Description

Since 1926, Edgar Willems’ work has given pride of place to the integral sound movement: pan-chromaticism. It is constantly encountered in nature and in the various manifestations of life. It can be recognised, for example, in the varied singing of the wind, the cries of animals, the songs of birds, the pre-language of small children, onomatopoeias, inflections and intonations of language, litanies, chants, psalmody, certain vocal and instrumental music, the noise of machines, engines and crowds.

In his active pedagogy, Edgar Willems advocates the use of the human voice and certain instruments, notably the slide flute and the siren, in order to bring to life the phenomena of pure sound movement. For both children and adults, this is one of the most essential, though long ignored, bases for a sensory auditory development open to the acoustic world in which we live.

Since 1926, Edgar Willems has experimented and taught listening and singing in the space he called « intratonal »: « I call the auditory gap between two sounds at a distance of one tone, the infinitely small at the pan-chromatic scale of sounds (uninterrupted succession in the scale of sound vibrations). This auditory work is therefore based on the separating power of the ear. Just as one person sees all the leaves of a tree, where another sees only a green mass, so one individual hears distinctly the notes of a chord where another perceives the mass of sounds as a whole. In a more subtle order, some people distinguish many shades of colour, for example between red and orange, where others see only two or three. For example, a fine ear perceives the difference of hundredths of tones, whereas a less developed ear perceives only eighths of a tone, for example. »

This notice summarizes the history of this instrument, its structure, and the pedagogical use that can be made of it.

This booklet contains the text in French, English and Spanish.