A look back at my career 1979-2023

I started in April 1979 at the City of Paris as a ‘Maître Délégué à l’Éducation Musicale’ (Head of Music Education) in nursery and primary schools.

I officially retired on 1 July 2020, after a 41-year career, extended by three years as a freelancer working for Ryméa, making a total of 44 years as a music teacher using the Willems Method, which I have practised since my first year.

I also ran Ryméa for 29 years, from 1991 to 2020, having always been the head teacher since its creation by Jacques Chapuis under the auspices of AIEM Willems in 1987.

I will present four assessments here:

1. for my teaching work with children and adults,
2. for my management as Director of Ryméa,
3. for my work as a trainer,
4. for my involvement in the Willems^® Movement.

1. Review as a music and piano teacher

It is rather mixed.

1. With regard to musical initiation up to the introduction of solfège, I have acquired extensive experience and even in-depth expertise in the 4 Willems^® degrees, recognised by my peers in France and abroad.
   I also worked regularly in nurseries for about 15 years.
   
   Throughout my career, I have asked myself questions and sought answers by experimenting with different methods to implement the principles of each level.
   I have produced numerous plans, tables and programmes, each of which represented milestones that I have always shared, particularly with my colleagues and friends in Paris and Barcelona.
   
   But unlike Jacques Chapuis’ summary sheets for each degree, I didn’t use mine much over time, and in particular, I never wanted to put them in notebooks for students, let alone in books. Because repetition has always bored me.
   This led me to follow my intuition most of the time, adapting to each student, each group and each lesson. Fortunately, I had a very good sense of what to do with each person in the moment. The difficulty lay in anticipating the material needed for progress, particularly for music theory.
   
   I designed and produced lesson plans from the beginning of my time at the Ecole Nationale de Musique de la Creuse, from 1983 to 1986, personalising them for each group for many years, then revising and adapting them throughout my career.
   
   
2. As for music theory, I did not take my students to advanced levels.
   On the one hand, when they were motivated and hard-working, I directed them to the Regional Conservatory, where they were accepted and adapted without difficulty.
   On the other hand, I found the Willems® music theory book to be a straitjacket that was ill-suited to the way I taught and to the students’ progress. I tried very hard, because all the melodies in it are interesting, but even in five years, since it is supposed to be used for five years, none of my students ever read and studied them all.
   That’s also why I made worksheets for my students.
   
   Furthermore, the Willems^® book contains virtually no material for the third degree, only suggestions for further development, which I have done extensively (and shared). Among other things, there is no development of reference points, even though this is an essential complement to relative reading and requires practice during the first years of music theory. In the third grade, we can do little more than introduce them.
   
   I also regret the absence of the C clef in the first readings of the book, although it is possible to use ‘relative’ readings by determining a clef. The clear link that Willems® presents between the clefs in the teacher’s music theory book is unfortunately not reflected in the student’s music theory book. But questioning this textbook has always been out of the question, especially since its distribution serves Éditions Pro Musica.
   
   
3. Regarding beginners at the piano, I also gained a great deal of experience by always developing each of the four chapters advocated by Willems® simultaneously: ear training, sight-reading, memory playing and improvisation.
   One of my goals was to make them independent in reading before they started secondary school.
   I also practised improvisation a lot, starting from the keyboard and, at the same time, writing down the music before playing.
   Sight-reading, often limited to the first year, was for me and my students a laboratory for polyphony, through the invention of second voices, and for harmony, through the search for chords and cadences suited to songs.
   
   Jacques Chapuis once told me that when I took as much pleasure in giving piano lessons as I did in teaching music to beginners, I would have truly mastered the subject. I believe I have indeed covered all aspects of the subject and, what’s more, I have succeeded in passing on my love of the piano to most of my students. As soon as they were able to read music independently, I entrusted them to more technically experienced pianists to tackle the great works of the repertoire.
   
