Modelación numérica de la estructura (Iber)

In her ethnomusicological study of musicians in Milton Keynes, Finnegan

(1989) largely accepts the merits of adopting Beckerʼs (1982) concept of

different ʻart worldsʼ, established systems that are taken for granted within their own particular social settings (Finnegan, 1989: 180). As an example of different musical worlds, she rehearses the stereotypical view of two evidently opposing systems of musical education that she encountered among local musicians:

The contrasts were indeed quite striking. One the one hand there was the

hierarchical and highly literate classical music training, with its externally

validated system of grades and progress, entered upon primarily by

children and strongly supported by parents, schools and the local network

of paid teachers, with the aim of socialising children into the traditions of

classical music theory and compositions through instruction in

instrumental skills via written forms. Against this was the other mode:

embarked on as a self-chosen mission primarily by adults and teenagers;

not necessarily approved or encouraged by parents or schoolteachers;

lacking external official validation, central bureaucratic organisation or any

“career” through progressive grades; resting on individual aspiration and

achievement in a group music-making and “oral” context rather than a

hierarchically organised examination system; leading to skills of

performance and variation by ear rather than the execution of already-

written-out works; and finding expression in performance-oriented rather

than written forms. (Finnegan, 1989: 140)

Here one method is set ʻagainstʼ the other and each presented as mutually

exclusive. There is surely some truth in this model. In the literature on informal music learning, and in the present study, there is ample evidence of activities

which would be extremely unusual in traditional classical music learning and which have until recently been somewhat overlooked by music education research: namely, the copying of recordings by ear and the kinds of peer-group interaction which take place in band rehearsals. Equally, those setting out to write, rehearse and perform their own rock songs do not generally use notation to do so. It can be helpful, then, as a descriptive device, to describe musical learning practices as belonging either to one world or another.

However, Finnegan goes on to qualify this impression. While it may be

revealing to focus on musical worlds separately, following Becker she stresses that in reality:

they do not have clear boundaries around them, that they vary in their

independence, and that people can be members of more than one such

ʻworldʼ. (Finnegan, 1989: 188)

This is true not just of musicians, who may play many different styles of music, but also of learning practices. It is not always possible to maintain a clear distinction between the worlds of traditional classical pedagogy and the ways popular musicians learn to play. As the literature suggests (and as I have found in the present study), informally-trained musicians often do, in fact, adopt practices generally thought to belong to an opposing system of learning and may well, for example, rely heavily on advice from teachers, or use notation extensively in their practice regimes. If classroom music lessons are universal (in Britain at least) and instrumental lessons apparently so commonplace among popular musicians, one might almost suggest that being formally taught should also be seen as a typical learning practice for such musicians.

Clearly, there are players who are entirely self-taught, have had no instrumental lessons, nor acquired any conscious knowledge of formal theory, technique or notation, and on whom classroom music made no impression at all. These musicians would indeed form a discrete group, though among more ʻseriousʼ or committed players they may be fairly rare; out of fourteen musicians, Green (2002) interviews only one who might qualify. The present study (albeit of teachers rather than solely musicians) would not include any. Thus aspects of

ʻformalʼ learning are often perfectly normal among popular musicians and can have a profound influence on their learning.

Learning practices, then, are not confined to one or another musical world,

and this is evident in a range of different settings. Jazz improvisation has been analysed in exhaustive detail (Berliner, 1994) and is now studied at

conservatoire level, leading to some debate as to how best to assess formally an essentially spontaneous, communal form (Barratt and Moore, 2005). Indeed, the entry into higher education of forms of music other than classical may

represent something of a shift in ʻtraditionalʼ teaching methods. Heloisa Feichas (2010) studies first-year students from various musical backgrounds in a

Brazilian university and finds that, while those who have learned informally feel the lack of reading and technical skills, conversely those who were classically- trained seek to develop their aural ability and individual creativity. She suggests that universities could and should develop an integrated model of learning which draws on both formal and informal approaches. Finney and Philpott (2010) report on a course of teacher training in England which seeks to

incorporate informal learning into the pedagogical repertoire of future classroom teachers, of whatever background. Meanwhile, the format of the classical

instrumental exam has migrated into the world of popular music. Since 1991, ʻRockschoolʼ has offered a graded exam syllabus, employing contemporary styles of music but using a familiar structure of notated pieces, sight reading, technical exercises and so on. We have to acknowledge the possibility that an over-reliance on this exam syllabus might generate musicians who have learned to play popular styles of music, yet are dependent upon notation and are unable to copy recordings or participate in group improvisation. Whether or not one would describe such a player as a ʻpopular musicianʼ is debatable.

