Introduction

Here is the Crescendo Music Education Podcast – Episode 129.

This podcast is being recorded on the lands of the Turrbal people. I acknowledge them as the traditional owners of the land and pay my respects to elder’s past, present and emerging. They were the first music makers on this land.

About ‘Read the Episode’: Sometimes, we would rather skim visually than listen to a podcast! That’s a great way to learn too!
The transcript of episode 129 of The Crescendo Music Education Podcast is below.

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Debbie O’Shea

Now let’s talk classroom music. Of course, that’s my passion, music for every child and because with instrumental, even though we’re so lucky in our state system to have it, not every child can access that. So I’m all about every child having this and I see the huge advantages for the child with ASD and the child with ADHD and the other children with special needs, I can see how they benefit from our music classroom. I can see how the really bright kids benefit. That’s my philosophy, it is for everyone. So how do you see the classroom music and instrumental music in our schools, I think particularly, interacting?

Interaction

I’m pretty lucky. You’ve already mentioned Carmen. Shout out to Carmen, who is actually on a podcast as well, because we’ve had a chat about how we work together as a team. Because I believe it is working together and it is team. Sorry, I’m answering your own question for you, but I think it’s really important that they work together and that they’re not separate things. Because we’re not separate, we’re working on the same thing. We have the same goals, don’t we? So what’s your philosophy and thoughts about how these things work together?

Ralph Hultgren

Well it’s that hackneyed old phrase. We don’t teach music, we teach people. That’s our ontological perspective. That’s where we start from. We’ve gotta go from there onwards. I think the most important thing is, to give you an example of what I mean, the last activity of the curriculum instruction when I was teaching both at QUT and at Griffith training instrumental teachers, the last activity was a meal on our back verandah, because they handed in their assignments and blah, blah, and they had to organise what was being eaten.

I said, I’ll provide the first drink, a can of Coke and 15 straws (laughs). The whole thing is that was the beginning of team building stuff. I mean, yes, they did all their things, they worked together and everything, but that was to get assessment done and worry about going off on prac and everything. This is after it’s all finished. It’s November of their last year.

They’ve probably had their interviews already. It’s on the back veranda and I would stand, get things started, because it’ll be quiet to begin with, get things started first glass of wine or whatever and they’re off. And I still look, for example at Maryborough, and I can see the different graduating classes, because they’re the ones that are sitting having a glass of wine together, or on that one table at the conference dinner and so on and so forth, because that was the beginning of their networks.

What happened was that some of them then would go teaching somewhere and they would be in teacher accommodation and the classroom music teacher is in the next flat, or they’re just down the street somewhere. They would start to build those relationships and sometimes, given the peripatetic nature of both the primary school and in the high school, they might drive to schools together, yeah, and that community of interest meant that they would begin talking. 

I always said to the guys on the back verandah, you have to build up a relationship with people so that you close your mouth and open your ears and see what’s happening with them. Because you share more wonder and you share more angst than you could possibly believe, because they’ve got the same sort of heartbreaks as you it’s just that they don’t have, it’s not because the kids hands aren’t big enough to push the keys down on the clarinet. It’s not that and so you’ve got to build that relational thing, because you’re working with the same raw material, children’s hearts and souls. So there you go. Look, I’ve been up on that pulpit one more time Debbie O’Shea. It’s so important. It’s so important.

Debbie O’Shea 

But you know, yes, I do expect Ralph, by the end of this, I would like you back up on that pulpit several more times, because it’s the most important thing.

Ralph Hultgren 

Yeah, that coalescing of, especially in primary school, of the classroom music and the instrumental teacher is so, so important. But in high school I worked assiduously at that, all those years I was at Kelvin Grove State High I would go to the person who was the head of classroom music and I would talk with them and I would say, What have you got planned for your year? And I would select the senior syllabus stuff, the Year 10 and then the 11-12 syllabus. I would select music for the band and the orchestra that had resonances with what they were teaching in each semester.

Debbie O’Shea 

That’s good.

Time and Planning

Ralph Hultgren 

Well, I’m thinking now these kids have got, let’s say, four periods of classroom music a week and they’ve got band rehearsal or orchestra rehearsal and their lesson. So they’ve got six music learning opportunities that week. If I’m doing something that relates to the curriculum that the classroom teacher is doing and what that means then, isn’t it and I’m sorry, dear listeners and viewers, that what that means is planning. You have to take time to plan. You have to sit and you have to take the child and the journey from the known to the unknown, because you’ve taken it as well. You’re leading them. It doesn’t mean you’re both standing there with a map and a compass for crying out loud, you’re supposed to know where the pathway is and take them on it.

