Le Rythme 2019

THE INNER LISTENING base of all pedagogies

Françoise Lombard

Dalcroze Eurhythmics has accompanied me since my childhood in a powerful emotional connection. At the Geneva Institute, I felt myself to be part of a large family that was evolving in a world of music, body movement and creativity so natural and integrated into my life, that it took me some time to realize the uniqueness of all that this Dalcrozian universe had printed in my DNA as a musician and teacher. I was very lucky to benefit from such a source of fulfillment. Nevertheless, one day I had to take a a step back in order to discover other horizons and other ways of approaching the music and the human being to enrich my research. Throughout all my training as a musician and pedagogue, I have constantly sought to integrate more fully the dimension of listening, foundation of all forms of communication; a conscious listening, present and always in movement.

The movement of listening

In the Pedagogy of Listening, I found concrete tools to know myself better and to work in a tangible way on my listening. I had understood from interpersonal experience what a listening in movement is and the determining place that it occupies in all pedagogies and in life in general.

A living and present listening is by definition a listening in movement. It means that it collects and connects the physical and psychological feelings, through the emotions and thoughts of the moment. Thanks to the semicircular canals of the inner ear, we pick up sounds and noises throughout the space. Ideally, the listening is thus moving and free, ensuring a permanent exchange between the interior world and the outside world. However, we all carry a history and memories that conditioned it: it has often been blocked by fears or traumatic events, frozen in reflexes of protection or anticipation, confined in habits, prejudices or other barriers. As a result, our listening has lost some of its mobility, for various reasons specific to each human being, depriving us of what is the most precious: its presence. Without this quality of presence, the conscious and global contact with the body disappears.

Thus, in a solfege class, it can happen that at the beginning of the dictation, the student only picks up the first sounds, because there suddenly arises a concern about the rhythm, which prevents him from being receptive to the sounds that follow. The blockage sometimes appears from the beginning of the dictation, because the student is convinced that he lacks the musical talent to hear successfully and then write what he has heard. This can happen even after singing many melodies, walking and clapping rhythms and doing various rhythmic exercises on musical pieces.

Listening therefore needs to regain its capacity for freedom.

This requires taking the time to reclaim one’s bodily sensations to inhabit the body and regain self-confidence. A listening in movement gives a simultaneous sensation of openness and availability in oneself and around oneself. It generates pleasure and well-being.

Putting listening into motion

Here is an exercise designed to develop the motion of listening:
Standing in a circle, we start by producing a unison sound that lasts the time necessary to install a good quality of listening to oneself and to the group. Each person lets his voice modulate at will. There is only one instruction: listen to oneself and listen to the others. We can move with the eyes open or closed, to seek contact; enjoy the freedom to join the sound of someone else momentarily, to create a dissonance or consonance, and all this according to our desire, participating without constraint in this soundscape. We let ourselves be guided by what does us good. One always remains attentive to the sensation of the vibration of his voice and those of others which also resonate in us. With the mouth open, in a nuance varying from pianissimo to forte, one gradually tames the phenomenon of a blank page on which unfolds a lively collective composition guided by a common listening. We do not give instructions regarding the end of the exercise: it is the listening of all that defines it spontaneously.

Testimonials are often very rich:  professional musiciens frequently experience a sensation of freedom: the lack of guidance and constraints (score or other) brings the individual back to his body and its sensations and opens the ears. Without any particular expectation of results, one becomes free of fear of the gaze of others and without psychological barriers, listening regains confidence and mobility.

Exercises of this type need to be repeated regularly. Each time they will be experienced differently, as the temporal and relational context is never the same.

Between teacher and students

Because each new situation is different, together we encounter the unknown, with the fragility that it implies. I like to ask my students questions about the effect of the various exercises proposed; the human being is complex and the ways of learning are personal to each one. Their answers, sometimes unexpected, often varied, enlighten me.

