Musical Literacy, Fluency, Education Archer, Ken (2010-02) PART 1 >>KEN ARCHER: All right, in terms of literacy and music in relation to me, I would like to start by dealing with how I got into music literacy, if you call it that. I started off playing guitar along with a book my father brought for me. He lived in St. Thomas, and he bought a book, Extemporaneous Guitar Playing. And he bought a guitar for me so I basically started to teach myself guitar from that book. So as necessity mandated I had to also learn- I didn't know musical time in terms of written music; I also had to learn notation and so on to a limited extent to follow the initial teachings in the book. So it was a self learning process, that was sufficient enough to open my world to the guitar in terms of chords and so on and so forth. "I am not sure if the book title is correct, but that is what if it sounded like to me." Is >>KEN ARCHER: Subsequently I, some years later, became involved in a cultural group, a default cultural group. And I was given the opportunity to go to a youth camp in Canada, I came in contact with some British musicians, who were very schooled in music. I composed Calypsos and so on for me to sing. So there were also songs that I sang from home, like I would perform in this camp. And this group of musicians amazed me from the first time I was in contact with something like that. They would have me sing my songs for them and one would sit with his legs crossed and would write music without touching an instrument or anything. >>KEN ARCHER: And it literally amazed me. It was the first time and I was seeing something like this, so that's whats driving me to want to "professionalize" my music knowledge and performance abilities and so on. And it is what has sort of carried me along this road in terms of continuing music education. Basically, that is what carried me along this road. A brief narrative but what can you add to that, right? >>KEN ARCHER: While I think I still have a lot to do in terms of becoming a fluent site reader, I am fully able to read notation and so on, analyze any piece piece of music put in front of me and so on and so forth. And it is based on that,the drive to do that came from that initial experience of seeing these musicians just sit and write the Calypso I sang for them-without any-I played guitar and sang and they just wrote down the Calypso. And they were doing this so that their band could accompany me and other artists who work part of this youth camp. >>INTERVIEWER: How old were you when you were doing this? >>KEN ARCHER: I was in my early twenties. >>INTERVIEWER: Where did this inspiration come from? I mean when you got the book you just got a book, and you taught yourself how to play guitar. Where did that come from? >>KEN ARCHER: OK, when I got it, I was like 13 years old when I got this book and guitar, when my father brought it for me. The community I come from in Trinadad is a community that has, I don't know if you know what Parang is. Parang is a type of music that is sung in Spanish at Christmas or the period approaching Christmas in Trinidad. A lot of these songs deal with the birth of Christ, Nacimiento I think they call it, some of them deal with they call it, Auginaldo and so on and so forth; different types of compositions for the Christmas season. >>KEN ARCHER: And the village I come from had a very popular Parang group, The Larbarlas (???). And then there were other young people who would form their own groups. One of them, my uncle became involved with one of them. And if for brief moment sang and played cuatro if and so on. Cuatro is a four string guitar type instrument, right, he sang and played. So from time to time he would come home with his Cuatro and sing for his mother who was my grandmother and so on. And this sort of thing sort of put me to wanting to play the guitar and so on. I don't know if that answered answers you, alright? "I cannot make out the Parang band name. I know it is a Spanish term but I cannot be sure that I heard correctly." >>INTERVIEWER: Absolutely, I think was fantastic actually. I want to dig more into the confidence you had, I mean you got a book, I had a guitar teacher and I was excited about learning guitar when I was in junior high- no, high school. It was a huge deal to me. He came into class, I remember his name to this day, Mr. Hanjin, and he walked in and broke my heart. He said, well I don't play guitar so if you had hopes of learning from a crack guitar player you can forget it. But here's the book, were going to open to page one. And if really happened, and I didn't have the capacity to teach myself. But you could pick up that book and not only deal with the text but then figure out the music as well. Can you talk about that a little bit? "I was not sure that I heard the name of the teacher correctly, but wrote what I heard." >>KEN ARCHER: Okay, that initial book, I can't remember the author of the book, that I said Extemporaneous Guitar Playing was the title. It had tablature, you know what tablature, is in terms of diagrammatic representations of the guitar chords. So, you would have a diagram, showing first hand strings on the guitar, and you would be told where to put each finger to form G, C, etc. But going along with that there was other songs, like On Top of Old Smokey and so on, that would encourage you to play the songs or sing them, and play the chords along. >>KEN ARCHER: So I just took an interest in doing this, I really did. As a matter of pride coming here, or pride and coming to the U.S. in the nineties for further studies, there was a period where I would touch my guitar literally every day. My aunt would confirm that, tell other people that this boy always, you know -I would touche this guitar literally everyday, j from the time I got it. Essentially with regards to guitar playing I am very much self taught. While I have studied in a city college in New York, I have studied here, in terms of music generally my lessons, in terms of going to someone for guitar lessons are very, very