Table of Contents

The essay

The author

The credits

Martin Galmiche

Musicians in school space and school time

* * *

No one truly doubts the importance of music for children. In fact, a kind of feeling is largely shared : the feeling that music plays a critical, ancient role, and that it passes through generations with an indescribable force. Almost no one would consider it worthless, uninteresting, superfluous. And sometimes an unprovable conviction lingers, the conviction that music is at the heart of major issues concerning the schoolchild.

But to tackle the matter of music in school, this feeling is not enough.

At a time when society tries to redefine the parameters of school, its “rhythm”, it would seem strange not to think about its content, its “curriculum”. This train of thought is not just about expressing noble goals such as reading, writing and arithmetic. In addition to achieving these goals, what everybody wants above all else is that children may leave school equipped with confidence. Confidence in themselves, in their potential, in their personality, in their personal intelligence, and in their own strategies towards learning. Confidence and desire. In fact, these noble goals are more likely to be reached if confidence is built as early as possible. Building this confidence maybe goes hand in hand with a positive attitude, a form of satisfaction, with play and even pleasure within the learning process. From this point of view, music is, thankfully, absolutely not the only subject capable of achieving the alchemy between learning and pleasure. But I deeply believe that it is at the heart of the matter: music, insofar as it is a form of play, is intrinsically connected to this alchemy.

Musical pleasure is somehow mysterious: are we touched by music because it reminds us of someone, a place, a special occasion? Or precisely because it does not remind us of anything, as it is sheer novelty? Or because it makes us dance? Or because it makes us dream or travel? Or because it is full of tensions that eventually come to some release, thus imitating our lives, our griefs, our joy, our burdens, our quiet places? Or because it is a language without words, which puts us at ease, while immersing us in the universal? Or because it brings us together in an all-encompassing movement of body and sound? It may be all of the above. Philosophers will write forever on the matter. But music is here, we need it, it is a fact, it belongs to those mysteries which can chase boredom out of our lives, as do imagination, fiction, the absurd, poetry, humour, nonsense. Mysteries that should be protected as a nature reserve is protected, or a spiritual retreat.

Music is play and pleasure, full of mysteries but it also requires precise work. In the eyes of children, music is able to question the grotesque vision they sometimes have (as do we) of the learning process, a vision that willingly separates the notion of pleasure from notions of precision, diligence and focus. To confront such a caricature is not just symbolic, it is a spark among others that takes on a concrete meaning in the context of this new positive image of school that we would like to see on display.

A piece of music can be seen as a fantastic being, with its structure, beginning, spectrum, melody, pauses, rhythm, cycles, choruses, tensions, harmony and ending. All these words, by nature, refer to space and time. But music has that power that speaks to our brains as well as to our bodies and to our soul, and, as such, it is a vital treasure for children in their formation and their discoveries. For these beings, songs are little jewels of meaning and nonsense, of words and unsaid things, something cerebral and visceral. They say so much in such short time, they are eternal beings lasting three and a half minutes, they are like the infinity of decimals between two whole numbers. They resemble our ambivalent human nature, between the infinite and the minuscule, just like life. Maybe that is why they accompany us from birth to death, from the lullaby to the requiem.

* * *

For many years, in France, professional peripatetic musicians are trained to perform music, the children’s and their own, in schools. The training centers for musicians in schools (CFMI) have put together a full-time 2-year training course. These professionals are musicians above all else. But all the interest and challenge of their job lie in the bond that they have to create between the artistic and cultural world and the world of education. This question is at the heart of current issues regarding school and it seems hard to tackle such issues in a contemporary way if we do not support the training of these professionals.

The training of peripatetic musicians in schools puts the emphasis on the pedagogy of the artistic project within the class as a whole, during the timetabled day, in partnership with the teacher and sometimes with other participants. Such an approach has a very specific goal, which has been the subject of consideration among professionals for many years.

1. (i) If musical learning processes are deemed essential, they should occur during school time, just like grammar or math, during that time of education for all.

