Music lessons from Lithuania

LAWRENCE – The Baltic state of Lithuania is home to “a singing culture,” says Professor of Music Debra Hedden, and, in her most recent scholarly article, she tries to adapt some of that country’s methods for an American audience. She also infuses these in her methods classes, in which she’s preparing future teachers to teach children to sing.

“Lessons from Lithuania: A Pedagogical Approach in Teaching Improvisation” is the article Hedden published in the most recent edition of the International Journal of Music Education. Hedden directs the music education program at the University of Kansas School of Music. She worked as an elementary school teacher for nearly 20 years, then was a faculty member and later chair of music education at the University of Northern Iowa for 10 years before joining KU, so she already knew a thing or two about teaching music before she won two Fulbrights and other awards that have funded her Lithuanian research for the past six years.

Lithuania’s music culture has fascinated Hedden since her first visit in 2010, when she and her husband, former KU dean and music professor Steve Hedden, were invited there to lead a weeklong workshop for teachers.

“There are boys singing schools and girls singing schools,” Hedden said. “They meet four or five times a week after the regular school day for two or more hours. These schools are subsidized by the government. They learn to read music. They do several performances a year.”

In “Lessons from Lithuania,” Hedden writes about observing how a master teacher she calls Lukas (a pseudonym) taught improvisation in a university setting.

“He was a very knowledgeable teacher,” Hedden said, “but he had few materials and no money to work with.”

The secret to his success, Hedden said, involves “high expectations, no messing around and the use of humor — although it’s a serious business.”

Hedden observed Lukas’ teaching methods, some of which involved physical activities like clapping or playing different instruments and some of which involved mental practices, like creating music on the spot to illustrate a situation the teacher was describing verbally. All are designed to break down inhibition and stimulate creativity.

In her article, Hedden places these pedagogical methods into five categories:

• Freedom to create
• Convincing the students
• Establishing expectations
• Learning experiences
• Environment

Under “expectations,” for example, Hedden wrote that Lukas “encouraged and validated all students’ attempts at improvisation to dispel fears and avoid inappropriate responses by their peers.” He reminded them that “there can be no mistakes in improvisation.”

“By the end of the semester, they are on stage with dance majors, creating music for them to dance to on the spot,” Hedden said.

Improved methods of teaching improvisation to U.S. college students who want to become music teachers are necessary, Hedden said.

“One of the great issues I see is that our students are so good at reading and interpreting music on the page, but they are not so good at creating it on their own,” Hedden said. “Think about trying to study English only by reading it and never improvising a conversation or writing.”

Hedden said she brought some of Lukas’ teaching methods home to KU, but they only worked to a certain extent. That’s one reason she is continuing her line of research.

“I did a study with my undergrads using these advanced methods,” she said. “We did a study on improvisation and their comfort levels. We did improvised experiences pre- and post-test, and we found that they gained comfort with everything except using their voices. That doesn’t surprise me one bit, because the voice is personal and internal. They played the recorder, xylophone, African drums and singing. They gained in skill with that, even vocally, despite the fact they were less comfortable.”

Hedden said she completed these experiments during the fall semesters of 2016 and 2017 and plans to write them up for another article over the summer.

Photo: Professor Debra Hedden works with a group of music education students at KU in this 2013 photo. Credit: KU Marketing Communications