limited. >>KEN ARCHER: In Trinidad I took lessons from about three people. The first two were about a month each and then I took from a guy, Tony remembers his name, he runs a school, I took classical guitar lessons for a year or so. But at that time I had already developed basic fluency in terms of reading and so on, this was after the period I just spoke about in terms of going to this camp and so on. And then while I was at city college in New York, Harlem's part of the university in New York, I took lessons from a woman, a blues guitarist, for like a month. Then I also attended Samyung Klijar's Mobile in New York. I think the guy who runs the guitar section in mobile was a guy by the name of Rick stone. I took like a month or so, it was wintertime so I was sort of difficult for me to be traveling in the cold and so on, so that's the main reason I stopped both of those classes. "Again, I am not sure I hear if I heard the name of the Mobile correctly." >>KEN ARCHER: But other than that, the bulk of my guitar playing experience, particularly I play more chord and rhythm and so on and then chord and melody and so on, is totally self taught. Looking at my books and listening, so on and so forth. >>INTERVIEWER: Can you talk a little bit, you use terms like fluency, and then you talk about different kinds of music from jazz to blues to various other kinds. Can you talk about what you mean by basic music fluency, to someone who doesn't understand that? And also to talk about how you were able to then translate to different forms of music. And how that was related to literacy. >>KEN ARCHER: Okay, let's see if I get it. In terms of fluency as a player, alright, there's a fluency in terms of literacy, could be normally assessed as being able to read and or write, and understand either what is read or what is written. For me that is one part of music, in terms of music literacy, that is normally accepted as music literacy. So fluency as a reader is something to be developed as as a musician. The well cultured readers and a lot of youths in America here and even at home, because of the culture that they're in a band or like in a high school band, they develop very fluent readers, in terms of instantaneous, as if you're reading a passage. >>KEN ARCHER: Because I started off reading at, when I say in terms of more disciplined reading at a later age, I'm not that fluent. My son is more fluent than me. He plays saxophone and so on, he will read his saxophone passage more fluently than me, because he is in the high school band and reading music every day and so on and so forth. Now this is not to say that I cannot read, I can follow everything on the page and so on and so forth, but there is some hand eye coordination to be developed in terms of playing an instrument. Particularly with the guitar, I find that if for instance I try simple passages on clarinet and so on I'm able to do it faster than I may be able to on another instrument, because of the required different hand eye coordination, in my opinion. So that's one aspect of fluency. >>KEN ARCHER: In terms of reading for the jazz or blues musician, he is not required to really read passages continuously as say a classical musician. So you have what you call a lead sheet where there will be chords and the leader, whether the singer the saxophonist, the front person will sing the melody, play a melody as the case may be. But many times in these other types of groups like jazz, like blues and so on, the what you call the sidemen or the backup band if you'd call it that, the keyboardist, guitarist really just follow what chords that written. So C, G, major seventh, minor seventh, etc., which are symbols written to represent chord formations on the instrument. So that's another level of fluency that's required. >>KEN ARCHER: While they may play lines and so on, these lines are often improvised based on practice, based on knowledge and hearing and so on, over these chord symbols and so on that are presented. So that's where I have, to a certain extent, developed more fluency. For instance I played for five years in a Calypso band, Kitchen Review, and that basically was required from you as a guitarist in the band. There are lines but there are minimal in terms of-most of the Calypso arrangements do not write much lines for the guitar. The guitar plays essentially a written accompaniment role, but the guitarist then is free to improvise melodic lines and so on while the music involves or while the music is in process of being performed. So that's another aspect of fluency and it requires not just being able to read but it requires being able to bring all that knowledge to the performance of the music. What is acceptable and so on and so forth. I don't know if-alright. PART 2 >>KEN ARCHER: OK, with regard to music in, as I taught some music in Trinidad and so on before coming here. I was essentially mainly involved with the steel band. I'll start with the experience here first. For instance since 2006 I've been instructing a steel band and pan class at Ohio State. >>KEN ARCHER: And the bulk of the students are readers, mostly Caucasian American students. I had one African American student formally take the class. But they are essentially, even if they're not music students, this is a class that is open to the entire campus, you do not need to be in the music major. It is open to non music majors. But essentially the bulk of students I come to the class are all generally speaking readers, very fluent readers. Many times, while I try to emphasize based on the history of the steel band, and I being as the music instructor, I try to emphasize orality, both "horality" and "orality". Because this steel band, in its origins, is show and tell basically. You play, someone shows you what to play and you repeat it, as many music settings in terms of popular music settings. >>KEN ARCHER: So I try to do some of that but I also increasingly more so, I bring written music. I arrange music and bring written music to the students. If I find something in interpretation