Debbie O’Shea 

Yes, and you absolutely have to, even if you’re new to this job and you feel like you’re only five kilometers ahead. You’re still ahead. You’re still making that plan for them.

Ralph Hultgren 

Yes you are, yes, planning to teach, planning to teach. It’s pivotal. So I’ve got to tell this story, of course, rambling old man, in curriculum class at QUT and what happened? The different thing at QUT is because we shared the same campus, music was at Kelvin Grove, education was at Kelvin Grove. So what would happen is they do a three year, generally, a three year Bachelor of Music and then a one year Graduate Diploma. Well, they would go on their prac, but they still play in the Wind Symphony. 

I can remember one night and I won’t name names, because they will come and punch me, but I remember in curriculum class, I said that you gotta plan and you gotta choose your repertoire and plan and write lesson plans for your rehearsal. He pushed his chair back from the desk and said, Don’t tell me you write lesson plans for the rehearsals for Wind Symphony. I said, I do. He said [expletive politely deleted]. So two days later, he’s in rehearsal, okay? Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, blah blah, blah, blah, blah and I got my lesson plans.

I scribble my lesson plans on a notepad. And here’s this dog eared notepad with today’s date and I handed it to the flute players and said, pass that back to so and so, who was a trumpet player by the way, pass that back to so and so. And they said, why? I said he wanted to see it. It was my lesson plans for the semester.

Debbie O’Shea 

That’s gold. Yeah. When we finish recording, you gotta give me a name.

Ralph Hultgren 

Okay (laughs). Isn’t that fantastic? He is an excellent teacher. Yeah, he’s an excellent teacher. He doesn’t play in exactly the same way as I did then, but that’s because he’s got the benefits of the errors I made and the things I got right and all the other teachers along the way, he’s gleaned from them and become a better teacher than all of us. You know what I mean.

Debbie O’Shea 

I think this is a perfect time for your nuggets of fabulous. This is where I like to ask my guests about their nuggets, anything, tips, tricks, ideas, repertoire, big picture, little things, anything that might interest the music educators that are listening.

Nuggets of Fabulous!

Ralph Hultgren 

Okay, I think in rehearsal we have to remember that we are a teacher, choir conductor. We are a teacher as a conductor. We’re not something special because we’ve got a white stick. Because sometimes I’ve seen so many people, they’ve got their white stick and it’s obvious the Labradors on holiday, because they’re lost. We’ve also got to realise that one of the most potent forms of learning is discovery. So we have to hand it back to the ensemble, hand it back to the student and say, how was that? Of course the smart kids, teacher’s pet, will give you a musical description of what went wrong, blah, blah, blah, a technical description. But what you actually want is a musical one.

And some punk kid up the back will say, we played with a really bad sound and what we should have done is this, anyway, that’s it. The kid up the front is talking about how the breath control should be, this and our embouchure and our diaphragm and blah, blah, blah. The kid up the back has nailed it. It sounds bad because of all of those things the kids said up the front. So my solution then is play with the most beautiful sound you can make. Do all the things you have to do.

So kids will say to me, kids, here I go. The graduating class that’ll go and be an instrumental teacher next year, How do I get my ensemble to play in tune? I said, get them to sit up. Get them to sit up. If they’re up and they bring the instrument to them, then the body works properly. In singing the slouchy, shouldered old man, sort of attitude will never make a good choir. So I think you’re searching for a musical solution with- Okay, all my rambling of the last five minutes, my first nugget is, you search for a musical solution to a technical problem.

Debbie O’Shea 

Ah, okay.

Ralph Hultgren 

So the technical problem is they haven’t got the right control of the breath. The musical solution is the kid up the back that says it sounds duff because it’s dull and it sounds all wonky and all of that. So they’re talking about intonation, but not just intonation, they’re talking about quality of sound. That leads to, you can’t tune a bad note and so on and so on. They all come back to a technical resolution, but it’s a musical solution that gets you to that.

So if it sounds duff, what do you think it might be? And sometimes we just have to stop and rehearse on and say, right, that’s enough, ladies and gentlemen, sit up straight. So, yeah, I do that and as I say, you can see I’ve done this demonstration too many times. But I said, sit up straight, breathe into your tummy and project the sound at me.

But when you’ve got the time, you help them discover that same solution. But you help them discover that by asking them musical things and then they own that. Back to the community, if you put together that whole sense of community and open up, then part of that group of people are the teachers and the other part are the students and so there’s that learning. So they’ve discovered over here as the student and then they’ve discovered in their remembrance of what the teacher said. So, yeah, musical solution to a technical problem. How’s that? Is that an alright nugget?

