How to lose your music teaching job in one year: the trial of Pietro Pontio 1566

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  • Опубліковано 1 лип 2024
  • For the footnotes and other extra information see the following link:
    www.earlymusicsources.com/you...
    Created by Elam Rotem, April 2022.
    Special thanks Giovanna Baviera and Anne Smith.
    www.earlymusicsources.com
    Support us on PATREON: / earlymusicsources
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КОМЕНТАРІ • 112

  • @threethrushes
    @threethrushes 2 роки тому +224

    My name is Pietro Pontio, but everybody calls me Pietro.

  • @SachinShukla
    @SachinShukla 2 роки тому +40

    The criticism of Pontio never having students sing alone rings true to me as a music teacher and sounds analogous to the futility of trying to teach an instrument in a large class.

    • @CalebePriester
      @CalebePriester 2 роки тому +4

      It's possible to teach a large class if all the students are really willing to learn. If there is a single student who is not so willing, who doesn really have the will to learn, he can be a distraction to the whole class and be a detriment to the other student's progress. And when I say willing to learn it's not just about respecting the teacher, but also doing your homework.
      When all the parts are in sintony, doing what they are supposed to be doing, if the teacher is really teaching and the students really studying, then everything smoothly flows, the knowledge just flows.

    • @karlrovey
      @karlrovey 2 роки тому +2

      @@CalebePriester I think it's easier for a single student to derail a small class.

  • @carlstenger5893
    @carlstenger5893 2 роки тому +28

    Delightful video. I dare say things haven't changed much in 500+ years. Thanks for the video. I enjoyed it.

  • @TenorCantusFirmus
    @TenorCantusFirmus 2 роки тому +102

    Teaching Music at Middle Schools, I've found this episode to be very interesting. I might show it to the kids, just to discuss why do we, the teachers, do some thing in Class (i.e.: making them playing one by one, and then giving them a mark or at least a feedback) which they sometimes don't understand.

    • @karlrovey
      @karlrovey 2 роки тому +2

      I just wish they would sing. Music was somewhat ruined for them due to busy work given by a previous teacher.

    • @EyeLean5280
      @EyeLean5280 2 роки тому

      ​@@karlrovey I got mine to sing by playing a video of Edwin Starr's "War" with the lyrics and asking them to do the choruses. They loved it and asked to do it a second time. It might also help to use a song that's popular today. Once the ice has been broken, they may warm up to the things you need them to do. Here's the video I used: ua-cam.com/video/-dKAX7Jp8wo/v-deo.html

    • @menriquez89
      @menriquez89 2 роки тому

      @@karlrovey man one time this 8th grade class wouldn’t sing a dang thing but then one of the started playing “bohemian rhapsody” on the piano and all 30 sang at full volume. It’s crazy when you find the material that connects. teaching in the classroom sucks through. Worst job I ever had as a music teacher.

    • @Sam-gx2ti
      @Sam-gx2ti Рік тому

      Don't show them the whole video!

    • @TenorCantusFirmus
      @TenorCantusFirmus Рік тому +1

      @@Sam-gx2ti I skip the section about the pr*stitute affair...

  • @GoodSneakers
    @GoodSneakers 2 роки тому +5

    When he hit Michael Angelo on the head I almost choked on my tea 😂

  • @brendanward2991
    @brendanward2991 2 роки тому +23

    Grazie, Elam. This is a very interesting insight into the teaching of music during the Renaissance.

  • @yknoturbss-oon594
    @yknoturbss-oon594 2 роки тому +12

    Great video. Music teaching has changed a lot after a couple of centuries, and at the same time not. It's interesting how all testimonials complaint about exactly about the same things (except the last one hehe).
    BTW... new Early Music Sources pal. I love the new axolotl on the background

  • @goback3spaces
    @goback3spaces 2 роки тому +7

    In my plumbing business I demand to be paid in artichokes.

  • @synesthetically
    @synesthetically 2 роки тому +7

    "I guess it's good to know what not to do... working for the church" hahaha Fantastic video as usual, thanks!

