1. Pär Ahlbom- Creative improvisation. A balancing act between chaos and Music’s internal laws. Towards a freer use of the lyre, using its full potential. Open to all abilities and all ages.
Comment:
In Par Ahlbom’s workshop new concepts formed as we worked our way through challenging exercises. Diane Barnes, USA
2. Gerhard Beilharz -´sich einleben´. Improvising ways of practicing and playing - individually or in a group- as a means of accessing a technique of playing out of a dynamic listening, to musical elements and to composed music. A course for lyre teachers and advanced players.
Report:
The title of Gerhard’s workshop was: ‘sich einleben’, which is not easy to translate, but could be described, in this case, as ‘playing out of listening to the other’. We were a group of about ten, sometimes, twelve people who met twice a day over three days. The course was designed for more experienced players and lyre teachers. As I have been involved with teaching adults in our Camphill coworkers’ training and have often felt that I was not going about it in the right way I was very keen to get new inspiration and very much got what I had hoped for and more! I now feel equipped with lots of new ways and possibilities to reach my students better.
After some very basic ideas on how to do a very first lessons, which included getting to feel the lyre and become comfortable with its size, weight and shape, finding the right way to sit and to hold the lyre etc, Gerhard took us to his treasure house and began to open one door after the other through which new things could be learned without reading from sheet music and being stuck to the printers’ ink. The first door he took us through was the ‘door of the polarities’: loud and soft, dark and light, slow and fast, left hand, right hand. We were introduced to the ‘air-lyre’, through which the ‘leader’ was able to show the others what he or she wanted the others to play, using his arms and various prearranged signals for the various polarities for ‘letting sound’ and for ‘dampening’ etc. Anyone could become the conductor for such an event. This exercise is based on Julius Knierim’s ‘strömendes Gestalten’ or ‘bringing form in a flowing way’. Knierim was Gerhard’s teacher.
Gerhard opened various other doors through which younger and also older students, as well as people with special needs would be able to enter in order to pick up knowledge and skills, ways into the world of music. For instance going through the ‘pentatonic door’ was at first made quite easy through the medium of imitation. The teacher plays a set sequence of tones, which is shown very clearly at first. Then very simple little sequences are played and imitated by the students. Once they have become really familiar with the tones they are asked to play little melodies. Then the leader rotates and all imitate the leader, always starting on the same note, so it is easy to find. After a while a new arrangement can be made, e.g. always on the ending note or improvising on all the notes of the pentatonic around A for a while, the teacher will give a signal to add a C, and then take it away again, as a transition experience to the c-scale.
Making arrangements and rules, setting limits, becomes the basis for free improvisation after some time. To begin with this will be done without a specific beat, being more like speech or gestures, but it is also possible to open the ‘beat-door’ and make this a new exercise, through which new elements are learned.
We also learned a different way of ‘conducting’ based on a method by the conductor Celebidake, using single tones, hands and beat.
The next door which opened a whole new musical landscape was the door of the hexachord, (D’ down to F), again first through echoing the leader, then going around the circle, each playing a certain number of tones. Other doors opened to many other landscapes, for instance the landscape of the church modes, especially the Dorian and Mixolydian (transposed to F) ones. In various ways the group was encouraged to become at home in these modes, first through echoing, then going around the circle, forming a melody all together, then making small compositions, etc. The next door: G major triad, then the whole-tone scale. The art is to find the right kind of musical landscape, which allows the students, be it beginners or more advanced, the freedom needed to be creative, without being restricted by the framework of certain musical scales, as can be the case with the C scale.
The path to improvised composition continued with making a melody to particular words, first in the pentatonic scale, later in a particular mode. Gerhard then introduced us to two very helpful books, the first one written by himself: ‘Meeting the Lyre, a teaching method for beginners’, and ‘Paths to Sound’ in which many of the elements he had introduced us to were described with examples from various composers for lyre.
I am extremely grateful to have been part of this very inspiring workshop and am determined to give this way of working a go in my lessons both with the people with special needs and with the young coworkers in the training. The two books will be there to remind me! Thank you Gerhard!
Edeline LeFevre, Northern Ireland
3. John Billing- Silence, noise and tone. Working towards playing freely on the lyre from two opposite points of departure: a harmonious form (the chords for a simple song) and unknown sound(one or more strings sounded). Open for all ability levels. Be ready and willing to stumble and to laug
4. Volker Dillmann - Elements and Planets. Exercises compositions and improvisations based on the four elements and the planets. The course includes some eurythmic exercises and gestures relating to the elements and the planets. For intermediate players.
