Prólogo a "Entonación para el siglo XXI (Cuadernos de entonación interválica)", de Marisa Manchado y Enrique Muñoz / Foreword to "Intonation for the 21st Century (Intervallic Intonation Workbooks)" by Marisa Manchado and Enrique Muñoz

Published by Mundimúsica Ediciones (Madrid, June 2001)


The gap opened by the reform of music education, in which our country has been immersed for nearly a decade, is gradually shaking the foundations of a system that, on the brink of the 21st century, still clings to the 19th in many respects. One such aspect is the approach to the rudiments of musical language, due to the immense inherent power of tonality and its consequential influence on the perception and evaluation of sound worlds unrelated to it.
Yet, if education in this and many other areas is conservative, it is not so inherently, but because those responsible for carrying it out wish it to be so. This is obviously not the place to address such an important issue as the conservatism of the teaching profession, with all its socioeconomic and cultural implications. I hope that merely mentioning it here will suffice to understand the enthusiasm with which those of us who openly oppose such attitudes must welcome a proposal like the one the reader now holds in their hands, as it reflects in its authors a progressive mindset and the talent to implement it.
I admire in Marisa Manchado and Enrique Muñoz not only their conviction that the path to the future lies in the constant revision and updating of the past to make it relevant to the present, but also their ability to turn faith into action -or, in other words, theory into practice. For it is one thing to acknowledge that music education in general, and the teaching of Musical Language in particular, must largely be grounded in tradition, and quite another to believe that knowledge of the most contemporary elements (non-tonal harmony, complex rhythms, unconventional intervals, among others) should only be acquired during professional practice or, at best, in highly specialized postgraduate courses.
In my opinion, these Intervallic Intonation Workbooks represent an excellent educational enhancement for perhaps the most challenging aspect of teaching Musical Language: intonation. Their aim is to complete the arc of intonation practice, from its most elementary phase (learning and using intervals by relating them to the surrounding soundscape during early childhood) to its most complex stage: mastering various intervals in contexts devoid of any tonal reference.
And although having a clear goal is one thing and the means of reaching it another, Marisa Manchado and Enrique Muñoz have struck a wise balance in creating these Workbooks, combining their creative and pedagogical expertise. This is evident in the intelligent and timbrally varied sequencing of content according to the complexity of different intervals, as well as in their sensitive renunciation -lamentably rare in the world of contemporary creation- of treating a didactic unit as a "catalog work". This choice prioritizes simplicity, an essential requirement for effectively achieving pedagogical goals, over artistic transcendence.
For all these reasons, the publication of these Intervallic Intonation Workbooks is a cause for celebration in the world of music education. As a firm believer that the reform of music education will only become a reality when the sterile formality of the "Boletín Oficial del Estado" (Official State Gazette) is overshadowed by the weight of the educational material it inspires, I am especially pleased to contribute these words to mark the significant and meaningful addition this publication represents to the fortunately ever-more restless realm of music pedagogy.