Debbie O’Shea 

That is a great nugget. That’s a wonderful nugget, and I can see that applies for classroom music as well.

Ralph Hultgren 

Yeah, so how would you apply that? Tell me how you’d apply that in a situation? That’s got you, hasn’t it?

Debbie O’Shea 

I think you actually have, it’s that phrase almost summarises what good teachers, or musical teachers do, really. When I’ve got Year One singing Bye Low Baby O and they’re rocking me a toy or whatever, and you just ask them, How do you think that went? And someone will say, it didn’t really sound like a lullaby, or that was too loud. Or, I mean, the kids will often come up with that themselves. Or going one step away from that is, how could we make it sound more like a lullaby? But the more you can get from the children, the better. And also non verbals all the time.

Ralph Hultgren 

Well, I say to them, a composer academic in America coined the phrase “The band is the mirror of the conductor”. I say to them, the first thing you have to do, you have to deal with your countenance. You have to have a specific presence, so that then you’re the conduit for the music to go through. You’re the composer’s advocate. That’s an incredible thing. So I say to my ensembles, if they’re playing my music, the ensemble, whether I’m as a guest conductor or it’s the one I conduct every week or whatever, when they’re playing my music, they’re my biographer.

They have to tell the truth. They have to tell my story as truthfully as they can. So the end result of that is you have to practice. Yeah, you can’t play that bit. Why can’t I play that bit? Because it’s a technically difficult blah, blah, blah. Well, that’s on page 25 of the book, isn’t it? The second and third exercises, oh yeah, yeah. Have you looked at that this week? No. I tell you what. What a wonderful opportunity for personal growth.

Personal Growth

Debbie O’Shea 

I love it. As the conductor, you have to take some responsibility for their sound as well.

Ralph Hultgren 

Oh yes.

Debbie O’Shea 

You were talking about being the composer’s advocate but it’s the way, which was very well expressed, but it’s the way you are holding yourself in front of the group.

Ralph Hultgren 

Your countenance, indeed, you bet. You bet. So can I give you a simple thing? In conducting teaching so many people say, you stand up and you’ve got the stick in this hand and this is the hand that you would hold the Labrador with, what do you do with this hand? So young teachers will stand in front of the ensemble in the green room and say, now we’ve got to do really, really well. This is our time at fanfare and it’s got to be wonderful and remember all the things we did in rehearsal and the kids get out on the stage, the conductor walks out, stands on the podium and goes like this to them. (motions) What does that mean?

Debbie O’Shea 

It means stop, stop.

Ralph Hultgren 

Nugget. You want a nugget. How do you find where your hand should be? Cross your heart and open your heart to the ensemble.

Another Nugget

Debbie O’Shea 

Beautiful.

Ralph Hultgren 

You’re inviting them in. Then you put the stick in the other hand and proceed to belt them up. But you know what I mean? That’s a simple physical thing and that’s like the countenance thing. So when things aren’t working, I would say to myself as a young conductor, am I inviting them in, or am I pushing them away?

Debbie O’Shea 

I love that. That’s beautiful. I also think in our class music situations, one of the highlights in my job at the moment is when I get my whole school to sing, we have a whole school singing event each term. So I have my 600 children in the full assembly and we sing.

Ralph Hultgren 

That’s fantastic.

Debbie O’Shea 

There is something about standing up in front of them that is magical, the sound. I can tell you that many of the other teachers end up having a silent weep, depending what we’re singing and what the purpose is. So many people have commented, but oh, how do you? You’ve got complete control? Of course, we’re creating music together. I’ve taken to observing other people, other teachers, that get up and talk on assembly or whatever and you think they’re walking up and you think, Oh, you’ve lost them. You’re not even there and you’ve already lost them.

Ralph Hultgren 

They look defeated, don’t they?

Debbie O’Shea 

Yes, you’ve gotta look like you are ready to embrace what is about to happen.

Ralph Hultgren 

There’s a difference between being assertive and being aggressive. Okay, one is so vulnerably assertive by inviting them in. I know there are many more mature of your listeners who will be saying, I’ve worked with that mongrel and I still go to my therapist and they’ve written reams about this. And I say yes, yes, but my genuine heart is the heart of a child. I’m better at it now. I’ve often thought I’d like to put an ad in the Courier Mail that says, for all of you that I taught 25 years or more ago, I am sorry, because I think I’m a better teacher now than I was then, but we’ll never be the best teacher.

We’ll never be the perfect teacher, but we will be the best we can be and with this perfection, as much as can be when they’re the heart of our teaching. Not us. That’s what it’s gotta be. Yeah. Have you had enough chicken nuggets from me now?

