January 2020 – Rhythm Circle News & Events

Rhythm Circle / B’opera : a like-minded partnership

Being self-employed and working from home WILL give you cabin fever and so earlier this year, I decided to make an effort to get out and meet with other people in my industry. And that has turned out to be a very auspicious decision indeed! (I’m from a Chinese family, so we are big on anything that smacks of good fortune/luck/providence).

One of the organisations I came across was B’Opera, who create bespoke opera and musical performances specially for babies and pre-schoolers.

I am very excited to announce that Rhythm Circle has teamed up with B’Opera to form a musical partnership. Both our organisations have a common goal of bringing top quality musical experiences to children whilst respecting their needs as an audience.

With Zoe Challenor from B’opera, my new partner in crime

The B’opera team of Zoe Challenor, Jacqueline White and Phil Ypres-Smith put so much thought into addressing children as an audience in their own right. Everything from choice of moods, length of repertoire, choice of themes…. even the period before and after the concert has been taken into account.

But great musical experiences don’t just simply stop when toddlers grow up and begin their formal schooling. At Rhythm Circle, we pick up the thread by empowering school-aged children who choose to take the next step in their musical journeys. Using multi-sensory methods, the elements of music are taught by play, using fun and engaging musical games and activities. We believe that children are as worthy as adults to receive rich musical education and experiences. No short-cuts, no dumbing-down.

So this means that in the future B’opera and Rhythm Circle staff will be working together behind the scenes, sharing resources, and appearing at each other’s events.

RC /B’opera teamwork at Alice and the Library Tree (New Art Gallery, Walsall)

Musical Messy Play

I’d like to introduce my son who goes by the nom de plume ‘Stumpy’ (before we had to put his name down on the birth certificate, this was actually what we called the poor child).

Stumpy loves words: the sound of them , their rhythm, singing them, mangling them, making up new words. He also likes paint, mud, orange juice , coins and ice cubes. Especially when allowed to mix them all up. He does NOT like being taught how to sing words. Or what colours to use when he wants to paint. Or just how much water he should use to make a muddy puddle. Or how to form a triangle using coins

*Left triangle: made by me. Right triangle: made by Stumpy the minimalist*

Stumpy taught me one very valuable lesson: that sound is just a manipulable – just like paint or mud. And it made him very, very happy to be able to explore and experiment with his favourite materials.

Occasionally, he would become curious about my musical work materials and ask to play with them. I would then bring them out to show him and he would immediately touch them or try and make patterns with them. 3D graphic scores are very popular with Stumpy. Big circles = big sounds, little circles = quiet sounds.

When he asked to play with my bottle caps note values, he got very excited at being able to recognise the letters ‘p’ and ‘o’ (ie. minims and semibreves).

Me (jumping at the chance to pass on some musical knowledge): “Look, this symbol is for a 2 count sound and this is for a 4 count sound”.

Stumpy : “No, Mummy it says ‘poo’. Look, you can make many, many ‘poo’s!”

Music at Home

A musical colleague recently asked me what I do as a musical mum with my child (I have a 4 year old son who recently started school).

My first thought was “Ummmm…….nothing?” But then I thought about it properly and this is the reply I sent to her:

Since my son loves exploring things and experimenting to see what effects he can create, I prefer to let him take the lead in our joint musical experiences. He does not enjoy ‘organised’ musical activity with me but loves singing , making up little songs and sounds. My little one is a joyfully out-of-tune singer but has a great sense of pulse. He enjoys singing and accompanying himself by beating the pulse on a drum/ stomping/bopping to the beat. I guess that stems from being surrounded by so much music since he was in the womb. Throughout my pregnancy and up until he was 2, he was with me when I worked. He has spent countless hours sitting in a dance studio listening and watching whilst I played for ballet class ( possibly where he developed quite a strong sense of pulse??). We used orchestral music in rehearsals and he would nap in a sling whilst I worked, falling asleep hearing rich and complex music .

I’ve always wondered if watching dancers move in time to music has helped my son develop a kinaesthetic understanding of music…

In the car, we listened to Gene Vincent sing Be Bop A Lula on the radio and he said he liked it, and asked me what it was. When I told him, he kept asking for it on Youtube. When my sister got an Alexa, he learnt how to ask for it and would dance to it. Sometimes, he would tell me if he liked /did not like a piece of music which was on the radio and we would talk about the mood of the music.

As for instruments, I’ve learnt to leave them lying around the house on convenient places. He likes trying out sounds on the piano, ringing the ‘dinner bell’ at mealtimes, drumming on a cake tin to keep himself in time when singing. For me, I guess enabling these musical things to happen are more important than music lessons because my child is learning to listen critically