by Jeffrey Swinkin

Teaching Music
With

Structure
Jeffrey Swinkin
is a pianist, music
theorist and an
adjunct professor
of music at the
University of San
Francisco. He holds
degrees in piano
performance from the Eastman
School of Music and the University
of Michigan. He has concertized,
lectured and given master classes
nationwide.

14 JUNE/JULY 2006
A ny teacher of music, or of anything for that matter,
must constantly strive for a balance between
addressing the student’s immediate problems, and affording
him a deeper, more grounding experience. By no means are
these two concerns mutually exclusive, yet much music
teaching I have encountered is balanced too heavily toward
the immediate or reactive; in this mode, the teacher often
attempts to correct every mistake or address every problem
as it arises. I have found this approach, although obviously
necessary at times, often creates a somewhat disorienting
dynamic in a lesson and actually can exacerbate problems
students tend to have, such as physical tension or myopic
focus. Moreover, this approach lacks depth: it often relies
upon verbal cues, such as “be more expressive,” as opposed
to exploring a variety of experiential exercises by which the
student can learn to be more expressive, for example, in a
natural and organic way.
The teaching mode I advocate, by contrast, aims to create
a more coherent and multidimensional experience for both
student and teacher. In this approach, the teacher will not
confine herself to the surface of a piece, but will help a stu-
dent uncover its structure to facilitate the learning process.
Likewise, the teacher will not confine herself to the “sur-
face” of the student—his immediate mistakes and prob-
lems—but will ascertain his underlying issues, both within
a lesson and over a course of study, and confront them in
myriad ways. Finally, the teacher will acknowledge her own
depth—her underlying values and biases that are bound to
permeate all aspects of her teaching—and mobilize such
values in a purposive way. Although I will explain this
methodology most often with reference to one-on-one
piano lessons, it can be readily applied both to classroom
teaching and to the pedagogy of other instruments.
Structural Elements
The most obvious site of structural teaching is the piece
itself, since art music is abundant in structural subtlety and
complexity that we can utilize in teaching and performance.
For example, the student might initially find the opening
measures of Chopin’s Nocturne in F-sharp Major (Example
1) difficult to read, as the contour is rather disjunct, making
it difficult to discern a clear thread among the pitches.
However, a consideration of the voice leading (Example 1,
bottom staves) reveals two underlying motions: first, the
right hand traverses a descending third 3̂ 2̂ 1̂, which is
counterpointed by parallel sixths in the uppermost voice of
the left hand; second, the C-sharp in measure 1, right hand,
is subsequently displaced an octave higher via the elegant
flourish in measure 2. Hence, intricate though the melody
may seem on the surface, the underlying motions it elabo-
rates are actually quite simple.
AMERICAN MUSIC TEACHER
Example 1
Chopin, Nocturne, Op. 15, No. 2, measures 1–2 and analysis1
The relatively inexperienced student, say an average col-
lege freshman, who in this scenario is learning the piece,
cannot be expected to arrive at such a voice leading reduc-
tion by himself—the teacher will have to lead him to it.
One way to do this is by purely performance-based means.
For example, the teacher might convey the following
instructions:
n “Play the F-sharp major scale.” Obviously, this will
ground the student in the difficult tonality of the piece.
n “Play 3̂ 2̂ 1̂ in that scale, accompanied by parallel sixths
below in the left hand.” This will afford the student a tac-
tile experience of the underlying counterpoint.
n “Improvise a melody in the key of F-sharp major that out-
lines and embellishes 3̂ 2̂ 1̂ and that at some point
transfers middle C-sharp to the octave above.” This is
analogous to expressing another’s point in one’s own
words; such paraphrasing, in music as in language, is
essential for fluency and understanding.
n “Play the actual melody as I sing the right-hand melodic
structure”; alternatively, or in addition, the student can
sing the melodic structure as he plays. Through this, the
student can perceive where the structural tones are placed
metrically, as well as the particular manner in which each
is embellished.
n Finally, the student may play the passage as written, with-
out any assistance from the teacher.
Through these exercises, the student will gain a concrete
sense of some essential features of Chopin’s passage, which
will render him less susceptible to errors while learning it.
For example, on a first reading, the right-hand F-sharp in
measure 2 might fall through the cracks if not for the real-
ization that, although extremely brief, it actually completes
the descent of an underlying third and is thus quite impor-
tant. Likewise, the left-hand B in measure 1 may appear to
be an arbitrary leap if not for the awareness of the line to
which B belongs (C-sharp–B–A-sharp) or of its intervallic
relation to the right hand. Simply put, exposing the student
to structural tones provides him with a safety net and
15
affords him a greater sense of security when rendering the
passage than he might otherwise have.
