Intervenants)
1In 1984, the two French ministries in charge of education and culture decided to cre-ate nine CFMI institutes, situcre-ated at the universities of Aix-en-Provence, Lille, Lyon, Paris, Poitiers, Rennes, Strasbourg, Toulouse, and Tours. Their mission was – and still is – to train musicians capable of conducting music education projects alongside teachers in primary schools on the basis that the latter are often not (or do not feel) qualified to teach music in their classes. The students of these CFMIs are practicing musicians, already advanced, and are recruited on the basis of their examination re-sults. The two-year study course provides them with musical skills complementary to their principal instrument, didactic and pedagogical skills, as well as a broadening of their cultural education. It leads to a diploma, the DUMI (Diplôme universitaire de musicien intervenant), which is recognised by the school authorities, conservatories, and municipalities. Since 1984, around 5000 musiciens intervenants (sometimes called DUMIstes, according to the name of the diploma) have been trained in CFMIs. They allow approximately three million children each year to practise music within the school, and act as resource persons for teachers. Over time, the scope of facilitation by these musicians has spread to other missions, places, and audiences (workshops for adults, arts outreach and conveyance programmes, early childhood, elderly, sick, disabled, and incarcerated people etc.).
A Particular Political and Educational Context
Although music had been instituted as a compulsory discipline in 1882 by Jules Ferry, Minister of National Education,2 throughout the Third Republic the various govern-ments were concerned about the weakness of the primary school teachers’ training in music, and consequently, about their challenges in teaching this discipline. The question of ‘contemporary’ music did not arise then in these terms, the music at school being especially intended for its moral and patriotic aspects; to transmit an
1 Education centres for itinerant, facilitating musicians.
2 Michèle Alten: La musique dans l’école: de Jules Ferry à nos jours. Paris: Éditions EAP, 1995 (= Psychologie et pédagogie de la musique 23).
inheritance, to provide rules of life, and to guarantee the national identity.3 From the 1930s, however, the musical world was concerned with the diffusion of modern compositions, especially towards young audiences:
What is needed is to bring music to the children – either by direct perfor-mance, or through the gramophone or radio – and above all, to begin with contemporary composers and work gradually back towards the classics. The living language, that of the listener’s own period, should come first […].4 Initiatives thus emerged to allow musicians to enter the schools, to work alongside teachers, and to make the most recent music known. Some cities, such as Paris, had a long-established, specific group of teachers dedicated to this task.5 In other places, as-sociated organisation movements were mobilised (Centres musicaux ruraux, Peuple et culture, Ligue de l’enseignement, Musigrains, Jeunesses musicales de France etc.).6 These movements grew as the concept of ‘contemporary music’ emerged. The rise of vinyl records, the phonograph, and the radio also favoured the circulation of these new repertoires in the classrooms; the central administration of national education even organised an experiment in 1954, in which groups of pupils listened to record-ings of works from Honegger, Stravinsky, Milhaud, Bartók, and Gershwin!7
During the 1970s, a two-pronged renewal occurred: on the one hand, new peda-gogical concepts inherited from May 1968, so-called ‘active’ methods, and popular education movements permeated more deeply into schools, on the initiative of the institution itself. On the other hand, the state developed a proactive policy in favour of contemporary music, generating financial support for creation and composers.8 The political alternation of 1981 – the election of François Mitterrand as president of the French republic and the appointment of Jack Lang as Minister of Culture –
3 Michèle Alten: La musique au cœur des enjeux de la société française (1896–1956): histoire de la musique, société. Paris: L’Harmattan, 2017.
4 Arthur Honegger: Preliminary Address on Music. The Musician in Modern Society (original French title:
Exposé préliminaire sur la musique: le musicien dans la société moderne), conference paper at the International Conference of Artists (U.N.E.S.C.O.), Venice 1952, p. 5, https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/
pf0000141663, last accessed 6 February 2019.
5 Claire Fijalkow: Deux siècles de musique à l’école: chroniques de l’exception parisienne, 1819–2002. Paris:
L’Harmattan, 2003.
6 Hélène Grimbelle: “Approches éducatives: les apports de l’éducation populaire”, in: Administration &
Éducation 150/2 (2016), p. 118–123.
7 Georges Favre: Écrits sur la musique et l’éducation musicale. Paris: Durand, 1966, p. 159–165 (chapter
“Une expérience d’initiation à la musique contemporaine”).