Debbie O’Shea 

Well, they’re just such good quality chicken nuggets. They’re the breast meat. They’re not the stuff off the floor. That’s wonderful. Now you may be aware that I have been working very hard on the fight for music in our schools, as several of us have been and it is a little sad that we have to work so hard for the very existence of our profession. But what advice would you give my listeners around advocacy?

Ralph Hultgren 

You have to learn to speak up, simple as that. And that’s a problem. I guess that classic example High School arts departments that is run by drama people, because their cache is the voice. The cache is their yak, yak, yak yak. Their cache is their control of language and all of that sort of stuff. You are required to be an advocate for music. Your advocacy for music is actually not an advocacy for the dots and dashes, the black dots on white paper, your advocacy is for that child engaged in it. Yes. So this is not an either or option, okay? If you’re timid, well, do something about it and you don’t have to be like me or you, you just have to be prepared to stand up and make your case.

But that only comes with having provided all the information. I can remember when my two youngest children were at high school and one of my former students became the new coordinator of the instrumental side of things at that high school. She said to me, I wouldn’t go to the music supporters’ group because I’d intimidate, so she came and visited me. She said, we really need to get these new instruments and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

So I said, You give me the information of what’s in the inventory and what you need and I will make the case. And so I went and the parents were saying, Oh no, we should be doing some shiny thing out here and taking the ensemble on a tour to here and I said these instruments are so bad that there’s mold in the old clarinets. And I had prepared my information to support her argument, but it’s that preparation. Now again, I know I’m a good advocate and I know I’m loud and I’m boisterous and a little bit rambunctious, but I knew my stuff.

I knew how I could advocate for her in that situation and by advocating for her, I was advocating for those kids who would learn, so that’s what we’ve got to be able to do. So you’ve got to know your stuff to be a good music teacher and you’ve got to be a musician to be a good music teacher.

So therefore, to be an advocate, you’ve got to know your stuff. You’ve got to know what the arguments being used against you are. You’ve got to know what the arguments that you should be presenting are and then you’ve got to know when you fight against that stuff or when you don’t even, you ignore it and you just present your case, which should happen more often?

Debbie O’Shea 

Yes, I agree. And I think the worst thing to do, or shall I say, the people that annoy me the most, I’ll just say it, and hopefully there’s no one listening that fits this bill. The people that do nothing and then complain really loudly. Look, that’s not fair. Someone should fix that. Okay, yeah, or maybe you could try and if everyone tried, it’s amazing what you can do as a collective.

Ralph Hultgren 

That’s right, that’s right. The weakness begins with us. We are in fact the weakest link in the chain until we do something about it and it’s often, we’re bound up by fear.

Debbie O’Shea 

 I’ll just share a little personal story, where I was quiet where I shouldn’t have been. Actually, there’s been several of those that don’t happen anymore, not now I’m this age. But these weren’t that long ago. I was on contract in a school for more than five years. I lived in Cairns and I’d worked out of the system. Then I was back in the department and I was here in the department and this school, in fact got transferred within these five years I was on contract, but I was at the one base school. I just thought that’s alright, they’ll make me permanent, my work will speak for itself.

I don’t need to make a fuss. I’ll just wait. The second I decided to start making a polite fuss was when there was an acting principal who came in and said, You’re on contract? We had an amazing music program by then, I loved it and I felt I was an important cog in their wheel. He couldn’t believe I was on contract and started making calls and said, you contact the Union now.

And I went, Oh, I don’t want to make a noise. It all happened seamlessly and almost straight away and it could have earlier, but I went, Oh no, I’ll just be quiet. No, you don’t have to be obnoxious. I’m not. No, I don’t want all of those people out there to think that I’m really rude and pig headed. But I could have just spoken up to one of our other acting principles and then just ask the union, How would I go about doing this? Maybe rung head office?

Oh, did you know that I’ve been on contract for a while and I’ve actually just been the manager of the writing team for the new state curriculum. Do you think maybe you could make my job permanent? I could have just asked politely.

Ralph Hultgren 

If we go back to what we talked about when we were talking about this advocacy thing, you’re not advocating for those dots on the page, you’re advocating for the child. So by not advocating for you, you could have taken that away from the child.

Debbie O’Shea 

Yes, exactly right.

Ralph Hultgren 

That’s the thing.

Debbie O’Shea 

Yes, and that’s why people have to stand up for themselves and their job, not just for them, but for their children.

Ralph Hultgren 

You bet. You bet.

Debbie O’Shea 

Now it is time for you to get on your soapbox.