An understanding of contrapuntal structure has ramifica-
tions not only for note learning, but for interpretation as
well. For example, knowing the structural importance of the
right-hand F-sharp in measure 2 might compel the student
to take a little time on that note, expressively pulling against
its short note value. Such emphasis would arise from and
express a sense of melodic resolution to the tonic. To be sure,
this resolution is extremely brief; no sooner does it occur
than the less stable C-sharp bounds up an octave to under-
mine it. Perhaps the student could express this with a slight
crescendo to the high C-sharp and by playing it with a sub-
tle intensity that contrasts with the more relaxed F-sharp.
The relationship of analysis to performance is a fascinating
topic, one beginning to take its rightful place alongside other,
more conventional topics in music theory. Although I cannot
pursue it more fully here, I hope to at least have hinted at some
technical and interpretive benefits of uncovering the voice lead-
ing of a piece or passage. Of course, in a more extended
encounter with a piece, one would also want to examine its
harmony, form, rhythm and meter, and motivic treatment, all
of which could prove fruitful for note learning and expressivity.
Structural Lessons
One can structure a lesson in the same manner as a com-
poser often structures a piece. Chopin might have had 3̂ 2̂ 1̂
floating around in his mind (perhaps subconsciously) and
then devised melodic figurations that would express that basic
progression in a beautiful and particular way. The teacher,
likewise, can structure a lesson around a basic premise or aim
and then elaborate that basis in manifold, creative ways.
Importantly, the creative manifestations of an underlying idea
are never fully reducible to that idea.The fact that 3̂ 2̂ 1̂ is
implicit in Chopin’s melody does not mean the sole import of
the melody is the 3̂ 2̂ 1̂ it embodies. Rather, the 3̂ 2̂ 1̂ is a foil
and a source of coherence for the more interesting elabora-
tions to which it gives rise. Likewise, the underlying premise
of a lesson will often be in the background relative to the exer-
cises and activities the teacher devises to explore it.
Nonetheless, these underlying ideas, in music and music study
alike, are indispensable sources of coherence.
A relatively advanced adult student, “Alyssa,” was work-
ing on Mozart’s Sonata in B-flat Major, K. 281 (first move-
ment). Alyssa knew the notes well, but was preoccupied
with accuracy and somewhat musically stifled. I wanted to
find ways to help her imbue the gestures and phrases with a
greater sense of direction, distinctiveness and vitality. To
begin, I asked her to sing and conduct (students who can’t,
might simply chant and gesticulate) to the music as I played
it, to capture the spirit and motion of each phrase.
Sometimes she played and I conducted her. Finally, I asked
16
her to play without my participation, channeling into the
keyboard the spontaneous, broad and vivacious physical
motions she was able to produce away from the keyboard.
As she did this, the music began to come to life.
For the next exercise, I asked her to consider the character
of each gesture and play a more overt version of that charac-
ter by embellishing Mozart’s music, extending his passages in
an improvisatory fashion. Since I knew Alyssa liked and had
a special rapport with children, I asked her to imagine that
she had to translate Mozart’s sentiments into terms a child
would understand—that she had to speak to that child in a
clear, demonstrative and imagistic musical language. So, for
example, the triplet figures in measures 1–2 (see Example 2),
which Alyssa described as “winding and meandering,”
became in her realization a longer, more ornate and more
circuitous passage. The rolled chords in measure 3, which
she characterized as “regal,” became slow, grandiose chords
in both hands that she rolled up and down several times
with great flair and emphasis. Finally, the 32-note figure that
follows, which she called “brilliant,” became rendered
approximately as in Example 3. We continued this exercise
for the entire exposition, exploring the character of each ges-
ture not only in isolation but also in relation to those before
and after, thus planting the seed for an overarching narrative
that would ultimately tie together the entire movement.
When we returned to the actual score, playing it as writ-
ten, she was able to transfer to it the qualities of expansive-
ness, freedom and clarity she experienced during the
exercise. The gestures now felt and sounded substantial
rather than fleeting. Just as improvising on 3̂ 2̂ 1̂ helped the
first student see that progression embedded in Chopin’s
music, so these improvisations helped Alyssa to uncover the
characters embedded in Mozart’s piece.
