ARTICLES BY LUIS E. LOUBRIEL, D.M.A.
JOURNAL OF INTEGRAL THEORY AND PRACTICE (SUNY PRESS)
INTEGRAL MUSIC PERFORMANCE AND PEDAGOGY
A Post-Secondary Performance and Education Model
ABSTRACT Integral music performance and pedagogy equalizes the four quadrants of the AQAL model through developmental stages. Accidental or deliberate segmentations result in the split of expressive-artistic and technical-scientific skills, leading to uninspired and faulty performances. An Integral Music Performance, Educational, and Assessment model (IPEA), specifically developed for American post-secondary educational institutions, can bridge this divide by using upward causation (science) and downward causation (art) while tracing a performer’s development (quadrant-holon developmental spiral) in relation to a community of practice. This all-quadrant, multilevel model represents a major shift in music performance and pedagogy by addressing the developmental needs of students and performers without corroding their expressive or technical strengths.
KEY WORDS: community of practice; integral theory; music; performance; trumpet
INTERNATIONAL TRUMPET GUILD
In the winter of 2004 I met with my former trumpet teacher William Scarlett to talk about some of the ped- agogical principles used and developed by Arnold
Jacobs. Our meeting took place in his northern Illinois home in McHenry, overlooking a beautiful lake. The conversation quickly evolved to include subjects such as the singing approach as applied to brass playing, the aging process as found in middle-aged brass players, and the state of trumpet pedagogy today.
In the winter of 2004 I met with my former trumpet teacher, Vincent Cichowicz, to talk about the years he spent as a colleague of Arnold Jacobs. Our conversation
began with the first meeting Cichowicz had with Jacobs, with the lessons Cichowicz had with Renold Schilke, and it ended with the discussion of general brass playing concepts.
Vincent Cichowicz was born and raised in Chicago where he received his early music training. He went on to study with Renold Schilke, played with the Houston Symphony, the Grant Park Symphony, and in 1952 he became a mem- ber on the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Cichowicz taught at Northwestern University from 1959 and became professor of trumpet in 1974.
Today Cichowicz is retired, as Professor Emeritus, from full time teaching but stays active as music director of the Millar Brass Ensemble and by giving master classes in the United States and in Canada.
Most people know of Arnold Jacobs as a master teacher whose efficient, effective, and simple peda- gogical approach helped players of all sorts. Those players came to his studio from all over the world seeking help in solving performance maladies related to stress factors found in their performing or teaching jobs and/or the negative effects of the aging process. Others were in need of further training for achieving higher levels of brass performance. However, few people know that his pedagogical approach evolved towards that efficiency, effectiveness, and simplicity to the point of becoming recognized by the motto “Song and Wind.” In the next few pages we will see that the importance Jacobs placed on the psychology of “Song”1 (the artistic aspects of music making) and on teaching with simplicity evolved over time.
Early in 2007 I met with Manny Laureano to talk about some of the experiences he has had in his remarkable music career.
The 2006 – 2007 Concert
Season with the Minnesota Orchestra marked his 25th year as principal trumpet of that orchestra. This interview cele- brates that milestone and serves as a vehicle for him to talk about his experiences to this point in his career.
Manny Laureano was born and raised by his Puerto Rican parents in the Spanish Harlem neighborhood in New York City. After graduating from the High School for the Per- forming Arts he went to the Juilliard School and had a brief
our with Emerson, Lake, and Palmer before joining the Seattle Symphony as its principal trumpet at the age of 22. In 1981 Manny won the principal trumpet position with the Minnesota Orchestra where he has served since.
Our conversation took place between rehearsals with the Minnesota Orchestra in downtown Minneapolis. We cov- ered some of his early musical influences and quickly pro- gressed to areas such as the New York and the Chicago Schools of playing, the function of the trumpet section in a symphony orchestra, and advice to young trumpet players of today.
FORUM ON PUBLIC POLICY JOURNAL
With a heavy dominance on its technical/empirical aspects, the segmented performance, pedagogy, and assessmentof Western classical music is undermining its goal of creating art with precision, style, and expressive beauty. This segmentation has its roots in the quantitative assessment processes found in music education and in the note-perfect performance expectations of art organizations. The results are often heard in the uninspired performances of such vital music.
As an alternative, an integral performance, educational, and assessment approach (the IPEA model) will be open for discussion. The IPEA model utilizes the concepts of upward causation (science) and downward causation (art) to equalize the elements found in the music quadrants and it continues with their evolutionary track through the Spiral Dynamics as designed by Beck and Cowan. An all-quadrant/multilevel pedagogical, performance, and assessment approach will result signaling a major shift in Western classical music by addressing the developmental needs of music students/performers without corroding their technical or expressive strengths. This model bridges the gap between the empirical and the artistic sides of music proposing, perhaps, the perfect marriage of two seemingly opposing cultures: science and art.