8 Anne Veitl: Politiques de la musique contemporaine: le compositeur, la ‘recherche musicale’ et l’État en France de 1958 à 1991. Paris: Éd. L’Harmattan, 1997.
accelerated this process. All the agents of contemporary music (composers, ensem-bles and orchestras, places of creativity and diffusion, public media, festivals) were charged with developing educational actions, in the name of creativity’s democrati-sation. Given criticisms of a certain entre nous in contemporary music, these actions also constituted a form of justification for the use of public money9 as well as musical militancy for the avant-garde, and were intended to accustom young ears to music of the present.
The existence of professionals trained in pedagogy, facilitation, and modern musi-cal aesthetics was considered more necessary than ever. In a joint protocol10 signed on 25 April 1983 by the two ministers in charge of education and culture, the govern-ment demonstrated its desire for coherence in the developgovern-ment of artistic practices, for bringing artists and contemporary creativity into school institutions, and to train professional musicians who could ensure this work in partnership with teachers. The creation of the CFMIs in France corresponded to this particular point in the history of music education, artistic creativity, and cultural policy.
Contemporary Music, Invention and Creation
The founding text of the CFMIs in 1984 immediately placed contemporary music – or rather the contemporary practices of music – at the heart of the curriculum:
CFMIs will offer students
a complementary musical training that introduces students to the knowledge and the practice of contemporary creative techniques, and which encourages them to explore all musical spheres (contemporary music, music of different national and ethnic traditions, popular music …).11
This ordinance finds its translation in a common document published by the CFMI national council, the training reference system,12 and is applied annually by each cen-tre in its education plan. In the programmes of study, one thus finds – under vari-ous but similar headings – courses which relate to the knowledge of musical styles,
9 Pierre-Michel Menger: Le paradoxe du musicien: le compositeur, le mélomane et l’État dans la société contemporaine. Paris: Flammarion, 1983.
10 “Protocole d’accord entre le ministère de l’éducation nationale et le ministère délégué à la culture”, in: BOEN 5, February 2, 1984.
11 Ministère de l’éducation nationale (ed.): Circulaire n° 84–220 du 25 juin 1984. Translation by Philippe Poisson, as with all other translations in this article.
12 Conseil des CFMI (ed.): Musicien intervenant à l’école: formation, s.l., 2010.
languages, compositional techniques (analysis, listening, musical culture courses), personal or collective creativity activities (writing, invention, composition courses), as well as facilitation. All CFMIs express the same conviction that “invention and analysis are not separable; speculation, research, and experimentation are comple-mentary approaches to the construction of knowledge; strong cultural references are essential for professional autonomy”.13 This is why the study of these twentieth- and twenty-first-century repertoires is systematically situated in a practical, creative, or re-creative perspective. When students discover a work, a composer, a style, or a lan-guage, it is most often with the aim of stimulating their own creativity and preparing them – for their future professional activity – to bring the children to create them-selves: “The musical analysis course answers a single question: what is inventing?”14
Styles, Genres, Schools, Aesthetics
Although the studied repertoire is intended to reflect contemporary creativity’s rich-ness, there are trends in the choice of works studied – whether analysed, interpreted, arranged, or conveyed to an audience. At a national level, these trends can be ex-plained by the pedagogical vocation of CFMIs and their common mission for an inventive musical practice, accessible to as many people as possible. In local centres, it is sometimes the personality of a teacher, an artist in residence, or a close cultural institution that contributes to a particular ‘colour’ being brought to the aesthetic orientations of the curriculum.
Song occupies an important place in curricula because vocal interpretation activi-ties are central in the school programmes. In France, as in many other countries, song and choral practice are preferred vehicles of musical (and general) education: for its relative simplicity, for the acquisition and enrichment of language, for the transmis-sion of cultural heritage, but also for its ‘civic’ virtues.15 During their studies at the CFMIs students, who are usually first and foremost instrumentalists, become famil-iar with a wide range of repertoire, both traditional and recent, that is suitable for a wide range of ages. They acquire a thorough knowledge of song, choral and vocal music which is central to their ability to update their repertoire choices in a way that will captivate the interest of children and lead to quality proposals. Accordingly, and because teaching always combines analysis and creativity, they are also expected to arrange or compose songs themselves.
