An aural exploration of sounds that belong to an area
everyday objects make very handy visual aids for musical exploratory play
“The rustling paper sounds like shopping bags.”
Another child demonstrated how the sound of pinecones crunched up sounded like footsteps on crunchy leaves. Another likened the sound of metal washer clinking together to the sounds made by a cash register at shops. Pebbles tapped together sounded like a woodpecker. If you scrape the surface of corrugated cardboard, it sounds like a zipper being done up on a coat.
Words, words and more words came pouring out this morning to describe timbres on the Play House project “Does Birmingham Belong to Me?”. We challenged the students to write down / draw their ideas on sounds found in their respective areas of Sparkbrook and Kings’ Heath. I brought along this little collection of loose parts to help students at Montgomery Primary Academy verbalise their ideas about sounds as we explored soundscapes. Something tangible to touch, see and manipulate helped open the floodgates and made it easier for young students to talk about sound ideas.
The tinfoil pie dish was a big favourite. After being folded, rattled and drummed on the previously smooth surface became crinkly and lent itself to further creation of scrape-y sounds.
Making your own musical instrument is a fun way to explore sound. Recently, I introduced students at the Folville Summer Music Camp to Spanner Glockenspiels.The Spark Arts organised these lovely music sessions and were brilliantly supported by the staff of Folville Junior School in Leicester.
The same workshop was delivered to two groups:
22 students in Years 2 and 3
18 students in Years 4 – 6
We got into our musical groove with a drumming session on Folville’s marvellous collection of djembes. As an introduction to graphic scores, students were asked to compare loud/quiet sounds and to choose shapes which represented them. Students was invited to create a pattern of loud/quiet sounds using foam circles and we all played their compositions. I was particularly impressed with the excellent musical discipline and ensemble work shown by the older students.
Next, we discussed how sounds could be made using a spanner (tapping , knocking, scraping on various surfaces). I demonstrated the sound made by a suspended spanner when it was tapped firmly with another spanner. The clear chiming sound and extra resonance it produced caught the attention of the students. We then compared the sounds of two different spanners, concluding that one was higher than the other and used coloured stickers to identify the spanners which made high/low sounds.
After a
quick tutorial on how to assemble the spanner glockenspiel, each student
assembled their own instrument. Most students found that their constructs were rather wobbly. Some came up with clever ideas to stabilise their instruments by stretching a third pair of rubber band at right angles to the other two pairs.
The students recorded their ideas using a simple pitch graphic score with coloured stickers to differentiate the pitch of their spanners. The older students added different musical elements to their graphic scores:
This graphic score included timbres. Squiggly lines = scraping sounds, coloured circles= tapping sounds.
Another student chose to add rhythms: brown circles for high pitched spanner and long sounds, blue circles for low pitched spanner and short sounds. Pitch and Dynamics : loud= big circle, quiet = small circle
One
student traced and coloured in the shape of his spanners to decorate his
graphic score
The
workshop ended with some musical colouring and a few rounds of musical bingo.
If you would like to have a go at making your own spanner glockenspiel, you will need :
some spanners
a sturdy box (square or rectangular biscuit tins, or wooden boxes / trays. Sturdy cardboard boxes will also be fine as long as they can hold their shape. Plastic takeaway boxes are another good option)
4 big rubber bands
a variety of beaters.Any metal/wood/ felt/rubber/silicone-tipped kitchen implements tend to be perfect for sound exploration. I use chopsticks, table knives, silicone spatulas, and pencils.
I prefer to use recycled / found materials to make these instruments. It encourages sound explorers to adopt a more informal can-do approach to music making, and helps them think of creative uses for things in their everyday environment.
To make the spanner glockenspiel:
Step 1. Collect lots of old interesting spanners. The old fashioned heavy ones are the best as they create the nicest sounds. The Reusers in Sutton Coldfield is one of my go-to place to stock up on spanners for Rhythm Circle workshops. It took me 2 visits over 2 years to acquire 40-45 spanners of just the right kind.