  • @metodsironic
    @metodsironic 2 роки тому +32

    I must admit that, for a second, I thought Elam is going to advise me how to quit my job as a flute teacher in a music school, and gradually so in one year 😃😃

    • @edwardblair4096
      @edwardblair4096 2 роки тому +2

      Yeah, but you would have to sit through a court session where your students complain either that you made them play too many etudes, or that you didn't give them enough of the "good parts". :-)

    • @mihordeadana2368
      @mihordeadana2368 2 роки тому

      lol same :)))

  • @TobyHonest420
    @TobyHonest420 2 роки тому +2

    Thank you a lot for these videos, this is some of the most interesting content on this platform.

  • @katbullar
    @katbullar 2 роки тому +1

    Love the video! Thanks a lot. Your videos help me to understand complicated concepts in a easy and fun way.

  • @HumbleNewMusic
    @HumbleNewMusic 2 роки тому +9

    as always thanks Elam & EMS team 🎶 btw this was a bit like watching TMZ 😎

  • @remurray1596
    @remurray1596 2 роки тому +1

    Elam--I was thrilled to see this. I've enjoyed your blog for quite a while. You do a superb job of explaining difficult ideas. This, of course is not difficult to understand--just read the newspapers. It's been a long time since I dealt with these documents. It certainly was the most fun of all the archival work I did back then. Thanks for bringing this up, and for explaining it so well.

  • @diane9905
    @diane9905 2 роки тому +1

    Wild story! And extremely cool to see my dad's work being cited 🥰 Love the visual aids, those are delightful edits. And love your axolotl friend.

  • @estudiomonteverdi
    @estudiomonteverdi 2 роки тому +3

    Another very interesting and surprising episode. Thanks for taking time to make it! Long life to EMS

  • @noelplouffe6245
    @noelplouffe6245 2 роки тому

    Once more, thank you Elam, thank you very much.

  • @miguelykaris7869
    @miguelykaris7869 2 роки тому

    Superb as ever,toda!!

  • @timothyj.bowlby5524
    @timothyj.bowlby5524 2 роки тому +24

    When you have a small group to work with it's a LOT easier to have individuals do SOME solo singing. Especially if they're motivated which it seems many of the clerics Pontio was teaching were. If the choir is the size of a typical one these days, that becomes more difficult, and from what I've been able to gather from teaching there's much more of a herd mentality now than there was in ca. the 1550-70's.

    • @Beryllahawk
      @Beryllahawk Рік тому

      As a former "choir kid," I don't know that I'd call it a herd mentality, so much as the natural tendency of young persons in every age to get a little bored and start to chat with their neighbor in the classroom, whether that's the choir hall or not. That behavior might not have been tolerated as much in the 1500s - I'd imagine ALL the behaviors I found common in my school days would have horrified the upright men of the church, haha! But there's still a certain tendency among the energetic to find SOME way to let off a bit of that energy...
      You're absolutely correct about the size of the choir however. With a school choir of 65 kids, AND given a single hour of the day in which to rehearse and teach, it's just not practical at all to have even one student from each section do any solo singing.
      I think, too, this teaches us how different the overall approach to music was! Because let's be real, no one leading a middle school choir group (and certainly no one leading a group of young singers in a Protestant church) is trying to teach their singers to be well-rounded musicians. They're lucky if they can drill the desired songs into those little heads in time for performance! The standards are quite simply nothing alike.
      This whole thing very much highlights what it took to even qualify as a Maestro in the first place; and how high the expectations were of the type of teaching, the methods, and the general handling of the class...
      One thing that does NOT surprise me (and is even still seen today in its own way) is the emphasis on behavior outside of the classroom. Teachers in the US were held to incredibly exacting (and unforgiving) standards when the nation first started trying to implement standard education - and they weren't even teaching music, mind you, I'm talking about the sort of teacher that handled reading, writing, and arithmetic in pioneer settlements as the US expanded in the early 1800s. I've read examples where their behavior is SO restricted that they might as well have taken vows and entered a convent!! So the idea that the "moral crime" Pontio committed was the most serious and harshly considered of the complaints is really not at all a surprise. Especially if the Monsignor was a very strict man!

