Aural curriculum

[keypeg]

I like that saying.

But please tell me I don't have to lick the piano in order to learn to play it.   

[musicrebel4u]

I like that saying.

But please tell me I don't have to lick the piano in order to learn to play it.   

If in future someone would invent a piano, where each key would have different flavor added to a pitch, they would call it 'break through' invention. Learning through licking!

[keypeg]

You must invent that piano!  And it must come with perfume, and a different texture on each key: furry, sandpaper, cold, warm, bumpy ......

But more seriously, I once told somebody that I discovered that the piano is a giant marshmallow and they understood.  If you think of the behaviour of the keys, does that make sense to you?

[musicrebel4u]

You must invent that piano!  And it must come with perfume, and a different texture on each key: furry, sandpaper, cold, warm, bumpy ......

But more seriously, I once told somebody that I discovered that the piano is a giant marshmallow and they understood.  If you think of the behaviour of the keys, does that make sense to you?

It makes sense in a very imaginative and peculiar way.
Marshmallow – something spatial in shape and melting in sounds.

I would never – ever be an inventor of any piano, where each key is concealed in different colors, shapes, smells, taste or texture. If to decode each key in let's say a scale, why should we use lines and spaces of a grand stuff and put them up and down? We could place them in line and use their differences for decoding!

[keypeg]

Ah, no. The piano has the squooshiness and textures of a marshmallow so that you can sink into the notes for all their nuances.  The other person, a teacher, understood, and wrote two long paragraphs explaining why the piano is a marshmallow.  Unfortunately the digital piano is a very poor marshmallow, and somebody else's voice is in there so that my own can barely be heard.

[musicrebel4u]

Ah, no. The piano has the squooshiness and textures of a marshmallow so that you can sink into the notes for all their nuances.  The other person, a teacher, understood, and wrote two long paragraphs explaining why the piano is a marshmallow.  Unfortunately the digital piano is a very poor marshmallow, and somebody else's voice is in there so that my own can barely be heard.

Well, a good acoustic piano is a must in artistic piano performances. Digital is just a tool to develop skills to read and play music.

[keypeg]

Digital is just a tool to develop skills to read and play music.

... and to turn off the ears.   

[musicrebel4u]

... and to turn off the ears.   

Disagree!
One of my students learned by himself a piece of Chopin. I didn't have my baby grand than and we came to his place for video taping.
But even though his piano was pretty new and tuned recently, it sounded pretty poor on tape.
We recorded him on my digital piano and it was much better quality
-https://www.doremifasoft.com/events.html
(13-year-old Jack plays "Nocturne C# minor" by Frederic Chopin)

There are many pretty good digital pianos out there
Also, when kids learn how to draw or paint we don't give them the finest and the most expansive colors or pencils that made for professionals simply because they won't notice any difference and just want bright colors!

[m19834]

... and to turn off the ears.   

hee hee ... I have to say something kind of humorous (to me anyway  ) in relation to turning off our ears and ear training.  When I was in school, I went through a few-week-phase of playing with double ear plugs in ... LOL.  I even spent some time with ear plugs in and lights off  .  I had a theory about it all back then and it was an interesting experiment .  One of my friends walked in on this though ... hee hee... and was a little confused, I think.

[mike_lang]

Also, when kids learn how to draw or paint we don't give them the finest and the most expansive colors or pencils that made for professionals simply because they won't notice any difference and just want bright colors!

That's a cute analogy, but I think you would be surprised at the sound that kids are capable of pulling out of the piano (or at least discerning aurally) at early ages.  There is no substitute for the feel and sound of a real acoustic piano.

[keypeg]

Also, when kids learn how to draw or paint we don't give them the finest and the most expansive colors or pencils that made for professionals simply because they won't notice any difference and just want bright colors!

In visual art I gave my children varied materials and allowed them full exploration of their properties.  They notice the textures, their senses are very sharp and acute at that age, and they make full use of their senses.   Young children are much more sensitive to nunaces than we are.  Children "like" bright colours (stereotypically) because that is what they are given.  One of my children works in visual arts/science combined and the other is training in music.  They are both adults.