Report:
Approaching his subject through lyre playing and eurythmy, Volker Dillmann brought great warmth and sensitivity to his presentations and to his interactions with workshop participants. The quality of Mars was demonstrated by playing the c-major scale and by walking: each tone and step was executed strongly as a separate entity. In music, the bar line introduces a Mars quality, anchoring the musical stream in the spatial, earthly dimension. By contrast, Saturn moves in one continuous stream of time from primal origins toward a far distant goal; and Venus moves selflessly in rounded, flowing motions. The Mars impulse works in speech, and the quality of Venus is related to song. Mars is assertive, its color is red; it is expressed in the vowel “A” (as in “take”) and its eurythmic gesture―which can cause pain, a sensation associated with all earthly incarnation processes (birth for example). The color mood of Venus, the Goddess of love and beauty, is green. The quality of Venus was demonstrated by playing a scale with the right hand only, starting with F and moving downwards. This reminds us of the Lydian mode of ancient Greece. Its quality is experienced by moving in a flowing, singing way through each tone, following the melodic gesture of the music.
In the experience of the ancient Greeks, Apollo, the Sun god, who played the lyre, was associated with the tone A, which was felt to be the central tone. This tradition continues today in the tuning of all orchestral instruments to a common A. In this connection we practiced a composition by Volker Dillmann on the Sun.Through his heart-felt penetration of the qualities of the planets, he was able to convey to us the mood, quality, and characteristic gesture of each planet in a meaningful way.
Our work with eurythmic movement centered around the sounds in the word “lyre.” “L” is the water sound: in moving in the mood of “L,” we all had to move together as if immersed in one connected watery flow. The arm gesture lifts what has been weighed down by gravity upwards, creating a living circulation. The “Y” sound (German “ei”) is expressed in a caressing gesture of sympathy. It is the sound associated with the Moon. “R” is the rolling air sound, full of movement. Thus the word “lyre” (the Sun instrument) moves from the watery to the airy element via the sympathetic gesture of the Moon.
In his workshop, as in his conducting of the lyre orchestra, Volker Dillmann, with his warm sensitivity, led us in transforming physical sound into the pure gesture of cosmic, musical forces.
Submitted by John Barnes
Other comments:
In Volker Dillmann’s workshop on ‘the Planets and the Elements” he was able to show such clear examples of the gesture of each planet, enhanced by eurythmy gestures in relation to the planets, as well as the elements, that I was able to see further into the spiritual side of these than ever before.
5. Samantha Embrey/Joanna Carey - Experiencing the planetary realms through improvisation(E). Working with the mirrored scales relating to the planetary tones, we will seek fresh ways of improvising with them as well as deeper experiences of these tonal configurations and the realms lying behind them.
Report:
Samantha & Joanna talked us briefly through the concept of the planetary scales and their relation to the days of the week, without turning the workshop into a lecture. Then we sounded all the tone of the day; G for Saturday. We then build up the scale first all together (from G to G without accidentals or mixolydian scale), up and down again mirror wise. Then half the group would slowly go up the scale and the other half going down. A wonderful sound it created, this was really to make all of us comfortable and familiar with the planetary scales. We then improvised round the circle in the scale, playing 3 notes at the time with some people playing a drone to keep us anchored within the scale. The second day we moved on to the next scale (based on the Aeolian scale, from A to A). Comparing it with the mood of yesterday’s scale. We played the scale in ways like yesterday but also like a lemniscate, moving up and down round a central A. We also played the scale while singing along with it and ofcourse improvising on it. We did a “game” of call and response of little phrases. All of this created a wonderful mood and we worked on having a beautiful sound in the room. I missed the last workshop, so I can not comment on it apart from the fact that all work done there was around the next scale (B to B).
6. Christian Giersch- Four Elements of Freedom, understanding the lyre as a seed of the Future. Basic excercises in free music making, originating out of the fourfold human being. A course for lyre players of all levels who seek a path of development .(I)
7. Hajime Kira- ’Your lyre can sound even more beautiful!’ (D/J/E). How to play the lyre with a beautiful tone and sound, characteristic for the lyre and unlike other instruments. Very simple free-play lyre exercises serve to show how to play lyre more beautifully. A course for all levels.
8. Frauke Kuhfuss- Bourdon lyre in group teaching (D/S). Sharing experiences of using the lyre in schools. Relaxing and fun exercises that stimulate active listening and an inner alertness. (I)
9. Elizabeth McKay – Improvising using the pentatonic scale (E). Working with simple pentatonic tunes or people’s own stories to improvise and conduct music on lyre and percussion instruments. Creating Music together, for all ages and levels of music ability.
