Sunday 3rd & Monday 4th July
For these two days we took part in some rather interesting training focused around the use of technology in music workshops under the expert guidance of Shirley Novak. During Sunday's session we took a look at various pieces of Mac software that can be used in a creative way these included: i-movie, White-cap and Garage Band as well as the i-phone app "Bloom". The software that interested me the most from this was "White-cap"; a piece of software that creates randomized visualisations in reaction to sound and in effect, can be used to help people "see" the sound they're creating. This has great benefits for the hard of hearing as it allows them to see the effect of the sounds they produce, even though they may not be fully audible to themselves, thus allowing them to be part of creative musical activities. Garage Band was the main piece of software we focused on during the session, a simple yet effective piece of software for creating music using loops. As well as having a large library of loops comprising of various instruments and styles you can very easily record your own loops in using either the internal laptop/computer microphone or an external mic. Away from the Mac we had a look at a rather intriguing item called "Sound Wave". Sound Wave is a MIDI based system which uses infra-red as means of MIDI controller. The pitch of the music reacts to the distance between a surface and the aperture of the controller, clickable pads also allow you to trigger extra sounds or to simple cycle through them. Invented by and for dancers this system provides a rather novel way of creating music.
On Monday we got to see Shirley and the technology in action at Lincoln Minster School during a day of workshops with year; 9, 8 and 6 students. The workshops consisted of the same programme for all years groups; starting with a brief introduction of herself and background and a quick walk through of the equipment and how music and recording technology has changed from an analogue to digital format and the possibilities this presents.
After the introduction Shirley demonstrated White Cap, getting the students to shout out their name and see what it looked like through the visualiser, this proved to be a fun exercise encouraging many a silly noise. After some fun with White Cap Shirley went to explore the relationship between music and emotion and how we perceive visual media with different kinds of music. To do this an excerpt from the film “Out of Africa” was played firstly with the original score by John Barry, the students were asked to come up with words that described the emotions that the film and music portrayed and this produced words such as; thoughtful, sorrowful and relaxed. The excerpt was then played again but with a dance tune called “Take me to the Clouds Above”, a much more upbeat song, when asked for words to describe the film there was a complete change in the way it was interpreted, with words like; fun, bouncy and exhilarating being used.
The main bulk of Shirley’s workshop was the use of Garage Band, and getting the students involved in the creative process of making music. First off, the basic features of the software and processes were demonstrated, the advantage being that the software is extremely easy to use. After this brief tutorial the students went about creating a song; starting with a drum track then a bass-line, guitar, piano etc. Although it may seem simplistic to use samples to create music this is not the case, a major feature of this part of the workshop was about choosing samples that worked stylistically well together and ensuring that the samples were moved into the correct key, for example a bass line in G#Maj wouldn’t sound good with a Guitar part in Dm, so it was up to the students to move the instrument they saw fit. After creating their backing tracks the students were given a chance to record parts on their track live using the inbuilt microphone on the i-Mac, these recording were then spliced and turned into samples and loops, in some cases the entire drum beat was made up of vocal samples.
Watching this workshop and learning about Shirley’s methods gave a great insight into an avenue of music workshops that you don’t often hear of or see, although expensive in terms of gear it makes for an extremely effective method of getting people involved in creating music. With more and more people using computer technology to create music it is apparent that this kind of workshop can give people something they can relate to and recognise and most importantly can do at home if they have the equipment.
Tuesday 5th July
With a salutary “Up the Mariners!” as left the tool booth at the Humber Bridge; today were back on the north bank in Tilbury (Hessle) to watch Gary Hammond conduct his workshop with the year 1 and year 2 groups. As was discussed in a previous blog, one of Gary’s favourite workshops is that of creating a soundscape for “Going on a Bear Hunt”. With what seemed like several music shops’ worth of percussion items big and small he set-up in the school’s hall and set to work. Watching Gary work was in short inspiring! The children were thoroughly engaged with the story and gave suitable gusto to the parts they played during the song. During the story there are several obstacles that the family have to overcome from tall grass to a snow storm, for each of these obstacles Gary had certain types of percussion to represent them. Certain children played for certain obstacles and this gave each child a certain responsibility to play their part at the correct time and to pay attention to the narrative, or in musical terms; know where their part fit into the form of the piece. Giving the children this responsibility in my opinion was a great as it incorporated a skill that is used in a number of settings and situations in everyday life and as has been said, the idea of doing these workshops is to embed not only musical skills but life skills as well.
This session was particularly interesting as Tilbury Primary is a school that not only caters for the abled but also caters for the hard of hearing; in today’s group there were four children for whom this was the case. It was interesting to see the way that Gary incorporated the children into the piece, using instruments that had a strong visual appeal and moving parts to help them see their part in the story. This attitude is something I feel is very important as Gary didn’t see the hearing problems the children have as an impassable barrier, rather the opposite encouraging them to be involved and making them an integral part of the performance just as every child in the group was.
On the way back to Lincoln we made a quick visit to the youth club at Brookenby next door to Binbrook, indeed Brookenby is a relatively new settlement being developed from the R.A.F. station infrastructure and buildings left after the station closed. We’re hoping to start work with both the junior and senior groups over the summer, probably based on junk-percussion, but this visit was just to say hello and get to know the staff and children who attend the club.
Wednesday 6th July
With our final visit to Tilbury next week and it being our turn to lead workshops we set about putting final preparations to our plans and discussing with Liam exactly what we plan to do. Pete had opted to go with a junk percussion theme, utilising objects that you’d find in the kitchen. After a trip in town Pete came back armed with; washing up bowls, mixing bowls, baking trays, cheese graters and tea-spoons and went about creating a piece that the children could play. Pete’s plan is to create rhythms based off the syllables of the name for each object, very simple to grasp…hopefully. Liam agreed that this would be a good concept and something that if managed right could yield good results.
Having had some rather chaotic experiences with children and instruments I drew up plans for a body percussion workshop. This workshop will involve clapping, stomping and various combinations or the two, as well as some clapping games in circles, something that’s not too hard to grasp but sounds good. Being safe territory (relatively) I feel then when we go to Tilbury I will be able to confidently lead the workshop and get some good results, the end game being to first and foremost enjoy themselves and secondly to play various rhythms in time with each other and gain an appreciation for teamwork and creating music.
For the afternoon we helped Pete prep his kitchen junk percussion, making beaters to play the various instruments using: dowels, napkins and gaffa tape. It didn’t prove to be the greatest example of craftsmanship in the world but was a fun end to the day and indeed the week!
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The Firebird Trust
The Stables, Wellingore Hall
Wellingore
Lincoln
England
LN5 0HX
The Stables, Wellingore Hall
Wellingore
Lincoln
England
LN5 0HX
01522 811229
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