New Tykes!

There's always space for more tykes, right? Well, now on some Sundays each month I trek all the way out to Harrow to be a Kodaly/singing teacher and theory teacher for a studio of 3-8 year old Suzuki violin students. The 1.5 hour schlep each way? Totally worth it. Goodness, that was fun.

There are two groups of children, the beginner and generally younger A group; and the older and more advanced B group. The teacher whose studio this is is also Dalcroze trained, so she's taking care of that with half the group while I've got the other half for singing. It's meant to be Kodaly based, but I know very little of that- so we're just doing a lot of singing instead. (Close enough.)

I started with the older B group where I began teaching a song I learned in an Orff workshop (bringing all sorts of music education strands together!), it's a Japanese dancing game that is excellent for working on both a sense of pitch and sense of rhythm. Actually I didn't start with that, first we talked about how all of the notes have names (Do Re Mi, etc.) and that we would use two of those to learn each other's names. So we sang this "hello" taunt (it's really just a chant on two pitches, but since it uses only Sol and Mi it ends up sounding like playground teasing: "nyah nyah nyah nyah" You know.) We even used Kodaly hand positions! (Though that is really the extent of my knowledge right there.)

Then we moved into the Orff dancing song and I had them bounce tennis balls around the circle (though passing is a skill they don't have yet, so really just a group of them bouncing the tennis balls while everyone else sings) which is a Dalcroze thing to do. All this for a Suzuki studio! Music education theories ALL OVER THE PLACE! 

Suddenly my 40 minutes with them were done and in trooped a group of 3-5 year olds. Well, hello there age group I have two years of experience with! Not gonna lie, I kind of made up my lesson plan as I went along. I figured to get started I'd do my favourite vocal warm up- The *MAGICAL* Stew Pot (I just made up that name. Right there.) which is a miming game that works on phonics sounds as well as warming up the voice and the jaw. Children choose what to throw into the soup pot (this group was the most reasonable I'd ever had- all were thoughtful soup ingredients; no Christmas trees or chairs or dragons to be found. That being said the soup did contain noodles, pasta, AND spaghetti. If I remember correctly, all three of which were offered by the same girl at different points.)

We then did the same hello business with Sol and Mi and, because I had the picture cards with me, we did the same fairy tale based Do You Know The Story song that I've been doing at school. I love the Drunken Sailor tune, and the the picture cards! They're so brightly coloured! 

Suddenly those 40 minutes were over as well! 

One of the mothers came over to where I had been sitting on the floor with the children and bent down so that her face was inches from mine, "You're a very good teacher," she said, in such a stern voice that for a second I didn't understand that she wasn't cross with me. "You have them..." and here she gestured to her hand. I was honoured. And belatedly realized that I hadn't even had to tell any of the children to settle down or to stop poking their neighbor. I think I want to work with Suzuki trained children all the time. They were brilliant. 

A ten minute break later and the older, group B were back in my room for theory. I went ahead and asked them as many questions as I could think of, drawing on a laminated, blank piece of paper I was grateful I'd taken with me. (Portable white boards are useful things to have...) Yes to clefs, no to key signatures, yes to note names, no to time signatures. Guys, I have be dying to teach theory for ages now. I'm so excited about this class. I ended up dividing the class into two, setting up a tic-tac-toe/naughts and crosses board made up of various note values and letting each team choose where they wanted to go. If they could answer some questions I thought up on the spot about those notes- then they could put their marker down. 

In practice, they always got it right because if they didn't I would pause the game and make sure everyone understood (either through another diagram or through walking it out (yay Dalcroze!) or through verbal/aural explanation). They were clever enough in playing the game that it was a draw (as all good tic-tac-toe games are) and then those 40 minutes were done as well. 

I caught the wrong bus, took it to the end of the line and back again while trying to get to the first of the trains that would get me home. It is a mission to get there, but THIS. THESE are the kids I want to teach. These are the kids I've been waiting to teach. 

I had a freaking wonderful first day. 

The Tykes Get Emotional

TYKES!

Whew. Glad that's out of the way. (Sometimes the excitement just gets to me, you know?)

The tykes are having some trouble with...friendship. And pushing. And apologising. One of the reception classes has been having some physical altercations. (I love that word: altercations. It just rolls of the tongue so nicely.)

On Tuesday during my planning time (I love planning time! And have decided that it is imperative that I be there for lunch on planning day since that allows me to get a much clearer picture of how the department is doing and also allows me to have many mini-meetings with teachers. Handy.) I was asked if it would be possible to work in some emotional/friendship coaching into my lesson plan.

