Explaining the American Music System

January 13, 2016, 7:50 AM · The overriding principle of the American Music System is to teach music holistically from the very beginning. Rhythm (feel), harmony (chord progression) and melody (melody) are given equal weight from the outset. Many teachers focus on melody only believing that it is difficult or impossible for students to handle more than one aspect of music at a time. Rhythm is usually treated separately – sometimes using books schooling rhythms without pitches. To be sure, it is important to recognize the different elements of music and, especially in more advanced levels of training, to analyze the separate elements. “Doing the math” for rhythm, like “spelling “ for pitches, is helpful for intellectual understanding of the elements of music. However, too much focus on these elements apart from the music itself can be counter-productive. My experience has been that a child’s early experience in learning music is more satisfying, easier and ultimately more musical if approached in the holistic manner at the heart of the American Music System. Rhythm, for example, is best internalized if it is not superimposed from an outside source onto a piece of music but is felt as a groove (yes even classical music has groove!) coming from the music itself.

The American Music System is not defined or dependent on any one set of materials. The “system” itself has risen and formed around learning American folk tunes and blues and jazz styles for many decades. It is an essentially grass roots phenomenon based on the natural human desires to learn to make music and share it with others.
The system developed in kitchens, on back porches, in taverns, in military encampments, in dormitory rooms, in churches (gospel) – anywhere folks were making music and learning from each other. If someone knew a tune that someone else wanted to learn, that person became the teacher. Teaching music as part of a regular school curriculum is fairly recent. Whereas, this development is a wonderful step in bringing music into more children’s lives, it runs the danger of the teaching of music becoming more like the teaching of other subjects – lesson plans, analysis, testable questions, right and wrong answers, etc.

During the past five years, I have traveled extensively in the US and Canada presenting teacher training seminars in the principles of American Music System using the O’Connor Method series of solo and orchestra books. I have met and spoken with hundreds of teachers. One of the overwhelming observations that I came away with was that most of you already have an innate sense of the American Music System approach. So many of you have been using folk music and fiddle tunes in addition to the core methods of your choice. So many of you have been incorporating groove, improvisation and chord progression into your teaching. Many of you have even said, “I could have written this method! I’ve been teaching this way all along!”

Any set of materials – any music – can be used to teach in this “system.” It requires only an understanding of music as a whole and a teaching approach that honors all elements equally. The recent spread and success of the O’Connor Method is due largely to the fact that the materials were selected not only for their sequenced technical development but also for their qualities of strong harmonic progression and groove. Take Boil ‘em Cabbage Down for example. Not only is this beginning tune a great little melody for teaching whole and half steps from a home base central to the hand (C# on the violin), but the melody is also an obvious chord progression. The initial move from C# to D carries such an obvious chord change with it that the students sense harmonic movement from the very beginning. And so forth throughout the tune. To teach Twinkle Twinkle Little Star in the American Music System one would have to school the move from A to E without a chord change and the move to F# as the first harmonic change – doable, of course, but more complicated. There is also a longstanding harmonic confusion in the middle part of Twinkle that makes it a difficult first tune. The repeated descending line can be chorded in two ways:

The accompaniment book for the Suzuki Method uses both I-V-I-V the first time and I-IV-I-V the second time as above. This aspect of the tune is a marvelous resource for teaching harmony and how the same melody notes can function differently depending on the accompanying chord, but again, teaching Twinkle holistically makes it a rather advanced piece. It is interesting that Suzuki himself objected to using the harmony and obligato duet parts for Twinkle that emerged in some American Suzuki groups over the years. I was present at a Suzuki festival years ago where Dr. Suzuki respectfully asked the advanced students not to play the obligato for Twinkle that he heard them rehearsing. I personally believe that his objection was due, at least in part, to this confusion over the harmonic movement of the piece. For example, the “English Twinkle” or “Anglisha Twinkle” that is still very popular in Suzuki circles, does not honor the IV chord in the middle part. If it is paired with the published piano part for the Suzuki Method, there is an obvious harmonic clash in Measure 7. The desire to harmonize Twinkle is definitely a credit to the instinct at the heart of the American Music System. But the fact that so many students continue to play harmony parts that are sometimes “wrong” is evidence of a lack of a complete understanding of the piece.

Perhaps the biggest lesson to learn from Twinkle regarding the American Music System, however, comes from the students themselves. The Suzuki variations were developed to start the bow off with lots of motion and to avoid the more advanced technique of using long bows at the outset of the training. These variations worked well for this purpose. My experience with teaching Twinkle to hundreds of children over several decades, however, is that once the students learn the “theme,” they lose interest in the variations. I can’t tell you how ¬many times I heard children refer to the theme as “the real Twinkle” and proclaimed it as their favorite. Somehow, they sensed that the variations are artificial constructs to this piece and that the “real” groove of Twinkle is the long legato bows of the melody itself. In contrast, the bowing variations for Boil ‘em Cabbage Down are truer to the groove of the tune itself further contributing to its success as a beginning tune. Twinkle Twinkle Little Star is an absolutely beautiful piece of music – stunning really. However, from the American Music System Point of view, it is a fairly ¬advanced piece. It is no secret that many struggling beginning students have found it so hard to “get past Twinkle.” Perhaps the subtle powers of structure, harmonic progression and groove have been ignored in favor of the simple melody in choosing it as a beginning tune.

Any tunes can be used to instill the principles of the American Music System while building technique. There are many advantages in using a carefully sequenced set of tunes such as those found in O’Connor Method Book I. However, the principles of integrating harmony (chords), rhythm (style) and melody from the very beginning override any particular set of tunes. One of my favorite exercises over the years has been to take a tune and change the style. Here is a fiddle-style rendition of Suzuki’s Allegro that my students enjoy.

Students have fun showing they can play this tune in two ways – “classically” with well-articulated marcato quarter-note bows and “fiddle style” with shuffle bowing and a rounder bow stroke.

Adding a shuffle bowing to Lightly Row and Go Tell Aunt Rhody also works. Changing the style of The May Song is less successful because this folk tune functions more like a march than a dance. It is interesting for the students to understand (absorb) the difference here. Trying to “fiddle” the Bach Minuets does not work well but adding ornaments and/or passing tones in the Baroque style can be a fun challenging.

The long-standing tradition of having group classes in Suzuki programs is a perfect setting for implementing the principles of the American Music System. Most Suzuki groups, however, focus on unison playing of melodies only. A more holistic approach would have the class adding harmony (chords, bass lines, harmony lines) and rhythm (chopping or other rhythmical bowing) to the melodies that the class has learned. By having the students participate in the creation of new arrangements of their known tunes, teachers can tap into the inherent creativity of their students and at the same time give them a basis for comfort.

“Teaching music” is a tough order. Some would say it borders on oxymoron: by the time you tear music apart into teachable bits, it ceases to be music. A greater understanding of the history and heart of the American Music System will help teachers keep the music in music education.

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Explaining the American Music System

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