Group composition pedagogy. Different Hearing

The first remarks on composing in general music education appeared in Czech music journals during the 1950s and 1960s. Reflections of foreign projects (The Contemporary Music Project for Creativity in Music Education, Schulwerk) were accompanied by calls for cooperation between composers and educators in music education (Melkus, 1969; Polednak, 1963-64, Polednak & Budik, 1969; Synek, 2011). Composer and educator Kanak (1963 and 1966) described his experiments with composing in music education in the ninth grade. In 1970, Orff’s Schulwerk was introduced into the music education curriculum. However, this provoked negative feedback, which postponed the compositional activities in music education for several more years (Synek, 2011).

During the 1970s and 1980s, Czechoslovak music pedagogy was isolated from foreign impulses, and the aesthetic canon of contemporary music in music education was socialist realism. The emigration of some Czech educators (Jurkovic, Pos) and limited foreign contacts meant the preserved concepts of music education. The political changes after 1989 brought pluralism and new impulses for music education and composition pedagogy.

In the 1990s, teachers and composers in the Czech Republic gained new experience in composition in general music education. Popovic (1994-1995) experimented with music education students at Charles University with the Manhattanville Music Curriculum Program. And some other educators reflected new impulses for their work (Synek, 2011c). Wider interest in group composition pedagogy came after 2001, when the author of this chapter founded the Different Hearing Program at the Palacky University Olomouc (Synek, 2008a; Zouhar, 2004). The program forced new methodology, didactic tools, and classroom composing workshops for students, teachers, and educators (Synek, 2008; Medek et al., 2014; Zouhar & Medek, 2010). The inspiration for this program were projects Klangnetze, by Schneider, Bosze, and Stangl (2000), and Grundler, and Response.

Different Hearing.The focus of the Different Hearing Program is elementary composing in the classroom. Through group composing activities and sound games, students at all levels of education from ages 6 to 19+ develop and improve their creative competencies and strengthen their communication and concentration abilities. Teachers encourage an active access to all musical activities on principles of experiential pedagogy. They are students’ partners, who encourage, motivate, and stimulate their creativity. Anyone can participate in this “barrier-free music education” regardless of their abilities, skills, age, and previous musical experience (Medek et al., 2014, p. 67). Anyone has equal access to music, sound material, development of musical instruments, performance, and composing. The students’ own experience with group composing precedes their theoretical knowledge.

A child in art education was the inspiration for this program (Zouhar, 2004). For the first stroke with a pencil or brush or for modeling, it is enough to hold the tool in its hand and start creating. The child does not need to know the techniques of drawing, working with colors, or principles of composition. All this will or may follow. And the same is enough for young people creating first sound objects.

The starting point of the Different Hearing methodology are games with sounds, voices, and objects of daily use. Students are playing these objects like musical instruments, and they are observing, discovering, creating, and interacting with voice and sounds at all phases of the process. For their fixation, they create instructional or graphical symbols. They use them for group composing and for creating graphic or instruction scores. The teaching and learning process is based not on knowledge of notation, composing principles, or musical syntax and grammar, but on a play with sounds. By joining (composing) sounds, students create new sound surfaces and compositions.

They perform these pieces by themselves, or together with teachers or other performers. The methodology is designed as a free educational system, modified and extended according to students’ needs and learning objectives. It’s an open source, not developed in detail for pre-primary, primary, and secondary education. Teachers can complete it themselves according to their needs (Coufalova et al., 2013; Medek et al., 2014).

The methodology is divided into four stages: initiation, material (sound), structure (composing), and performance. The first stage (initiation) consists of three types of sound games focusing on stimulation, concentration, and communication. In the second stage (material) students are attracted to search for and create their own sounds, to perform them and to produce simple musical instruments. The third stage (structure) is aimed at group composing in classrooms. Students are motivated to improvise with their own sounds and to compose graphic or instruction scores. And the last stage (performance) is focused on the performance of the group compositions, new orchestrations, and next performances by other group of students (Coufalova & Synek, 2014; Synek, 2008; Vsetickova, 2010).

The Different Hearing methodology does not test students’ musical talent, or knowledge. Lessons don’t start with composition techniques, musical forms, or methods, but with sound games. Without any training, students play with sounds, and create graphic scores and group compositions under teachers’ guidance. They compose first and later they could be familiar with music grammar and syntax. Only then theoretical anchoring can follow, depending on students’ knowledge and abilities and concrete learning objectives. But this is just a possibility, not a necessity.

This procedure may seem opposite to the process of teaching composition. But this sequence is a similar way of a composer’s work, who experiments with material first. And on that basis, he determines the shape and structure of his composition. This experience of creation, discovering, and joining sounds, is crucial for the initial phase of classroom composing and for students. This may be followed by other procedures that enhance the compositional experience. The experience with producing sounds and playing sound games is fundamental for the initiation of students to compose.

Different Hearing Program is based on co-teaching and supports cooperation between teachers, composers, and musicians on teaching (Synek, 2011). Its methodology alternates and extends the curriculum of general music education for primary and secondary schools with group composition activities (Medek et al., 2014; Synek, 2008). It connects and stimulate the composition, vocal, instrumental, and listening activities and can be used for many objectives of the Czech Framework Education Programmes for primary and secondary education (Synek, 2008). Teachers, educators, and composers are using the complete four phases learning process or its individual phases only, according to specific learning objectives.

Both educators and composers are members of the Different Hearing team since 2003, when teachers and students of the Janacek Academy of Music joined this program and complemented the Palacky University team. They are working together and changing their roles. Educators are composing, composers are educating, and together they are coteaching, lecturing at universities, leading workshops, and publishing texts. Numerous studies, methodological publications, conference papers, and three books focused on Different Hearing methodology were published (Coufalova at al., 2013; Medek et al., 2014; Kopecky et al., 2014). They influenced many teachers, educators, and parents.