Music and Shakespeare

"...the purpose of playing, whose end, both at the first and now, was and is, to hold, as 'twere, the mirror up to nature; to show virtue her own feature, scorn her own image, and the very age and body of the time his form and pressure." -William Shakespeare, Hamlet

I mentioned in an earlier post that I had been taking acting classes. These were fun; I learned some things about myself and acting but I wanted more. So now I have bitten into another class called "Speaking Shakespeare" taught through A Noise Within, a classic repertory theater soon to move to Pasadena (yay!). We have been chewing on a speech from Hamlet for the last four weeks, and I have decided that what I have gained from this chewing is as valuable to my development as a musician/music teacher as it would ever be to some vague notion I might have of trying my hand at actual acting.

The teacher of the class, Hisa Takakuwa, is incredibly knowledgeable about everything to do with Shakespeare: historical context, common practice, deep meanings of words and phrases, the details of the work in the canon, and how to talk to actors to get them to see what she sees. I know that there are many ways to approach Shakespeare, but immersing myself in this one expert's approach empowers me to believe that what I now know about Shakespeare, and Hamlet, is based on solid scholarship.

I thought I was taking this class for recreation. I have always loved Shakespeare and thought taking this class would allow me to delve deeper into that love. It has. But something else is happening in my brain. The words of Shakespeare have begun to run through my head like music. The rhythms of the pentameters, the irregularities of those pentameters, the alliterations and onomatopoeia, have become as "worms" in my brain, filling my dreams and waking times like the catchy hooks of pop songs. Thinking about how to say these words, how to glean their meaning and deliver it and make it "land" on another actor gives me a whole new way to think about teaching and learning music.

My middle school students have undertaken to learn an adaptation of Gustav Holst's Jupiter: the Bringer of Jollity as a possible piece to play at the Forum Festival in May. This piece, though an adaptation, is a real challenge for kids this age, and they are rising to the challenge, eagerly. The trumpets are pushing their ranges upwards. We are working out major choreography for the 4 percussionists so that all the parts can be covered. We have recruited a former percussionist to play tuba. He has never played a brass instrument before this year, and is taking to it in a big way. The flutes are flowing over their beautiful harmonized arpeggios like pros. (Now we just have to figure out how to HEAR them!) The violins are playing in the stratosphere of their instruments with tremolos. My formerly timid trombone player is finding the brass in his instrument. We are shaking the rafters, rattling the windows, and having a blast. And here's where Shakespeare comes in. I find myself talking to them about how to play this monster the same way Hisa talks to us about how to play Shakespeare. Getting beyond the reading of the notes-or words- and hitting the listener with meaning.

Though Jupiter is a jolly planet, he gets pretty intense, and in our adaptation, the really jolly theme is not even presented. I kind of wonder why, since it is actually very easy melodically and harmonically. What we do have, though, are the syncopated tunes in the low brass and strings which are echoed in the percussion. Not easy to teach, not easy to learn, but we persevere, and are making progress. We have talked about the army coming up over the hill to get the trumpets' bells UP so we can hear the fanfare announcing the arrival of said army...maybe it's the circus that's coming. The snare drummer has to play that figure like gunshots. Now, I'm not a fan of guns in any shape or form, and have been known to come down hard on kids for turning clarinets into pretend rifles. But with the images from Henry V in my head (my husband is also a huge Shakespeare fan and we had just watched the Kenneth Branagh version) all I could think was that those snare drum sounds needed to sound like shots. And the imagery worked for the musician. Crisp and clean, he delivered. We talked about energy in bows, about listening across the orchestra to others who have the same figure as you. We have been talking about how the audience will hear this piece. And I want to talk more about the jolly aspect...(I really miss that one theme....maybe I ought to try my hand at an addendum to the arrangement.)

It is thanks to these classes in Shakespeare that I have new vocabulary to use to impart understanding. I don't know if the kids see or hear something new in the way I talk to them, but I feel something new, and that's got to be good, right?

I think these classes should count as professional development -and therefore be tax-deductible- don't you?