Abstracts Are Not Only Used as Wall Hangings!

by Joyce-Anne Locking B.Mus.

Music is abstract sound expressing emotion which is subjective not concrete. Music is deep rather than horizontal in thought. It reminds me of a saying about happiness. Happiness, as poet Robert Frost put it, makes up in height what it lacks in length. Music is a kind of happiness too and it can describe happiness, or the lack of it, beyond words.

Mind images were the main topic of the Piano Teacher's Workshop I recently attended. Composer Nancy Telfer spoke of melody as a flower, a treasure to be sought out by the student and of music expressed first through the face, the body, and the instrument. "Be creative," was the instruction to teachers in search of methods to improve teaching. Smooth stones, great balls of snow, cat steps, honey: all are mind images used to improve the quality of music produced by the student. What do skateboards rolling toward an audience have to do with it? Well, it is the mind image for expressing a crescendo! Mind images can be useful tools for effective music teaching.

The word abstract means essence according to Oxford Dictionary. And the essence of teaching can benefit greatly from the use of abstract thought in the creation of a music lesson. Also touched on was the topic of performance anxiety, an affliction haunting would-be performers. A cure for such a misery was offered in the form of the famous "create a diversion" theory. It seems to work! When a student is provided with a means of getting the mind off the source of anxiety by being threatened (so to speak) with an interruption to the process of a performance, the true capabilities of the performer begin to shine through. It is amazing the things a teacher can produce through rituals and relaxation techniques as well as opening the energy of the brain, muscles and heart through effective breathing.