Second schools workshop

Hi there! I completed the second of my schools listening workshops this week. It was the first workshop in the project where I'd brought a musician into the session with me. First up was Katy Barry, a friend of mine and a professional singer. Katy and I devised the workshop together and we wanted to allow the children to explore contemporary vocal techniques through listening and by joining in themselves.
We began by listening to Katy singing Somewhere Over The Rainbow. The kids all sat and soaked it up and it was really lovely to see them so engrossed. We then had a chat about the use of vibrato and Katy explained that she had been using this technique in the example. We then listened to Katy singing a line with and without vibrato and we asked the kids to note down how each made them feel. Some kids wrote down colours - with warm colours tending to go with the vibrato and colder colours tending to go without vibrato. Some children drew wavy and straight lines and some kids drew more pictorial drawings.
Katy then taught the group some more vocal techniques: trills, growling, glottal pops, and inhalation whilst singing. Some of these are quite experimental techniques and some participants were surprised that we were asking them to growl! Katy and I then shaped a short vocal piece using these techniques. Interestingly, after this exercise quite a few participants didn't consider what they had done to be musical. They thought that it was just noise. I am keen to listen to all of their thoughts and opinions and when asked, most of them could back up quite clearly why they didn't feel it was music.
The second exercise we did with Katy was to apply some vocal sounds to a short nursery rhyme, Polly Put The Kettle On. We chose this as we thought it would be quick to learn for those who didn't know it and for those children where English is not their first language. The children had fun thinking of what sounds they could create to help "tell the story" of the song.

We then had the chance to listen to a recording of a piece by a real pioneer of experimental vocal techniques, Joan La Barbara. I explained that many of the techniques we had learned were developed by this musician. The piece which I chose to play at Pirniehall on the Tuesday was called Hear What I Feel. I explained to the group that Joan had prepared herself for the performance by sitting with a blindfold on for an hour. She then described vocally six object which were presented to her. It's a very odd piece and extremely challenging to listen to (not least because it actually sounds very disturbing at points). I asked the children to sit with their eyes closed and see if they could mime the touching of the objects as they listened to Joan La Barbara describe them. However, with both groups the children found the piece to be too strange and laughter overcame them.
A change of plan then at Preston Street on Wednesday was to play a different piece by this visionary singer. This time I played Circular Song (a piece which I have heard her sing live recently). This is an extended exploration of the technique that we tried where you sing on both exhalations and inhalations. It was originally used by horn players so that they could play long passages, seemingly without taking breath.
The reactions of the participants to this piece were fascinating. More than half sat and traced the shape of the rising and falling melody without being asked to do so. Some children had more extreme reactions. One boy actually started convulsing in quite an odd way but he was smiling as he did it. An interesting thing I am observing is that there is a fine line between extreme reactions that are quite deliberate, and those that are completely unavoidable for the child. I think in this case it started off as a reaction that might get a few laughs but turned into quite an honest improvised movement piece to the music.