Shared Inventions - Homelands Blog 14

by Hugh Nankivell
Pupil names have been shortened for their privacy

Term 2 – Session 4: Thursday 2 February

We did the ‘name game’ first off – for 2 reasons, my embarrassment at not being able to remember their names and also to see how they responded to that very clear listening and music task.

I then asked the new group to build a stage and then I put up the music-stand and a chair and told them them a story/music/song that I had worked out on my way up the hill an hour earlier. This was a story which was accompanied by guitar, glockenspiel and kalimba.

I then asked the group to think about story square and song/music together and they worked for the next 90 minutes in small groups and solos to create different pieces and perform. Again the stage and the music stand was the main focus, but there was also playing of instruments around the room and on the floor.

To begin with we again created a set-list, but after the first half hour it became much more free-flow. Some children worked very hard all morning on one piece others came up with lots of ideas.

A came up with two new songs which she sang continually all morning. She made one ‘world’ song and another called ‘last night’ both with great clear melodies repeated the same each time and when she sang them she read from her notation – peering at it very closely.

T came in from the cold after a while and made himself a drum-kit from the bongos and the small tambourine and tambor. he played this very flamboyantly and later accompanied A for one of her songs. T is a real performer and later did these pieces solo in front of the group.

T2 worked hard all morning to create a piece which was a picture/story/music piece. It started with picture, then came words and ideas for music – so at the end she drew a guitar at the bottom. Later we did this as a story/music square. It felt as if the attention T2 had the week before (me singing her ‘Miss Chatterbox’ and performing her story/square with music at the end of the session) had really made her interested in the connections of story and music and seemed to commit to that idea.

L also worked hard on a ‘score’ and then a story which we did as a story/music square at the end her story was

One of the eggs was walking to school
He was dead
He came alive again
He was walking home again
And he went to sleep

This was performed solo by L accompanied by me on guitar. I sang all the lines and got the group to join in on them as we repeated them.

F made a very interesting score, but unfortunately we didn’t have time to find out what was going on. It seems to have some crotchets or quavers in, certainly some words and numbers.

Today felt like a real changing dynamic with the group, very fluid and chaotic, but fun and enjoyable. We had technical hiccups (flips being not charged and running out) and a lack of James – ill – to assist and large numbers due to cold outside, but lots of really interesting relationships between music and drawing/writing/story. Mim and I laughing at one point at the amount of stuff going on – where to look, where to listen?

Pictures

1. The JLS Band
2. T – drum solo

What is Shared Inventions?

Shared Inventions is a four-term (Sept 2011 – December 2012) creative project working with young children in two schools in Torbay. It is led by musicians Hugh Nankivell and Ben Ballard along with trainee James Aldridge.

Hugh is going to write a blog for each session that he leads during this term.

For more information: Click here

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