Example 2
Mozart, Piano Sonata in B-flat Major, K. 281, first movement,
measures 1–4
Example 3
Improvised expansion of “brilliant” figure in measure 3
JUNE/JULY 2006
 Hence, the lesson centered on a single basic aim: to
increase musical vitality by arriving at a distinctive, full-
bodied shape for each gesture. We approached this with a
methodology emphasizing both improvisation and move-
ment. The first exercise employed spontaneous movement
and vocalization as a means of uncovering musical motion
and emotion; the second employed improvisation that
expanded Mozart’s gestures to include more notes in which
to arrive at a convincing shape for each. Movement in this
second exercise was largely metaphorical: the exercise gave
Alyssa the sense that she had more “room,” in terms of both
creative space and musical length, in which to manifest the
shape of each gesture than would be possible by playing
Mozart’s actual music in a continuous fashion. In short, I
structured this lesson according to a precise musical goal
that was approached by two contrasting, yet complementa-
ry, exercises: one emphasizing movement in physical space,
the other, movement in creative space.
This lesson had a two-part form, emanating from two
related exercises centered on a central theme. In this respect,
the form of the lesson could be understood as analogous to
a musical binary form in which two sections, A and A', cen-
ter on a theme or particular figuration and unfold it in
analogous ways. Of course, many other lesson structures are
possible. For example, one might structure a lesson accord-
ing to ternary form, involving a main idea or exercise (A), a
contrasting or oppositional idea or exercise (B) and, finally,
a synthesis of the two (A') in which A is reconsidered in
light of B. To take a simple scenario, one might spend the
first part of a lesson working with a student on the overall
character and rhetoric of a passage, the second on a har-
monic analysis of that passage, and the third considering
subtleties of character that arise specifically from knowledge
of the harmonic progressions.
Organizing lessons according to these common musical
forms has two advantages. First, these forms are useful vehi-
cles for conveying information and arranging exercises in
particularly organized and lucid ways. Second, and perhaps
more significantly, appropriating these forms as the frame-
work for a lesson affords the student a first-hand experience
of those forms. Musical form within this approach is not
just something we understand and identify, but something
we experience. Such an experience can beneficially affect
one’s playing. For example, if the student is taught in clearly
defined and discrete segments, as in ABA' form, he may be
more likely to bring a sense of clarity and separateness to his
phrasing than if he was taught in an amorphous fashion.
That said, what is ultimately most important are not the
forms per se, but the content they encompass and from
which they emanate.
In sum, a structural lesson is one in which a primary
point or goal is realized by analogous exercises couched
AMERICAN MUSIC TEACHER
within a musical form. Again, teaching in this manner does
not preclude a teacher from addressing more localized issues
and concerns as they arise, but ideally establishes a frame-
work within which these concerns can be addressed with
greater ease and clarity.
Overall Structure
Taking structural music teaching one step further, the
teacher also may bring a sense of structure to a student not
just within a single lesson, but over many lessons. Just as both
a piece and a lesson may elaborate underlying ideas (musical
ideas and ideas about music, respectively), so, inevitably, will
each student have underlying issues. These might be specifi-
cally pianistic in nature—for example, fingering, hand posi-
tion, touch, physical stance at the keyboard, pedaling and
such. They might fall within the category of general musi-
cianship, such as rhythm, phrasing, musical style and so on.
Or these concerns might be of a more personal or psycholog-
ical nature—say, difficulty in being present while playing,
reluctance in committing to a lengthy learning process, exces-
sive dependence on the teacher, a propensity for self-depreca-
tion in the face of mistakes, a fear of judgment in performing
for the teacher or an audience and the like. Such broad issues,
far from being mere nuisances to be quickly eradicated, are a
potential source of depth and coherence insofar as the teacher
can build on them, employing them as catalysts for creative
endeavors. Such endeavors always yield dividends that far
exceed the benefit of merely solving the problems from which
they emerged. Indeed, problems and challenges are not
impediments to creative work and artistic insight, but the
very precondition for them.
The next logical step is to extend a sense of structure to
one’s student body as a whole. Every teacher possesses a
firm sense of what she deems important in music, art and
life overall, and these basic assumptions inform her teaching
of not one but of all her students.