Before…
….and after the ‘Spanner Spa’ treatment
Step 2. If you need to clean your spanners, soak them in some mild acid and dish-drops to shift the rust and grime (you don’t need industrial strength acid bath for the job. In a pinch, Coca Cola or vinegar will do). Soak the spanners in the acidic solution for a couple of hours, then scrub them to remove more rust and grime. Best tools seem to be a steel mesh scrubber and toothbrush to clean the little grooves and hard-to-reach places.
Step 3. Dry the spanners and rub lightly with oil to prevent further rusting. Skin-friendly oils are preferable as the spanners will be handled by little hands. I used Johnsons’ baby oil, but plain cooking oil will also work.
Step 4. Now for the fun bit! Stretch 2 rubber bands around your box and keep them bunched up together. Tuck one end of a spanner in between the rubber bands. Repeat with the other two rubber bands and tuck the other end of the spanner in. Before putting a second spanner into your rubber band cradle, twist each rubber band around the other one in its pair. This will tighten the rubber bands around the first spanner to stop it from wobbling in its cradle.
Step5. Tap spanners with a beater. Metal-tipped beaters give a clearer bell-like sound and wooden/soft-tipped beaters make a muted sound.
You can group the spanners in sets which are in tune with itself – they don’t need to be arranged according to concert pitch tuning. For younger students, I normally start with 2 spanners: one high-pitched and one low- pitched.
To extend learning, you can add more spanners of different pitches to explore more complex pitch patterns, or introduce different musical elements. Older students can be challenged to arrange a bunch of random spanners by pitch order, or to compose tunes which they can play on their spanner glockenspiels.
“What part of your body did you use to experience music?”
It is always a pleasure to explore a Rhythm Circle pet topic and one of my favourites is the multi-sensory aspects and benefits of music.
For the second year now, I’ve had the privilege of introducing this aspect of Rhythm Circle work to doctors of the future. At the University of Leicester, 3rd year medical students who chose the SSC Disability and the Arts module spend several weeks with the Attenborough Arts Centre learning how art in its myriad forms support people with special needs.
Composing music for spanner glockenspiels
This year’s intrepid medical cohort rose to the challenge by assembling, playing and composing music for spanner glockenspiels and balloon drums. They used a simple graphic score to capture ideas about sound patterns and this led explorations of different playing techniques (tapping, glissandi and different ways of combining different pitches.
Simple graphic scores capture ideas about sound patterns – each coloured dot represents a different spanner. Each team had slightly different ideas – we even had performance directions to use specific beaters (1st score at the top) and glissandi was represented by a dots played in rapid succession vertically (4th score from the top).
We concluded that the experience of making, playing and composing music involved many parts of the body, not only the ears and fingers, but also eyes, skin, and brains.
Many thanks to the fabulous Marianne Pape and the Attenborough Arts Centre for hosting the annual event.
Last week, I had a multi-sensory music playdate with Tim Baker, resident musician at Sense TouchBase Pears. This was my first visit to the beautiful West Midlands hub of the charity Sense which supports people with complex disabilities.
From his music studio at Sense TouchBase Pears, Tim runs music sessions for people with special needs. I had ‘music cave’ envy – this was heaven for a multi-sensory sound junkie like me.
Tim’s collection ranged from traditional instruments (guitars, drums, xylophone bars, bell chimes, rain stick, shakers) to digital equipment which enables users to feel amplified sound vibrations (SUB-PAC and vibrating floor) and an awesomely cool Om wand.
Om Wand – every kid needs one!
It looks like a kite frame with a very thin, clear wide rubber band stretched around it (like the kind you find on invisible straps in clothes) You swish this around in the air and it makes a low sound like a lightsaber.
The vibrating floor and SUBPAC were a revelation – best experienced with ear defenders to minimise sound coming in through your ears.
As a musician, I know that sound is produced by vibrations – in guitars, the strings vibrate and is amplified by the body of the instrument. In a drum, the stretched skin of the drum vibrates, etc. But this was the first time I’ve ever experienced the vibrational qualities of music mainly through my skin instead of my ears. Eureka moment!
