PHILOSOPHY IN THE STUDIO Jody Heald - appca.com.au · PHILOSOPHY IN THE STUDIO Jody Heald Abstract This paper examines some ideas from phenomenological human science research and

12th Australasian Piano Pedagogy Conference Proceedings Jody Heald

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PHILOSOPHY IN THE STUDIO

Jody Heald Abstract This paper examines some ideas from phenomenological human science research and thinking in education today within the context of a master-apprentice model of studio piano teaching. I give a précis of phenomenology and its emergence as an approach to narrative writing in the first person. This enables me to explore how important genealogy can be for both master and apprentice as a valuable dimension of a powerful pedagogical relationship. I share narratives from some renowned pianist-pedagogues. As educators influenced by and influencing others, I suggest we develop reflective practices in the studio and describe some applications of this approach in music pedagogy.


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Studio piano teachers belong to a tradition of one-to-one instruction often referred to as

the master-apprentice or mentor-protégé model. The tradition’s genealogy extends over

hundreds of years and often finds its origins in the great music masters such as Mozart,

Clementi, Haydn and Beethoven.

Illustration 1.

<https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3ACarl-Czerny-piano-heritage-tree.jpg>

This first illustration (available with the Wikimedia hyperlink above, for more detailed

viewing) is from the prominent American publication for pianists, The Etude (April 1927).

It is a snapshot of one perspective of this genealogy and the importance that the

particular passing on of wisdom from specific teachers to pupils holds in piano pedagogy.


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Illustration 2.

<http://music.sydney.edu.au/study/areas-of-study/piano/>

This second more contemporary illustration from the Sydney Conservatorium Piano Unit

(University of Sydney web page), points to Laurence Godfrey-Smith and his pupil, my

own teacher Gordon Watson, as ‘luminaries’ in its ‘proud history’ of teaching staff.

I have been able to establish that Laurence Godfrey-Smith was a pupil of the renowned

Vienna-based teacher Theodore Leschetitsky (1830-1915), himself a student of Carl

Czerny (1791-1857) who in turn was a student of Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827).

Carl Czerny is regarded as a kind of ‘portal’ from the world of Beethoven to what we now

regard as a German School of pianism.

For the purposes of my study of the nature of this unique relationship, I have interviewed

significant pianists who have recounted their experiences of studies with famous teachers

and, in addition, I have observed many hours of lessons in a number of teaching

institutions both within Australia and elsewhere.


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I observed the teaching of Ronald Farren-Price (based at the University of Melbourne)

and later, in interview, learnt of his own journey from apprentice to that of eminent

master—a path similar to that of his sister, Ruth Nye, Head of Keyboard at the Menuhin

School in the UK. I had the privilege of observing Nye’s work at the school for two days

in September 2006. As young adults of considerable pianistic talent, both Ronald and

Ruth had the good fortune to become students of the internationally renowned Chilean-

born pianist, Claudio Arrau.

For Farren-Price and Nye, the significance of Arrau’s expertise derived from his specific

pedagogical genealogy is of utmost importance to understanding their development as

pianists, pedagogues and leaders in their chosen profession. It informs their worldview as

musicians and, in turn, that of their students.

In interview with Farren-Price, he explained that his initial period of study with Arrau was

for three years whilst abroad, Arrau being based in New York. Following that period of

study, Farren-Price returned to Australia to commence a teaching position at the

University of Melbourne. In emphasising the importance and the ongoing nature of his

protégé-mentor relationship with Arrau in his own life, Ronald said, ‘the association never

stopped while he was alive’ (Farren-Price, R pers. comm., November 2014). This was

also the case for his sister Ruth, who with her then young family, moved to New York for

a year of in-depth study with Arrau. Nye maintained a deep and lasting relationship with

Arrau for the rest of his life.

