Update on Final Project Process

Last week I began my final creative process project with my music students. It was a beautiful, sunny day on Thursday so I allowed the choir to take twenty minutes at the end of rehearsal and "play" on the playground. My only stipulation was for them to be aware of the sounds they heard as the played. (I even learned a new playground game called "Box Ball" from my students this day!)
The following day in our musicianship class we began as usual with some folk song games and mapping out simple folk songs with "traditional" notation (aka. quarter notes, half notes ect.).
I then proceeded to explain how there can be music that is not "traditionally" notated. There can be music in situations that we normally do not consider to be very musical. I wrote on the dry erase board the title "Sounds of the Playground". My students suddenly perked up and said, "Oh yah! You asked us to listen as we played yesterday outside." This was absolutely true. My response was to begin a list on the board of sounds we heard/noticed on the playground. Everyone had 4 minutes to discuss and recall sounds that they heard the previous day. Then democratically each student wrote and idea on the board. I will show the pictures in class during my final presentation but the list looked something like this:
1. Balls Tapping
2. Kids Screaming (Tag)
3. Gossip
4. Birds chirping
5. Feet tapping
6. Kids Laughing
7. Wind Whooshing
8. Jump ropes clocking
After the ideas were listed we grouped off and began actually constructing these sounds with a partner. To this task I gave them about 10 minutes to really brainstorm and test out different sounds that might constitute "Balls Tapping" or "Jump ropes clocking". I also documented this process with photographs and sound recording.
We eventually regrouped in a circle and each team shared what they had come up with. I even had two students perform a hand game with lyrics. Actually to be honest many of the groups came up with lyrics whether they were actual games played on the playground or words that accompanied some sort of movement.
Once everyone had performed their sounds individually we began to string them together. Similarly to some of the situations that have been presented in our Creative Process classroom I cued the sounds in group by group and the outcome was fantastic. It truly sounded like a playground, made of voices!
We will continue this week with these notions and also begin thinking about how we might map our a "nontraditional" score to our composition "Sounds of the Playground".
I will update after this week!

Creative Final Project Idea

The movement and sound exercise that we did the other day sparked another idea for what I may want to do for my final project. In the musicianship classes that I teach we are currently learning beats and rhythms in triple time. The students use beat cards to map out songs and in doing so create a small "score" for the melody of a simple folk tune. What if I had my students create a score for sounds that they heard, lets say on the playground. Using the dry erase board we could map out a rough draft of symbols, pictures and standard note values that they would want to create certain sounds for certain durations. Of course I would break it down in the beginning by brainstorming the sounds you actually hear on the playground. We could list them on the dry erase board and then break up into groups to brainstorm how we are going to create these sounds. Perhaps once we have a rough draft of what our score would look like we could perform a run through of the progressive piece "Sounds of the Playground".
I would want to take video of this process to show during our final presentation however I would need to get permission from the school and parents to make sure they know this video would only be used for my presentation purposes and would not be published in any way shape or form!
In class this week I would like to use our video exercise to do a small draft of what I may attempt to do with my students. I will bring in beat cards and markers with paper because we do not have a dry erase board. From here my peers and I will create a non-traditional score for sounds of the park.
This is just my beginning idea. We shall see where to go next!

Earth Group

Last week's scavenging activity has been the subject of my thought process as we forge forward in the creative process. Tae and I noticed right away the effect of the wind in regards to movements in the flags around Washington Square park as well as the circular spinning motion of all of the wheels on cars passing by. The sound of the wind and the cars moving through the wind provided our soundtrack to the scavenger hunt. I must say it felt as though we were capturing little "snippets" of movement and sound as we filmed. I know each time I had the camera I felt like there were so many things to record and I was indecisive as to the "correct" choices to make. I originally thought our video was only random "snippets" of what we had seen, that we thought could be interpreted in class. However when I watched our movie on the website it really seemed as though these "snippets' were indeed an actual movie.
Something that has struck me through this activity is the idea of "scavenging". I always felt this word had a doom like connotation, like hawks circling their prey that is soon to die! However when looking at scavenging in a positive light, for example in terms of more of a collecting connotation this word has many possibilities for the creative process. I suppose we are constantly scavenging and looking for inspiration that will drive our next lessons, compositions and stimulate our minds.
The movement, sound and approach that our Earth group took has inspired an idea for a classroom activity. I would like to create an on the spot composition with my students called "Sounds of the Park". It would be really interesting to see what sounds my students have scavenged with the idea of a park in mind and then how their creative process works in order to re-create or interpret these sounds. For example perhaps a few children could be the wind, blowing the flags, perhaps some children could be the sound of a handball hitting against the playground wall and maybe a few students could be the sound of people milling about in the actual park. I feel this type of creativity and scavenging of the mind and memory would be a great exercise for my students.

Vocal Theme and Variations

During our last class meeting the comment was made that we don't really explore too much with vocal theme and variation. I had intended for the theme and variation I wrote to be played via computer or piano. However when it came time to perform the variation I thought perhaps we could try it using our voices. It was difficult for me to explain how we as a class were going to perform this theme and variations. Once finished we established that perhaps round singing could be a form of theme and variation, which I very much agree with.
I then began to think about jazz. Every time I sang with my undergraduate jazz group I tried my hand at scatting and embellishing on an already existent melody. This indeed was an example of theme and variation. Every time I scatted over "God Bless The Child" or "Autumn Leaves" I borrowed material from the original theme and added a few notes here and there. Vocal theme and variations make up jazz singing. In fact we use vocal theme and variations in many songs we perform.
Our discussion of theme and variation has prompted some questions in my head. Is theme and variation at the root of all music? Is all music a variation on some pre-existing theme? The discussion of borrowing themes and setting variations has occasionally turned into battles of plagiarism in music. If music is based simply upon theme and variation is it possible that battles of plagiarism may be confused with variations on a theme that are very similar? Is there really plagiarism in music or is it just variation?
I will address these questions in class then in my next blog!

