Montessori Elementary Materials

Author:Montessori, Maria
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: PR, LEA, LEA.PR, Curriculum, Textbooks, Manuals, etc., Montessori method of education

of the rhythmic measure? What is called theoretically _tempo forte_ has no relation to the meaning of the words "strong" and "weak" in their ordinary sense. It is a question of _emphasis_ and _expression_, which derive their nature from the laws of musical time and melodic composition and certainly not from the wrist muscles of the person playing. If this were not so, a person could play the first, second or third note of a measure as _forte_, whereas, in reality, it is the first that is always "strong."

[Illustration: Analyzing the beat of a measure while walking on a line. (_A Montessori School in Italy._)]

In practise, children, to whom the six tunes we proposed for the beginning of this study were played—and played always with rigorous musical interpretation and with expressiveness—succeeded in recognizing the first beat of the measure as "strong," and went on thus to divide into measures some thirty pieces of music of varied rhythm. Even the following year, after the summer vacation, they kept asking for new pieces of music just for the "fun" of working out the measure in them. They would stand at the side of the teacher at the piano and either with their hands or with soft playing on the castagnettes or tambourines, accompany their new piece of music. In general they would listen in silence to the first measure and then fall in with their little beats like any well-trained orchestra. They took the trouble no longer to march to the music: they were interested in this new form of study; while the smaller tots, delighted with the new music, were still walking undisturbed along the elliptical line on the floor which was to guide them to such great conquests!

The strong beat (_thesis_) is the key that opens to the higher laws of music. Sometimes it is played, for reasons of expression, very softly and always possesses the solemnity of the note which dominates the rhythm. It may even be syncopated or lacking entirely, just as when the orator on reaching his climax pronounces in a very low voice the phrase which is to produce the great effect, or even pauses and is silent: this sentence rings powerfully in the ears of those who listen.

The same error which leads to heavy stress, in playing, on the first beat of every measure in order to attract the attention of the children to it, also leads to suggesting secondary movements in addition to the one which marks the _thesis_. The children, for instance, must make four movements for a 4/4 time: movements in the air for the secondary beats, and a more energetic movement for the _thesis_. The result is that interest in the succession of movements replace attention to the fact of most importance, which is _to feel_ the value of the first beat. Children who feel the first note because it is played "strong" and who proceed from one strong beat to the following strong beat guided by a succession of movements, are not, it is obvious, following the tune.

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