2. (ii) The class as a whole is ideal for a musical project, even if work sessions in smaller groups are useful from time to time. The class number remains the same, which is an important condition in order to make progress together while working on a song repertoire or a creative process. Moreover, in a group that is used to working together, the collective practice of music is beneficial as it brings about a mutual listening, a shared musical pleasure and an attentiveness to the group so as to harmonize one’s body, voice and movement with others.

3. (iii) Partnership with the teacher is crucial. In the eyes of the children, the involvement of the teacher in the practice of music or related practices adds real value to the project. His or her involvement guarantees the cohesion of the group and enables the musician to lead her/his sessions with as much musicality as possible.

When all the conditions are met, the peripatetic musician can jump straight to the heart of the practice: teaching not by talking about a subject but by embodying the subject. Practising music, playing music, being a musician, and setting the proper stage for children to be musicians as well. In the same fashion that you can try to feel like a writer in order to learn writing, a physicist to learn Physics, an historian to learn History.

This approach opens up an infinity of educational possibilities but also sometimes requires of the peripatetic musician simple skills in psychomotor development that need to be learned and improved upon. Playing, singing, watching, performing, moving, talking, listening, dancing, all of that by heart, in rhythm and sometimes simultaneously. And especially creating, offering the children a place for creation, and then sorting things out, organizing the propositions. A know-how that must always be renewed, updated, improved upon, revolutionized. Then, when an approach becomes routine, it fails. Yet it must not be thrown away but the musician should remember it and use it to invent another. Be in doubt, then know for certain, then doubt again. It is endless. But it is so crucially current, as everything seems in need of reinvention. More precisely, because the children will have to reinvent everything.

* * *

What space is actually granted for this learning of music on school premises? In concrete terms, the actual space allotted to music in French schools is highly variable. In a minority of schools, you can find a music room big enough for the class to move around in, to get into a large circle and to dance, sometimes with a piano or a stereo. In other schools, you have to move the tables of the library or some other inadequate room. For the musician in school and for the children, that changes everything. Beyond the obvious practical concerns regarding the necessary space for playing and dancing, the fact that a school has a room dedicated to music and dance within its walls sends a highly symbolic and meaningful signal that will affect the way music is perceived by teachers and their classes. In the mind-set of new school architecture, does such a place exist? Have we the resources – or rather – is the issue of sufficient importance to be considered enough of a priority that we actually find these resources?

* * *

On the school premises, but outside of lesson time, musical practice is a whole new adventure, and it is important to draw its outlines, especially when extracurricular time is being reorganized. At the risk of appearing negative, let us start by listing a few of the pitfalls of extracurricular sessions.

1. (i) The number of pupils in the group may fluctuate, at the expense of continuity and progress in music work.

2. (ii) If those work groups only work with a small number of children, the selection process for enrolment becomes a headache which can end up being driven by mere organizational considerations. Children are sometimes enrolled for practical reasons (keeping them busy during lunch time, as a substitute for a day nursery or a study period in the evening). Their motivation is hazy and the approach becomes one of merely filling their time.

3. (iii) By not being with their whole class nor their teacher, children do not attend these sessions with the same concentration.

4. (iv) If there are discipline problems, these sessions may be more tiring for children than a calmer learning in class would be.

From a quantitative point of view, the hourly volume of musical sessions will remain a drop in the ocean of extracurricular time, unless at least five or six music rooms are made available in each school. In any case, the development of extracurricular sessions is questionable as soon as it risks puncturing, even slightly, the timetabled periods of the school day, periods that should not be diminished or even maintained but rather increased.

On the other hand, if new hours are created, they can become an interesting one-off addition, as long as the project is not promulgated by decree but conceived with the actors of school education, and when it finds its origin in a specific local initiative: specific range of instruments in the school, need for an additional session in order to achieve a class project, partnership with a local music school or a conservatory. In some cases, such extracurricular sessions may be a bridge opening new possibilities for some children towards out-of-school musical learning in a music school or in conservatories.

* * *

In terms of space and time, three main categories can be defined in order to address music in school:

1. (i) music during school time and in the school space;

2. (ii) music outside of school time but in the school space;

3. (iii) music during school time and outside of the school space.

