Week 2

Week 2

Tue 12th November Hartsdown Technology College (session two)

For the main part of today I worked with the students on small incidental compositions. This time, as requested, the students all had instruments ready to play (although the saxophonists had decided to leave their saxes at home). Unfortunately there were not enough guitar leads for all of the students to plug into the amps and so not all the students were able to play together on their chosen instruments at once; however, this was solved by a couple of the students going home during the morning break and bringing back the necessary leads.

We began the day by recapping on what we had discussed about the project theme the week before. I explained how I had worked with the students from the other schools and we discussed how the Hartsdown input might complement that. Because Hartsdown are the only group made up almost entirely of instrument playing musicians the students thought that perhaps they should concentrate on creating instrumental pieces to describe various aspects of home, as opposed to trying to replicate the sounds themselves. Before break I also talked a little about the physics of sound and discussed with them about what music might be, as it had come up with the other groups. Since the previous session Justin had composed a short piece on the piano that took as its theme two friends arguing. He performed the piece to the group, who liked it. I suggested that perhaps he could teach it to the others if they thought that was a good idea. The group were open to this.

After break, and with everyone now plugged in, we began proper on group composition. I let the students decide what their first piece should be about and they chose 'Home'. More specifically, as for them home was fundamentally somewhere where you could relax and sleep, the piece they wanted to do was to be 'sleepy'. I then ways of playing to achieve the desired effect. I asked them to regulate their breathing as if they were relaxed and about to sleep and then only play when they were breathing out. I did this as I wanted for them to be sensitive to the relationship of the physiology of themselves as players with the physicality of their instruments. It also had the benefit of pacing their composition and creating enough space for their piece to achieve its aim and also sound musical. For those who wanted to play as one group I asked them not to ignore their breathing in order to coordinate their playing, but rather to coordinate their breathing so they could play together. We experimented with the order of events in the piece, by getting different students to 'conduct' the piece and control the pacing of ideas, and when these became more solid we recorded a couple of takes before lunch break.

In the afternoon the students chose to work on Justin's 'argument' piece. I asked Justin to break his piece up into sections and to teach the rest of the group their different parts. For each section we shared his ideas among the instruments and built on them. This took quite a while as his ideas were difficult to transfer to the (non-piano) instruments. Impressively they took his ideas very seriously and, slowly but surely, they discovered their own ways of being faithful to his ideas. There was just about enough time to piece together and rehearse the first three sections of his composition before it was time to pack up.

At the end of the day, I encouraged the students to find time to rehearse their ideas before my next visit. I thanked Justin for going to the bother of working out his composition and said that I was sure that everyone could see just how useful his input had been. I encouraged the students not to be afraid to also work on their own ideas for pieces. I also said that next week I would bring in a multitrack recorder so we could record their music properly.

After the students had left, the music teacher (Janice Morgan) told me that she had only just found out that on the day of my proposed next visit (Wednesday20th) there was to be a science module test and so it was probable that I wouldn't have any of my students in the afternoon.

Thu 14th November Brockhill Park School (session two )

I began by playing the students the recordings of their work from the week before and then explained how I had worked with their compositions since the last visit, editing and cleaning up the sounds and then organising them based on what we had discussed (and also played) in our previous session. (Basically, I had joined their pieces together in the same order that we had already agreed upon and then affected the music with an electronic effect that they had also chosen.)

After playing all their separate takes I then played them my treatment of their work, which they gave the thumbs up, and then we discussed how we could build on it. They thought the piece was good and true to its theme of 'moaning', but could still do with some other layers on top. So they split up into smaller groups and made up short pieces based on moans that their parents often gave ("do your homework", "wash your hands", "wake up", and so on). As in the previous session, I got them to work intensively for a short period before playing what they had come up with so far to the other groups before carrying on and further working on their pieces.

When they had finished them, I worked with one group at a time. Each group played their composition to the rest of the students and on the first playing I asked the class what parts of the music (if any) weren't focused on the task of 'moaning' music. Whatever sound(s) they suggested the performing group had to remove. Conversely, the class was also asked what they thought was the most successful part of the composition and the performing group had to extend that section of the music. In order to help with this exercise we came to a group definition of what moaning sounded like. They said that it happened again and again, to the point that it became boring; that when people moaned they didn't speak as normal but stretched their words out; that the voice started higher and finished lower (I pointed out that the interval was usually a minor third); that they were usually not too loud; and that there was usually a long space in between successive moans. Therefore our compositions were to be repetitive to the point of being boring, were to feature the instruments playing in unusual ways, and the sounds and ideas were to be stretched out and were to use good use of space. After each group had played their piece and received their criticisms we recorded each composition. This started off well, but after about the third group, some of the students found it increasingly difficult to hold their focus and keep quiet during the recordings. I decided to persevere nonetheless in order for them to realise first hand the discipline required to achieve a quality end result, and to hopefully grow to an acceptance that nothing else would do.

As requested, since the last session some of the students had made a list of sounds that they could hear in their homes, and we listed these on the board on a timeline. We noticed that the majority of sounds either happened around breakfast time or the evening meal, and we spoke about how a piece about the home might also have a flurry of activity around these times. We thought our moaning composition might best be suited to a nightmare or dream about all the moans they had experienced that day.

