A Family Program for Voices, Recorders, and
Viols
From: Music Educators Journal
Pre-Convention Issue, February-March, 1962
Except for the modern dress of the performers it might well
be an eighteenth century performance. The music is Bachs
Jesu, Joy of Mans Desiring and the accompanying
instruments are viols and recorders. The audience is obviously
captivated by the simple beauty of the rendition and by the
artistry of the family giving it. John Gerrish, Sr. and John, Jr.
play the viols and sing the bass and alto lines of the chorale.
Mrs. Gerrish and son James sing the soprano and tenor parts,
doubling on recorders. Mary and twelve-year-old Catherine play
recorders and double as singers now and then. It is a performance
of real quality as are the other parts of the program which
include compositions by Machaut, Dunstable, Josquin, Tallis,
Telemann, Quantz, as well as Brahms, Breydert, Hindemith and
Percy Grainger. Despite the musical worth of the presentation it
is the family group itself which fascinates all who are fortunate
enough to hear the Gerrishes. They invariably prompt remarks
which add little to the reputation of television and other
spectator sports as influences for good. Those with a family and
any love for music are seized with the desire to go home and do
likewise.
How is it done? How did the Gerrishes get that way? What
should you do if you wish to develop a musical family group of
your own? John Gerrishs philosophy and his approach to
music provide some answers.
First, he believes in the importance of great music for
parents who wish to cultivate in their children a sound sense of
values. Secondly, he believes that great music is easily made
enjoyable while youngsters are engaging in the hard work
necessary to attain skill. Like any good teacher John Gerrish
knows that it takes planning to motivate students but that proper
motivation is the key to successful learning.
The environment of a home with two parents trained in music
is in itself motivation and, if opportunities are provided for
the children to participate, they will. Once started on the road
the natural attraction of great music lures them on to broader
experience and new skills.
Oldest son John, now an engineer, is a case in point. His
first instruments were the baritone horn and the trombone. He
learned to read the treble clef while playing the soprano
recorder and incidentally he learned to sing, for Mr. Gerrish
believes that if you cant sing it, you cant
play it. Thus whenever John would ask for help with a
trombone problem his father would sing the passage using the
moveable do sys-tem. John Jr. learned to do the same without
realizing it. Later Ernest White introduced him to fixed do. By
this time he was interested in the Harvard Anthology
and was spending much time at the piano. Eventually he studied
the recorder with Alfred Mann and the viol with Werner von Trapp.
In the family singing he is usually a counter tenor, frequently
playing another part simultaneously on the viol. All the children
learned to sing while playing and the emphasis has been on
working toward independence. Mr. Gerrish reports that there
has always been resentment at having some one on my line. Of
course Baroque music is built to order for this attitude and we
have used plenty of it. A glance through Johns record
collection is revealing: Dorsey, Dowland, Monteverdi, Mulligan,
Scheidt, Schutz, Shearing ....
One of the characteristics of all children is the desire to
participate in adult activity. They reflect this in their play
and in their impatience to wear high heels or drive the car.
Rather than emphasizing formal music lessons the Gerrishes
provided opportunities for their children to share in the musical
activity of the home and the children were quick to see that with
a little effort they could enter this adult world on an equal
basis.
James, with a baritone horn, learned to read the bass clef by
helping with the pedal line of Bach organ works while
John, Sr. practiced the manual parts on the piano.
Catherine was introduced to the alto viol in the same way. James
earned 25¢ a page for proof reading the soprano recorder album
which Mr. Gerrish prepared. Mary realized a similar windfall on
an alto recorder collection. Moveable C clefs were learned in a
pragmatic fashion when Palestrina had to be sung from a
photostated open score. Mary, who had seen no need to learn the
bass clef, developed a notational system of her own to enable her
to arrange several songs she learned from the Trapp family.
The Gerrishes have a studio in Vermont near the Trapp lodge
and a warm friendship has grown up between the two families.
Hedwig Trapp helped Mary achieve a true alto quality in her
singing and this provides another clue to Mr. Gerrishs
teaching method. Realizing that there are times when parents
dont know anything, he sees his job as recognizing an
interest and a need in his children and then finding an outsider
who knows what to do.
Even resistance to music seems unable to stand up against
such surroundings. James, who is now 19, threatened, when he was
12, to get a lawyer to prove that under the Bill of Rights of the
Constitution he did not have to play trombone. Now in college,
and still professing disinterest, he plays sousaphone in the band
(to help his ROTC status he claims) and, as a tenor, he has
developed a bent toward show business. He has written a musical
comedy and a comic opera but both works remain unscored. James
intends to hire someone to do the scores, if possible. Failing
that, he may have to look into the matter of learning how to do
the scoring himself.
This musical family lives in New Jersey where Mr. Gerrish is
connected with both Caldwell College and Newark State College. He
is organist-choir director of a suburban church. He and his wife
met as music students at what is now State University College of
Education at Potsdam, New York. He says it came naturally
to teach the children as they grew up. Naturalness seems to
be the key to this familys music making for the children
think that all homes in the United States are filled with de
Rore, Lassus, and Sweelinck. May they soon be.
C.L.G.
Do-it-yourself Christmas cards have been a family tradition
for years with Gregorian chant a favorite subject as in Cathys
1961 card printed by a stamp cut from an old inner tube.
John, Jr.s card includes his own composition, a
three-part canon at the fifth.
Music Educators Journal, February-March 1962
Museum caretakers: Jim Gerrish (#2 son of
John O. Gerrish) and Frederick
Goode (grandson of John O. Gerrish)