June 2007
15 posts
A really good worthwhile and successful project.
For me this project has been one of the best education based projects I’ve been involved in. The objective of putting together a performance for an audience from outside the school is a useful tool, but the important thing for me - when working on projects with young people and children - is the creative process and the ideas that they develop, not necessarily what it ends up as. It was...
Our music
Click on the track below to listen: 1. Zooming, Flying Time Travel (studio recording) 2. The Magic Sweet Shop (studio recording) 3. Zooming, Flying Time Travel (Voices Festival live performance) 4. The Magic Sweet Shop (Voices Festival live performance) All of these tracks will be featured on the CD which will be with St Johns school in the next week or so.
The performance was a success! →
click on the text above to listen to the applause we got!
Rain, fine weather, floods
Today was the day of the performance at the Voices festival. I’ll keep this post brief as I’ll do a detailed final post next week with photos, recordings and quotes next week. It was a success, everyone enjoyed themselves, felt they had achieved something rather splendid and entertained those who came to see it. We did two performances and I suspect most people went away with the...
“I keep humming that song”
– Nic, my wife - just now
Martin tells the story! →
Some of the staff were telling me that they didn’t have an idea of what the story that the pupils have created for the performance involved. So if they happen to read this blog they can click on this link to hear Martin telling the story from a couple of weeks ago.
more text - no photos or music - sorry!
I went in for the afternoon today. I’ve been having a mad crazy time generally with work and life - always busy, getting worn out and not enough sleep so I was a bit vacant today so sorry if I came across that way today! I took a recording today of the year 3 and 4 pupils singing the songs today. The year 5s were at the local secondary school finding out about where they might go to school...
The last Tuesday practice before the...
….went extremely well. However I messed up with the recorder again so there’s no new music to post up today. I guess I was concentrating on playing the right notes too much! Sorry about that. I’ll get someone else to record the actual performances at the Voices Festival next Friday. Luckily we’re doing two, one at midday for the VIPs and one at 1.30pm for everyone else...
Drumming Crazy!
I spent all day at St Johns today. During the half term the school received a big box full of djembe drums and also took delivery of several large rainsticks and a couple of really cool seed shakers. So my group of pupils were really excited to try everything out. There’s some real rhythmic potential there and the staff have already mentioned “drum club”. I can see St Johns...
Not well....
Unfortunately I had a migraine attack yesterday so didn’t make it in to St Johns like I normally do on a Tuesday afternoon. I feel a lot better today so I’m back there on Friday afternoon.
May 2007
33 posts
Friday before half term!
Today I spent all day at St Johns. Since the beginning the other practitioners have been working every Friday at St Johns so it was good to catch up with Rhys, Sydney, Lisa and Martin. I had missed not going in on Tuesday this week and last Friday so it was good to get back into the swing of things. The morning was spent working to write a new piece of music with my group of pupils and in the...
Martin tells the story so far...... →
Martin threw together the story so far for everyone’s entertainment. He’s such a good storyteller. You can listen to the whole thing here.
Trees Have Eyes, Trees Have Ears →
In the morning my music group of pupils put together a simple theme for the first part of the story that is beginning to emerge which is inspired by the concept of trees having memories and being affected by what they see and hear throughout their life in the forest.
Clocktower Time Travel with percussion →
Today’s recording of our practice of the clocktower song with percussion.
Integration.
The performance is made up of many different components. As the music “expert” it’s part of my job to work with Lisa the drama leader to fuse the performance with music that my group have made and will perform. Today we had the opportunity to adapt the clock tower song into an instrumental theme with percussion and simple piano part for the drama group to use in their dramatic...
Narration, Set and Costume Design
As well as my music group and Lisa’s drama group, there are 3 other groups - Martin, the storyteller is leading a narration group. See above for the story so far….. Rhys is the set designer working with his group to produce an original backdrop for the performance. Sydney is the costume design practitioner. She showed me some of the willow sculptures that together will become a giant...
St John's Band - 1st try - "Clock Tower Time... →
I reckon it’s all starting to take shape with a slightly Russian feel??!! Can’t wait to see what the acting group makes of it!
Studio Demo - "Clock Tower Time Travel" →
To add I’m not the best drummer, guitar player or pianist in the world either!!!! However it’ll do for now.
Studio Demo - "The Magic Sweet Shop" →
These are pretty rough demos - I mean I’m not the best singer in the world. I plan to create some fairly polished recordings from live recordings at the school but use a bit of studio trickery to add a more substantial sheen to things.
recording the new songs....
