Joy Through the Magic of Music(1)

Dr.Klara Kokas

JOY THROUGH THE MAGIC OF MUSIC(1)

By using my experimental program which I worked out with children over about two decades, I was looking for the most appropriate and useful methods. My discoveries came to me through the children. I learned that if the body is at rest, motion is spontaneously born.

In the film „I Carry Fire” nine-year old Orsi says: „Music lifts up my hands and plays with them.” (2)

This simple, natural process would be disturbed by the control or criticism of motion. The freedom of movement makes the reception of music much more profound. An interaction – an organic but flexible connection – is established between motion and music, which is confirmed by the repetitions.

Thus body and soul become partners in exploring the vibrating world of music. They explore the contents, the means, and the message of the composition in their own ways. They explore – in freely chosen order but in their indivisibility – rhythm, melodic cadences, shifts, in consonance, harmony, responses to each other, their dialogues, their meetings, the entering, the departing, or the harmonious blending of the different parts – that is, musical texture with its condensations and attenuations, with its creases and with the way the creases are smoothed out. This exploration is almost touch, sometimes the fingers themselves do feel, because „music… plays with them.”

One part of our therapy belongs to mental hygienics. It is for all of us, who need help from time to time.

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The other component of our therapy aims at healing the sick - helping handicapped children in their special needs. I have been taught how to do this by my own sessions with them, since by congenital temperament I easily identify with those who are in trouble. My emotional attentiveness turns me towards them. This is how I came to have in my groups the paralytic Náditündér (the Fairy of the Reeds), Andrea who was hard of hearing, the emotionally disturbed Miklós, Máté painfully struggling with his inhibitions, Róbert with his brain damage, Noèl with his uncontrollable fits of rage, and Juan with his Down's-syndrome (3-4)

In some way or other they all found me and needed me. As I defy most passionately all forms of racial, religious, or ethnic discrimination, it is natural enough that I should also be ready to do all I can to help those who are discriminated against, snubbed, rejected, or segregated because they are physically, mentally or emotionally damaged. The aim of my therapy is integration; I teach my groups to accept the damaged. As soon as they learn to accept - even to respect - differences in each other, they also learn to accept the signs and manifestations of disability. (5-6)

In the words of the Master, „Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.” (St. Matthew, XVIII. 3.) In what precise way we should become as little children was something I often discussed with my adult students. Braver children, those who have the spirit of adventure in them, will hop on the swing, kick off and soar high up into the air. Being high up in the air is like getting a taste of infinity.

Unlike our familiar physical environment, this dimension is not to be measured in a couple of metres, which is the length of the swing’s rope. All those who are afraid, either because they

were conditioned to be afraid or because during the most important years of their lives they lacked a strong arm to support them in nursing along their courage, will tend to measure the rope with a tape. They will shoot worried looks at the top of the rope. They will sit on the swing half-disposed, making sure their toes reach the ground. They will give it a tentative push, ready to halt the swing at any time. This is because infinity is frightening, and safety is important. However, the great compositions and genuine art cannot be measured with a tape, and those who are inclined to do so will be forced to stand aside and watch on idly. Dynamism belongs to those who fly their swing high.

When children listen to a short piece of music, they react to it as they do to a live snail, with a spirally coiled, hard and high-polished shell, a soft inside, and telescopic tentacles ending in tiny little eyes. They look at it; they touch it, smell it, and almost taste it. In other words, they take it in, the way they take in anything that holds them spellbound. When a short piece of music is played to children, it will fascinate them in a similar manner, simply because it is new, it is unusual, and they can do all sorts of things with it. The more they look at a live snail, the more they will appreciate all the interesting features it has. Only a child spoiled rotten will get bored with holding, studying and experiencing a live animal.

As music reaches out, children come closer. First they study the shell, the outside view, and then they experience its warmth and its essence accessible through touching. They hold it in their hands in order to feel it move; they place it by their feet so as to make them skip; and they move it to their hip to lean with it.

It is easy to adapt to music; one can mark the rhythm with one’s feet, skip and lean with the tune, turn with its turns, vary with its variables. Music starts the ball of our imagination rolling:it sets the tempo of the movement and traces out the limits of its progress. Music always shows where the movement starts out from, and also where it ends. This is how the game begins: from its initial, confused state, the movement settles into form and assumes a structure in time. Individual imagination in this case manifests itself in the originality of movements. It is a testimony of the children’s reaching a certain stage of development, when they start devising the finale of their performance. In other words, they remember and anticipate the closing movement. The “finale” – its inner anticipation – is the first indication of their ability to think in music.