   
4. In terms of the ages and types of students I have taught, I have been fortunate to work with all kinds:

• Very young children in nursery school from 18 months to 3 years old, and some experience with babies from 4 to 12 months old.
• Children at the Montessori Tom Pouce school in Lyon, nursery and primary school, for 10 years.
• Children at the Maîtrise de la cathédrale St-Jean in Lyon for 6 years, from CE2 to 6ème, plus 5ème and 4ème for one year.
• Children with mental disabilities in individual lessons, including an autistic child for almost 20 years.
• Adults of all ages, in group music theory classes, individual piano lessons (including my dear Patrice for 30 years!), and choir singing for around 30 years…

2. Assessment as Director of Ryméa

Here too, the results are mixed.

On the one hand, I can be proud of having run this school for 29 years, gradually increasing the number of students from around 100 at the beginning to 260 before the COVID pandemic.

On the other hand, I think I was more of a coordinator than a director.

This was mainly due to circumstances, as when I took over the educational management from Jacques Chapuis, I was ‘managing’ my colleagues, who were also my friends: Jean-Dominique, then Elisabeth, Jean-Marc and Nicole B. Our quintet worked like clockwork (‘fingers in the nose’ as my dear Jean-Dom used to say!), and everyone rolled up their sleeves to overcome economic difficulties when they arose (concerts, soundproofing work, salary reductions, etc.).

We saw each other a lot and I held many meetings. However, everyone worked as they wanted in their own corner, in harmony with the team simply because we were all Willems® graduates and we all gave introductory lessons, music theory lessons and instrument lessons (except Jean-Dominique). This is a crucial point, because the link between these two areas was natural and fluid, and the preparation of the two annual concerts (Christmas and end of year) and the All Saints’ Day and spring courses had brought us closer together.

We were creative and complemented each other. Nicole and I played a lot of four-handed piano, inspired by the prospect of the annual teachers’ concert. How could I forget Johannes Brahms’ cycle of 16 waltzes?…

We also recorded more than 50 songs together for our students, singing in two voices and accompanying ourselves on the piano with four hands, improvising our harmonisations, which were well worked out but not written down.

Our friendships with each of them continue, and we are still in touch.

A blessed period in my career!…

When they left, I was forced to take on the role of Director, but I didn’t really change my relationship with the teachers, whom I always considered more as colleagues and collaborators than as employees, especially since I was still teaching between 25 and 35 hours a week, which was more than twice as much as any of my colleagues at Ryméa.

The problem was that it was becoming increasingly difficult to recruit Willems®-qualified teachers, particularly for instrumental teaching.

When I wanted to introduce more active cross-disciplinary collaboration, particularly to build links between music theory and instrument teaching, which had become very weak, using video recordings that everyone could make during their lessons,

I came up against a brick wall and encountered obstruction, which was initially subtle but then became confrontational, from two teachers whom I had hired when they were young and inexperienced and trained to Willems® diploma level.

This is a failure and a great regret for me. Both teachers have many qualities and could have continued to flourish at Ryméa. Perhaps they needed to ‘kill the father’ in order to break free and spread their wings? In any case, I wish them every happiness in their teaching and musical careers…

Finally, after my official retirement as Director, I ensured a three-year transition with my successor, working as a freelancer, answering his many questions on a daily basis, giving the lessons he asked me to give, promoting his project to the Board of Directors and giving him complete freedom. He was responsible for recruiting teachers and drawing up the timetables.

Sad ending

Unfortunately, he behaved towards me with profound ingratitude, accusing me of wanting to sabotage Ryméa after my departure simply because I had taken back the sound equipment that belonged to me, which he considered to be theft!

The worst thing is that he was supported in his accusations by the current president of Ryméa, by my partner in the Willems® training courses and by the president of the FIW, despite the fact that we had been colleagues and friends for 40 years… When it would have been so easy to talk to me about it straight away, he waited two months to make his accusations, refusing my offer to give him my sound equipment to settle the dispute, then broke off all communication, protected by his ‘godmothers’ who, for their part, overwhelmed me with accusations that had nothing to do with anything…

What a shame, and how despicable…

These accusations devastated me, and I am still struggling to recover, two years later…

3. Assessment as a Willems^® Diploma trainer

Since 2007, following the death of Jacques Chapuis, I have been teaching teacher training courses in Paris, Lyon, then in Ljubljana (Slovenia) and Medellin (Colombia).

