I was rehearsing with a small group in the LU School of Ed Music Room - Room 108, where a shelf contains a stack of Music Exemplars for various projects from the previous Ontario Curriculum. (The Arts 1-8, 1999.) One of the group members got quite elated and wondered if I could afford to give four of the copies away. “Of course!” said I, “Take them all if you like!” thinking that I have really no use whatsoever for them anyway.

I want to come out in a very direct way against exemplars. I think their use is dangerous.  I never use them as a prelude to any learning. I might show an exemplar at a very late stage in a process of learning or creation, but believe that the use of an exemplar is tantamount to infecting students with an incurable disease.  I suppose some will disagree with me, but my thinking was fully reinforced in our music classes on Thursday.

My main goal for Thursday’s class was to encourage deeper listening in pieces of music through particular awareness of more of the various elements that combine to enable a piece of music to occur. Musicians tend to call this aspect of our world ‘ear-training’ – ‘training’ the ear to recognize particular aspects of, for example, rhythm, pitch, melody, harmonic sonority, form, etc.   For far too many students of music programs, ‘ear training’ is an enormous struggle through a series of torturous practice tapes and exercises.  Courses are labeled as such things as ‘Musicianship,’ or ‘Musical Perception.’  Some survive these ordeals. Musicians, knowing that the skills of perceptive listening are important,  do tend to work diligently to get better at this. Survivors go on to perform, teach, interpret, and create music with keener abilities to perceive and correct musical mistakes or misapprehensions as well as to fully appreciate excellence. The skills of musical perception – being able to focus the ear on, to comprehend in one hearing, and to make oneself fully aware of each element of a piece of music as it is unfolding - are really important to musicians, because such skills streamline the analysis process and make more efficient the processes of correction and appreciation.  Appreciation is the keyword. The idea is that the more we know about the way something works the more deeply we can appreciate its intricacies and its other-worldliness.

On Thursday, my hope was that everyone in the Pro Year would experience something of the challenge of listening to a piece of music so that, collectively, we could expand the ways in which we can notice particular elements of music.   I chose to do this through the activity of developing a ‘listening log’ – a way of recording the events of a piece of music. I also chose to promote the use of a visual representation of the sequence of sounds we would hear together. I chose to make use of the song, ‘Cat’s Lullaby’ by Deborah Robertson as performed by Sweet Water Women from their CD, Sweet Water.   I chose this piece for a variety of reasons – some musical, some cultural, some geographical, and some relational (e.g. many of us have experience with the composer, which perhaps draws us closer to the piece as listeners). The decision to employ that particular piece was certainly not arbitrary, although any piece of music could be employed for the same experience of creating a listening log through a visual record.  Of course, I could have shown each class exactly what I meant by the idea of creating a listening log through a visual record. Some of you – frustrated by my lack of direction and by my not saying, “Here is how this is to be done.”  – could have been much happier with me.

But do we indeed all hear music in the same way? Is that truly possible? Is there actually one interpretation or understanding of a piece of art (music) that is correct? And if such a thing existed would David Buley’s be the correct one by necessity? Well these are rhetorical questions. 

If I had shown you my understanding, comprehension and interpretation of that piece of music before you were given the opportunity to do this for yourself, you would not actually have been able to hear the music in your own way. Furthermore, if I were to show you my version I would risk losing out on the phenomenal teaching that you – as listeners and interpreters – would give to me and consequently your colleagues, and your future students. 

In each class we were able to have a variety of versions of visual interpretations of the same piece. There were certainly many similarities in the ways in which you and I expressed the piece visually. (And I did a different one myself in each class… - and, by the way,  why did I always do the listening activities with you?)  Some version diverged extraordinarily from mine.  And this was thrilling. 

Had I shown you my exemplar before we started, possibly we’d have seen 86 decent clones (level 4) of my work;  possibly you would all know somewhat more exactly how to do a listening log; possibly you would hear a little more closely to the ways in which I and countless other people who have survived a college course in musical perception might hear that piece,  and you might even have had a decent enough time doing all of that.

But we would all have lost a piece of our creativity.  And I would have lost out on experiencing again a piece of what I misplaced when I took my first musical perception course in university: joyful imagination.

Over the three classes, we had some visual interpretations that maybe missed out on the precise numbers of times the melody was sung. So what? The noticing of that aspect of the form of the piece can be discussed and explored if it matters. (I did choose to discuss this on Thursday because the number often does matter in First Nations’ infused music. ) Some of our interpretations showed particular aspects of the ostinatos’ rhythmic devices – some of us noticed different timbres and even subtle rhythmic alterations in the drumming; some noticed the small variations in tempo; some noticed the quality and quantities of the harmony; some noticed the numbers of voices and the pitches present in the various pieces of the texture – and some noticed that the music kept going even after the recording ended.

Not one listening log that I have ever made (and I have done thousands of these things in various ways – some very detailed and formal, others mere squiggles and sketches on scraps of paper)  has ever shown that the music continues on after the piece ‘ends.’ But of course music does continue on infinitely and indefinitely.  When I hear a piece of music or a sound, even once it ceases to be physically present to my ears, it rings on in my mind long after the physical ‘event’ of the music or sound is over. Furthermore, not only does the sound continue in my mind, it continues in my soul. The sound has affected me – transformed me forever. I will NEVER hear that sound again the same way, because I have been altered by the experience of the sound or the music. I know this fully, believe it firmly, live it, walk it and breath it. But I have NEVER included such a concept in a listening log.  No exemplar I would have shared with you would ever have shown that. But one of your colleagues’ interpretations did show that on Thursday. 

Now – I might show that person my version – and we could have quite a discussion on the similarities and differences, and that would potentially be rich and rewarding and valuable. Your colleague and I could both benefit from that – the conversation about our images of the sound.   Then, just maybe, my exemplar would be of use, but only as a catalyst for conversation, exploration, imagination.  And most certainly not as a way of showing your colleague that I can hear what is important to be heard in the music.  No! Because that person, in a wonderfully imaginative, charming, enchanting and exciting way helped me remember why I love music so much.

From the depths of my musical soul, Thank you!

And the neat thing (I was originally a bit saddened to learn this, but have written my way out of that sadness for ironically obvious reasons!) – that person’s listening log went into the re-cycle bin and has gone to earth.  Appropriate eh!