Ear defenders make the SUBPAC experience MUCH better
The SUBPAC is basically a subwoofer attached to a backpack which fits snugly against the users back. If you play music through it, the user experiences music as vibrations. Low sounds are felt most clearly, but higher tones have their own buzz too.
Tim Baker sitting on his vibrating floor
Hidden subwoofer under the floor
The vibrating floor is a specially commissioned piece built by Bria and Nathan at GROOVE . It is essentially a subwoofer attached to the underside of a wooden platform. Tim says “I got the inspiration at the “Aural Diversity Conference in 2019, and Luke (Woodbury) from DotLib lent his insight and experience from building the one used then”. You can stand, sit or lie down on the floor to experience the vibrations music channelled through the wood. I even played the piano on it – barefoot with ear defenders to enhance the experience. After a few minutes of using the vibrating floor, my skin began to tingle. When I took the ear defenders off and stepped off the vibrating floor, my skin felt hypersensitive and continued bringing me sensations from every sound in the room including our voices.
There is a very useful toolkit on the Sense TBP website with great suggestions for trying out sound and vibration activities on your own.
If you’ve never visited it, I highly recommend dropping in to the beautiful and inclusive space which is Sense TouchBase Pears. There is a cafe adjoining the Selly Oak library, community classes, outdoor seating areas, and co-working spaces.
Music can be such an abstract thing, lacking in concrete visual elements. Once it has been presented, it is gone unless you capture it in some form of notation or sound recording.
One of the best ways to teach the musical element of rhythm is to use the long/short sounds present in spoken word. Children acquire a spoken vocabulary before they can read or write and are quick to catch on to the rhythms of different words.
For slightly older children, one of my favourite activities to explore words and music is by using haiku – the evocative but minimalist way of writing poetry which had its roots in Japan. In using haiku as a creative stimulus, I chose not to follow the strict rules of each line having 5, 7 and 5 syllables but adopted instead the spirit of the poetic form which used words sparingly to conjure different moods.
This haiku was composed by F, my 8 year old student. It was about her recent summer holiday activities:
rainy cliffs train to castle ice cream!
F clapped the rhythm of her haiku. I asked her how she could use familiar musical notes (semibreves, crotchets, minims, quavers) to represent the duration of each syllable in her words. She experimented for a while and wrote down her ideas. Suddenly she exclaimed “Look each line adds up to a different number of counts!” Cue excited scribbling of time signatures…
Next, F chose different instruments to play her rhythms: the triangle to represent the sound of raindrops, fast drum beats to show the excitement of the speeding train, and slow piano notes to describe her memory of savouring an ice cream.
When I was invited to take up this role, my first thoughts were about how to offer young people with learning needs a meaningful musical experience. It seemed important to create a sophisticated musical experience that would support their well-being, invite active participation, and offer them ways to develop and explore their musical interests.
The IYAP
workshops stretched me:
– to expanded my understanding of what it means to have different learning needs, how wide those range of needs can be, and the best ways to support them
– to develop new musical resources which would suit a variety of needs and ages. In the same workshop, there would be participants ranging from those with limited mobility to those with ADHD. It was quite a challenge to produce an activity pack which could 1.) be posted out easily 2.) be safe to handle 3.) would interest both a 3 year old as well as an 18 year old
– to sustain engagement and promote musical exploratory play in online sessions. Pacing of the 60 min sessions was important – should I move on to the next activity, or allow more time for exploration? In participant-led sessions, what happens if one group wanted to move on and another group wanted to explore?