The author Roma Randles, in her book, A Life in Music: Ruth Nye and the Arrau Heritage,

has reproduced two lectures given by Nye in London entitled ‘My Time With Arrau’. These

are the closing remarks of the first lecture:

Those of you in this audience who are my students are beneficiaries of the following

unbroken and priceless heritage:

I studied with Claudio Arrau.

Arrau studied with Martin Krause.

Martin Krause studied with Liszt.

Liszt studied with Czerny.

Czerny studied with Beethoven.

Beethoven studied with Haydn.

We have this unbroken line going right back to 18th century Haydn. It is a precious and

valuable heritage of which we are privileged to be part. If you value it you also will feel a

responsibility to pass it on to those who come after you. (Nye Public Lecture February 6th

2005)


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In this statement, Nye is exhorting her students to value their own lived experience, to

reflect on the influences in their own learning and to be aware of those influences when

engaged in education in the future. Indeed, one could say that Nye is practising that

which she preaches.

For those of us who are piano teachers, an understanding of this kind of genealogy is a

given, a fact of the history of piano pedagogy, which at times can be taken for granted.

For serious students of piano, finding the ‘right’ teacher is extremely important. Often, as

a student advances, it becomes essential for that student to move to wherever the

sought-after teacher is, regardless of the association of that teacher with a particular

educational institution or not. The finest teachers may or may not be attached to

educational institutions. If the student continues into pianistic professional life, the

lineage of instruction is almost always a feature in biography.

Teachers such as Artur Schnabel, Heinrich Neuhaus, Nadia Boulanger, Egon Petri, Paul

Badura-Skoda, Alfred Brendel and Maria Curcio to name just a few, are examples of the

importance of individual teacher’s influence through pedigree and the power of their

unique personalities. Many accounts are given by students of such teachers emphasising

the unique quality of the relationship and the significance of such a relationship in their

own lives.

My interest is in the particular nature of this type of relationship between the teacher

(master) and the student (apprentice), its place in the canon of pianistic pedagogy, and

developing a deeper understanding of that relationship. One method of inquiry is

philosophical, in particular, a type of reflective examination of life events known as

Phenomenology, a type of human science research.

Such a philosophical inquiry into aspects of the master-apprentice model of teaching

may at first seem to be an unnecessary, or even irrelevant activity for the studio piano

teacher. Reflective evaluation is in no way a stranger to the study of music, especially

Western Art Music, and I believe it to be essential in both the learning of, and the

teaching of music, especially in the one-to-one situation of studio teaching. Reflective

practice has in recent times become part of training and ongoing professional

development in some professions such as medicine, education and even in the world of

business. It involves an examination and evaluation of one’s work, often by use of

journal entries, which provide the opportunity to synthesise learned theory with practical

experience. In consequence, the reflective practice itself becomes a form of further

learning and development for the individual practitioner.


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Some of the important teachers in the history of piano pedagogy have published

accounts of their teaching methods; often this involves a revelation of their reflections

and philosophical thoughts on the task at hand.

In his book The Art of Piano Playing, Heinrich Neuhaus writes,

I want to emphasize the importance of impressing upon every pupil from the beginning, just how precious is the stuff with which he will be dealing all his life if he really devotes himself to the service of the art. I never fail to feel that I am in the presence of a miracle as I explain to my pupils the works of genius of the great musicians, and we strive together to the best of our abilities to fathom their depth, probe their mysteries, understand their structure and raise ourselves to their lofty heights. I know that it is this awareness of the miracle and the joy it brings – the joy of sensing it and knowing it for what it is – which gives meaning to my life, which forces me as a teacher to work much harder than “staff regulations” require and to give of my self without stinting. (1993, p.5)

Neuhaus is revealing an important aspect of his teaching practice, in which he

examines his actions critically.

Phenomenology from the Greek phainómenon—that which appears—and logos, as

described in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy states that it,

studies conscious experience as experienced from the subjective or first person point of

view. This field of philosophy is then to be distinguished from, and related to, the other

main fields of philosophy: ontology (the study of being or what is), epistemology (the

study of knowledge), logic (the study of valid reasoning), ethics (the study of right and

wrong action), etc. (2013, Winter Edition)

As with the genealogy of pianism, schools of philosophical thought also have a lineage.