  • @FedericoLaManna87
    @FedericoLaManna87 2 роки тому

    What a charming episode!!

  • @danielwaitzman2118
    @danielwaitzman2118 2 роки тому +1

    Wonderful, as usual.

  • @xieouyang1341
    @xieouyang1341 2 роки тому

    Very enjoyable presentation, thank you.

  • @Felidae-ts9wp
    @Felidae-ts9wp 2 роки тому

    Brilliant..thank you for sharing Pietro's story. 🎼

  • @michaellasfetto5810
    @michaellasfetto5810 2 роки тому +5

    5:32 It is still best practice to have every singer sing by themselves in choir rehearsals in school music programs. This is usually done when voicing the choir to determine standing orders and during singing tests. In an elementary school classroom, it looks like having students sing phrases, song fragments, short songs, or vocal exploration activities by themselves.

    • @Beryllahawk
      @Beryllahawk Рік тому

      I almost wish I'd had that sort of experience in my elementary school music lessons. The teachers were very energetic and very good in getting us kids to enjoy and learn ABOUT music - but singing alone was just not done, not even in higher grades. Choir members weren't asked to sing alone even when I reached college! We had to audition solo, but that was pretty much IT. I didn't really learn to hear my own voice or even to really read music until my first year in college. (But, I'm in the US, so the standards are undoubtedly VERY different!)

  • @farahmohammed1963
    @farahmohammed1963 2 роки тому +2

    Word of the Day: Cartella. I just bought a new writing tablet… my cartella!!😊 Thanks for yet another interesting video! They’re wonderful!!🌺💕🎵🌷

  • @wamexart
    @wamexart 2 роки тому +8

    Hello Elam, here writing you from my iCartella. After reading the title I was scared that it would be a case similar to the one of the Pretre Rosso. Well it seems that it was somehow. It’s is a tragic-comic history. As to music teaching, was Pontio`s teaching technique an exception in his days? Sounds odd to me, even to learn playing harpsichord in my days (a few decades after Pontio in the 70s of the last century of the second millennium), separate hands playing was a must. Thank you again for this history, please share more, early musicians were after all human beings.Very best.

  • @javiercmh
    @javiercmh 2 роки тому

    Very interesting story!! Thanks for teaching me what a cartella is :)

  • @WilliamFord972
    @WilliamFord972 2 роки тому +9

    5:42 I was wondering if you'd point this out. From the moment you quoted one of the testimonies about singing alone, I was intrigued. It's rare nowadays that a student would _want_ to sing alone, much less _ask_ to sing alone.

    • @henkkahenrik4183
      @henkkahenrik4183 2 роки тому +4

      I mean at the time most kids learning music wanted to actually learn it properly, and for them the most effective way was to sing alone so that the teacher could hear where they make mistakes so they could correct it, so it makes sense.

    • @clawsoon
      @clawsoon 2 роки тому

      I wonder if his students were planning to get jobs singing professionally. (No idea if they were, just a guess.)

    • @SallyGreenaway
      @SallyGreenaway 2 роки тому +1

      perhaps it's a mistranslation that it was more about the part singing, doing each part one at a time, instead of all parts jumbled together where people don't yet know their own part yet.

  • @Lwmyoun
    @Lwmyoun Рік тому

    In the end Pietro just didn't care. Thank you for this video!

  • @liquensrollant
    @liquensrollant 2 роки тому

    This was different! I enjoyed it very much however. The way you used the artwork was very clever too.

  • @alfredbackhus6110
    @alfredbackhus6110 2 роки тому +13

    5:42 It seems to me that the complaint of the singers to not have been allowed to sing alone means, that they were always singing one-to-a-part, but together. I would expect a very small group of pupils, perhaps 5 to 8 or so. Certainly not a choir of 20...40.

    • @8313m
      @8313m 2 роки тому +2

      Exactly!

