Apollo’s Banquet for children: Teaching baroque music to the young violinist

Ryuko Reid

Name: Ryuko Reid Main Subject: Baroque Violin Research Supervisor: Johannes Boer Title of Research: Apollo’s Banquet for Children: Teaching baroque music to the young violinist Research Question: How can the baroque “rules” being used today in the field of historically informed performance practice be taught at a young age? Summary of Results: The purpose of this study is to investigate what aspects of the musical language of the baroque era can be experienced from twenty songs found in John Playford’s Apollo’s Banquet. This is a collection of country-dances, broad street ballads, theatre tunes, tunes from Morris dancing, Scottish tunes and French dances, that were published for the amateur violinist in 1670. In this study, these songs were taught to students between the ages of 5 and 10 with activities designed to create awareness of gestures, bar hierarchy, light cadences and other important baroque features, in a fun and approachable way. Videos and observations of the lessons show that the repertoire was well received and the paper shows that the use of the songs provided an effective initial stage in experiencing baroque music However the students would need to be exposed to many more examples of these baroque elements before they become consciously learned. This paper also concludes that other elements of baroque music not included in this study, such as rhetorical devices and improvisation could be investigated, and exploring folk music repertoire of the seventeenth century would provide our students with a richer experience of the baroque style. Biography: Ryuko Reid is a baroque violinist specialising in historically informed performance practice and is the artist director and leader of Amsterdam Corelli Collective. Ryuko works as a violin teacher in Muziekschool Amstelveen and studied the Kodály method at Koninklijk Conservatorium. She came to study baroque violin with Sophie Gent at Conservatorium van Amsterdam and is currently finishing her masters at Koninklijk Conservatorium, with Kati Debretzeni and Walter Reiter. Before moving to Amsterdam, she studied modern violin with Jan Repko, taught at Chetham’s School of Music and studied Dalcroze method in Manchester, UK.

Apollo’s Banquet for Children

This section is an analysis of every song selected for Apollo’s Banquet for Children with a modern edition and manuscript of the score, with information if any things were altered. Included is also lyrics if there are any, a description of the type of song, its form, tonality, pitch range, melodic features and harmonic progressions. Activities and its description are given with short-term and long-term musical goals in historical informed performance practice. I also suggest which activities suit what age or level. For some of the songs it was possible to provide video footage of me teaching and for all the songs with lyrics there is a recording of the song with voice and baroque guitar.

The activities can be seen and used as step-by-step instructions for teacher or it can be used as a guide, a place to gather ideas for teaching similar baroque features. However the activities often depend on the size of the group and on the receptiveness of the student(s) so the teacher must be flexible in approaching the activities. It should not be used as a stand-alone method of teaching violin, but instead should be used to supplement the frequently used beginner violin repertoire.

1. The Glory of the Sun

2. Phil Porter’s Dream

3. Dot to Dot

4. Solfa March

5. Mr Snake

6. Joy to Great Ceasar

7. The New Marrinet

8. The Northern Lass

9. Trees of Youth

10. The Hiding Saraband

11. Franklyn

12. London Waits