that I think is wrong I may change what I have arranged or may just sing out or hum rhythmic things for them to hear how they should perform it. But generally in terms of page literacy, and even because they are coming from the high school system here where they may have been involved in some form of musical practice from high school, the students are very fluent readers. So that's one thing. I also sometimes write rhythmic patterns just for notation, not on lines but like we'd call half note, quarter note and so on and so forth, across the page. And then I'll put letter names on it, C A B etc. etc. And that is for students who may not have that ability. But generally most people do. >>KEN ARCHER: There is one, the one from Trinidad but he has been living here. He studied at Ohio State. He has been living here since 1971 actually. So his son just graduated last summer or spring from Ohio State. His son is already a fluent reader but he can not read at all. So for him you often say "Ken, write down the letter names for me" and so on. Then if it's a tune he knows, he knows he can go on and follow the letter names and will call out the tune on the instrument. If not, while we play he gets it from the melody and then he goes. So this is one of the reasons why I would write. >>KEN ARCHER: And I did this at home in Trinidad in high school, I told the students in high school. I would ride on the board the rhythm. Actually I did not write the rhythm at that time, I would write the letter names. And I would indicate how long each note should be held by using numbers and so on, and then the students would follow based on their familiarity with the melody of the tune. I don't know if that suffices, but I use a similar thing at home where I would write the letter names of the notes on the board and than indicate the duration of the note, the rhythm. And I would use one or two at the role for two, role for four sustaining a note for four and so on and so forth, instead of using the actual notations symbols for it. >>INTERVIEWER: So you have your own little different to compensate for various levels of the literacy. That's really interesting. One last question that I want to ask you because you've told us so much. Again, if you want to go back anything about your literacy or educational experience, that's great too. But I want to ask you specifically, as an ethnomusicologist, how does literacy relate to your work? Does it play any significant role? >>KEN ARCHER: Yes very much so. Again, speaking in terms of the Caribbean music experience, particularly in regards to the steel band and general music making in Trinidad , and general music making for the world with regards to musicians who are not necessarily schooled musicians in terms of institutional as such. The bulk of musicians for the world in terms of representing the culture "of the people" are not schooled in western tradition. So this is a very important aspect of ethnomusicology. How, if you come in contact, while you are researching a particular group of people and their music, how do we preserve their musical song on paper? >>KEN ARCHER: There are people like Charles Seeger and so on, in terms of American ethnomusicologists, anthropologists, who have long devised or attempted to work in this in terms of devising equipment to transcribe music of different peoples and so on. Because one of the main things is that the notation on the page cannot represent all aspects of song. We often think about music and we worship the page, "so this is a composition of Beethoven", "so this is a composition of Duke Ellington" as the case may be. >>KEN ARCHER: But in notation on the page cannot represent all the nuances, whether a singer glides is a voice from here to here, the blues guitarist slides from one place to the other, and so on. Or the notation on the page is made to represent specific pitch in terms of this is A this is B. But if a person slides between A to a little higher and come back and so on. A lot of singers do it even today, and the music and so on and so forth. The notation on the page does not cater for that. So this is a very important aspect of ethnomusicology, the question of "literacy" and what is our attitude to written music? >>KEN ARCHER: Is written music the gospel if you'd call it that in regards to the songs that should be produced, or is it a guide to memory in terms of guiding us as to how this music should possibly sound? So another important- with regards to the context of Trinidad, as I said the steel band is an instrument where you'd have 100 players playing in an orchestra, playing one tune for 10 minutes without anything, no one has a page of anything in front of them. It is learned all by root and it is played by root. Obviously they go through hours of practice and so on. For instance just last week was Carnival in Trinidad, the Saturday prior to last Monday, two Saturdays ago would have been Panorama finals, where you have 120 players with the big bands. No one performing in these competitions has a piece of music in front of them, do not learn it like that and so on. >>KEN ARCHER: But there are those people, particularly who had come out here and so on, and rum or a educated institutional and so on, who would like to see it go on the other direction. Who would like that people develop "literacy". They claim it would save time. It would reflect their growth and development as musicians, as opposed to just people playing by root and so on. But I am of the view that opposes when it comes to that. Because when you suddenly make literacy the issue then you deny- Can I? I'll use my first foray into playing steel band as the norm. It's a bit different now, but if you wanted to join a steel band you would simply go to "the band yard" where the band rehearses and indicate to someone that you would like to join the band and play pan, and talk to whoever is in charge. And they would say "well look here, what part are you interested in? Bass? Front line?" or whatever, and organize for someone to start a song. >>KEN