Page 31 - Glasbenopedagoški zbornik Akademije za glasbo v Ljubljani / The Journal of Music Education of the Academy of Music in Ljubljana: Mostovi med formalnim in neformalnim glasbenim izobraževanjem, leto 15, zvezek 31 / Year 15, Issue 31, 2019
P. 31
Ana Èoriæ, DEVELOPING COMMUNITY MUSIC ACTIVITIES IN HIGHER EDUCATION...
consisting of students who already have two years of experience in the program and
readiness to explore all the possibilities of the story, sound, speech and pedagogy, as well
as new students who can approach more into the sound itself. What must be mentioned is
that students from the instrumental departments usually have a chance to practice their
pedagogical skills in individual classes, so this format of workshops was new and
challenging for them in that sense, too.
This time we decided to write our own story and as much music we can. Since I already
had some inspiration to do that, I wrote the story The Dog and the Double Bass, based just
on the idea of the children’s book The Dog and the Fiddle by David Litchfield, but with a
completely different plot. It is a story about two generations and two different musical
worlds. On one side we have the grandmother who played jazz, swing and rock in a band
when she was young, and on the other side is her grandson who plays a double bass in the
music school in a classical way. Grandmother now plays in the classical orchestra and
often plays with her grandson, but the situation changes when her friends, musicians from
the old band visit her and call her to play with them. It is a moment when her grandson
reveals some new sounds, other than classical and when his grandmother realizes that she
can still achieve dreams from her youth. Musically, the story also connects worlds of
classical and non-classical music. Besides the music we composed for this particular story,
we used some of the well known musical pieces from various musical genres: Is You Is or
Is You Ain’t My Baby (L. Jordan), Bass Trip (P. Vasks), Hallo Django (U. Fuhre), etc.
Although the main aim of the story was to connect various musical worlds, encourage
motivation for meaningful musicking and put the double bass ‘on the spot’ as an
instrument with numerous possibilities, on these workshops children have a chance to
meet clarinet, tambura and ukulele (besides the piano and guitar, which are familiar to
everyone).
The initial idea of the workshop was to be performed to the audience made of children and
their grandparents, so the follow-up can be related to the creation of some meaningful
conversations and activities for both generations, that will give more quality for their
leisure time. Still, we are preparing this workshop for the future, working more and going
deeper to each detail of the story. Technically, this was the most difficult story we
prepared, due to the fact we decided to go deep into each artistic detail and learn as much
as we can by heart. The new moment that happened in this process for both groups and
stories is that we got a director of radio drama, who is employed on Croatian National
Radio–Television and a volunteer in the NGO Smile for Everyone, who worked with both
groups on the speech and text, so it gave the program a whole new dimension. Besides
that, going deeper into the artistic part required a lot more rehearsals we usually managed
to have, so for me as a facilitator, it was very inspiring to see the students who are coming
every Saturday afternoon to the rehearsals at the Academy.
Interviews
Although the communication within the group is effective since the very beginning,
semi-structured interviews conducted after the first year of the program implementation
clarified the value of the participation in the program for students, as well as some needs
for future work. I managed to make four interviews out of five students who were in the
29
consisting of students who already have two years of experience in the program and
readiness to explore all the possibilities of the story, sound, speech and pedagogy, as well
as new students who can approach more into the sound itself. What must be mentioned is
that students from the instrumental departments usually have a chance to practice their
pedagogical skills in individual classes, so this format of workshops was new and
challenging for them in that sense, too.
This time we decided to write our own story and as much music we can. Since I already
had some inspiration to do that, I wrote the story The Dog and the Double Bass, based just
on the idea of the children’s book The Dog and the Fiddle by David Litchfield, but with a
completely different plot. It is a story about two generations and two different musical
worlds. On one side we have the grandmother who played jazz, swing and rock in a band
when she was young, and on the other side is her grandson who plays a double bass in the
music school in a classical way. Grandmother now plays in the classical orchestra and
often plays with her grandson, but the situation changes when her friends, musicians from
the old band visit her and call her to play with them. It is a moment when her grandson
reveals some new sounds, other than classical and when his grandmother realizes that she
can still achieve dreams from her youth. Musically, the story also connects worlds of
classical and non-classical music. Besides the music we composed for this particular story,
we used some of the well known musical pieces from various musical genres: Is You Is or
Is You Ain’t My Baby (L. Jordan), Bass Trip (P. Vasks), Hallo Django (U. Fuhre), etc.
Although the main aim of the story was to connect various musical worlds, encourage
motivation for meaningful musicking and put the double bass ‘on the spot’ as an
instrument with numerous possibilities, on these workshops children have a chance to
meet clarinet, tambura and ukulele (besides the piano and guitar, which are familiar to
everyone).
The initial idea of the workshop was to be performed to the audience made of children and
their grandparents, so the follow-up can be related to the creation of some meaningful
conversations and activities for both generations, that will give more quality for their
leisure time. Still, we are preparing this workshop for the future, working more and going
deeper to each detail of the story. Technically, this was the most difficult story we
prepared, due to the fact we decided to go deep into each artistic detail and learn as much
as we can by heart. The new moment that happened in this process for both groups and
stories is that we got a director of radio drama, who is employed on Croatian National
Radio–Television and a volunteer in the NGO Smile for Everyone, who worked with both
groups on the speech and text, so it gave the program a whole new dimension. Besides
that, going deeper into the artistic part required a lot more rehearsals we usually managed
to have, so for me as a facilitator, it was very inspiring to see the students who are coming
every Saturday afternoon to the rehearsals at the Academy.
Interviews
Although the communication within the group is effective since the very beginning,
semi-structured interviews conducted after the first year of the program implementation
clarified the value of the participation in the program for students, as well as some needs
for future work. I managed to make four interviews out of five students who were in the
29
