Music joins people

Children explore sounds

TBy Cezary Owerkowicz

ravelers in the beginning looked rather suspiciously at those big boxes until some of them began to touch them and even played.

It happened at the big, new railway station in Katowice, the capital of Silesia. The project which came two years ago was the brainchild of the British artiste, Luke Jerram. He noticed that we seldom smiled, or rather rarely.

The passers-by are like strangers, not even trying to make a contact in any manner. Is it necessary and without a chance to change? Trying to shorten the distance between passers-by in Metropolises all over the world he offered them the fabulous colorful upright piano boxes placed in common space.

The instruments landed in Toronto, Kiev, Boston and Paris and many other places. Except for the railway station, other piano boxes were placed at a shopping mall and at the Garden City Park at the Silesian Parliament Square.

Katowice is a centre for several post industrial towns, settlements and so on, which became connected into one huge ‘megapolis’. The city has an ambition to replace its industrial status of coal and steel into a cultural and educational centre.

It is a place of world class Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra (that visited Kuwait during the Chopin Year in 2010) and the Silesian Philharmonic among scores of various music ensembles. In 2015 the city was named by UNESCO the ‘City of Music’. The pianos installed in social centers are one of its attractions.

‘Everybody can ‘play on’ these instruments or just ‘play with’, says the city spokesman. Nothing special but the idea appears ‘genuine’. When the first players timidly tried the pianos, people stopped and watched. They went round the piano, praised the instruments and congratulated those who played on or played with. This brought smiles on many faces. Many people stool still from their busy schedule to listen to the sounds more closely. These were the scenes at a railway station or a mall which until then were not so common?

Owerkowicz

One man, a 20-year-old even dropped by and spent some time whenever it was possible. ‘I play from my childhood. First I was self taught, later I took courses. I liked to play at railway stations, finally I was able to present to the other people what I like and know. People are stopping, smiling, listening. That’s a very nice feeling.’ He plays classic and pop music. Olga and Natalie are two friends. They are thirteen and both studying at a music school in Katowice.

They stopped almost every day after school to play even for few minutes in the open air. At last I began to play Chopin’s Nocturnes even before I attended the school. First I played a carol at home although I had never sat on a stool next to a piano. My parents decided that it is worthwhile to teach me and exposure to the piano was a super idea! Music joins the people.

Music is also a joy especially in the form of education for the young children. Except for professional schools where parents send their children such as Olga and Natalie there are places to study for fun.

“The wonderful new building mentioned above — the National Orchestra — is not only a place to listen to beautiful music at the highest level but also practice music in the company of orchestral musicians and members of several ensembles as well as the visiting guest-artistes who play in the midst of squads of young enthusiasts.

For them music has gradually become the natural language. We are studying the language in our childhood while not even knowing its rules and there is no doubt the same is possible with music. I mean we just imitate our elders and people of our own age, playing with sounds, instruments and even with our body. These days this is a popular trend.

Activities

In the National Orchestra there are several kinds of activities for children for even as young as the three-year-olds. This is a small music school for pre-school children, concerts for small children and world renowned Suzuki method courses.

The music pre-school is based on the cycle of every week meetings with calisthenics (rhythmic) activities for the younger and older (3-4 and 5-6 years) children. Their purpose is to instill interest in music and all activities connected with it. The young participants are introduced to the fascinating world of sounds in the most natural way by the instructor through amusement. And as a result sensitivity for richness in music is awakened in the toddlers.

The instructors are using elements of the British method of Edwin Gordon and Hungarian of Zoltan Kadaly: music rounds the children. The small participants are moving along with the rhythm of certain melodies, play with simple instruments, and listen to different songs, especially folk and classical.

They study music using both — their voice and their body. During every session the children participate in a 15 minutes long concert at the Chamber Concert Hall and this includes the tour of the National Orchestra building and knowing instruments. A child participating in such complex activities develops the very natural way of musical sensitivity.

The activities for children start at the beginning of September and helps wake up a huge interest among parents. The courses are held at the specially adapted halls of music workshops.

For the first time I observed (and admired) music activities directed to all age groups of citizens in Britain. The most renowned music institutions in the world are found in this country, conscious about the position music commands in the society from the educational, entertaining, and even medical field points of view.

Music is responsible for initiating several activities, in addition to accepting their basic activities such as classical concerts and spectacles. It includes projects addressed to groups from preschool children to the elderly people, including those suffering from Alzheimer’s or Parkinson diseases. I got interested in such projects and a sample of National Orchestra in Katowice offered me the material to more detailed reflections which I like to share with you.

Coming back to the youngest, music is a subject very much suitable for every popular idea of education in many systems, even the Montessori Method.

Maria Montessori was the Italian educator and doctor of medicine very active towards the end of the 19th and early 20th centuries. Today there are more than twenty thousand schools and pre-schools which have adapted to her ideas. People who have supported this method were outstanding researches including the Swiss pioneering psychologist of child development, Jean Piaget. He discovered and described the development stages of a child’s intellect. ‘Only education is capable of saving our societies from possible collapse and gradual violence’.

We thank him. We know that a child between 7 and 11 is in the so-called ‘stage of substantial operation’. Such children develop the problem of abstract thinking. A child needs physical, sensual experiences to train him/her in the manner of thinking. It has to repeat the activity even a few times to succeed … and the music education offers this opportunity.

Education is a very important subject for every society, particularly also the music education.

I will try to elaborate on this subject in my next article next week.

Editor’s Note: Cezary Owerkowicz is the chairman of the Kuwait Chamber of Philharmonia and talented pianist. He regularly organises concerts by well-known musicians for the benefit of music lovers and to widen the knowledge of music in Kuwait. His e-mail address is: cowerkowicz @yahoo.com and cowerkowicz@hotmail.com