Training teachers is very different from teaching classes yourself and guiding students’ progress.
I both loved and dreaded these training courses.

I loved the contact with very different people, who were always interesting, with diverse backgrounds and sharp, relevant, even unsettling questions, which were very stimulating and made me question everything and justify or better understand how things work.

I dreaded it because I was afraid of not being up to the task, and I always felt a little self-conscious about my modest level of music theory.

I also dreaded the time needed to prepare the texts, even though I was always able to use the texts by Jacques Chapuis, most of which were collected by Eulàlia, who did a remarkable job providing and sharing them with the team of active trainers, for which she is little known. I would like to thank her once again here: THANK YOU, EULÀLIA!

The most important part of my preparation was the timetable, which formed my lesson plan.
Giving 11 to 12 hours of lessons over two days in a closed environment (in a cellar in Paris!) is a challenge for both the trainer and the students.
However, I never read a lesson. My only notes were my schedule, which was more or less timed, and the texts for the readings and dictations. Once I started a chapter, I knew what to do and rarely repeated myself.
The most difficult thing for me was developing essay topics, which I had to prepare at length, and correcting melodic and harmonic inventions (for two voices).

My strong point has always been practical teaching, with video observation and commentary.
I have evolved a lot in this regard over time. I could be harsh in my early days (as Jacques Chapuis often was), and certainly clumsy (which is almost a trademark!). But I believe that I have never judged anyone and have always made a clear distinction between what I saw being done, more or less well, and the person doing it.

This is the most important thing I learned from Jacques Chapuis: to distinguish between the ‘non-personal’, which is neutral and impersonal, the ‘personal’, which concerns the individual, and the “transpersonal”, which transcends the individual, who is then merely the vehicle for more general principles. We find some of these distinctions in the concepts of “knowledge ‘, ’know-how‘ and ’interpersonal skills‘, although they are not correlated.

So, if I ever told someone that their course was ’rubbish”, and unfortunately I did (I was criticised for it and not forgiven!), I never thought that the person was rubbish: I was describing their practice. But I didn’t realise that this was unacceptable to the person in question because of the sometimes peremptory way I said it.
I think I have improved a lot in this respect over time, which has enabled me to better support my students/teachers…

I remain very critical of the Willems^® Diploma training programme, even though in 2020/21, my former colleague and I made significant progress in redesigning it into two two-year diplomas (instead of three).
I think the required levels of solfège, harmony and piano are too high.

I understand the desire for ‘excellence’ advocated by the president of the FIW, in the sense that we must give our best to children. The problem is that this requirement results in an elitist selection process that is contrary to the philosophy of Willems®, who designed three levels of teacher training to cater for all levels of teachers: the Certificate, the Teaching Diploma and the Didactic Diploma.

This is one of the reasons that led me to leave this international movement, which had been a driving force in my life for over 40 years…

4. Review of my involvement in the Willems^® Movement

A member since 1981 and a graduate in 1982, I became a kind of assistant to Jacques Chapuis when Ryméa was founded in Lyon in 1987.

I initially worked in training in Lyon and Paris, providing individual assessments and group support classes.
I then replaced Jacques from time to time for classes, mainly in Paris.
My wife Lylian became congresses coordinator for three years, and I was also actively involved in the logistics of the conferences in Lyon from 1984 onwards.

In 2007, when Jacques Chapuis died unexpectedly (following what was thought to be a routine operation), there were no plans for his succession or even for the continuation of the AIEM Willems’ activities. I ensured the transition in France, with Treasurer Romain Cottreaux, until the Congress in Ljubljana in 2008 in Slovenia, where I was unexpectedly elected President of the International Willems Movement.

President of the International Willems Movement

I held this position for four years, from 2008 to 2012, during which time I worked hard to bring about change.