I spent a happy morning in the studio yesterday recording “The Magic Sweet Shop” and another happy morning today recording “Clock Tower Time Travel” before heading over to St Johns to learn the clock tower one for the first time with the music group. My thanks to Mrs Griffiths, the band leader for taking it all in her stride and teaching some impromptu parts to the myriad...
Songwriting.
Today was amazing. The pupils at St Johns were fantastic. Loads of great ideas. Tons of enthusiasm. Lots of happy faces. A dash of serious thinking and hardwork. Some songwriting expertise from Dan and we (the pupils who make up the music and drama groups, their teachers and me) put together a couple of really fine songs for the performance. I can’t wait to try them out with the music...
“A painter paints pictures on canvas. But musicians paint their pictures on...”
– Leopold Stokowski
Zooming Flying Time Travel
This song was written this afternoon by the whole of the drama group together with the music group (Matty plus the other pupils who also wrote “Magic Sweet Shop”) together with Mrs Dowel, Mrs Williams and Mrs Jones. I was a bit rubbish with the recorder again and for some reason didn’t capture any of the run throughs of this song at the school so I quickly (and very roughly) did...
Magic Sweet Shop
written today by Harvey, Josh, Ryan, Brandon, Angela, Emily and Catherine, pupils of St Johns CofE school with help from me, Dan Pierce (songwriter) and Mrs Williams. Click here to hear a rough recording -note that the first two lines are missing - sorry! Verse 1 Flying Saucer, Wiz Pop Story of the sweet shop Rhubarb Custard pear drops Keep on eating you can’t stop Strawberry bons bons hit the...
“There’s nothing wrong with being shy and ev’rybody knows that fools...”
– from the song “Refuge” by Howard Goodall (from Youth Music’s singbook)
Whoops!
I was going to post up some recordings of the choir today as I witnessed some very fine singing today at St John’s including hearty renditions of “My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean” and a song included in a Youth Music pack called “Refuge”, but I must have made a mistake with my portable recorder so ended up with no recordings. Sorry! However, in addition to meeting...
Today's music file.
Click here to listen to the latest recording of “Yesterday” by Lennon/McCartney.
Flugel Horn not Cornet!
Mrs Griffiths said I’d got it wrong in my earlier blog entry. She’s been playing the Flugel Horn, not the Cornet and it’s Mrs Kirby playing the Cornet, not the French Horn. I admit I wasn’t paying attention when it came to naming brass instruments. It might help me that one of the instruments is silver and the other gold! I tend to use my ears more than my other 4...
“It takes a thousand voices to tell a single story”
– Native American Proverb
Sweet shops, monsters, aliens, clock towers and...
I’ve just got back from St Johns where I have been finding out how Lisa (drama) and Martin (storyteller) have been working with the classes. I met pupils from year 3 and 4 and met Mrs Williams, Mrs Lyons and Mrs Jordan the teachers from the year 3, 4 and 5 classes, although I didn’t meet the year 5 class because they are doing their session this afternoon, but there will be plenty of...
“My idea is that there is music in the air, music all around us; the world is...”
– Edward Elgar
Getting organised!
Today I met with:
Kate from Creative Partnerships
Linda and Rachel from St Johns
Lisa, a drama practitioner
Rhys, a set designer and
Sydney, a costume designer.
Martin, a storyteller, wasn’t able to be there.
Together we are the core team for the project at St Johns, but what was important is that we discussed all the details and made sure we are all communicating effectively and...
“Play the music, not the instrument. ”
– ~Author Unknown
Staff music group is GO!
This afternoon we had our very first play together. Here’s the line up: Me - Bass Guitar Mrs Kirby - French Horn Mrs Griffiths - Cornet Mrs Griffiths - Piano (and band leader) Mrs Sagar - Drums Mrs Dowle - Guitar Mrs Wagstaff - Clarinet Mrs Peaper - Clarinet In an hour or so we got through Yesterday by Lennon & McCartney and Can You Feel The Love Tonight by Tim Rice and Elton John and...
April 2007
6 posts
by the way....
The reference to dream school might well end up being the theme - on the visit forest of dean website it says this:
“Local primary and secondary students turn learning on its head to show what their dream school would be like. Supported by Creative Partnerships, Forest of Dean”
The first meeting.....
This morning I met with Rachel (Mrs Griffiths), Julie (also Mrs Griffiths), Sandra (Mrs Dowle), Anne (Mrs Kirby) and Terry (Mrs Sagar) for the first time. They all work at St Johns and all play musical instruments. Rachel and Anne are brass players, Julie is a pianist, Sandra plays the guitar and Terry is a drummer. We’ve decided to form a music group. I’m going to play bass. The...