Phenomenology has some of its earliest roots in the writings of German philosophers

such as Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831) who was interested in the

exploration of phenomena—that which we perceive consciously—and the absolute

logical, ontological and metaphysical Spirit, behind the phenomena in focus, known as

dialectical phenomenology, and later, in the work of Edmund Husserl (1859-1938) who

was interested in the reflective study of phenomena, seeking the essence of

consciousness from a first-person point of view, known as transcendental

phenomenology.

Various schools of phenomenological thought have developed from the early twentieth

century and further understanding of the evolution of this type of evaluative and

analytical thinking can be seen in writers as diverse as the hermeneutic philosophers

concerned with the interpretation of texts, such as Martin Heidegger, (Germany, 1889-


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1976) and Hans-Georg Gadamer (Germany, 1900-2002), existentialists concerned with

the uniqueness of each individual, as distinct from universal human qualities, such as

Maurice Merleau-Ponty (France 1908-62) and Jean-Paul Sartre (France 1905-80), and

other philosophers concerned with ethics and narrative, such as Paul Ricoeur (France,

1913-2005) and Emmanuel Levinas (France, 1906-95).

Professor Emeritus (University of Alberta Canada) Max van Manen (1942-) is a Dutch-

born Canadian citizen trained initially in Holland where he gained the State Pedagogical

Academy qualifications for all levels (K-12). He migrated to Canada in 1967 and

completed postgraduate studies at the University of Alberta. During these studies he

became aware of the profound contrast in approaches to education in North America and

the Netherlands, the former having a much more behaviourist and systems analysis

approach, the latter, having an approach that addressed the personal, relational,

motivational, emotional and values-based pre-conditions of good teaching. In order to

introduce his postgraduate education students to the European approach, he translated

classic phenomenological pedagogical texts from German and Dutch into English. He has

written a number of books on phenomenology in practice, including The Tone of

Teaching (1986), Researching Lived Experience (1990), The Tact of Teaching (1991) and

Phenomenology of Practice (2014).

He has a keen interest in the cyber world of education and has created an online site

called phenomenologyonline. This invaluable resource for phenomenological researchers

in any professional field includes an attempt to account for some of the orientations of

phenomenology, which have emerged throughout the philosophical and phenomeno-

logical literature. It lists the following:

1. Transcendental phenomenology is most clearly identified with the path-breaking

work of Husserl and his collaborators and interpreters such as Eugene Fink, Tymieniecka,

and Van Breda.

2. Existential phenomenology is associated with Heidegger, Sartre, de Beauviour,

Merleau-Ponty, Marcel, and others.

3. Hermeneutical Philosophy is linked especially with Heidegger, Gadamer, and Ricoeur.

4. Linguistical phenomenology includes the French language oriented work of Blanchot,

Derrida and Foucault, even though the latter denied that he was a phenomenologist.

5. Ethical phenomenology is exemplified in the work of Scheler, but later especially with


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the thinking of Levinas - under whom Derrida studied the works of Husserl and Heidegger.

6. Phenomenology of practice is used here to designate the employment of

phenomenological method to applied professional contexts such as clinical psychology,

medicine, education or pedagogy, nursing, counseling, and also to the use of

phenomenological method in contexts of practical concerns of everyday living. Early

protagonists of phenomenology of practice are medical practitioners such as the

psychiatrists Binswanger and Van den Berg, clinical psychologists such as Buytendiijk and

Linschoten, and educators or pedagogues such as Langeveld and Bollnow. Examples of

contemporary scholars who work within contexts of phenomenology of practice are

Amadeo Giorgi (psychology), Patricia Benner (nursing) and Max van Manen (education and

pedagogy). (2011)

In the course of my research, I interviewed my own PhD Supervisor, Adjunct Associate

Professor Dr Roya Pugh, as part of my inquiry into the first person experience of the

mentor-protégé relationship. Pugh uses phenomenological inquiry in her research.