13 CFMI de Sélestat (ed.): Livret d’études. Strasbourg: Université des Sciences Humaines, s.a., p. 11.
14 CFMI d’Orsay (ed.): Guide des études 2012–2013. Orsay: Université Paris-Sud, 2012, p. 29.
15 Note that the current Minister of National Education launched in December 2017 a large “national plan” for choirs at school.
The CFMI of Poitiers plays a special role in this field as part of its mission is to contribute to the education of musicians in the overseas French territories (Antilles, New Caledonia, Reunion Island etc.). It has largely developed its pedagogy in the direction of traditional music, its links with jazz and amplified music, as well as its contemporary revival, adaptations, or rewritings.
This mission is entrusted to the CFMI of Poitiers because of the specific CFMI managers’ skills in the fields of traditional music, improvised music, and ethno-musicology, as well as the fact that training content has an ‘oral and impro-vised’ identity particularly adapted to the contexts of the overseas territories.16 Two other styles of music aesthetics are very present in the CFMIs’ study pro-grammes: the ‘music of objects’ and pieces close to musical theatre. The first (con-crete, experimental, electroacoustic music, etc.) have compositional approaches that are particularly suited to the learning methods of young children, active teaching methods, and awakening activities. They highlight exploration, concrete manipu-lation, and creativity. In all centres there are courses on playing music with vari-ous ‘objects’, organology, experimental lutherie, and electroacvari-oustic composition.
Therein, the CFMIs are the successors of the aesthetic and pedagogical conceptions of the GRM (Groupe de Recherches Musicales / Musical Research Group) founded by Pierre Schaeffer, and theorised and practiced by two of his disciples, Guy Reibel17 and François Delalande.18 The latter postulates that music education at school must consist of “training musicians without teaching them music”19 and that three funda-mental behaviours are a common denominator of all musical practices: the sensitivity to sound and gesture, the ability to find meaning in sounds, the experience of playing with the organisation of sounds. These fundamental behaviours put forth by Dela-lande, can also be recognised in the playful, childlike activities identified by Piaget (sensory motor games, games that use signs and symbols, and the rules of games)20 and are the necessary qualities for a professional composer. With this repertoire, the educational space (school or university) is “not just a place of transfer, but an
alter-16 CFMI de Poitiers (ed.): La formation au DUMI 2015–20alter-16: valeurs, projets, contenus, acteurs. Poitiers:
Université de Poitiers, 2015, p. 4.
17 Guy Reibel: Jeux musicaux: essai sur l’invention musicale. Vol. 1: Jeux Vocaux. Paris: Salabert, 1984.
18 François Delalande, Jack Vidal and Guy Reibel: La musique est un jeu d’enfant. Paris: Buchet/Chastel, INA/GRM, 1984.
19 François Delalande: “Trois idées-clés pour une pédagogie musicale d’éveil”, in: Cahiers recherche/
musique – INA-GRM 1 (1976), p. 27.
20 Delalande, Vidal and Reibel: La musique est un jeu d’enfant (note 18), p. 14.
native place of creative thought on new music, a privileged space for the invention of meaning”.21
Happenings, musical theatre, everyday objects turned ‘hand-crafted’ instruments, and performances mixing many artistic expressions are also widely studied and prac-ticed in CFMIs because they allow a transdisciplinarity (music, theatre, dance, visual arts, poetry, storytelling, circus art …) which is an essential element of project peda-gogy. Composers such as Aperghis, Berio, and Cage are among the most frequently cited, as well as Kagel, particularly for his contribution to interculturality and his research on the universe of children.
The children’s instruments of the Cologne music course in 1971 bear witness to significant innovations in music education. Not only did Kagel ask himself the question of suitable tools for school-aged children, but he placed these
‘sound producers’ in the context of his own compositions, and thus of con-temporary music, by abolishing the hierarchical distinction between ‘children’s music’ and ‘serious’ or ‘real’ music.22
A Pedagogical Organisation related to the Contemporary Musical World
In France universities are responsible for academic teaching and musicological re-search; both the national conservatories of Paris and Lyon, and the recent ‘high schools for music’ prepare the musician performers for their future profession; the ESPÉ (higher schools for professorship and education) provide training for primary, middle, and high school teachers. CFMIs occupy a special place in the landscape of French higher artistic education.23 They are each located within a university but are funded largely by the Ministry of Culture under the banner of arts and cultural edu-cation, and their management brings them closer to art schools, all while having a strong link to schools. The originality of this positioning lies in the fact that the DUMIstes are neither entirely teachers, nor purely artists or musicologists.