To foster the emergence, development and expression of the inner world of the students, the teacher has the responsibility to create a safe environment in which the student will be invited to take his place, in his own way. We must establish a relationship of trust with our students, knowing that the opening of their listening depends on it.

This framework must also be adapted to the needs of the teacher who must ensure his comfort to feel at ease in his teaching.

The place of listening in Dalcrozian pedagogy

Dalcroze pedagogy evolves in different spheres, but whatever the direction, listening is always the basis. The variety of approaches and the place given to the creativity of Dalcroze teachers offer to each one diversified gateways towards both musical and corporal languages. It is a fertile educational field that offers students the possibility of resonating, each in his own unique way.

For it is a question of allowing already existing riches or talents to resonate while generating and developing dormant possibilities.

In Eurythmics, we can notice that putting the body in motion is not necessarily enough to embody the music. If muscle movement associated with music can enhance the feeling of space and musical movement, it does not guarantee that the student will feel touched by the music and that music will genuinely vibrate within him.

Did he have enough space and time for listening to live the music IN his body? Can he really feel the music deeply if it could not resonate consciously in him?

In solfege, we see that singing the sounds of the scale included in an interval – to recognize it more easily – does not guarantee that one will physically feel the real distance separating the two sounds; this sometimes leaves doubts in voice sight-singing or dictation.

In harmony, the relation between the sounds of a chord or the relation between several successive chords is a world to discover in resonance with one’s inner space. When we let the sounds of chords vibrate throughout the body, we experience musical harmony as a succession of impressions and sensations that make us travel in interior landscapes with rich reliefs of emotions, nuances or contrasts. Here again, everyone feels them and experiences them in his own way. The setting in motion of the sensitivity (emovere lat = to move) will spontaneously create the meaning of phrasing.

These immersions in sound provide the ear with safe body markers and are an important prelude to harmonic analysis. Without this inner awakening, successions of chords may appear more neutral or theoretical.

This evolution towards bioacoustics, neuropsychology and the sciences of affectivity is, in my opinion, a logical continuation of what Dalcroze developed.

A solfege grounded in the body

I have already had occasion in various articles to speak of the links that can be established between Dalcroze Eurythmics and the Pedagogy of Listening, and the importance of the affective dimension in the teaching as well as in any form of learning. Today, I would like to suggest some exercises that one can easily integrate into the Dalcroze pedagogical universe.

Here is a progression of exercises that can be done in groups or in pairs, to recognize the pitch of sounds and the relationship between them:

• “Make the elevator”, that is to say to slide the voice from the lowest to the highest pitch and vice versa, the mouth closed – to clearly feel the movement of sound in the body – and then the mouth open. Do it in a single breath in one direction, or take a breath in the middle of the path if necessary; we insist on listening to the sensation of sound that moves in a continuous movement along the spine. We try not to “skip floors”.

• With the mouth closed, the whole group emits the same sound; then half of the group follows the teacher on another sound (start with the 5th or the 3rd) while the other half stays on the first sound. Make each sound last (we take a breath when we need it, without ever forcing the length of the expiration) to feel what happens. What sensation is connected to this unison? To the interval? Do the sounds of others also vibrate in my body? The sensory and relational experience of unison is not the same as that of two distinct sounds and most of the time, everyone agrees on this point.
  As for the interval, it gives two distinct sensations of different heights in the body as well as a sensation of the distance that separates them. By repeating this type of experiment many times, the bodily perception of these landmarks becomes a more and more reliable support for the ear.

We can do the same experiment with all the intervals: start in unison, create the interval and come back in unison. Make both groups experience each of the roles: to remain on the fundamental sound and that to create the interval and return to the base. Invite students to talk about their experiences to help them become aware of what they are going through and make it their own.