Phenomenology is most significantly a particular kind of writing practice. Pugh states:

It is a study of a phenomenon. The phenomenon can be any phenomenon that you happen

to be intensely passionate about. It might be something that holds you in awe of it…why

am I passionate about it? Why does it awake such passion and compassion in me that I

want to write about it? (Pugh, R 2014 pers. comm., 7 October)

She goes on to describe the process as that of studying a particular lived experience

within defined boundaries such as, in my own case, being the teacher with one student.

In his book Phenomenology of Practice Max van Manen suggests:

So, writing a phenomenological text is a reflective process of attempting to recover and

express the ways we experience our life as we live it – and ultimately to be able to act

practically in our lives with greater thoughtfulness and tact. (2014 p.20)

As piano teachers, we are required to impart a wealth of knowledge and skills to our

students. In so doing, we often conduct long associations with our students and develop

relationships, which may last beyond that of the pianistically pedagogical. We instruct in

all manner of physical, intellectual, emotional and even spiritual dimensions and are in

many cases a ‘significant other’ in the lives of our students.

Both Farren-Price and Nye describe the ongoing and powerful nature of their individual

relationships with Arrau. As he aged, Arrau relied heavily on Nye to help with many

practical aspects of his continuing professional life.


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Another of the pianists I have interviewed is my former teacher the Hobart-based Beryl

Sedivka. She began lessons as a six-year-old with the renowned pedagogue Marcel

Ciampi at the Paris Conservatoire. Ciampi heard the very young Sedivka play while they

were both holidaying in France and offered to take her for lessons. Her lessons involved

a long journey every six weeks from her medieval hometown of Dinan in Breton to Paris.

Ciampi was also teaching the Menuhin sisters at this same time, just prior to World War

ll. Her mother took her to these lessons, took thorough notes and ensured that the

young Beryl faithfully followed the given regimen of exercises and repertoire in between

lessons.

When exploring with Sedivka the strong nature of the relationship with Ciampi—this

significant other—and the power that relationship had in her own life, she observed:

There is no doubt that when I was a kid Ciampi virtually ruled our life. I know my brother

went to school, my father taught of course… but everything operated around my lessons

with Ciampi, and how well I was doing with Ciampi. (Sedivka, B 2014, pers. comm., 22

April)

Our role in teaching Western Art Music and all its hybrid forms in the twenty-first century

is to develop the most appropriate skills for our students to enable the following: to

faithfully reproduce the great works of the masters; to satisfactorily create their own

music through notation and/or improvisation; or to introduce our students to the vast

world of music in all its guises and to develop a capacity to appreciate and critically

evaluate it. We expect of ourselves the ability to develop a sense of what it is to both

experience and express that ineffable quality we refer to as musicality, in whatever

measure is available to the student.

In so doing, we cannot separate our own life experiences of trying to understand what it

is to be musical, or the nature of the concept of what musicality is. The question that

always arises is: is musicality innate or is it an acquired skill? In his article ‘Music

Teachers’ Everyday Conception of Musicality’, Sture Brändström posits the notion that:

The music teachers’ attitudes toward musicality and the way they show it in action, is one

of the most important determinants of the music interests of students. (1999, p.21)

Here Brändström is opening a phenomenological perspective indicating that the life-

world of the music teacher, the particular first person point of view of the music teacher

is of paramount importance in the pedagogical relationship. One’s view of what it is to be

musical is deeply bound up in how we acquired our knowledge and how we see ourselves


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in the world. This also points to the power of influence the teacher has in the unique

relationship—a power that can be constructive or at times destructive.

We teach by example. Our evaluations both positive and negative profoundly affect the

progress and development of the students with whom we work, and it behoves us to

develop a particularly tactful method of influencing our students, to bring out the best in

them.