The word “transformation” was invented by children. This was how they described it, when they changed – leaped, walked or jumped – into someone or something else through their dance movements.

When they move by themselves, without direction, plan or choreography, children listen to the music differently: they do it from deep down, from the subconscious, from the bottom of their heart. They adjust to completeness, gliding along it much the same way as the air moves after a great silence has descended on the motionless sea.

The ellipse of music, as well as of the movements it inspires, is embraced by the dynamism of musical transformation. Our musical metamorphoses are the common offspring of music and movement. This is where music turns into magic. Metamorphosis is magic.

Inspired music is like pure spring water. When we drink from it, or when we submerge in it, spring water fills the cells of our body and soul. It rejuvenates the cells and sets them into vibration. Through our own vibrations, we can thus resonate with the great vibrations of the Universe, with our cells reaching out and drinking in infinity. Inspired music puts words into the mouth of the taciturn; it breaths life into the lifelessness of solitude and moisturises the dried-out cells. Spring water is imbued with light, giving rise to our vision and hearing. In addition to the sensory organs of the body, this “water” also reaches the sensory organs of the soul, putting it to work and instilling it with attentiveness, alertness and vitality. One can at best experience these forces, but never see or analyse them. Speaking an unknown language fluently, these are much more vocal qualities than consciousness is.

The body recognizes inspired music. It tries to curl up to it, submerge in it and take it in fully. Because it can feel it, sense it and demand it. It offers repose for the exhausted, solace for the sobbing. In other words, it is healing, it is therapy. It nurses the pale and faded cells back to life with moisture and light.

Yes, it exerts an influence through the body: not just through hearing, but through the entirety of the body. Our wonderful capacity, the ability to move, can facilitate it. Perhaps it is the dynamism and the invigorating force of movement that help; perhaps it is the power of breathing, the smoothness of turning silent. Our search for appropriate words to describe this phenomenon is rather futile, as it takes place in a different sphere, in the unique language of body and soul. Words are like stepping stones. This language, however, is much more reminiscent of clouds, where the rain droplets enjoy their freedom under the laws of the Universe. They move and transform. And so does the body, for it has a spirit and a soul, and imagination, too; therefore, it also possesses freedom.

The mentally and physically handicapped students are not the only ones to seek the path that leads them to the freedom of soul healing. Adults in full possession of their physical and mental capacities(7) are yearning for it just as much; they are the ones who, under the magic of Bach or Mozart’s harmonies, discover their hidden reserves and accept their worries locked up in their subconscious. That is the time when the songs of our candlelit farewell parties or the treasure house of the wonderful and consoling Hungarian folk music grow into a god-sent redeeming power. Even adolescents,(8) usually a rather elusive lot, will be pleased to discover the joys of this deliverance. Through their susceptibility to the powers of music, they will discover their own spiritual sensibilities, as well as that of their teachers and fellow students –in a mutual interaction.

The body discovers its laws in joy and devotion, in vitality, safety and love. Everything else, including our revival through self-expression and personal relations, stems from this.

The body is the shell, the place and the means of our capacity to experience joy. Its rigidified and demoisturised state is an obstacle, which the transformation starting out from, and taking place within, the soul can overcome, just as a sprightly stream runs over the pebbles. When it passes through the soul, music is similar to the glittering water of a stream, which licks, washes, polishes and shapes the pebbles.

REFERENCES

Book in English: Joy through the magic of music –dr.Klara Kokas, Budapest, 1998

2I carry fire – Mérei Anna, Hungarian Television, 1982

3Andi – Pellei István, László Zsuzsa, Kokas Klára, Budapest, 1982

4 Dance Suite – Szabó Tibor, Kokas Klára, Budapest, 1991

5The World Discovered – Kiss Zsigmond, Kálmán Dezső, Budapest, 1994

6I dance my tale – Podhorányi Zsolt, Hungarian Television, 1996

7Accredited further education course for teachers’ training (Budapest

8Erika Fleck’s music workshop, the „Pécsi Zeneműhely”, at the elementary school „Jókai Mór Általános Iskola”.

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