Ralph on the Soapbox

Ralph Hultgren 

Haven’t I beat on it enough?

Debbie O’Shea 

That’s right, you’ve got to get down from the pulpit, get on your soapbox now.

Ralph Hultgren 

I think what we’ve just been talking about are the essential matters in music education, it’s relational, it’s human, it’s child focused. That means that all the things that are to do with us are essential things, because there is no relationship that isn’t human if we’re not looking after ourselves and the child is not the focus. If we don’t have as full a skill set as we can have, if we’re not able to construct learning and so on and so on and so on so forth.

So to say that the child is the center isn’t some gooey muck, it’s the truth. The one I follow says the truth will set you free and it’s got to be the truth. What we’ve gotta do is make sure that we keep coming back to the child being the focus. So when I was training at both QUT and at Griffith University at The Con, I was training people to become instrumental music teachers, my focus was always the children they would be teaching. So the skill set that I was trying to help them develop within themselves, not force upon them, but help them develop within themselves.

Because if they do, then they own it. They discover that skill set. So that’s all predicated on the fact that the child’s the most important thing. Kodály said children should be led to masterpieces via masterpieces, so go back half an hour we’re talking about good music. We shouldn’t just play music that teaches them a skill. We should go play good music that teaches them a skill. So to select good music is not to diminish the child. It’s actually to enhance the child, because the child is being given the finer stuff. We’re not feeding them fast food, we’re feeding them meat and three veg. Sorry, vegans.

Debbie O’Shea 

Or the appropriate vegan substitute.

Ralph Hultgren 

But, yeah, so we’re trying, that’s the centre point. Well, Debbie O’Shea, I think that’s the thing that I’ve learned over teaching from the last millennium until now. I think what I’ve learned is that I could pick up one of my scores and say, look at that and they go, Whoop de do.  I guess another story will help summarise that, I wrote a piece that one of my university students reminded me was autobiographical. It was called Trolls. I wrote a piece for primary school, it’s a level one, one and a half piece for primary school and I took it to a summer school.

So we had the kids for a week and the morning session was the primary school band and the afternoon session was the high school band. We did this thing and by Wednesday I’d chosen the music that would be played Friday afternoon and the kids had no idea that the name on the top right hand corner was the old dude who was at the front, right? So we come on Friday, and I said, Mums and Dads, Nans and Pas, brothers and sisters, we’re about to play a world premiere.

No one in the world has heard this before. Your brothers and sisters, your children, your grandchildren are about to play a world premiere and it’s been my great privilege to write it, to compose it for this band and we played the piece. After the concert this child with a saxophone hanging from his neck and he’s got his music, he said, Excuse me. Pulled on my jacket, excuse me, I said, Yes, young man. Is your name Ralph Hultgren? I said, Yes, it’s Ralph Hultgren. He said, wow, and he just walked away. The focus of that piece of music were those kids, a Summer Music Camp.

I’m not going to be written up in the Times music supplement. It was those kids and all of a sudden that child realised that the person at the front who worked with them all week created that for them. Whether it’s a brand new composition or it’s the lesson you’re teaching today that’s been created for them. Isn’t that important? You think so?

Debbie O’Shea 

Oh, I think it’s everything. I think it’s everything. If you have that attitude every day you go to work, it’s magic.

Ralph Hultgren 

Yes, it is. 

Debbie O’Shea 

It is and I say that I’m not being all like Mary Poppins about it. I’m not because some days are hard too. Days are hard, but if you can look back on that day and live in those moments with the kids. That makes it all worthwhile, yep, yep.

Ralph Hultgren 

It was those teachers 60 years ago, 55 years ago, that did that for me and helped that light bulb moment happen for me, that meant I’ve been engaged in that activity for the rest of my life. How good is that?

Debbie O’Shea 

That is fairly magic and that is a beautiful soapbox moment. I would like to thank you so much Dr Ralph Hultgren for joining me on the podcast today.

Ralph Hultgren 

My pleasure. Thank you so much. Thank you to everybody for listening. Bye.

Sign-Off

Thank you for joining me for this podcast. Don’t forget, you’ll find the show notes and transcript and all sorts of information on crescendo.com.au. If you’ve enjoyed the podcast or found it valuable, you might like to rate it on your podcast player and leave a review. I’d really appreciate it if you did. All I can be as the best version of me. All you can do is be the best you. Until next time, bye.

Just for Laughs

As we know, laughter relieves stress, don’t lose sight of the funny side of life.
What building has the most stories? Why the library of course.

Links Mentioned in the Episode:

📜 Crescendo Music Education Podcast | Episode 129

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