Afterwards we tried out improvisations based on the students' micro moaning compositions with different conductors trying out ordering events. Jackie Mortimer, the school's community arts manager, brought the sixth form in to listen and thought it was great. She was particularly impressed with Sarah's conducting skills and how she displayed musical understanding, in the sense that she appeared to be thinking carefully about sound textures and timing of pupils' improvisations. She particularly liked it when she would bring some students in, decide that she didn't like what they were playing, stop them and then bring in somebody else who hopefully would play in a more pleasing manner. Afterwards I gave the dance tutors a CD recording of the previous week's work, which they listened to and said they would like to use (for drama). I also spoke with Tim for about half an hour on the pros and cons of teaching creativity. He was apologetic about not being there for a lot of the session and said that it wouldn't happen next week. He also said that there was a science teacher who wanted to meet with me to see if there was someway he could get involved. I suggested that I met him on the following Tuesday, the day of the next session.

Fri 15th November Whitstable Community College (session two )

The evening before this session I had a telephone call from Tom Jarrett to say that I would not be able to work in the same space for the whole of the day as there was to be an examination that was going to be taking place in the hall in the morning before break. I would instead start the day by working in one of the art rooms. Also, my assigned teacher for the day was to be Sue Merrells from the arts department, and the students had been asked to meet at the school reception at 9:10am.

When I arrived at the school I was met by Sue Merrells in reception and then taken to the upstairs art room where I was to work with the students until break time. For this part of the morning I had mostly the GCSE students and two of the A-level students (Dan the double bass player and Katie - a new person). The other A-level students were apparently sitting the exam in the hall.

I began by quickly explaining the project and the HAJ theme to Katie and then we listened to the recordings of what we had done in the previous session. I then showed them how we could order and multitrack the sounds we had recorded using a computer so that they were in the same position as on the timeline we had devised the week previous. When we did this the different sounds began to gel together into something more musical sounding. I asked Katie to add some of her own sounds on the timeline, and as I had done with the other students last week, I asked her to describe how the quality of her sounds changed over time and then to graphically represent them on the board.

We then went back to our time chart and chose the next sounds to work on. They chose the sounds of breakfast time, and so we listed the type of sounds heard there, the qualities of the sounds and the order they appeared in. Using the percussion that had been brought up to the room we then tried to replicate those sounds. I asked if this was the only time of day when these sounds were heard. They said not, as the sounds were also part of the evening meal. I asked them if they sounded the same. They replied that as breakfast was usually eaten in a hurry, on the go, and what was eaten was usually based on what was needed, the sounds were more intense than at lunchtime, which was slower and more relaxed.

After break time we went down to the hall, but in fact couldn't set up immediately as the examiners needed time to clear up. We were able to use the time to get more of the instruments from the music room and by half-eleven the examiners had gone. After break two more A-level students (Jazz and Rachel) joined us and so I showed them how we had begun to layer the sounds, and then explained that we were just about to record breakfast! Jazz especially liked the multitracked sounds and made various suggestions for improving the mix. I was able to do this straight away so that he could see the effect of his changes.

After the group had worked on their miniature compositions based on breakfast they moved onto other sounds to do with the home. We worked like this through to the end of the afternoon with the group suggesting a sound, describing it and then working out how to reproduce it using the instruments. As the day progressed, the group's offerings became less concerned with simply reproducing sounds as they gained more confidence, and more adventurous. They began to work better as a team and balanced their creativity with a seriousness concentrating on the task in hand. By the end of the afternoon they were working on a level that surpassed what they had been capable of doing at the beginning of the day.

After the session was over Sue said that she had found the day "quite enlightening", although she did not elaborate on that. The drum tutor who was there at the end of the afternoon and who also had been there for the first hour in the morning also said that he had found the day and ideas very interesting. I explained to them both that the project was to be evaluated and so it might be a good idea for them to jot down any thoughts they had over the next couple of days instead of leaving it to the end of the project, especially since there would be a different member of staff sitting in with me for each week.

In the afternoon, Jazz couldn't be there as he said he had to go to the dentist, and Jackie was not there as her English teacher was not happy about her missing English lessons. Sue told me that most probably therefore she would only be able to attend the sessions in the mornings. Another student, Drew, also could not be there for the day as he was in what the school calls "Oasis", which is where students are sent when they have misbehaved. It appeared that he had been withdrawn from the project (and probably all other lessons) as part of some sort of disciplining procedure. I learnt all this from conversation with the students and Sue Merrells. I was not told officially, and so I did not know what the situation was regarding these particular students for future sessions. After the session Sue told me that she didn't even know if Drew would still be at school next week as it was likely that he would be expelled. She then asked me if I was happy with the size of my group in light of the possibility of some of the students disappearing (being expelled, truancy, or attending other classes) or whether I would like more students. I said that when everyone turned up then the group was a good size. Also, the project was about the students learning to operate as a team and so if we kept changing which participants were involved to make up the numbers then perhaps this would not help with this aspect of the project. I said though that I was willing to be flexible on this.