Trombone workshop

The third of my schools listening project workshops focused on the trombone. I was fortunate to be able to bring my trombonist friend, George Murray, into the workshops with me. I think the pupils were impressed simply by George having a trombone, so having the opportunity to listen to one in their own classroom was a real treat!
I wanted to use this workshop to allow the children to consider improvisation. George is an experienced improviser, in both jazz and experimental ways. We began the workshop by listening to George play a short piece by Duke Ellington, In A Sentimental Mood. The kids listened in complete silence and were very still throughout. Afterwards they all clapped enthusiastically. I then asked George if he could play a short excerpt form this piece and the children used their sound diaries to describe the music. They could draw or write, think about colours or images or emotions. Some examples of things that were drawn are: a lonely girl on a street and some green grass. I then asked George if he could play the same excerpt using his mute. Of course, this altered the volume and the tone of the music and the kids were able to describe how the mute works and that it's similar to the mute on a tv. Some children giggled when they heard the sound at first. What is interesting is that if the children hear something which initially makes them laugh, they seem to get over their laughter when they have a task to complete, such as using their sound diaries.

I then asked George if he could play another piece of music. George and I had agreed in advance that this would be an improvised melodic piece but we did not tell the participants that it was improvised. Afterwards I began by asking if the piece was familiar to anyone. Several pupils thought they recognized it. I explained that it was improvised; that George was "making it up as he goes along". I think they were impressed that George could do this so successfully. One pupil at Pirniehall very cleverly pointed out that the improvised piece of music probably sounded familiar because George was borrowing little ideas from other pieces of music and stringing them together to make a new piece - very astute.

George then played a third piece for the group. This was again improvised and utilised various experimental techniques such as overblowing, tremolo, and singing whilst playing to achieve two notes at once. The kids listened well and found some techniques quite amusing. There is growing confidence amongst the pupils to express their opinions through movement and this was a prime example as some pupils responded to the music by gyrating and shaking their heads. Some thoughts on the piece afterwards were that it sounded like a man being chased by bees after stealing their honey, and it sounded like an accordion.

The final task of the workshop was to create a group improvisation piece. This was inspired by the Berio Oboe Sequenza that we listened to in the first week. In that recording the oboist is accompanied by a drone B natural sung by three female vocalists. I explained that I wanted the group to form a B natural drone as George improvised on top. The pupils chose instruments to produce this B natural. We had recorders, guitars, xylophones and glockenspiels, piano and singing. Interestingly, at Pirniehall only one girl wanted to sing while at Preston Street singing was quite a popular choice. We also discovered in the first group at Pirniehall that we could not have too many recorders as it was too loud and also quite tricky to maintain just one tone on that many recorders! In the first session I asked the group to adjust their volume accordingly based on the volume of the trombone. However, we quickly discovered that the pupils required more controls than this so I quickly stepped in to conduct the piece.