Week 13: Music (1)

Today’s workshop began with an examination of how sound can be organised into a process of experimenting, imitating, improvising, arranging, composing and notating. We then listened to a piece of music, and without being provided with the title, had to close our eyes and listen carefully to it. Whilst doing so, we were encouraged to jot down thoughts that emerged, the story that came to mind as we listened, how it made us feel, etc.

The piece we listened to used a wide variety of percussion instruments. As I closed my eyes, I pictured a person peacefully making their way through the natural setting of a rainforest. The layers of sound and building tension reflected the variety of unfamiliar animals within the forest that increased a sense of anxiety within the person. At the magnificent climax, I pictured the person emerging into a beautiful opening, one like the picture below. After listening to the piece, we were encouraged to share what we had imagined with the person next to us. My friend and I were surprised to find out that we had a similar story come to mind! We came to the conclusion that the used of ‘natural’ sounding instruments, such as the woody sound the xylophone produces, inspired us to imagine in this way. We later found out that this piece was in fact titled ‘Rainforest’, played and produced by the group B’Tutta. 

The next component of the workshop involved ‘sound scaping’ which involved notating music through the non-traditional method of diagrams, symbols and/or pictures. Below is an example that our tutor showed that reflected what this representation could look like.

My group did a sound scape of a thunderstorm in six parts. Beginning with the light sound of raindrops, the pit-a-pat-a sound grew louder, building up to produce a sound that depicted heavier rain. As clouds began to roll in, there was thunder and a crash of lightning.  After a while, the sound of heavy rain returned. The rain eased, and the piece concluded with a sound of ‘peace’ after a storm. We used a range of percussion instruments, some including cymbals, a bass drum, and a glockenspiel. Doing this activity reminded me of a thunderstorm body percussion performance that I stumbled across on youtube whilst doing research for my music lesson on professional experience. It is such a magnificent representation of a thunderstorm, and as I listen to it with my eyes closed, I am completely convinced that there is a thunderstorm happening outside!

To conclude the lesson, we learnt about raps. In my opinion, composing (and in some cases, performing) a rap can be such an effective tool of learning – it’s ‘cool’ and so students enthusiastically engage in the process of creating one. It encourages students to think imaginatively, consolidate their learning as they represent their knowledge in a new and different way and also develops their poetry skills. Whilst on professional experience, I utilised ‘rap writing’ in my lessons on a number of occasions. For instance, students wrote (and performed) a rap about Order of Operations: BODMAS (Maths), Flight (Science), and how they felt from a characters perspective after reading a chapter from C.S Lewis’ book ‘The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe’.  And what amazing raps they produced, I was constantly blown away!