• Keep a vocal pedal of a fundamental sound to build tricords, tetracords, pentacords and complete scales, as well as to sing simple songs without modulations. The horizontal connection of the sounds of the melody is enriched by the vertical relationship with the tonic, which consolidates the intonation. We accept the friction of the seconds (which often comes back when we leave and return to the tonic in a scalewise movement) and we develop the habit of relying on bodily sensations as much as on the ear. This active participation of the body gives a new foundation and often creates a lot of joy for the person who feels or regains certain power and a confidence in his abilities.
• Create three groups from which two will hold a sound (fundamental and 5th) and the third will sing half or whole tones between the two, under the teacher’s or the student’s direction; rotate between groups so that everyone experiences it in all forms.

Then make one group only keep the bottom sound (later the medium or the top one), and make the other two voices move simultaneously with half or whole tones.

Finally make the three voices move in semitones or tones. The instruction is to stay on the sound as long as you have not received the indication to leave it ascend or descend.

This exercise brings to life the close relationship between the resonance of sounds and the resonance amongst people. Harmonic landscape changes are all the more touching when we live them and share them with our whole being.

The influence of our listening on the listening of our students

In order to be fully invested in their own listening, our students need to get in touch with our presence.

My piano teacher at the Geneva Conservatory Louis Hiltbrand noted: “Conducting implies availability; it means seeing the movement of life (the relation between sounds) within ourselves as well as without. Look, listen, feel. ” (Louis Hiltbrand, 113)

There is a notion of space and calm to be found in oneself; an availability to welcome the other in his particularities and in his difference; a confidence in one’s listening to stay internally in motion, to let oneself be touched by what is happening in the class and at the same time manage each situation adequately.

Louis Hiltbrand also said: “To listen is to speak to silence.”(Louis Hiltbrand, 141)

He had told me that as a little child he would stand in front of his piano, listen to the silence, play a sound and then listen to it return to silence.

It is not easy to find silence in oneself. Our often noisy and agitated thoughts are cumbersome. Most students (except perhaps toddlers) arrive with a listening disposition already conditioned by various types of learning and life contexts, and we are there with our own teaching habits.

It turns out that the listening exercises we offer in teaching make us participate as much as our students and also help us to cultivate this inner space.

Build links and find one’s place

Standing or sitting in a circle, each in turn (starting by the teacher) makes one sound with the mouth open, addressing it to the group. The person repeats it several times to give himself time to listen to his voice, to recognize himself in his person, to feel the caress of the vibration in his body and to appreciate the feeling of interior and exterior space that this sound reveals him. You can change your sound if the first is not comfortable. The important thing is not to anticipate anything by mentally deciding what you want to do but to let the sound come spontaneously, with the mouth well open. Once the sound is finished, the group responds to the person by making the same sound, like an echo. The aim is to listen to each other without judging or evaluating oneself, to dare to take one’s place and to become familiar being heard by a group (we do not make a sound for ourselves, as if we were in a bubble). The echo gives the opportunity to developp the sense of receptivity: do I really let myself be touched by the response that the group sends me? The response often has a very confirming effect for the person and makes him feel part of the group. It underlines the importance of being recognized first of all for who we are rather than for what we do.
This kind of experience then needs time to gather feedback from each other.

The awareness of space by listening

I often propose to the students, distributed throughout the room, to make contact with the ambient space while remaining motionless, with closed eyes, and emitting sounds, one or two with the expiration;I favor this simplicity in order to stay close to oneself. As the sounds belong to the 360° of space, we can very well perceive the volume that surrounds us by following the diffusion of the sounds all around us. Back to silence, we move elsewhere and we start again with other sounds, always together. We do not look for specific consonances or musical harmonies with the group. We let the sounds come spontaneously and welcome whatever comes out, without assessment, censure nor judgment. This freedom from thought enables us to concentrate on the feel of outer space, the feel of the space available within the body, on our quality of presence and on the presence of the other people around us.

We are already trying to combine several elements in a global listening: “In listening to the exchanges between my interior self and the outside world, I put them consciously in relationship. This inner gesture requires me to set my listening in motion. By often repeating this experience, I’ll become gradually familiar with listening to space, wherever it is: between me and the others, between me and the walls and ceiling, between the sounds, between sentences (have you ever heared that music is between the notes?), in silence. I will perceive the external space and all that lives in it in my way, because it resonates with my own inner world.”