Cardboard Guiro – a multi-sensory way to explore timbre and rhythm. Tracing different lines and shapes result in different rhythms
Building
bridges
Being able to address the same core group of young people and their families repeatedly became a highlight of the programme.
there was time to get to know the families who showed me how they adapted my ideas to better address their young person’s needs.
repeated engagement with the IYAP families enabled me to recognise meaningful responses: in inclusive sessions, it is not uncommon to get what looks like a lukewarm response from an attendee. In actual fact, this could turn out to be quite a profound response from the young person in question. Unless you knew how they normally responded, this could easily have been dismissed as disinterest.
these sessions were ideal to fine-tune new resources and approaches. A young person who might offer indifferent response to an activity, might become quite animated and responsive when the same activity is presented in a different way – instant feedback about what methods worked and what didn’t.
Support from
the AAC
All good online experiences tend to come with good support. Having had to deliver other workshops entirely on my own, I was very lucky to have the support of Hannah Pillai (IYAP Project Coordinator). Her insights, experience and enthusiasm underpinned successful deliveries of every Sound Play workshop. It was especially useful to have another pair of eyes and ears on board to keep things on track. Thank you, Hannah!
Beyond IYAP
Other areas of my work were enriched by my IYAP experience:
I headed a team on the Digital Games Project to create online musical games for neurodiverse young people. The IYAP residency gave me early first- hand experience of addressing this audience remotely. I was able to test out some of the resources created during IYAP workshops –the playdough video and activity to explore musical tempo was especially popular. We also tried out a 3D version of Dynamic Dots activity using big /small pom-poms to represent loud/quiet sounds (hint: if you do try this at home, really big glue dots work best to stop the pom-poms from flying off your worktop).
Dynamic Dots graphic score made with pom-poms
Most of my piano students are fairly happy learning with ‘mainstream’ teaching approaches. Others have specific learning needs and learn best in their own unique ways. But all of them were far more engaged in their musical learning when I incorporated lessons learnt from the IYAP residency.
Back in June
2020, my husband and I started a little family lockdown project. All our work
had been migrated to digital platforms due to the lockdown, so I thought that
we should combine our individual skills (software engineer and pianist) to see
if we could make some musical online games. Digital games are normally
hideously expensive and time-consuming to produce but we had time and
inclination.
Earlier on in
February, he watched me put together a beanstalk prop for my Jack and the
Beanstalk musical storytelling workshop from recycled materials (glue gun,
paint and lots of sticky tape will help you make most props if you’re short on
capital and big on upcycling).
As a
multi-sensory activity, my young Rhythm Circle students were asked to place
leaves marked with the treble or bass clef at suitable positions along the
beanstalk to reflect high or low sounds.
So I challenged him to create the digital equivalent of the Beanstalk and Leaves activity. He came up with a little prototype: Grow the Beanstalk . A second prototype (Musical Bingo) then followed (accompanied with dark mutterings of ‘I had to do math calculations that I had not done since school days in order to create the bingo wheel…’).
Stumpy even got his oar in by testing out the games for us. I thought he made an ideal test subject: squirmy, high-octane, young school-aged child, not particularly interested in sitting still, or being taught music by mum (he was still in denial about what I actually do for a living. Music was something that took me away from him, so any of my proposed musical activities was to be given short shrift)
Live sessions could not be delivered in schools due to the Covid-19 pandemic and workshop organisers and educators were considering digital alternatives. In particular, young people with special educational needs and their families were hit hard when they lost their existing support groups (in the form of support from schools or external providers). A full return to normal school activities seemed a long way off and would be in 2021 if at all possible, especially since many children with special needs were also extremely vulnerable to COVID-19.
In order to
support my ongoing musical work, I had already begun creating digital equivalents
of my musical games and activities in the form of printable pdfs, recorded
sound samples and video lessons.
So, when I heard that the Arts Council England (ACE) were re-opening their Project Grants programme, it seemed the perfect opportunity to draw together all these various strands in the form of a research and development project. My proposal to create several online musical games with a view to making them suitable for young people with special educational needs was accepted by ACE at the end of August.
So here we are – 3 weeks into the project. So far, it has been an exhilarating and crazy time, filled with consultation meetings, delving deep into issues of neurodiversity, trying to be organised and decisive….but also true to my ethos as an educator and musician.