Theme and Variations in the Practice Room

I was sitting in a practice room a few days ago at the music school where I teach waiting to meet with my boss. I had no "sheet music" or "vocal music" 'to practice. For the past 10 years at least I have always headed to the practice room with specific, notated music to practice. Sitting in this practice room with only the piano in front of me I began to practice scales, something that a pianist wanna be like me should be practicing! After about 5 minutes of this I began to get bored and started to "improvise" on major triads. I settled on the arpeggiation of an F major chord using two octaves. To this arpeggiation I added a descant melody on a descending C major scale. (Now I am discerning the music theory elements as I am explaining my theme but in all actuality when I was creating this theme I was simply, just playing, not really focusing on whether it was in F Major or C Major.) Suddenly after about 10 minutes I had a theme. I started slowly to add onto this theme with different variations of it. For example instead of arpeggiating the chords I played blocked chords or attempted to play it in a "Pomp and Circumstance" style. I then added IV and V chords to my variation and started to create variations on that! It was really quite exciting and I had no agenda. If not for the meeting that I had to go to I could have sat in that practice room for hours and played with this one theme.
When my boss knocked on my practice room door to signify that she was ready to meet with me I was almost disappointed. I have never really sat down at the piano, which I am not the most skilled, and just played "non-notated music".
I did not notate my theme and variations and to be honest I can only remember the theme. I plan to keep working with this theme and add a few new variations. Perhaps I will try to notate it as well. On the other hand could it be better just to let this theme exist in my head and allow myself to simply "play"?

Music in San Diego

I have just returned from a leisure vacation in San Diego, California. Music was a constant as I traveled, being that I listened to my I-pod during the flight then of course turned on the radio while driving the rental car. However our class discussions came to mind on my first full night in San Diego. My friend took us to a restaurant and bar that had a live band and swing dancing. The band consisted of 5 men playing the upright bass, electric bass, guitar, drums and the lead singer also improved on his harmonica. I was intrigued to see the relaxed attentiveness of the audience watching this band in a bar setting. I was also very taken by the swing dancing that was being performed by audience members as the band played. I would not have thought this mix of jazz and blues music could have been danced to in the way these people were dancing. I should also say that all of the couples dancing were above the age of 40!
While watching all of this I kept thinking back to our discussions in class about "galumphing" and musical play as well as improvisation in music. It was almost as if I was watching a live version of our class discussions. I was visually and aurally experiencing how creative musical process can work. The band was the improvisation in this case. They were playing some cover songs and some original music but there was never one song that did not include an improvisational section, whether it was on the harmonica, bass or drums. The dancers I classified as the "galumphers". I later learned the type of dance they were doing was actually called "West Coast Swing" which I would see much more of as my vacation progressed. However the dancers played a major role in the creative process of this live music in that they were actually "living" the music. There were not strict rules as to what the band or the dancers could or could not do and it was absolutely wonderful!

"Galumphing" in the Classroom

I went to teach yesterday prepared to "galumph", although I knew my younger choir would not need too much help with being inexhaustibly energetic and excited.  On the complete opposite end of the spectrum I made an educated guess that my older choir would be very low energy, being that they are in their early teens, have had a long day of academic school and just got back from a week long vacation!

As I predicted both choirs were exactly how I thought they would be in rehearsal. The younger choir, ages 5-9, were full of energy and excitement.  They entered my classroom with a buzz, singing remnants of the music they remembered from last week and declaring to me the interesting things that had happened to them since I had last seen them.  They truly are the physical reality of "galumphing".  I kept this in mind as I presented an excited yet somewhat controlled demeanor in my lesson for the day.  Occasionally too much "galumphing" creates a loud buzz that is difficult to teach over! When they left after their rehearsal I could not stop thinking about why or how these children were so energetic after a long day of school.  Don't get me wrong I would more often rather children to "galumph" and be energetic and excited about choir then have to pry the energy out of them.

My senior choir arrived fifteen minutes after the junior choir left. The majority of the senior choir is 10-15 years old. As usual they came into my classroom declaring how exhausted they were from the day and when I asked them to stand for warm ups there was the occasional, "My legs are so tired, can we just sit", request.  I, being in a "galumphing" sort of mood from my junior choir was trying to get the senior choir energized through movement and one silly song game.  My efforts were thwarted by the "exhaustion" of my students.  There are the occasional days where any students are truly tired and no matter how energetic you are they may just need to have a "tired" day.  Taking this into account I decided to bring up the term "galumphing" with my senior choir.  When I said it they laughed and said, "That's a silly word". (By they way I'll reiterate, they laughed, which I will be counting as a burst of energy!) 

When I asked for a definition they answers were creative and outlandish and my students were beginning to use their imaginations and snap out of their "exhaustion" for a few minutes.  After a montage of creative definitions I read the definition by Nachmanovitch and they all understood.  

I would say out of the 45 minute "tired" senior choir rehearsal yesterday, my students gave me about 20 minutes of pure energy just from the discussion of "galumphing"!