John Curwen (14 November 1816 – 26 May 1880) was an English Congregationalist minister and diffuser of the tonic sol-fa system of

music education Music education is a field of practice in which educators are trained for careers as elementary or secondary music teachers, school or music conservatory ensemble directors. Music education is also a research area in which scholars do origin ...

created by

Sarah Ann Glover Sarah Anna Glover (13 November 1786 – 20 October 1867) was an English music educator who invented the Norwich sol-fa system. Her Sol-fa system was based on the ancient gamut; but she omitted the constant recital of the alphabetical names of ...

. He was educated at

Wymondley College Wymondley College was a dissenting academy at Wymondley House in Little Wymondley, Hertfordshire, England. Intended for the education of future nonconformist ministers of religion, it was in operation from 1799 to 1833, when it relocated to B ...

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, then Coward College as that institution became known when it moved to London, and finally

University College London , mottoeng = Let all come who by merit deserve the most reward , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £143 million (2020) , budget = ...

Background and biography

John Curwen was a descendant of the Curwens of

Workington Hall Workington Hall, sometimes called Curwen Hall, is a ruined building on the Northeast outskirts of the town of Workington in Cumbria. It is a Grade I listed building. History A peel tower was built on the site in 1362. The present house dates b ...

in Cumbria, one of the oldest families in England, the male line proper being a direct descent from Eldred, a pre-Norman Englishman, whose son Ketel held lands in the Barony of Kendal. Orm, Ketel's son, inherited the Cumbrian manor of Workington. Curwen was born 14 November 1816, at Heckmondwike, West Riding of Yorkshire, the son of Spedding Curwen and Mary Jubb. His father was a Non-conformist minister, as John was also from 1838 until 1864. Curwen gave up full-time ministry to devote himself to his new method of musical nomenclature. He established the Tonic Sol-Fa Press in Plaistow, where he had been a minister, and in 1879 the Tonic Sol-Fa college (later the

Forest Gate School of Music The Forest Gate School of Music (later the Metropolitan Academy of Music) was established in 1885 by Harding Bonner (1853-1907). It was situated in premises on what is now Earlham Grove in Forest Gate, London. The building dates from 1879 and wa ...

) in Forest Gate. Curwen married Mary Thompson (1816–1890) in May 1845. They had four children – Margaret, John Spencer, Spedding and Thomas Herbert. Curwen died at Heaton Mersey, Stockport on 26 May 1880. His son John Spencer married Annie Jessy Gregg, who went on to write the extensive and influential series ''Mrs. Curwen's Pianoforte Method'' based on her adaptation for the piano of John Curwen's method for voice.

Tonic sol-fa

Curwen's system was designed to aid in

sight reading In music, sight-reading, also called ''a prima vista'' (Italian meaning "at first sight"), is the practice of reading and performing of a piece in a music notation that the performer has not seen or learned before. Sight-singing is used to descr ...

of the

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with its lines and spaces. He adapted it from a number of earlier musical systems, including the Norwich Sol-fa method of

(1785–1867) of

Norwich Norwich () is a cathedral city and district of Norfolk, England, of which it is the county town. Norwich is by the River Wensum, about north-east of London, north of Ipswich and east of Peterborough. As the seat of the Episcopal see, See of ...

. Her Sol-fa system was based on the ancient

gamut In color reproduction, including computer graphics and photography, the gamut, or color gamut , is a certain ''complete subset'' of colors. The most common usage refers to the subset of colors which can be accurately represented in a given circ ...

; but she omitted the constant recital of the alphabetical names of each note and the arbitrary syllable indicating key relationship, and also the recital of two or more such syllables when the same note was common to as many keys (e.g. C, Fa, Ut, meaning that C is the

subdominant In music, the subdominant is the fourth tonal degree () of the diatonic scale. It is so called because it is the same distance ''below'' the tonic as the dominant is ''above'' the tonicin other words, the tonic is the dominant of the subdomina ...

of G and the tonic of C). The notes were represented by the initials of the seven syllables, still in use in Italy and France as their names. Curwen taught himself to sight-read based on Glover's Norwich Sol-fa, made alterations and improvements, and named his method ''Tonic Sol-fa''. In the Tonic Sol-fa the seven letters refer to key relationship (relative pitch) and not to absolute pitch. Curwen utilised the first letter (lower case) of each of the solmisation tones (do, re, me, fa, sol, la, ti), and a rhythmic system that used bar lines (prefixing strong beats), half bar lines (prefixing medium beats), and semicolons (prefixing weak beats) in each measure. Curwen felt the need for a simple way of teaching how to sing by note through his experiences among

Sunday school A Sunday school is an educational institution, usually (but not always) Christian in character. Other religions including Buddhism, Islam, and Judaism have also organised Sunday schools in their temples and mosques, particularly in the West. ...

teachers. Stemming from his religious and social beliefs, Curwen thought that music should be easily accessible to all classes and ages of people. Apart from Glover, similar ideas had been elaborated in France by Pierre Galin (1786–1821), Aimé Paris (1798–1866) and Emile Chevé (1804–1864), whose method of teaching how to read at sight also depended on the principle of tonic relationship being taught by the reference of every sound to its tonic, and by the use of a numeric notation. Curwen adapted French time names from Paris' ''Langue de durées''.

Curwen's publications

Curwen brought out his ''Grammar of Vocal Music'' in 1843, and in 1853 started the Tonic Sol-Fa Association. The ''Standard Course of Lessons on the Tonic Sol-fa Method of Teaching to Sing'' was published in 1858. In 1879 the Tonic Sol-Fa College was opened. Curwen also began publishing, and brought out a periodical called the ''Tonic Sol-fa Reporter and Magazine of Vocal Music for the People'', and in his later life was occupied in directing the spreading organisation of his system. With his son, John Spencer Curwen (1847–1916) who later became principal of the Tonic Sol-Fa College, Curwen incorporated the J. Curwen & Sons publishing firm in 1863. This firm continued as the Curwen Press into the 1970s, when it was closed. The Sol-fa system was widely adopted for use in education, as an easily teachable method in the reading of music at sight, but its more ambitious aims for providing a superior method of musical notation have not been generally adopted. In 1872, Curwen changed his former course of using the Sol-fa system as an aid to sight reading, when that edition of his ''Standard Course of Lessons'' excluded the staff and relied solely on Curwen's Tonic Sol-fa system. Curwen technically did not invent Tonic Sol-fa. Rather he developed a distinct method of applying it in music education, including both rhythm and pitch. The name and current form can be traced to Curwen.

Works

*''A Tonic Sol-fa Primer'' *''The Teacher's Manual of the Tonic Sol-fa Method'' *''Grammar of Vocal Music'' *''Musical Theory'' *''Musical Statics''

Memorial

Curwen is remembered in Heckmondwike with a memorial in the Green Park and by the John Curwen Cooperative Primary, by Curwen Primary School in Plaistow, London, and by Curwen Crescent, and in 2007 a new housing development in the north of the town was named Curwen Park.

Notes

References

External links

John Curwen Manuscripts
��Special Collections in Performing Arts at the University of Maryland
''The Boy's Voice; A Book of practical Information on The Training of Boys' Voices For Church Choirs, &c.''
(available in multiple formats at gutenberg.org]
A History of the Tonic Sol-Fa System
*
1884 edition of Standard Course at archive.org
{{DEFAULTSORT:Curwen, John People from Heckmondwike Schoolteachers from Yorkshire British music educators 1816 births 1880 deaths Alumni of University College London 19th-century English educators English Congregationalist ministers 19th-century Congregationalist ministers