Report:
We started the workshop on improvisation, with a round, waiting on all the people to find the group. Not easy as the door to our classroom seemed to be well hidden. Elizabeth led us over 3 days through improvisations with and without lyres. For instance we had to find instruments in the room. The flu of the wood burning stove made a great “bell”, the windows, the wooden walls, a dish with beads. Each member of the group would take a turn in being the conductor, having learned simple but effective hand signal to play the instruments. The first day we were all a bit shy, but we warmed up and got some great improvisations going. With the lyres again we improvised, led by a conductor with simple hand gestures. We played around with pentatonic songs, adding percussion to them and on day 3 we worked with a Japanese pentatonic song. Ho Ho Hotaru koi. (Come here Firefly) again adding percussion and with appointed conductors (every one got a turn) made variations or improvisation with it.
Gerda Critchton, Scotland10. Petra Rosenberg- Improvisation and the spoken word .Creating music inspired by poems or stories. The word as source of inspiration for the sound. The sound of the lyre preparing for the word and the word deepening the experience of the lyre music.
11.Eric Speelman and Christoph Heidsiek-The lyre and other newly developed instruments. The aim of this workshop is to discover and explore new sounds using a large number of Choroi instrument together with the lyres. Playing with the balance between vocal and consonant, peripheral and central. (II)
12. Marijke Vreeken -The lyre- effect and application in our time. A mini training about how the lyre(tone) works and how we can most effectively make use of it. All levels (II)
13 Jan Braunstein- New Possibilities with a different way of tuning(E/CZ).Learning about a way to tune and play a lyre with a whole- tone scala on each side, with a semitone difference between the sides. All levels. 3x(I))
15 Open working sessions.
Eurythmy and the Lyre With Bevis Michael Stevens
Report:
The working together of the lyre and eurythmy was the emphasis of this fine workshop. Eurythmy is done slightly differently with the accompaniment of the lyre, and the lyrists need to be very attentive and observant of the eurythmists, as well as their tone production, when playing for eurythmy. The participants were able to expand their awareness of tone and movement through participation in this class.
Each class began with everyone doing the I (E) A O exercise together- experiencing the beam of light entering and moving up through the center of our bodies, leaning back and experiencing the light on our forheads, leaning forward and experiencing the light on the back of our heads, and back to the center. This exercise brought us together as a group. Then, because we were a large group, we divided into two groups and alternated playing lyre and doing eurythmy.
The eurythmy groups practiced the gestures for the c major scale, first in the standard way and then with staccato movements to help us experience our gestalt. We worked on placing the gestures at the correct angles for each degree of the scale, and we practiced releasing the activity of the tone at the right moment.
Each group practiced tensing and relaxing their muscles to experience how the astral body binds the etheric to the body, and then to experience the release of the astral body into the wider sphere as the muscles were relaxed.
Bevis used the imagination of the swing of a jump rope as we moved one step, then two, then three into the circle and out again. Bringing the “rope” from behind us forward, it would swing far out in front on the first step, a little less far on the two steps, and only a short distance after the three quick steps. The image worked well and each group began to move well together and to work with the lyre tones being played. We were asked to work on experiencing birth, life, and death in each tone.
Bevis took a few moments to speak of the Red Window in the Goetheanum, describing the frame where the person is stepping toward the abyss filled with inner light, and the frame in which the person is being carried upward by angels. In this frame the light is coming from the outside, from the spiritual world, and reflecting from the surface of the person. Then in the eurythmy we practiced feeling the outer side of our arms, and then the inner side (palm side). We attempted to experience the activity of the tone coming from the periphery and living/moving between the limbs and all around us. It was a new way of experiencing for many, and quite uplifting. With the lyre playing, we worked on how we play (stroke) and release the tone, and we worked on playing the tone as the eurythmy preparation moves into the gesture aspect. We discovered that playing the lyre for eurythmy helped us to do and understand eurythmy better, and that doing eurythmy helped us to play the lyre better.
For the final class people asked Bevis to give a demonstration of 440 tuning and 432 tuning. This he did, and then we moved eurythmy to each tuning, There was a remarkable difference between the two tunings. I found it easy to move the gestures with the 432 tuning, and that the activity was full of life. It was very difficult to move to the 440 tuning, as the gestures felt stiff and difficult to release.
Much was gained from this workshop. Diane Barnes, USA
Additional Comments:
In Volker Dillmann’s workshop on ‘the Planets and the Elements” he was able to show such clear examples of the gesture of each planet, enhanced by eurythmy gestures in relation to the planets, as well as the elements, that I was able to see further into the spiritual side of these than ever before.
In Par Ahlbom’s workshop new concepts formed as we worked our way through challenging exercises.
In looking back over the conference I realize that for me it had to do with expanding my awareness and forming new concepts. I am deeply greatful for what I received. Many thanks to all of you who made it possible! Diane Barnes, USA