I haven't told you about this yet, but last Thursday I was at a teacher training day called 'Making Music Matter' at Wigmore Hall. It was fabulous. We learned all sorts of great things and were sent off to try some of the new ideas out in order to report back on them next week when we meet again. One of my activities that I wanted to try was conducting a song via facial expression pictures. Like: can we sing this song Happily? Sadly? Angrily? etc.

Synchronicity. I tried it out today, thereby fulfilling all sorts of requests.

In class I brought back the penguin bouncing song and sang it according to the emotions on the pictures. (I'm so DONE with the penguin bouncing song. But! Activity Extension! Number 6. in my list of things I want to learn: how to have a bunch of educational extension ideas for any activity I use in class)

In order to facilitate this I overacted the crap out it: weeping during sad, hiding behind the penguin during scared, huffing and slamming the penguin into my lap during angry. They tykes ate it up with a spoon. And isn't it cool that we were able to provide a space to practice those emotions? We're not really angry- but here is a safe place to try it out.

Some thoughts: 1. I really should have figured out how to draw more than one positive face. As it was 75% of our choices were negative. 2. Pulling those faces gave my eyebrows and forehead a workout. 3. It is actually incredibly emotionally draining to pretend, loudly, to be angry/sad/scared all day if you are not. I don't know how actors do it.

Some further thoughts: Okay. So in conducting class at Peabody we learned a little bit about Laban movement analysis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Laban_effort.svg) Totally stealing from wikipedia here:

"The difference between punching someone in anger and reaching for a glass is slight in terms of body organization - both rely on extension of the arm. The attention to the strength of the movement, the control of the movement and the timing of the movement are very different.

Effort has four subcategories, each of which has two opposite polarities.
Space: Direct / Indirect
Weight: Strong / Light
Time: Sudden / Sustained
Flow: Bound / Free "

I don't know if this makes a whole lot of sense- in person I could show you easily. The point is that there are certain categories and there are opposites within those categories and you can combine them in different ways to create/classify any type of movement. For example a "flick" is indirect/light/sudden/free; a "push" is direct/strong/sustained/bound

When I was singing Bounce the Penguin with different emotions over the course of the six classes that I have, this is what I realized:

Here are my categories
attack: legato/staccato (long and sustained/short and punchy)
volume: loud/quiet

Here is how my emotions fit into those categories
Happy: loud/legato
Angry: loud/staccato
Sad: quiet/legato
Scared: quiet/staccato

They don't fit perfectly into this setting-- like Happy wasn't legato per se, but it was more connected than Angry was; and scared wasn't staccato exactly, but close enough.

I feel all clever for pulling those concepts together in my mind.

A week after the fact

The show went really well! We had divided up the room (essentially a giant rectangle) so that there was a backstage area on either side. On the left a space fro Meredith, Jo, and Imogen, and on the right behind the screen a space for the back projector, Becca with the computer, Jon, my bass and I, and most of the back end of the grand piano.

We started with "The Performer" which was Meredith with the inner monologue playing over the speakers. I couldn't see because I was backstage, but I could hear that she did an amazing job- beautiful playing and seemingly no evidence of the stage fright that the piece was all about. The applause went on for ages after her piece which meant that I had quite a bit of time to take deep breaths before walking on stage with my bass.

It was helpful that "The instrument" movement was all about my relationship with my bass because that meant that I couldn't look at the audience (I had to focus all my attention on the bass) and that meant that I could forget they were there to some extent. There was a little hiccup at the beginning when I couldn't find my mark where I was supposed to lay the bass down. Eventually after less wandering around in the desert than it felt like I found it and was able to lie down on the floor across from the bass and begin what I thought of as the bass ballet.

In rehearsals I had been rushing and not taking my time or even really remembering to breathe, but there is something about having an audience that heightens the whole thing so that even though I could tell that I was moving calmly and deliberately I was at the same time wondering if I had forgotten a large chunk of the choreography because the whole thing seemed to be over so quickly. To my great relief I neither dropped the bass, nor did I play the theme out of tune. Playing out of tune was a serious concern as I play that portion lying on my side, wrapped around the bass. It is not the most ergonomic playing position...

"The Score" began soon after my piece ended and I would let you know how it went except that in order to smooth out the transitions between the pieces I ended up staying on the stage, tucked behind my bass for the third and final movement. This means that instead of paying attention to what the trio were playing (I'm sure it was wonderful, and I certainly was happy with how the film turned out), I was mostly trying very hard not to twitch my hands or feet which were still visible.

