniela Bedoni, and our class coordinator, the extraordinary composer, Diana Arismendi.

Soon,

Paola

Very Young Composers and El Sistema, Photos and Videos