Repetition workshop

The fourth workshop was to be the last in the first block. This meant that it was the last session for the pupils at Pirniehall (in block 2 I will continue to work with Preston Street, but will begin workshops at Dalry Primary). This workshop was to allow the pupils to explore music that uses repetition as a main feature. We began by discussing examples of repetition in music and sound. Some very clever examples were offered by the pupils such as: a chorus of a song, an echo, a parrot, parents shouting! and the song Shut Up And Drive by Rihanna.

The first piece of music I played was called Bare Cairo by Harrapian Night Recordings. I asked the group to listen out for what it is that repeats in this piece of music, and what else happens musically. This piece of music is built entirely on a short melodic phrase which loops throughout the entire piece. It has a distinctive Middle Eastern or Northern African sound and this was noted by several pupils. Interestingly, some children in both schools responded by dancing with their hands above their heads. Something in the music obviously reminded the pupils of this style of dancing and they enjoyed the freedom of being able to explore the sounds through movement. All the children noticed the repetition of the melodic fragment and one boy at Preston Street was happy so sing it for me. Other examples of repetition in the piece were found to be the drums and the improvised sound on an unidentified instrument. When I fist listened to this piece of music I did not consider this solo to use repetition - it is an odd melodic line that explores sonic qualities often on one note. It is a shrieking, dangerous sounding melody that caused many of the children to cover their ears. The children who considered this to be repetitive did so, I think, because of the consistency of the sound.

The next piece of music that we listened to was called Boat-Woman-Song by Holger Czukay and Rolf Dammers. This piece of music works in a similar way: there is a simple melodic fragment which loops throughout with a wavering melodic line on top sung by a woman. The piece is more complex than the first. It has an introduction of about 30 seconds of the loop before the woman enters, the melodic line of the woman is chopped up and layered, often overlapping and forming dissonances with itself, the piece progresses in this way before a choir of children enter near the end with some final new melodic material on the close that sounds like it is a guitar-like instrument. I asked the children to draw as they listened to this piece (and not to begin until they heard the woman's voice). All pupils began laughing when they heard the woman's voice but, as with the trombone workshop, quickly stopped laughing as they set about their drawings. Some interesting results from this exercise were: a drawing of a bee, a black spider web-like image with the word "woosh" written again and again around it, and lots of images of babies crying (the woman's voice seemed to conjure up this image). Unfortunately at Pirniehall one boy sat without drawing. When I quietly told him that it was ok if he could not think of anything to draw he began to cry. I think he felt a peer pressure to do as his classmates were doing. I told him that it was better for him to simply listen than to force some form of creative response.

The third piece of music was by a Scottish composer called Ross Campbell called Father We Thank You Again. This has been the most fascinating piece of music that we have listened to so far. The piece is constructed from repeated fragments of speech. The text of the title is spoken by an American man at various intervals throughout the piece. There are other fragments of text which appear again and again. The texts are played at highly contrasting dynamics, from quiet whispers to loud blares. It creates an interesting effect of layering. In the background to the text are a processed piano, a woman's voice and some synthesized sounds. However these are played as lesser important components in the piece. I asked the children what they considered to be the repetition of the piece. All stated the text. However, what followed (in both schools) was a fascinating discussion on whether this could be classified as "music". Almost every participant considered this to NOT be music. Some reasons cited for this were that there was no beat, it was only voices, and that the voices were overpowering the actual music i.e. the piano, sung voice and synthesizer. One final observation about this piece was the effect it had on one boy at Pirniehall. He began crying and when I spoke to him out of the classroom he said that this was because it had reminded him of the recent death of his grandfather. I apologised to him for selecting music which had had such an effect and asked if he would like to go back to class, which he did. This incident, while distressing for all, was fascinating to highlight the power of music on the individual. This piece of music which is quite dry, extremely challenging and considered not to be music by most of the participants had an overwhelming emotional effect on one boy.

The final piece of music that we listened to was the 2nd movement of the violin concerto by Philip Glass. The music is typical of Glass - very simple looping melodies, beautiful to listen to and quite familiar in a filmic way. I asked the class to lie down and close their eyes as they listened, hoping that this would enable a meditative quality of listening. The piece is quite long - almost 9 minutes - and, perhaps inevitably, some of the pupils struggled to lie still for such a long period. However the comments from the group at the end seemed to suggest some good listening from those who had persevered - the music was described as sad, tiring, calm, and tiptoeing.