Of course those categories are less definite for those few schools which have a music school or a part of a Music Academy within their walls. In these schools, other horizons naturally open in the organization of time and space.

For many reasons already mentioned, the first category has a specific priority status, and the second can in certain specific cases be an interesting addition (but can only remain marginal within the official timetable).

As for music during school time but outside of school, it is an important topic of discussion for the cultural exposure of children to their musical environment. In fact, in a broader sense, if a school wants to take on board the cultural identity and cultural life that immediately surrounds it, it seems difficult to see how it can achieve that goal without organizing trips to local cultural places, depending on the environment (concert halls, theaters, museums, natural or historical sites, scientific places).

For instance, music outside of school could consist in conceiving a class project in partnership with a concert hall, possibly including a period of rehearsal for a few days in that place. It could also consist in granting classes the resources to travel and to attend concert halls during school time with an adequate schedule. After all, the purpose of school is also to sharpen curiosity, to make a habit of accessing the unique experiences offered by live artistic performance.

But those unique experiences take on their full meaning when children also have a real-life experience as musicians. Then, what they will remember best is the bridges they can build by themselves between their own practice and the magic of a concert. They catch a glimpse of the fact that the world of music is also theirs, infinite and yet within reach.

* * *

Rhythm, harmony, space and time, it’s about time we talked about them. School needs space for music: it needs to arrange its interior space, and also to open up to musical places around it.

But above all else, musical education cannot do without creative projects, practices and learning processes that need to be maintained over time with a level of progression that is not always easy to master.

This is the job of peripatetic musicians in schools, a tried and tested formula for many years, during school time and in liaison with the teachers.

Let us hope that all people playing a role in education in general will understand these needs in terms of people, training, and organization of space and time, be they teachers, headmistresses, headmasters, parents, educators, cultural partners and above all, planners.

What room is given in the space and time of school to art and the art of learning? The question of the content of a child’s day at school (whoever that child may be) may also be addressed in these terms. But beyond learning processes, if we view school as a mirror of society and vice versa, then asking this question leads to another: what space and time do we make in our lives for creation, imagination, play and mystery? After all, what else makes us living beings?

Lyon, March 6th 2013

Translation: Paul Warusfel

/…

The author

Martin Galmiche studied engineering in water and environment sciences at the National Polytechnic Institute of Toulouse and then submitted his doctorate thesis on fluid mechanics at the Institute of Fluid Mechanics in Toulouse (CNRS) focusing on turbulence, currents and internal waves in geophysics. As an instructor in engineering school, along with his thesis he also underwent educational training at the CIES of Toulouse (center of initiation to higher education). He continues his research in geophysics during his post-doc in England (University College London) and then in Grenoble at the Laboratory of Geophysical and Industrial Runoffs (CNRS). He also plays the piano and the accordion, accompanies youth choirs, is a member of La Cerise (singing group) and practices improvisation. He trains for the job of musician in school at the Training Center for Musicians in school in Lyon. He currently works in the Conservatory of Lyon as a musician in several primary schools, and as a pianist accompanying jazz dance lessons. He teaches piano to beginner students in primary schools in the context of a plan called La Cité des Pianistes.

In the collection Entre-Deux, he published in 2011 Des ponts and in 2012, La solidarité, les silences et les cris.

Musicians in school space and school time
Martin Galmiche

Éclair #1

Collection of the Centre de Formation de Musiciens Intervenant à l’école de l’Université Lumière Lyon 2, CFMI de Lyon

Resources center in artistic and cultural education cfmi@univ-lyon2.fr – www.cfmi-lyon.fr

ISBN: 978-2-490238-01-9

ISSN: 2270-7263

Free

Editorial organization:

Anne Marie Bastien and Amandine Monnet

Translation: Paul Warusfel

Graphic design: Pascale Péronnet, ij design

Digital edition: Jiminy Panoz

© CFMI, Lyon, 2017

© CFMI, Lyon, 2013 for the original draft in French

Copyrights reserved in all countries

Legal submission 4th trimester 2013 for the original draft in French

Circulation

Paper version: cfmi@univ-lyon2.fr

Digital version: https://edition-cfmi.univ-lyon2.fr

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