In his book, The Tact of Teaching the Meaning of Pedagogical Thoughtfulness, Max van

Manen introduces the notion of tact as an essential component of the pedagogical

relationship. He explores the etymology of the word and the German word Takt, the

‘beat’ in music, which is the underlying pulse in music, rhythm being the ‘the heart of

music’ (1991, p.131). Gradually from its exclusively musical connotation, the notion of

tact came into use in the social sphere. Through acting tactfully with another ‘one must

be able to “hear”, “feel”, “respect” the essence or uniqueness of this person’ (p. 131).

As piano teachers, we are sharing the experience of how to make this particular

instrument, the piano, an instrument of deep expression both of the creations of others,

and of ourselves. Maurice Merleau-Ponty in his book Phenomenology of Perception,

emphasises that it is through our bodies that we experience and incorporate that which

is happening around us. He suggests that a person’s ego does not end at the boundary

of his skin. He cites the example of the blind man with his stick. The stick is an extension

of the blind man’s body, and he uses it to experience the world. Similarly, the piano

becomes the extension of the pianist’s body. Merleau-Ponty sees these ‘as examples of

humankind’s ability to relate to itself through instruments’ (Alerby: Ferm; Fung; Brown,

Fall 2005 p. 181). Through developing myriad skills in our students, we teach the habit

of pianism. According to Merleau-Ponty,

Habit expresses the power we have of dilating our being in the world or of altering our

existence through incorporating new instruments. (2012, p. 145)

The Canadian concert pianist and professor of music and philosophy, Yaroslav Senyshyn

is based at the Simon Fraser University Faculty of Education. His research explores the

interdisciplinary areas of arts and moral education. He often employs an existential-

phenomenological approach in his writings. His wife, Susan O’Neill has edited a

publication Personhood and Music Learning: Connecting Perspectives and Narratives,

produced by the Canadian Music Educators’ Association. This publication is a collection of

research papers each asking reflective questions at the outset and addressing those

questions by employing the narrative technique of phenomenological writing. In his


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paper Personhood of the Music Teacher: A Narrative Plea for Humility and the Good,

Senyshyn asks questions such as, ‘How does one put philosophy into action through

music education?’ and ‘How does one acquire a genuine empathy for your students if

you don’t like them in the first place?’ (2012, p.241)

These reflective questions are then addressed in a first-person narrative manner,

drawing from his own lived experience and his own sense of what personhood is, by

linking it to the idea of self and being, and arguing for the music teacher to develop an

authentic individualism and humility. Questions such as these and many more should be

of concern to all teachers whether in the classroom or within the particularly discrete

situation of the one to one piano lesson.

Professor Jack Whitehead is a Visiting Professor at the University of Cumbria in the UK.

He contributes to the website <www.actionresearch.net>. The Home page gives an

account of the phenomenological approach to educational research described as Living

Educational Theory. This is his description of this approach taken from the web site.

The approach stresses the importance of extending the influence of these ontological and

relational values and understandings in explanations of educational influence. In a Living

Educational Theory approach to research and a human existence, individuals hold their

lives to account by producing accounts of their living-educational theories; that is

‘explanations of their educational influences in their own learning, the learning of others

and the learning of social formations, in enquiries of the kind, “How am I improving what I

am doing?”’ (Whitehead, 1989)

Whitehead came to develop his ideas through a rigorous self-examination of his own

teaching practice using a video camera. He recorded many hours of his lessons and

critically analysed and evaluated his work. He encourages the postgraduate students

whom he supervises to do the same and to include audio-visual material in their

research papers.