• I professionalised the trainers by registering them as teachers, whereas previously they had only had the status of ‘scholarship students’.
• I proposed and largely drafted new statutes transforming the AIEM into the International Willems Federation®.
• I registered the name ‘Willems®’ as a trademark associated with his method in France and worldwide, in order to promote its content and prevent misuse or appropriation.
• I proposed reactivating the ‘practical pedagogy’ component of the Diploma training through videos to be made by students with their pupils. Despite strong resistance and inertia from my fellow trainers at the beginning (for at least five years), this part of the training has become as important as fundamental pedagogy and musicality, which I am very pleased about.

I believed that changing the statutes would enable the Willems® Movement to develop internationally. I did not succeed. This Movement remains a small niche whose active members ultimately defend only their own interests and their area of influence. Few people really work for the common good, and when they do, in France, it is to raise the level of training, as if to justify their interest in it…

These four years as President have been the most difficult of my professional life. I stood my ground, but at what cost: I was called a usurper, forced to swallow insults, had obstacles put in my way, was betrayed…

After my presidency of the FIW, I held almost every position on the Board of Directors, with varying degrees of effectiveness: Secretary, Training Manager, CAP Manager, Treasurer.

Webmaster

In 2008, I reactivated the website and developed it with the help of a friend, in seven languages.
This multilingual aspect was very important to me, so that every member would feel included and recognised on the site and be able to share it with others.

In 2020, I completely redesigned the website with the help of a nephew, creating a very large (too large?!) website in five languages with a total of more than 600 pages and articles, a monthly newsletter, a database for students in training with videos of the entire two years of the new training programme (160 hours of lessons), and much more…

I have worked on this website for several thousand hours, providing the FIW with a comprehensive communication tool free of charge, which serves as both a reference for the Willems® teaching method and a database for students and graduates. At every meeting, I asked the board to contribute their own publications to the site, but to no avail! I was therefore virtually the sole author of the articles published, which was not my intention. After resigning from the board at the Udine Congress in 2023, I insisted that the board set up an editorial/communications committee. It was created, but never contacted me.

I eventually gave up on the website, which clearly didn’t interest anyone.

It was entrusted to a paid service provider who proposed a layout the following month. However, it was only approved a year later, to announce the 2025 Congress, reduced to three languages. The entire interactive section and the video database disappeared.

What a shame.

International Congresses

I designed the schedules for the last Congresses from 2012 to 2023: 2012 in Lausanne (Switzerland), 2022 in Salvador-Bahia (Brazil) and 2023 in Udine (Italy), and I have been involved in all the Congresses since 2008.

Experience abroad

Working abroad has been a wonderful opportunity: I have been able to see the universal dimension of the Willems® approach and put into perspective practices that are sometimes only justified by the fact that ‘Jacques did it that way’. Having to reformulate the working principles to facilitate translation has forced me to always return to Edgar Willems’ texts.

And of course, discovering cultures as different as those of Colombia, Slovenia and, finally, Brazil, has enriched me considerably and allowed me to appreciate the qualities of each, which are often lacking in France, particularly the commitment of teachers, which is so remarkable in Colombia under the leadership of Diana Franco in Medellín.

Conclusion

I have been very fortunate to have spent almost my entire career in the same place, at Ryméa for 36 years, with complete freedom and independence.

I have been totally committed to my work, sometimes to the detriment of my children. I would therefore advise my younger colleagues to be careful not to regret this later on…

I loved my work and considered myself more of an artist-educator than a musician, although I am not ashamed of my compositions of songs and musical tales.

Because what has always driven me is human relationships.

Edgar Willems’ educational approach, based on human nature and using music education as a privileged vehicle for contributing to a humanistic and creative education, has given me a rich and varied professional life, including many trips, notably to Colombia and Slovenia, but also to Portugal, Mexico,

Spain, Switzerland, Italy and, of course, France.

The possibilities for analysis and diagnosis highlighted by Willems® have enabled me to answer many of my questions, giving me the impression that I have all the answers. I have even often told my children that I was tired of always being right! In reality, I never believed that I held any truth. I constantly questioned the validity of what I was doing, and I constantly reworked my work. This assessment is further proof of that.

Now that I have emerged from this Willemsian bubble, I am almost surprised to discover that there are other things in life!

And alongside my website and the musical research that feeds it, retirement is generously offering me new perspectives outside of music…

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