    • @Sam-gx2ti
      @Sam-gx2ti Рік тому

      One of the translations says "sing one-by-one," and in Pietro de Solzia's testimony he says "he should have first made us sing our parts separately then together." Though in the second quote they were talking about something Pietro had composed, I think it just means singing one's part with everyone else quiet to check for mistakes

  • @carlosandres7006
    @carlosandres7006 2 роки тому +1

    Loved the ending. He got another job! A good move 🤣 This could be a short good movie. Thanks !

  • @SamuraiSx19
    @SamuraiSx19 2 роки тому +1

    !lol Pietro Pontio was chillin' hardcore at that time on teaching work xD

  • @HeiligerSatyr
    @HeiligerSatyr 2 роки тому +45

    In Italy you get and keep a job if you have a political protection. Pietro Pontio had one and then he lost it. His teaching methods or his familiarity with prostitutes were likely but pretexts. Anyway, interesting episode, as always.

    • @remurray1596
      @remurray1596 2 роки тому +1

      He also lost a job in Milan (actually, he left "by mutual agreement) and went back to the gig in Parma.

    • @MonsieurMosca
      @MonsieurMosca 2 роки тому

      He sounds like a bad teacher, but this consorting with “a known prostitute” sounds like they were eager to make a case.

  • @noisemaker0129
    @noisemaker0129 2 роки тому +6

    Man, I really want to see those archived trial files... Looks really cool

    • @ankavoskuilen1725
      @ankavoskuilen1725 2 роки тому

      Probably they are in italian or latin.

    • @EarlyMusicSources
      @EarlyMusicSources  2 роки тому +2

      It's all online, check the footnotes page

    • @remurray1596
      @remurray1596 2 роки тому

      @@ankavoskuilen1725 Questioning is in Latin, the answers in Italian.

  •  2 роки тому

    Interessantíssimo!

  • @VoceCorale
    @VoceCorale 2 роки тому +1

    At conservatory, I had a teacher that regularly showed up 1 hour after the appointed time.

  • @saidtoshimaru1832
    @saidtoshimaru1832 2 роки тому +4

    Maybe he was teaching counterpoint to Isabetta...

  • @NenadStefanovicbach
    @NenadStefanovicbach 2 роки тому

    I like this man.. look like real artist :)

  • @christian.schubert
    @christian.schubert 2 роки тому +7

    Thank you so much for your wonderful work!!
    Could you perhaps do something about late baroque B.C. realisation, for example in Opera? Is there some particularly interesting source on, say Handel/Bach? Or even later composers? Just an Idea...
    Any Video will be a great pleasure though, I am sure; all the Best!👍

  • @delyar
    @delyar 2 роки тому

    Very entertaining

  • @RosssRoyce
    @RosssRoyce 2 роки тому +4

    I bet Isabetta was allowed to sing alone 😝

  • @alessandropalazzani
    @alessandropalazzani 2 роки тому +2

    Lol, this story takes place just near where I live (I'm from Brescia/Brixia as the organist)

  • @en-blanc-et-noir
    @en-blanc-et-noir 2 роки тому

    My German teacher used to wear sunglasses as well - in class!

  • @emilianolonginosalverdin894
    @emilianolonginosalverdin894 2 роки тому

    Awwwwww
    Your axolotl, so cute

  • @_carlos_angel_
    @_carlos_angel_ 2 роки тому

    Thank you, Elam.
    Good story.
    I would pay to hear that 8-voice Mass, though.
    It must have been... something. ;-)

    • @DimitriLucy-zo8yv
      @DimitriLucy-zo8yv Місяць тому +1

      look up "Laudate pueri (Psalm 112, Pietro Ponzio) - Il Dilettoso Monte Consort Vocale - Dir. Massimo Annoni"
      It shows his use of many voices

  • @rockstarjazzcat
    @rockstarjazzcat 2 роки тому +1

    He wouldn’t let me sing alone! Shudder to think what would be enforced in guitar pedagogy. 😂

  • @JCG1
    @JCG1 2 роки тому +6

    Thank you, very interesting.. one thing: I'm nearly sure the right pronunciation of PONTIO is: PONT'tsj'O, due to the rules of the late latin... but.. not sure 100%...

