The cuckoo, which is said to lay its eggs in the nests of other birds, can hardly be considered a noble bird, but its call has been much used by composers for hundreds of years. The cuckoo clock near my piano has proved to be an instrument which not only helps keep time, but assists in teaching intervals, figured bass, and music history.
At first, I used the cuckoo clock to remind me when lessons were finished, since I would often forget the time once a lesson began. Then I noticed that my students were beginning to be more prompt, to arrive before the cuckoo chimed the hour.
When students began playing with the tick-tock of the clock, I wrote out a little exercise in three-four time, and the clock became a metronome. More advanced students would look pained and cast accusing glances at the clock until I stopped it, but younger students were only too happy to play at 60 or 120 beats per minute, matching the tick and the tock.
One early ear training exercise was to find the exact pitches of the cuckoo on the piano. They were B to G, a major third, until an unfortunate accident with the vacuum cleaner necessitated a new cuckoo, which chimes C to A, a minor third.
Zoltán Kodály (1882-1967) considered the minor third the first interval that children could sing in tune, which might account for the almost universal traditional Teasing Song which Béla Bartók (1881-1945) documented in his children’s pieces. American children probably know this tune as “Nyah, nyah-nyah nyah nyah.” Cuckoo pieces in music literature use both intervals.
Many students are unfamiliar with Roman numerals, and the numbers on the cuckoo clock are helpful when we begin talking about I, IV and V chords. Of course, the students will quickly point out that we do not have VIII, IX, X, XI, or XII chords.
The numbers on the clock may even encourage the students to learn the twelve major and twelve minor key signatures, since I to VI o’clock indicate the number of sharps in the major keys, going clockwise around the circle of fifths.
Many method books have cuckoo pieces, many of them in ¾ time. There is a Cuckoo in the Six Children’s Pieces (for piano, four hands) of Anton Arensky (1861-1906), and Camille Saint-Saëns’ Carnival of the Animals features a Cuckoo in the Depths of the Woods (Le Coucou au Fond des Bois). Beethoven’s Sixth Symphony has a cuckoo, as well.
There is a Baroque cuckoo, Louis Daquin’s Le Coucou for organ or harpsichord.
Haydn’s Toy Symphony has a cuckoo (and there is an instrument , a short pipe with a single fingerhole, used for just this sound). Ottorino Respighi’s suite “Gli Ucelli” (The Birds) features the cuckoo in the last movement.
My favorite cuckoo in music, however, is found in the first movement of Beethoven’s Sonata in G, Op. 79. The cuckoo first appears when the left hand crosses over the right, but Beethoven’s cuckoo is not limited to two fixed notes. He sings all over the piano, in various keys, in bass clef, and finally in octaves.