Then at the end people applauded and applauded and we bowed twice and trailed out the way we had rehearsed only to start jumping up and down behind the screens that made the backstage. People were still applauding so we walked back out and bowed again and oh! I was grinning so much. It was an intense and well done performance. I was so proud of all of my collaborators (9 people by the end of things!) and I didn't stop bouncing around about it for days after.

Between the flowers from Latana's final recital, the flowers from the parents at school, and the flowers from this performance- the house is still filled with brightly colored blossoms. One of the perks of living in a house full of performing artists.

The Three Elements: The Preparation

The hall opened at 11 to start setting up. I wasn't totally clear on what was going to be happening then, but I figured if anyone was going to be there- it was only polite to be there as well since it was for my project. I dropped my satchel and extra clothes off first and then tromped back to Guildhall to get my bass. Have you heard how hot it has been here this week? Dragging my bass (in a black case) from the Barbican to Bishopsgate was sweaty work.

The other performer couldn't get to Bishopsgate until 6pm for his sound check so I had the enviable position of having ALL DAY LONG to set up, try things out, do my sound check in chunks, and just generally really acclimate myself to the environment and area.

I had the stage tech guy (who I think was named Clive...but I don't remember exactly) moving things around to my satisfaction- putting up conference barriers and my big screen and moving the speakers, piano, and chairs around. He was incredibly nice and helpful and I gave him a big bag of chocolate covered espresso beans at the end of the night. Lovely man.

None of my performers could get there until one so I went ahead and worked on setting up the lighting for the bass ballet piece first with the lighting/sound guy- Dave. The piece is a very long piece- not durationally but, um, positionally? It takes a big room, but all on one plane if that makes any sense... Anyhow- I'm on the floor for quite a lot of that piece and was wearing shorts and a tank top because of the heat. At one point I slide myself and the bass across the floor- but was struggling quite a lot with that in the sound check because I was sticking to the floor. Ew. Fortunately for the performance I was A: quite a lot cooler and B: wearing quite a lot more clothing. So it went off without a hitch then. We put gaffer tape I on the floor so I had some spots to eye in the performance so that I didn't end up too far away from the spot lights.

Meredith showed up around 1 and we worked on the stage fright piece at that point. I was still not 100% sold on the nudity of that piece. I was about 95% there, but I wanted to run it again with a small audience in the space in order to make my final decision. So we got Lucy, the project manager for the department, and the two women who do the scheduling for the venue to watch the piece. Meredith had been doing such a good job of just owning the piece. She's amazing to watch. And they all agreed- we needed the nudity to fully make the point. (We tried it nude first, and then ran the opening again clothed)

Then at around half 3, the final version of the graphic score, our artist, and two thirds of the improvising team showed up. Okay, so it was cutting it close to have them rehearsing the final version ON THE DAY, but you know what? That was what we had to do. Two days before the show I had spent 5 hours straight in the computer lab with Paddy mixing the final version of the inner monologue and the day before the show I had spent 3 hours with Becca working on the final structure of the film. But it all came together. Oh! And the day before the show was also the first time we managed to get time with our acting director/coach guy Brodie who was so helpful in terms of figuring out entrances and exits and transitions between the movements.

So it all came together. I spent the hour before the show literally bouncing around. (I talked to Clive afterwards saying that it had only been the hour before that I was bouncing and he looked at me like I was crazy and said something along the lines of " I thought bouncy was your natural state" so the "hour before" claim may be wishful thinking on my part) The first half of the show I tried to stay in and listen but the bounciness was taking over. I meditated for a while sitting down, then I left the hall and paced, and finally I found a somewhat secluded area and just turned for a while. Then I washed my feet. Then I went to the bathroom about 15 times, just because I could. Then I washed my feet again. And bounced a little more.

Then it was showtime.

Unexpected Workshop

Today I was wandering through the foyer of the main building on my way to return an overdue library book when I stopped and started chatting to Salima, another American bassist that I often run in to at various cross arts events. She's fun times and so I went and said hello. She was super bouncy about this project that she had just signed up for courtesy of gig-arts.com So before long, I was too a part of this.

I had to miss the beginning of the workshop due to my doctor's appointment, so instead of telling you what their mission is- I'll tell you to go check out their website. They seem like a cool organization. In any case, our mission for this afternoon was to create a show. We had three teams each with their own theme: Salima, Laverne, and I ended up with "equality." And Equality just screams 'carrots' to you, right?

Yeah, me neither, but for some reason that is what I came up with when we were told to come up with a character- "What about a giant talking carrot?" Fortunately, Salima and Laverne were cool enough to not only go with it, but to also get excited about making a piece about a giant talking carrot.

