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Obituário:
John Paynter obituary
Influential figure in music education who championed creativity
Classroom-based music is a generally unsung corner of education, yet many composers – Zoltán Kodály, Carl Orff and Ralph Vaughan Williams among them – have given it serious attention. Though less widely known as a composer, John Paynter, who has died aged 78, was regarded by many as the most influential figure in musical education.
Paynter developed a new philosophy for music in schools. While other arts subjects, including English, were engaged in exciting debate and experiment, thanks to the influence of such practitioners as Herbert Read and David Holbrook, music tended to remain in its well-worn (and not much liked) rut. It concentrated on instrumental and vocal training for a few pupils, and the study of musical theory and history for the generality. Paynter experimented with a new approach that placed creativity at its core.
Before 1970, practical music-making in class most often consisted of precise instructions, such as learning to play the recorder en masse. Paynter encouraged students to explore the gamut of sounds, not just musical notes. He encouraged children to think and reason as composers. Pupils could use their imaginations to create a piece of music that meant something special to them. It could be programmatic, such as a "stormy day", or musically abstract, such as a gradual crescendo followed by a gradual diminuendo. If pupils had instrumental or vocal skills they would use them, but they might find their inspiration in knocking a desk with a ruler. Borrowing an idea developed by drama teachers in the 1960s, he encouraged group work. He organised pupils into groups of four or five to bounce ideas off each other and to improvise.
Paynter's chief concern was to find out how far students of all ages could find expression and joy through musical experimentation, composition and improvisation, and how the outcomes might be evaluated. This work led to the publication of Sound and Silence (1970), co-written with Peter Aston. This remarkable book gave starting points and examples to teachers for how they might encourage students to explore the styles and concepts of 20th-century music and the relationship of music to other areas of the curriculum such as language and mathematics.
The book was a triumph and has remained a touchstone for musical education. The success (some might say notoriety) of Sound and Silence led to similar publications by Paynter, the purpose being always to place a high value on creativity without neglecting the disciplines of performance.
Paynter had a poor, working-class background. Although music was not a strong feature of his family life, Paynter's mother bought him a piano at a young age. He won a scholarship to Emanuel school in Battersea, south London, where his musical talents were encouraged. He attended Trinity College, London, graduating in 1952. After national service, he decided to devote his life to teaching, first in primary schools, then in secondary.
He pursued a distinguished academic career in parallel to his educational work in schools and colleges. He was appointed lecturer in the music department at the University of York in 1969 under the scholar and composer Wilfrid Mellers. After being appointed to a chair in music education, Paynter assumed leadership of the department in 1983 and remained there until his retirement in 1994. Paynter's involvement in school music attracted many postgraduate students who, in turn, made important contributions to practice in that field. All the members of York's music department were composers.
Paynter's own composing brought him enormous satisfaction. His oeuvre includes vocal and instrumental works as well as music-theatre works for children. His choral settings of TS Eliot's Landscapes and Gerard Manley Hopkins's The Windhover (both published by OUP) have an ethereal quality enhanced by his use of vocal improvisation.
He directed the project Music in the Secondary School Curriculum from 1973 to 1982. Sponsored by The Schools Council for Curriculum and Examinations, this major enterprise influenced both the newly introduced GCSE examination and, a few years later, the National Curriculum in music (England and Wales). Added to this UK-based activity was worldwide touring to meet the increasing demand for his wisdom and teaching. With Keith Swanwick, he founded the British Journal of Music Education (CUP) in 1983, and co-edited it until 1997.
He was appointed OBE in 1985 and in 1998 he received the PRS and Royal Philharmonic Society's Leslie Boosey award for "outstanding contribution to the furtherance of contemporary music".
Paynter was something of a mystery to those who worked with him. He managed to be the enfant terrible and the upright establishment figure concurrently. He advocated freedom in lessons, but he did so wearing a suit and tie, with polished shoes. His genuine interest in others won him loyalty and affection and the elegance of his writing was matched by a consistently positive attitude towards music-making and teaching.
During his most active years, Paynter was loyally supported by his wife, Elizabeth, whom he married in 1956. When she died in 1998, he was heartbroken but he eventually found new joy in his marriage to a long-term friend, Joan, who herself had been widowed at around the same time. She survives him, as do his daughter, stepdaughter and stepson.
• John Frederick Paynter, music educationist and composer, born 17 July 1931; died 1 July 2010
Idéias de Jonh Paynter:
"A música de hoje é para todos"
"(...) a música deveria estender-se por outras áreas e as outras (...) deveriam estender-se para a música"
Quando a música será considerada realmente como uma área de conhecimento?
Discutindo com colegas da nossa própria turma isso ainda não está latente nem no nosso meio da educação muscial!
Tive que responder a seguinte pergunta:
Para que serve o ensino da música?
Depois de tantos meses focados nisso ainda deveriamos responder essas perguntas?
Caminho didático- Composição para os três para Paynter, Swanick e Self
Swanick
Ensinado música musicalmente
Etapas, antes do vocabulário, sons; antes da vida adulta, uma vida infantil e pré-adulta etc.
Swanwick, organiza de acordo com sua experiência , observação e acompanhamento de alunos de escolas de música inglesas, uma melhor maneira de perceber e analisar como se dá o desenvolvimento musical.
Se baseou muit em Piaget, mas de maneira pouco fiel e deterpou algumas de suas iséias mais básicas. Método de observação e constatação de como a música se desenvolve na vida humana.
Explora a criatividade do aluno utilizando todo e qualquer tipo de material sonoro.
Por que teoria espiral?
O gráfico estrutural do desenvolvimento é em forma de espiral. E através dele mostrou o desenvolvimento em níveis relacionados com a faixa etária dos alunos “compositores” estudados.
Tais níveis ou territórios foram divididos em quatro:
Material. expressão, forma e valor.
Partindo deste esquema de territórios, propê a:
T écnica E xecução C omposição L iteratura A preciação
T – Técnica (manipulação de instrumentos, notação simbólica, audição).
E – Execução (cantar, tocar).
C – Composição (criação e improvisação).
L – Literatura (história da música).
A – Apreciação (reconhecimento de estilos / forma / tonalidade / graus).Swanwick propõe um processo de aprendizagem
A idéia é de trabalhar os conteúdos de forma integrada, vinculada, favorecendo assim, o aprendizado integrado
Priorizava e enfatizava a livre experimentação em materiais sonoros, sejam eles instrumentos, objetos ou o corpo.
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