We can accept then that the musical worlds sketched by Finnegan may in

practice have flexible and, to some extent, overlapping boundaries. However, while there does seem to be general agreement as to what constitutes

traditional, classical instrumental pedagogy, there is as yet no satisfactory way of labelling activities which fall outside this system (Lilliestam, 1996: 195). We have seen that the task of defining of ʻpopular musicʼ in terms of genre is

problematic (see section 2.2); similarly, the learning practices typically associated with different genres of popular music can vary significantly, and these differences are not always obvious from terms such as ʻpopular music learningʼ, ʻinformal learningʼ, ʻlearning by earʼ and so on. In practice, there is often some confusion about what such terms mean.

For example, Green (2002) refers to how musicians typically learn to play

rock and pop with the term ʻinformal learningʼ, yet Cope (2002) uses the same phrase in referring to how traditional Scottish folk musicians acquire their skills. In many ways these practices appear similar, but may have significant

differences. Often traditional music is learned within a community of musicians of varying standards of playing and experience (Cope 1999). As Lilliestam (1996: 208) points out, this may result in forms of ʻverticalʼ learning, with knowledge being passed ʻdownʼ from a more experienced or accomplished player to a less advanced one. This might not happen in the context of a formal lesson, but in some ways nevertheless resembles the ʻmaster and apprenticeʼ situation (Westerlund, 2006: 120) common in learning, say, classical music. Carl learned within this kind of environment, watching more experienced players, joining in when he could, and taking advice and help where he could find it. In contrast, archetypal rock bands (such as the one Bill was a member of) tend to adopt ʻhorizontalʼ forms of learning among peers of a similar age and standard who exchange ideas and learn from each other (Allsup 2003). My own sample included jazz, folk and blues players who had learned in a variety of settings; I would argue that the similarities among musicians who learn initially, and primarily, by ear outweigh the differences, but it is certainly possible to discriminate between the ways such musicians learn. Musical learning is not homogeneous simply because it takes place outside a formal lesson.

The term ʻinformal learningʼ seems to imply more about the tone, or

perhaps the context of learning rather than the content of what is learned; the phrase suggests a relaxed setting rather than a ceremonial one but says little, in itself, about the activities which take place there. As Goran Folkestad points out, it is:

a misconception and a prejudice that the content of formal music learning

is synonymous with Western classical music learned from sheets of music,

and that the content of informal music learning is restricted to popular

music transmitted by ear. (Folkestad, 2006: 142)

Moreover, it is not always easy to characterise learning practices as being one or the other. We have seen, for example, that Graham spent many solitary hours at home learning to play written transcriptions from the ʻCharlie Parker Omnibookʼ; here the setting is ʻinformalʼ but the material appears ʻformalʼ.

Meanwhile Helen improvised descant parts by ear on the recorder (ʻinformalʼ) in school assembly (ʻformalʼ). Dave used both recordings and the written score to work out how to play specific classical pieces. Thus musical practices may be a mixture of what appear to be ʻformalʼ and ʻinformalʼ activities, a subject I return to in the next chapter (4.1).

Other common terms used to categorise musicians and their learning practices present similar problems. As I suggested earlier, to describe a musician as ʻself-taughtʼ is problematic, not least since this rests on

assumptions about how people learn, and about the effects that different forms of tuition may have had. Thus we are reduced to saying largely or initially self- taught, and have to be specific about how important or extensive tuition was in particular cases.