Relationship and phrasing

The phrasing is always present in the spoken language and is modified according to the intention and the direction that one gives to it. In the same way, when one approaches the musical line and its articulation in the relation, for example by addressing sounds without words to an interlocutor, it generates a natural phrasing, varied and not dissected by too much analysis. This awakening is often provoked by words: I remember certain songs of Jaques-Dalcroze that touched me profoundly when I was young and of which I would say today that it is my heart that spontaneously expressed the phrasing.

Feeling the rhythm and the pulsation

All that prevails regarding voice, intonation and the quality of melodic expression also prevails for rhythm and pulsation. Even if the movement of the body helps the stability of a pulse or the realization of a rhythm, the addition of proprioception – which grounds the person in his body – will considerably participate in internalizing a tempo or in giving life to a rhythm.

Some ingredients to foster inner listening

The power of simplicity

Simplicity is neither emptiness nor absence. On the contrary, it offers a space of freedom favorable to listening, encounter and authenticity. It often generates a proliferation of sensations of all that lives between sounds, everything that brings us close to ourselves and to the world. Simplicity requests presence. Limit the instructions which can invade the space and hide a lack of presence.

Slowness and repetition

Living the present changes our relation to the time: it is no longer the slowness synonymous with boredom that prevails, but the slowness that brings together in a whole the different strata of the human being. Repeating an exercise or an experience becomes a valuable way to register vibrant and strong imprints that generate pleasure and confidence.
Avoid being in a hurry. Time is required for the learnings to take root in a human vibratory bioacoustic soil.

Deconstruction

To access the simplicity of the world of sensations, we must go in the opposite direction of what we have known. We need to let go of the desire to do well and the fear of disappointing, abandon the reflex of learning through willpower and let go of the markers of tensions (old habits to which we are sometimes unconciously attached) so as to discover the pleasure of what is simpler, more comfortable, broader and more accurate. For example, reproducing sounds by singing IN the body, without thinking about the intervals nor the name of the notes gives a new self-perception, a confidence in one’s own listening and in one’s body; it’s a good preparation for analysis.

In conclusion

To experience listening and to talk about it are two different worlds. No theory will ever replace the real-life feeling of it. Only experience brings a deep understanding, and therefore a better self-knowledge. Arousing sensitivity, curiosity and the creative impulse of the individual, while addressing the totality of his being, allows him to reveal himself through his authentic and spontaneous musical expression. Dalcroze has opened an extensive and inspiring way whose many developments are yet to be discovered and explored.

My warmest thanks to Mary Brice for the English translation.

References

Hiltbrand – Andrade, E. (1990) Louis Hiltbrand (limited private edition) Geneva, Switzerland

Lombard, F. Teaching differently: an approach based on listening (2015)
Lombard, F. Singing inTune: the ear has an accomplice (1995)
Lombard, F. Dalcroze Eurhythmics, an Evolving Pedagogy Being Music, Dalcroze Canada Fall 2018

Françoise Lombard is a musician and a teacher of both Eurhythmics and the ‘Art of Listening’. Having gained the Diplôme of the Institut Jaques-Dalcroze and graduated from the Geneva Conservatoire (piano, solfege and harmony), she began to train teachers of Eurhythmics in Bienne (Switzerland).

She then undertook training in the ‘Art of Listening’ (the method of François Louche), which she adapted to her own pedagogical teaching for artists, teachers and therapists in Europe and Quebec.

She lives in Montreal and divides her professional life between Eurhythmics (Canada, USA, Switzerland, Italy), ‘Art of Listening’ and composition.

Together with the singer, composer and video director Michel Comeau,

Françoise Lombard signed the creation of 3 CDs:

«resonance»(osteophonic voices a cappella),
«mon livre à moi»(book-cd for children) 
«lullabies» (piano/voices without words)