21 Victor Flüsser: “Relations entre enseignement et création musicale d’aujourd’hui. Expériences méditerranéennes”, in: Actes du 4e séminaire-rencontre de l’Orchestre des Jeunes de la Méditerranée / Festival Musica (September 1998), p. 69.
22 Matthias Kassel (ed.): Kind und Kagel: Mauricio Kagel und seine Kinderinstrumente. Basel: Paul Sacher Stiftung/Historisches Musikmuseum, 2006, p. 31.
23 Gérard Ganvert: L’enseignement de la musique en France: situation, problèmes, réflexions. Paris, L’Harmattan, 1999.
The permanent pedagogical teams are small, they generally comprise two or three people and they benefit from a great autonomy of the pedagogical organisation and the teaching and delivery of the diploma, which partly ‘escape’ the Bologna Process’
standards. Lessons usually take the form of workshops or projects in schools with (and for) groups of children. The majority of these courses devoted to contemporary music and creativity is provided by external professionals, including artists (com-posers, performers, conductors, improvisers, sound painters, etc.).24 This allows a strong link with the contemporary musical world. These artists, sometimes in resi-dence for several years in a CFMI, have become ‘fellow travellers’ of the CFMIs and have developed their artistic sphere for both the ‘serious’, ‘professional’ world of music, and for child-oriented musical practices. There are many partnerships and follow-ups between CFMIs and institutions (the GRM-INA, Lille Opera, GMV Lyon), festivals (“Musica” in Strasbourg, Aix-en-Provence opera festival), ensem-bles (Ars Nova in Poitiers, Percussions de Strasbourg, Ictus in Brussels), composers, authors, and performers (François Delalande, Alain Savouret, Philippe Mion, Daniel Teruggi, Michèle Bernard, Alain Gibert, Steve Waring, etc.). Similarly, many pro-jects have resulted in commissions of works or creations, the development of tools, applications, instruments allowing a current practice of music (Baschet’s sound struc-tures, Méta-mallette of Puce-Muse, Smartfaust applications from GRAME), as well as editorial work.
Some publishers have enriched the catalogue of repertoire for children (Éditions Mômeludies25 in Lyon’s CFMI, Percustra percussion method in Strasbourg26) with the militant conviction that an original repertoire must be written for children, in reso-lutely contemporary styles.
We must give children who will be ten years old in the year 2000 the oppor-tunity to show that at this age, they are able to make music, that is to say, to play that which composers offer them and the music they are themselves able to create. These same children will be 60 years old in the year 2050: they are the ones who during the 21st century will become the artisans of a musical field in constant renewal.27
24 Mission scientifique et technique (ed.): Centres de formation de musiciens intervenants – C.F.M.I. Paris, Ministère de l’Éducation nationale/Ministère de la Culture, 1994, 42 p. This document lists, in particular, the teachers who worked in France’s 9 CFMIs during the years 1994–1995.
25 Alain Desseigne: Le pari français de la musique pour tous à l’école. Mômeludies / CFMI de Lyon, 2014 (=
Éclair 7).
26 Jean Batigne et al.: Percustra: cahier 1A. Paris: A. Leduc, 1973, p. 32–34.
27 Gérard Authelain: Mômeludies 2000. Lyon: Mômeludies / CFMI de Lyon, 2000, p. 1.
We can say that through these links with the musicians of today, through these di-rect actions in favour of the creation of new works, the CFMIs thus assume both the traditional missions of the academic institutions (teaching, research, knowledge diffusion, and professional integration of graduates), but also cultural and artistic de-velopment missions (publications, commissions, creativity, and programming). They give contemporary music a great place, with the conviction that it can play a crucial role in the musical education of children and in the cultural and human development of the entire society.
Contemporary music, in some ways, critically closes an immense evolution.
This criticism carries with it elements of a real ‘savagery’. To bring up again a certain virginity of the sound material and reach the public, he must meet the childish freshness.28
28 Henri Pousseur: “Rencontrer la fraîcheur enfantine”, in: Lyre / CFMI de Lille 1 (1992), p. 15.
Danae Stefanou