The idea of learning or playing ʻby earʼ is equally ambiguous. Philip Priest (1989: 174) defines ʻplaying by earʼ as ʻall playing that takes place without notation being used at the timeʼ. However, McPherson and Gabrielsson state that:

Playing by ear is quite distinct from playing music from memory, which

involves performing a piece that has been memorized as a result of

repeated rehearsal of the notation. (McPherson and Gabrielsson, 2002:

100)

Lilliestam (1996: 195) accepts that ʻwe do not even have a generally agreed term for what I call “playing by ear”ʼ, which he defines as: ʻto create, perform, remember and teach music without the use of written notationʼ (ibid: 195). Lilliestamʼs definition certainly delineates a specific kind of musical activity, yet

even so may be misleading. He points out that people do not stop talking simply because they have discovered how to write; thus we may speak of oral or

literate ʻstrategiesʼ as a way of approaching musical communication. Lilliestam goes on:

It is a fact that today's hard practicing and ambitious heavy metal guitarist faces the same problems that the Swedish folk fiddler Hjort-Anders faced a hundred years ago, and that musicians who play by ear always confront: how do you identify and copy what someone else is playing, how do you

remember a piece of music and how do you get your fingers to do what you want them to do? (Lilliestam, 1996: 197)

However, as Walser (1993) points out, todayʼs heavy metal guitarists may well confront these problems in different ways, in particular by using explicitly ʻclassicalʼ pedagogy while appropriating and adopting notated classical forms. We know what Lilliestam means when he says: ʻrock music is in its whole character a music that is played by earʼ (Lilliestam, 1996: 198); ironically, Walserʼs guitarists (glancing up from their notated exercises) would probably agree. As I have already suggested, traditional pedagogy may be adopted after extensive ear-based learning, and thus will not necessarily limit the ability to play without notation and to improvise. Equally, musicians within the classical tradition may well be encouraged to develop the ability to play by ear, or develop it autonomously alongside formal tuition. ʻPlaying by earʼ is then a strategy which may be adopted by all kinds of musicians, a phrase which in itself merely describes particular musical activities rather than expresses some defining characteristic of particular musicians.

Even where music is made purely ʻby earʼ, this description may not tell us everything we need to know about it. As Christopher Small points out, some folk singers strive to re-create as precisely as possible the singing style of the

person from whom they learned a particular song, thus keeping alive and passing on an ʻauthenticʼ tradition (Small, 1987: 42); African-American gospel singers on the other hand may use the call-and-response format of singing in church to develop embellishments and improvisations which are different every week (ibid: 104). All music that is made ʻby earʼ does have something in

OʼFlynn (2006), also referring to Smallʼs Music of the Common Tongue (1987) suggests the term ʻvernacularʼ to describe a tradition of aural, informal, often amateur music-making, though he points out the problem of trying to sustain distinctions between ʻclassicalʼ, ʻtraditionalʼ and ʻpopularʼ genres. For example, he accepts that his sense of the word ʻvernacularʼ could apply to many informal music groups who are often thought to be closer to the classical

tradition, such as amateur orchestras, choirs or brass bands.

To complicate matters further, the same musician, viewed at different

stages of his or her musical career, may appear in quite different guises. For example, Bill began his musical learning by having lessons on the cello, then started playing the electric bass along to records, consciously transferred his classical reading skills from the cello onto the bass, began learning double bass by ear, went for lessons and took grade exams, played jazz and classical music, and continued to take lessons at the time of the interview, while teaching others himself. He could thus appear under virtually any label we care to devise, depending on what we are looking for, and under what circumstances we

encounter him: rock musician, classical musician, jazz musician, formal learner, informal learner, teacher, student. Personal histories may then serve as helpful adjuncts to studies like those by Jaffurs (2004) or Campbell (1995); research focusing solely on certain aspects of learning which appear unique to informal or popular styles (such as the way ʻgarageʼ bands learn and rehearse songs) may well find useful and interesting data about these specific practices, yet only catch a glimpse of the way many popular musicians develop over time. By studying the often complex biographies of popular musicians we can see learning practices which different musical worlds have in common, as well as those which distinguish them.