ARCHER: So it had no requirements that you should be able to read, that you have ever played anything anywhere. But you have folks now were saying that all players should learn to read. Now that might be nice and laudable but once you start to do that and literacy becomes the thing in front, then you deny a whole community of people from wanting to come or being encouraged to come. Because there are many guys, I know for instance outside of the steel band there is a friend of mine, excellent bassist, who once had the opportunity to go to Torwood Spiral as a substitute bassman, and he refused to go because he was afraid that he couldn't read! Spiro has specific things in his music and so on, and if he pulls out a sheet of this any can't read and really embarrass self and so on. "I am again unsure if I heard correctly the name of the band." >>KEN ARCHER: So I'm saying that that comes into play, once you start to put the page and front. You deny a whole community of people who would want to play. The question of them becoming literate and so on, if that becomes an issue, you deny them an opportunity to play. That is my perspective. So I'm saying that while people would like to "develop" and see it as growth, everyone becoming musically literate, they need to not throw away the baby with the bathwater basically. And recognize the role that root learning, in terms of even basic memory, the role that it has played in the lives of people and communities and struck a sort of balance with with regards to implementing such programs. PART 3 >>INTERVIEWER: Ken, if you have one more? To share- >>KEN ARCHER: Okay, I want to share one more with regards to literacy. Now, while I've been engaged in music; I've been teaching since 1981, and I did not set up as a music teacher. Actually my first degrees and agriculture, and I taught agriculture in Trinidad from 1981. Agriculture, biology, General Sciences and so on from 1981 to the late nineties, till after I get out of city college and go back home. So, what I want to share, and actually in thinking of this project, this was my main thing I wanted to share, I didn't plan to do all that I just did. [LAUGHS] >>KEN ARCHER: But, going in 1981 to teach in high school, which would be equivalent to 10th grade here; students up to fifteen, sixteen years old. The last two years in what you call in O-level program at home, students coming out of a whole system of elementary school, and meeting students just to prepare them basically for exams, for O-level exams. >>KEN ARCHER: In my second class I had ten, so that's within a second year of teaching. Now the style of teaching ten is calling notes so that students write notes, you would read notes to them. I began to notice that some students were not doing well in in terms of being able to recall notes and so on and so forth. And observing that one particular student in the first group, in this group, he couldn't read at all. And he couldn't spell, he couldn't read, I mean basic words. I mean, this is a student 15 years old, who if I say "so", s-o, he couldn't write it. "Once again, it is unclear to me exactly what style of teaching Ken is referring to." >>KEN ARCHER: And then over the years there was a group that I had, about eight students in terms of different levels of that. And then just before I began teaching music in 1996 to beginning of 1997 I had a class with another student who was in the same way in terms of, if I say "bat", he can't spell it, I mean that. >>KEN ARCHER: Now why I'm raising this, in terms of literacy, we have education in Trinidad, it's supposed be highly literate, boasts of education for all and so on. As long as... since in the sixties and so on. And yet you have students reaching at four and five level and age 15 and 16 and so on, and can't do those basic things. >>KEN ARCHER: We might say that they are few in number but it is significant in my opinion. I am raising it because it speaks of the importance of literacy, both in terms of teaching and passing on information. Irrespective of the methods used to communicate in the classroom and in terms of the student being able to received and respond to that information presented. I tried, in each instance to assist the students by first of all having them come and go "bu" "ah" "at", "bat" and so on and so forth. In the last instance I even attempted to have the student enroll in what you call an adult literacy program. >>KEN ARCHER: To my wife, my wife worked in a kindergarten school and she was moving and so volunteered in an adult literacy program in the community. So I encouraged the student to become engaged in that and so on, but he went once and didn't continue. But it is a serious concern, for instance here always speak about No Child Left Behind and so on and so forth. So I raise it in this context that I think more attention, especially now the bulk of these students are poor students. >>KEN ARCHER: The first student I observed, to say something about them, very good in agriculture in terms of labor. And he would often ask me: "Sir, could I go in the garden?", he would go out in the garden and worked very hard at his plot. He became a very useful mechanic. As a big man, he lived in a squatter village opposite the school that I worked, a village that people just built houses on government land. Very poor family, humble family. >>KEN ARCHER: So I'm saying that a lot needs to be done with regards, despite the programs that are presented, my opinion is to ensure that these children do not fall through the cracks. Often we blame parents, we blame teachers and so on, but I think that a whole lot of support of systems need to be in place so that these children, from very young, become accustomed. >>KEN ARCHER: It's like the example I used with the guitar or with the music. Students from very young, in high school, very fluent because they're at it every day. We need the same systems in terms of reading and so on and so forth. To have people become engaged. I don't know, I wanted to say that as my main literacy narrative really.