On to today's classes

I'm waiting for my laundry to dry. This translates in to more posts for you, woo hoo!

We didn't have improvisation class today which is sad because it is my favorite class, but good because half of us were sick and barely aware during percussion skills. In percussion skills we are working on Cuban rhythms and different claves. Neville talks so fast that I'm not really sure what any of the terms are. I tried to wikipedia and then YouTube "clave" but what I found was still over my head- maybe the library will have something useful.

In any case I rock the triangle and really enjoyed smacking the back of a plastic chair with drum sticks today. We had been using a 3-2 clave rhythm, but today moved on to a rumba clave. I don't know if I'm talking about any of this correctly- but suffice to say: it was really cool and I have a bunch of research to do.

In order to actually get a Master's degree we are required to go to these seminar lectures and then write responses to them. Today Sean Gregory was talking about "The business of being a musician." It was not terribly new information because basically he was talking about the Leadership programme- but what was really cool was at the end of the lecture we were broken up in to smaller groups and given about 5 minutes to come up with a hypothetical project. We were to dream up some sort of project, think of a place, a population, and what the outcomes will/should be with some sort of event outcome at the end. It was supposed to be a 'pie-in-the-sky' sort of brainstorming session. Funfunfunfun.

I had my computer with me to take notes and since I am, after all, my mother's daughter, I ended up leading our little brainstorming session. Here- in a direct lift from my notes- is what we came up with:

Educational drama/music workshop in a prison- involve young offenders- topic improvised from participants, film it and put it on YouTube and work on viral marketing scheme

Need: prison, offenders, facilitators for both music and drama side of things, film team (use offenders?), teach technology – use phones!
Music
Drama
Production values (cameras, technology)
Perform in community space- perform in local community to break down barriers (Security)
Film live performance
Use as community service- include arts portion (Education and rehabilitation)
Sponsorship to loan instruments- percussion and technology based (simple music mixing programme) Electronic key boards/ recording devices/ etc.

(can you put their photographs online? Think about that…)

Sean was the one who pointed out that maybe sticking the identities of juvenile offenders online was not the best idea- but I'm still totally in to the idea of using YouTube as a performance venue.

It was fascinating how incredibly different each of the group's ideas were. Some were fairly main stream including going in to a pediatric oncology ward to sing child friendly classical songs; but others were totally creative including an opera performance that derails half-way through and ends up with a whole bunch of audience participation to finish writing/composing the piece and then performing it.

Okay, more notes from Sean's lecture: this time they are about 4 key elements for modern musicians, though "leader" and "teacher" have been combined so really it is just 3 key elements-

Professional practitioner, portfolio practitioner:
Performer
Concert, jazz venue, events, WWW, prisons, shopping centre, hospital, schools, etc. Different responses- audiences may never have heard those instruments in a live setting before. Funding partners are keen on this sort of thing currently in the UK. Explore different contexts.
Composer
Lesson plans/examples, new piece, break repertoire up, segue from one genre to another, new audiences don’t have preconceptions about how things should go together (overture, concerto, symphony), improvisation (jazz, folk music, early music, etc.), group improvisation: finding something appropriate for that particular moment), finding something that will work with a dancer, curating, shaping, programming, playing with stuff. Goes back to different contexts.
Leader/Teacher
Facilitator, guide, facilitating and involving people, like a director or choreographer: group based, Specialist teacher, non-specialist teacher, (private teacher), tend to think of music teaching as more didactic than other art forms, could instead start playing with things from the start.

expectations rising in all of these areas. Will be demands in all four key areas, set yourself up to inspire in each area…

This is such a cheating blog entry- I'm just posting my notes... guilt aside, I'm going to leave you with one more note quote before signing out- this one is just a straight list of various venues that could be used for performances and/or outreach opportunities. This is just a partial list mind you, one to get the creative juices flowing...

Primary and secondary schools, music services (formal education centres), colleges, community based activities (informal education), health care (hospitals, homes, hospices, special needs centres), prisons, young offenders, social exclusion, homeless, drop-in centres, musicians, arts organizations, concert halls, cross arts, theatre, outdoor spaces, public spaces, stations, shopping centres, etc.