    • @verybarebones
      @verybarebones 2 роки тому +1

      They should be already be using italian for names, look at the names of the other complaining clerics

  • @angryjalapeno
    @angryjalapeno 2 роки тому +2

    I suspect the reason for singing alone is because the music was probably sung 1 or 2 voices per part. Unlike in today's school choirs with dozens per part.

  • @barney6888
    @barney6888 2 роки тому +4

    LOL, I'm a cranky old Irishman and I can lose a music teaching job in 21 minutes!

  • @ankavoskuilen1725
    @ankavoskuilen1725 2 роки тому +2

    What interests me now is: how did he do at Parma?

    • @remurray1596
      @remurray1596 Рік тому

      He did quite well-good jobs at the most important church in the city, and a nice job in the cathedral, with some time at the Cathedral in Milan. He even had another job in Bergamo.

  • @feraudyh
    @feraudyh 2 роки тому +1

    Maybe you could update the Wikipedia article on Pietro Pontio.

  • @LisztyLiszt
    @LisztyLiszt 2 роки тому

    6:50 Nice little cameo from Rachmaninoff.

  • @penttikoivuniemi2146
    @penttikoivuniemi2146 2 роки тому

    What an absolute Chad.

  • @iris_purpurea
    @iris_purpurea 5 місяців тому

    I love your axolotl 💟

  • @MaHa-um5sv
    @MaHa-um5sv Рік тому

    hilarious!

  • @kapparomeo
    @kapparomeo 2 роки тому

    "How to Lose Friends & Alienate People" Renaissance Edition.

  • @emanuel_soundtrack
    @emanuel_soundtrack 2 роки тому

    i am happy that they don’t apply similar rules to me

  • @fnersch3367
    @fnersch3367 2 роки тому +2

    Bach had problems too 150 years later.

    • @carryfreak5059
      @carryfreak5059 2 роки тому

      True but only because the students did not realize who was in their midst

  • @bifeldman
    @bifeldman 2 роки тому +3

    Artichokes!

  • @probindemufhoes42069
    @probindemufhoes42069 Рік тому

    Anyone else curious what a 400 year old erasable tablet looked like?

  • @NEMO-NEMO
    @NEMO-NEMO 2 роки тому

    He should hv quit instead of allowing someone to fire him. They did not like him.

  • @CalebePriester
    @CalebePriester 2 роки тому

    They say we should trust our ears, but here this guys is saying the ear can deceive so I guess we can't trust 100% in our ears.

  • @shrihansuchit6647
    @shrihansuchit6647 2 роки тому +2

    Who made him maestro? If he had no proper method of teaching or composing how he cleared audition?

    • @MusicaAngela
      @MusicaAngela 2 роки тому +2

      He probably won the post playing cards with a magistrate who then authorized the compensation he received after leaving. 😊

  • @EmmanuelIstace
    @EmmanuelIstace 2 роки тому

    inspiring drama for all influencer wanna be

  • @WilitoJunior
    @WilitoJunior 2 роки тому

    I could have done it in less time 😎😎

  • @arturoalbero9547
    @arturoalbero9547 2 роки тому

    He actually invented modern music teaching...🤣

  • @jackeddemon
    @jackeddemon 2 роки тому

    Lol 20days comp. 🤪🤪

  • @polyglot8
    @polyglot8 2 роки тому

    At the beginning of the video, when it was hinted that the story involved a priest or deacon and little boys, I braced myself for the worst - but was relieved that in the end, only a common hooker made an appearance.

  • @declamatory
    @declamatory 2 роки тому +2

    At least he was consorting with a female.

  • @tangaz5819
    @tangaz5819 2 роки тому +1

    Pontio was the original grifter. Making money on the side on the job. Lol.

  • @schumacherenator
    @schumacherenator 6 місяців тому

    Big deal, I could lose a teaching job in one week

  • @Tschungermeister
    @Tschungermeister 2 роки тому +1

    FIRST

    • @declamatory
      @declamatory 2 роки тому

      Finally, you achieved something! Yay!

  • @ShadowZero27
    @ShadowZero27 2 роки тому

    the cat sound at the intro will make me quit watching