You did not have time to answer when I asked earlier whether you are familiar with the Waldorf schools created by Rudolf Steiner in the early 1900's.  Steiner, in turn, was reacting to the very materilistic trend happening at the turn of the last century.  He combined body, mind, and spirit in his education.

Steiner's school is in muted, intermingling colours.  There is nothing "bright" about them.

We have rampant "attention deficit", i.e. ADD, while at the same time in the school system the watchword is "stimulate, stimulate, stimulate" and then we wonder why overstimulated, sensitive and intelligent children act .... er .... overstimulated.  Grrr.

No, Musicrebel4U, I disagree profoundly about limiting our children to bright colours, fat crayons, gigantic paintbrushes, stereotypical art lessons.  I disagree with limiting the exploration and sensation of real instruments.  Young children are very impressionable, and when they are given the bright colours in either paints or sound, the senses dull.  Maybe they can be "stimulated" but why dull them in the first place.

I am not a theoretician, though I have read my share of theories, and not only the mainstream.  This has been my contention elsewhere, when you write "This is how everyone teaches."  There have been many counterstreams and alternatives.  I have explored and adapted my own.  I visited alternative schools of various philosophies when my children were young.  I created my own programs for young children.  I worked with teachers of various kinds and philosophies.  I discussed and observed pedagogical ideas with homeschooling parents.  Did you know that many homeschooling parents are teachers who opt for homeschooling because of what they have seen?

We have discussed the senses, and bringing the senses into the theory of music. This is a good thing.  The more senses that are involved, the better for learning.

But then there is the proposal of sensory deprivation.  There is the idea that while the music theory is learned via the piano, the piano itself must become a fat, bright red crayon.  The child cannot at the same time explore all the stimulus that a piano can offer.  His first touch has to be a dead one, on a dead machine.  I'm sorry, but that's what digital pianos are.  And a young child who has not been ruined by the school system and the various "learn fast" devices, is a sensitive and receptive creature. The idea of bright colours and limited tastes is a stereotype that we foist on these highly intelligent beings, and it is insulting to them.

I have had the privilege of raising two young people who gave me their feedback on things.  I nurtured each exploration that came along.  I learned that young children are complex, aware, intelligent beings and also that they explore deeply abstract ideas.  Those ideas, however, are couched in mythology - trying to grasp the concept of relative size by considering the size of a dragon's eye when we are as big as that dragon's pupil, in order to grasp the idea of immensity.

A young child can be mesmerized by the sensation of a dimpled orange on the skin, while we are oblivious to it.  This high degree of sensitivity and awareness, which is an intelligence, is lost on many adults.  Why must we be perpetually shouting at them with our bright colours and simplified drawings?  Why must we deafen them with our noise, so as to render them stupid?  I suppose that I am moving into the territory of Danny Elfboy and the writings of John Holt, which I not only read, but followed.

Please don't get me wrong.  I do not see anything wrong with teaching music theory and playing through digital pianos or computer software of the kind you propose.  There are many advantages to it.  But I am against the idea of children being that insensitive and unaware.   If a real piano is to be had, all the better.

In the same way I reacted strongly to the suggestion that schools should get rid of recorders and musical instruments and replace them with computers and keyboards.  Yes and no.  In the way that recorder playing is taught, it would be better if the child were handed a recorder, told to explore on his own, and never have a "lesson" in the average classroom.  I have helped children who have asked me for help in the neighbourhood after such "lessons".  Wildly blowing into the instrument with memorized fingerings that were nothing more than endless series of numbers, so that they could perform like circus animals for parents who were to be convinced that their children were "learning music" because a tangible song ensued.  If this is the approach, music is killed.  The little girl I taught was wide-eyed with excitement when she heard the relationship between up and down sounds, and the lifting of fingers.  I led her into exploration of the instrument itself.  The tactile and audial exploration of sound, vibrations, tones, is something that the smallest child can indulge in.  That's the stuff we call noise, I suppose, but it isn't.