By way of example, the following are some of my own
assumptions:
n Art, in general, is essential to life. It illuminates aspects of
existence that other, non-artistic forms of discourse can-
not. Music, in particular, is essential to life; it illuminates
aspects of existence that other art forms cannot.
n Music flows from the composer––his conceptions and
improvisations––to its representation in a score, to the
sounds when the score is realized by the performer, to the
perceiver. Music is not fully music until it is performed
and perceived.
n Music is a language with sounds, “grammatical” combina-
tions of those sounds and meaning behind those sounds.
n Music is a sounding, moving analogy to our inner life—it
embodies the shape of our feelings and thoughts, their
ebb and flow.
17
n The ultimate goal of performance is to be physically
relaxed and agile, mentally present and lucid and emo-
tionally expressive; it is also to capture the improvisatory
spirit in which most music is conceived.
n Music, like anything else, can embody the more refined
or more ignoble aspects of human nature. While compos-
ing, performing and teaching, it is essential to realize
music’s positive and life-affirming potential. The models
for this realization are, in my view, the music and music-
making practices of the great composers of the 18th and
19th centuries.
These assumptions, among others, guide everything I do
as a teacher and everyone I teach, albeit in different ways.
All teachers have deep-seated musical assumptions.
Reflecting on and becoming more cognizant of them can
empower a teacher, enabling him to prioritize those essen-
tial ideas and values he really wants students to take away
from his instruction. Granted, he does not necessarily
explicitly communicate these beliefs to his students—that
would often prove ineffectual and even inappropriate. But
once these beliefs are accessed and affirmed, they inevitably
infiltrate all aspects of teaching, from the broadest method-
ological tenet to the most concrete statement and exercise.
The teacher who has not fully acknowledged and examined
his beliefs is less able to employ them purposively in his
teaching. But he possibly faces a greater drawback still—
that he implicitly conveys in his teaching certain assump-
tions that, if made conscious, he might reconsider or even
disavow. Indeed, more important than the awareness and
activation of values are the particular values themselves. If
these are positive and of high artistic merit, the teacher will
not so much have to create depth as surrender to it. In this
sense, we teach not just by what we do but with even
greater consequence by who we are.
Structure on All Levels
One may manifest a sense of structure on all pedagogical
levels—those of the piece, the lesson and the students.
Significantly, in teaching with structure, we embody in our
very approach to teaching a virtue that we strive to instill in
our students’ playing; teaching with structure provides a
model for playing with structure. I would even suggest that
holistic qualities, such as structure, unity, cohesiveness and
so forth, must be taught by way of example, since they are
too subtle and elusive to be taught primarily by conveying
instructions pertaining to tempo, dynamics, phrasing and
the like. For these qualities are never reducible to the
demonstrable processes with which they are associated—
they always transcend them. This is why we cannot repro-
duce the uncanny sense of structure in a Vladmir Horowitz
performance, for example, merely by reproducing all the
physical and interpretive things Horowitz does, assuming
18
that were even possible. Put another way, the qualities of
coherence and depth that emanate from the approach I
have described are bound to permeate a student’s thought
…the qualities of
coherence and depth
that emanate from
the approach…are
bound to permeate a
student’s thought
processes…
processes, even if subtly and subconsciously, and thus have
an impact on his playing. Indeed, I truly believe the student
responds as much to, and is affected as much by, the under-
lying qualities of a teacher’s methodology as by what she
explicitly expresses.
Hence, when our words and actions as teachers coalesce
into a structured framework, we implicitly transmit the
importance of structure to our students, who may then
assimilate it in a natural and partly subconscious way into
their playing and practice habits. Conversely, it is contradic-
tory to profess to our students the importance of structure
in playing if we do not exemplify it in our own teaching. In
general, we ought to strive for congruence between the val-
ues we seek to instill in our students and those that underlie
our teaching methods. At the very least, teaching that pos-
sesses such congruence will be more efficacious than teach-
ing that does not.
Finally, this ideal of congruence certainly extends to qual-
ities other than structure. Novelty, energy, spontaneity,
economy, variety—these and other qualities we admire in
the music we teach and wish for our students’ playing may
form the core of our own teaching, whereby they are taught
more effectively. Indeed, the model for our teaching meth-
ods should be the very music we teach and how we want it
to be played. g
NOTE
1. Heinrich Schenker’s more extended analysis of the
right hand of this passage can be found in his Free
Composition (Der Frei Satz), trans. Ernst Oster (New York:
Schirmer Books, 1979), supplement volume, Fig. 117 (also
see his explanation of the graph in the main volume,
96–97).
AMT
JUNE/JULY 2006