Tue 27th Feb    (Session 1)

am   9.15 - 12.00     SALTWOOD PS 

I am working with students from the school orchestra, of which there are about 26, playing an assortment of string, wind and percussion instruments.  The orchestra is made up from students from different classes.  Some have been playing for a while, and others only a few months.

When I arrived they were all there waiting, so I asked them to get their instruments out and warm them up, and I did the same on my trombone.  I quickly ran through a couple of exercises with them, using conduction signing to assess how confident they were about making sounds on their instruments.  I then asked each person to introduce themselves by "playing me something on their instrument that they had not heard before".  This they all did very well, not falling into the usual traps.

After this I explained to them  the aim of my visits over the next few days, i.e., to help compose a piece of music for performance.  We discussed whether 'horrorful' music was the same as 'horrible' music.  They didn't think it was.  I then asked them what sort of music 'horrorful' music might be.  They replied, "mysterious", "with surprises" and "scary".  I asked if anyone could play me any 'horrorful' sounds.  One of the cello players offered some low bowed notes.  I asked the group if they could describe the sound.  They agreed it was in the "mysterious" category.  I then asked if anybody could think of any other sounds which might go with it, and in this way the composition grew, with one idea being added after another.

As each idea was introduced we invented a new conduction signing to help with cuing.  Initially, I took the responsibility for cuing the entries to allow the students to concentrate on their ensemble playing and also provide them with an unhurried context with regard to the spacing of their ideas.

Just before break, Rosemary Dunn (the Sounds New Education Director) came in to see what was going on.  This was a welcome visit as I think it helped the children be more aware of the mechanism of the Sounds New Festival.  This would dawn upon them later when they would meet Rosemary again at the Gulbenkian.  Whilst she was present in the class she kindly shared a few performance techniques with the string players (being a viola player herself).  These must have been appreciated as the students were keen to integrate most (if not all) of her examples into their composition over the course of my time with them.

pm   1.00 - 3.15     ST LEONARD'S  PS

The classroom teacher was not present and so the teacher for this session was Lee.  The students in this class appear more representative of the norm for students: I have one violinist and a host of would be percussionists!

In much the same way as the morning session in Saltwood, I began by asking the students to describe what they thought 'horrorful' music might sound like, and then as a group we began piecing our composition together. As with the morning group there was no shortage of ideas, which they placed within their evolving composition.

For this group, a girl called Abbie initially took the responsibility for cuing the students' contributions, and I worked with her a little giving her a few guidelines on placing ideas.