The online world opens countless opportunities to witness the desire of studio teachers

worldwide to reflect, evaluate and share ideas on piano teaching both practical and

philosophical. A social media site, such as The Australian Piano Teachers’ Hub on

Facebook, attests to a genuine desire to explore issues of many aspects of the daily lives

of studio piano teachers. The New School for Music Study is a division of The Frances

Clark Center for Keyboard Pedagogy, an American organisation whose work is based on

the philosophy of music educator Frances Clark (1908-95). The website for the

organisation <http:/www.pianopedagogy.org> (2015) includes a blog for pedagogues


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with Philosophy in the list of the contents. Here bloggers are actively writing their

reflections on their studio teaching experiences in a first person lived-experience

manner.

The kinds of questions that may arise in private studio teaching are as varied as those

with whom we are interacting. Questions of disposition in relation to each student will

always arise, how best to deal with students of different ages, abilities, social and

cultural backgrounds; our interaction with their families, our values and expectations of

all concerned; the appropriateness or otherwise of particular behaviours and attitudes

held by either party, to suggest just a few. In reflecting on the importance of questioning

one’s own practice as an educator, I am reminded, from my childhood, of the voice of

the former eminent physicist and pioneering television science educator, Professor Julius

Sumner Miller, who repeatedly asked in his rasping American voice, ‘Why is it so?’


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References

Alerby, E, Ferm, C, Fung, C, & Brown, C 2005, ‘Learning Music: Embodied Experience in the Life-World’, Philosophy of Music Education, Vol. 13, No. 2, Fall 2005, pp.177-210.

Brändström, S 1999, Music Teachers’ Everyday Conceptions of Musicality, Bulletin of the Council for Research in Music Education, No.141 Summer pp. 21-25.

Manen van, M 1991, The Tact of Teaching the Meaning of Pedagogical Thoughtfulness Albany: State University of New York Press.

Manen van, M 2011, PhenomenologyOnline viewed 6th January 2015, <http:/ www.phenomenologyonline.com/inquiry/orientations-in-phenomenology/>.

Manen van, M 2014, Phenomenology of Practice Walnut Creek CA: Left Coast Press, Inc.

Neuhaus, H 1993, The Art of Piano Playing, London: Kahn & Averill.

Nye, R 2005, ‘My Time With Arrau’, (public lecture) in R Randles,(ed.), A Life in Music Ruth Nye and the Arrau Heritage, 2012, Guilford: Grosvenor House Publishing Ltd.

Merleau-Ponty, M 2012, Phenomenology of Perception New York: Routledge.

PianoPedagogy.Org 2015, The New School for Music Study, Princeton New Jersey viewed 10th January, 2015 < http:/www.pianopedagogy.org>.

Senyshyn, Y 2012, ‘Personhood of the Music Teacher: A Narrative Plea for Humility and the Good’, in S O’Neill (ed.), Personhood and Music Learning: Connecting Perspectives and Narratives, Waterloo : Canadian Music Educators’ Association/ L’Association canadienne des musiciens éducateurs, Faculty of Music, Wilfrid Laurier University.

Smith, David Woodruff, ‘Phenomenology’, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Winter 2013, Edward N. Zalta (ed.) viewed 6th January 2015, <http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2013/entries/phenomenology/>

Whitehead, J 1989 ‘Creating a Living Educational Theory from Questions of the Kind: How do I Improve My Practice?’ hyperlink viewed 10th January 2015, <http:/www.actionresearch.net>.


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About the Author:

Jody Heald is a pianist and teacher who was educated at the Sydney Conservatorium High School whilst a student of Gordon Watson. In Tasmania, she studied with Beryl Sedivka. She has performed as both soloist and co-artist. She is accepted as a candidate for a Doctor of Philosophy at Curtin University. Her teaching practice is thriving in Hobart.

She is President of the Tasmanian Music Teachers’ Association and Chairman of the Australasian Piano Pedagogy Conference Association. She is syllabus consultant and examiner for the AMEB, and is invited to adjudicate, present on pedagogical matters, and conduct master classes throughout Australia

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PHILOSOPHY IN THE STUDIO Jody Heald - appca.com.au · PHILOSOPHY IN THE STUDIO Jody Heald Abstract This paper examines some ideas from phenomenological human science research and