I think our finished product ended up missing the boat a bit on the whole equality thing- the carrot, which is a "walking, talking, gargantuan carrot" is due to some magic fairy dust. The hungry bunny rabbit singing the blues spies the carrot and wants to eat the carrot after the carrot's initial introduction song (la, I'm a carrot; la, I'm a carrot) but eventually the carrot convinces the hungry bunny that he is also a person (?) and so the hungry bunny has a change of heart and they leave the stage searching for food together as best friends....(?)

So maybe we need to work on plotting a bit more.

But I had SO MUCH FUN making up the random songs. And I made up nearly all of the random songs, lyrics and all. So here's what I want to do: I want to work on a children's show, or in a children's theatre, or in a children's band or something like that so that I can make up ridiculous songs all the live long day and hang out with tiny tykes. Sound like a plan?


Also, we put bunny ears on Salima's bass. It was awesome. (Sorry there are no pictures!)

So pretty much? I rock.

I'm so happy right now I keep grinning and squinching up my shoulders and toes in order to get some excess happy energy out. If I were a runner I would run, but instead I'm just sort of hopping in place and smiling.

This morning I joined my flatmate Meredith to travel down South for the East meets West project in Poplar. The project is reaching its culmination; today was the penultimate rehearsal and the performance is next Friday. Unfortunately it is looking like I'm not going to be able to make it to the performance because I'll be working on a project in Kensington which is just about as far away from Poplar as you can get and still have both be in central London. But no worries, I will be there all day next Wednesday and that will be when the musicians and dancers are in the same place for the first time- it is sure to be hilarious.

The songs for this project have taken on a surreal nautical aspect. This morning we spent time thinking about various jobs on ships and broke up into four small groups to make actions and short rhythmic sentence pairings that we then used as verses. 3 of the 4 groups decided that they were pirate ships. Probably this was inevitable, but we had to figure out how to discourage the 9 year olds from using this as an opportunity to make finger guns and shoot their classmates.

I couldn't be there for the afternoon session because I had an assessment meeting with Sigrun for the Globetown project and since she is heavily pregnant it was at her house which I wasn't sure how to get to. Meredith convinced me to join everyone for lunch though, and I am very glad I did.

The East meets West project is being run by a woman named Lucy Forde (not to be confused with any of the seven other Lucys floating around). She is extraordinarily good at making the kids feel involved and validated while at the same time carefully steering what is going on in the room. On the walk to the small Italian cafe where we all had lunch I got to pick Lucy's brain which was totally informative and fun. Lunch was lovely too and it was great to sit and chat with nearly everyone involved in the project. You know how you can tell the college freshmen coming out of lectures because they are the ones excitedly discussing concepts they were just introduced to? Lunch was kind of like that.

I then returned to Guildhall and caught up on emails and phone calls. I had to call Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs because I need a National Insurance number in order to not get taxed through the roof. Currently I am on *EMERGENCY TAX* which, while extortionately high-amuses me with the concept of anyone freaking out and declaring it an emergency because they are not sure what level to tax me at. In any case, it doesn't seem like it would be a pleasant thing to have to call HMR&C, right? Sort of like the DMV...but to my great surprise and pleasure I ended up talking to a woman who was not only pleasant and cheerful but actually took a moment to tell me how much she loves her job...how cool is that? So I am now set up for that and for a consultation with a nurse about my Gambia trip immunizations. So sweet- I'm on top of things.

Then I traveled down to Sig in Sydenham and got a little bit lost so I asked a woman with her wheelchair bound daughter where to go and they walked me most of the way there while telling me about a barbecue they had been to on that street. The meeting with Sig went really well and she said that I had made noticeable progress even just over the course of the project which I was not only pleased to hear- but also already knew because I had seen that for myself and knew that I had worked hard and well during Globetown.

I know I haven't written much about my thoughts and reactions to the Globetown project but one of the things I discovered was how much I really enjoy thinking through various aspects of leading- Nick and I talked extensively about who was going to lead which portion of the session, how we were going to lead each section, and then even the choreography of where each of us would stand so that it was very clear at all times who the kids should be paying attention to. I really enjoy thinking through how various actions from the leaders are going to affect the kids' attention.

I've also always been a big one for intentionality so I'm really enjoying thinking about how to bring what I understand of eurhythmics sensibilities to the workshops that I work on. I want to see if I can make sure that every activity that we do from the introductions to the warm ups to the music we write and create can have a musical concept behind it and a musical purpose. It's like a big fun puzzle.

This evening I made myself a tasty dinner and listened to a bunch of sea shanties to get myself in the mood for electro-acoustic class where I am using LogicPro to write a sea shanty. When Daddy and I were in Greenwich on Sunday I took my Handy Zoom H2 recorder with us and recorded some really great clips of water lapping and then later the docks for the Thames Clipper creaking with the waves. I'm a big fan of the shanty "Row Bullies Row" which is in 3/4 time and D Dorian so I decided that my shanty would be the same.

I love electro-acoustic class. I like the people in the class (a mixture of 1st and 2nd year leadership students) and I like playing around with the program and I like our tutor Mike and I really like composing and creating things that I get to hear immediately. (In addition to being a big one for intentionality, I am also a big one for immediate gratification.)

So this evening I wrote a sea shanty. It doesn't have words yet but it has a clear phrasal structure and it has super neat atmospheric sounds (courtesy of Greenwich) and I *like* it! And I'm doing all sorts of patting myself on the back (see the title of this entry). I have a lot more to learn, tons and tons more to learn but currently? At this very moment? I feel like I can do anything.

Whee!

Oooh, I'm still having fun.

We had Creative Ensemble part Deux today. Nell Catchpole, the tutor for this term had asked Andreas (Accordion) to bring in some Scandinavian folk music and oh my gosh is that stuff weird- there was clearly organization and a clear rhythm and all that, but I could not for the life of me follow what on earth they were doing- so I'm going to give Andreas a blank CD so that I can listen to it. A lot. So weird. (I can't even have it going through my head yet it was so alien to what I'm used to.) (but I *liked* it.)

Nell wanted the Scandinavian folk music because she thinks the melody that we're working with is reminiscent of the style. I don't know about that, but I'm glad to have been introduced to it.

This week Tara, Heather, and I were given the task of harmonizing a new melody that we again learned by ear. (I like Nell's melodies, but she is a violinist and her melodies are anything but idiomatic to the bass. I have to play them in a middle-to-high register in order to really hear the notes that are being played, and then I end up skipping all over the fingerboard in these giant leaps. At least my thumb position is getting a good work out.) Tara and Heather are cellists so our sounds melded really nicely together. Nell made us promise not to harmonize intellectually but instead to use our ears as much as possible.

The first thing we did was have Heather play the given melody while I dropped down a 4th. We messed with it a bit so that it wasn't entirely parallel fourths (but mostly was still). It gave the harmony a nice, vaguely Gregorian sound. Then Tara took over the given melody, I played what we'd decided on for the lowest line, and Heather played around with random notes at a very slow tempo and we'd all say when we really liked what came through. We took over 40 minutes to harmonize four bars but it is super cool (except for the last note/chord. That still needs some work).

I really enjoyed working with Tara and Heather- the collaboration went much more smoothly and team-workerly than last week. (Team-workerly, it's a technical term.) We all felt like we'd really contributed which I think is an key aspect when collaborating on something. (Oh: I'm pretty sure we all felt like we'd really contributed, but I suppose I should be specific and say that *I* really felt like I'd contributed. Can't speak for Heather and Tara...)

Nell recorded each groups' contribution and she's going to send us mp3 files. I'm hoping that I can figure out some way to put those on this blog, and if I can then you'll see them soon. (Anyone have any advice on how to do that?) If not, then I might forward the files to interested parties.

Also- I've been talking to Marvin Perrot who is the musical director of a baroque band/orchestra in the area. I'm going to play The Messiah with his group (which includes my flatmate Latana, which is how I found out about it) at the end of November. He is very keen that the group be a vehicle for getting experience soloing for each of the musicians/singers so he said that if I had any renaissance to classical solos that I wanted to do that he would find a place on a future recital for that.

"Tuneful Tots" is a toddler music education class on Sundays that is looking for a new teacher to take over a class starting in January so I contacted the other person at Guildhall who does the teaching and I'm going to meet up with her on Tuesday during lunch and then hopefully set up a meeting with the founder. So that would be totally neat if it worked out (because it is paid!) (and cool). They already have the curriculum all worked out, they just need a qualified teacher. Keep your fingers crossed!

I'm not homeless!

I get to stay in the Sundial Court for at least the first term, which is fantastic! So, um, yeah. I'm leaving Thursday morning! And Mommy and I have a hotel! (Well, "we" for the first night and then "she" for the rest of it because I'm not homeless!)

Also, I have a snazzy new computer that I have been stealing my parents' music with and am currently typing this entry on. You can't see it, but it is lovely.

I should go get some sleep because I have just a ridiculous amount of stuff to do tomrrow. Like actually shove all of my stuff into bags.