#creative musicianship

[jessiedowns]

Monday June 15th 2015 was the Creative Musicianship Class for Middle School Students Final Showcase at ORNG Ink. It was a really wonderful event, with several members of the ORNG Ink and University of Orange communities attending, as well as one of our student’s father and sister. The whole event can be listened to below...

Our final showcase for the Creative Musicianship Class at ORNG Ink was a great time for all! Read about it through the LINK ABOVE!

[jessiedowns]

ORNG Ink: Creative Musicianship (IV)

The past three weeks of class have been strange but enjoyable. On labor day, we held a class on FORM which consisted of three parts. In the first segment, Doug led the students through a listening activity in which they listened to a variety of short pieces of music and had to describe the form or construction/organization of each one. In this exercise they learned how any part of the musical material can be organized to create form - whether it be the harmony (as one student pointed out as we listened to Bach) or duration combined with timbre (as another student noted when we listened to a saxophone piece by Bhob Rainey) or something as simple as dynamic shape (for instance, the piece goes from soft to loud to soft). In the second segment Jessie let the students know that - even though all of these elements contribute to form - the day’s lesson was going to focus above all else on how form happens in time (the primary medium of music) and space (literal as well as imagined)...

Read about the later sessions of the ORNG Ink Creative Musicianship Class for Middle School Students through the LINK ABOVE! In these classes, students explored the concept of form and worked together to compose and rehearse a final composition.

[jessiedowns]

Our middle school Creative Musicianship class has so far been an exercise in becoming more graceful teachers. This is evident first and foremost in the new structure of the 8 weeks. We decided to compress the original 8 week plan into the first 4 weeks, teaching 4 sessions on clear, streamlined topics through high-impact, fast-paced activities. The second 4 weeks we set aside for the students to work on their own projects, creating a kind of “studio class” environment that we hope will result in students taking away something concrete from the experience. We have also streamlined the language we use in the class to explain the concepts we are engaging with in order to minimize “jibber jabber” and emphasize experience. Luckily we have recruited a group of 5, multi-talented young people to come on this journey with us...

Updates for the Creative Musicianship Class “round 2″ for Middle School students are now available on Doug’s website. CLICK THE LINK ABOVE to read about the students’ explorations of listening, rhythm, and harmony!

[jessiedowns]

Here is our first update on the ORNG Ink Creative Musicianship Class. The class is now at its half-way point and we are taking a break to observe Martin Luther King Jr. Day. The first four weeks of the class have been an excellent experience for all of us - both the two teachers and our 14 registered students. We are looking forward to the last four weeks - during which we will explore some basics of 'organic' rhythms and pitch constructions and begin to work more explicitly on group composition. We are also excited to plan the final showcase - where students will both present what they have done in the class and have the chance to share the musical work they have been doing on their own time. We also now have plans for teaching a middle school class - the same curriculum modified for that age group, as well as an adult course that approaches sound through the idea of 'space,' linking our work more directly with the "urbanism" initiatives in the area. Below you will find brief descriptions of each of our first four classes, as well as pictures and sound bites from those days. We hope you enjoy!...

Check out Doug’s website, LINKED ABOVE, to read about our Creative Musicianship class for Teens!

[sonicexplorationsblog-blog]

Joyful Noises - A Staff Member’s Reflection on Our First 2 Years

Hello all. My name is Jessie Downs and for the past two years I have been a teacher and committee member for Sonic Explorations (SE), the El-Sistema-inspired after-school music program at Oakwood Avenue Community School. When I attended my first committee meeting for the program, at which I met various partners from the Orange Board of Education and Montclair State University before accepting an AmeriCorps term, the program was just a nice, distant, potential idea. Now though, as I end a successful year of freelance music teaching, which has included working as a Creative Musicianship and Choir teacher for SE, I can proudly and confidently say that the program is a high-functioning and meaningful service provided for the kids and families of the Oakwood Avenue Community. Though my heart is forever with Oakwood and especially with Sonic Explorations, this fall I will not be returning to teach with the program, as I have taken an opportunity to continue my musical studies in a PhD program at the University of Buffalo. As I say "good bye" for now, I reflect fondly on my time with the program's staff and students.

Ms. Downs teaching Kindergarten students in the program’s pilot year.

Thinking back on the past two years, one of the first things that jumps out at me is how much has changed programmatically, and for the better. After a first year of complicated class schedules and some growing pains, the second year was to me the pinnacle of teamwork. First, our newly created "Kinder Music" wing of the program - with fabulous district teacher and rock star Mr. Clark working together with Kindergarten guru Ms. Kenny - provided a perfect environment for our youngest students to develop a love of music. Not only was this portion of the program safe and simple, ideally designed for the energy and attention of 5 and 6 year olds, but it also was a well-run inclusive classroom. In the upper grades - 1st through 3rd - the violin, percussion, 2 Creative Musicianship, and 2 academic teachers worked both to make their own parts of the curriculum strong and engaging for our diverse and active veteran students, but also supported one another in making each day run as smoothly as possible, keeping a flow from one thing to the next.

Although these logistical things are the most obvious successes of the program from the outside perspective, it is the successes within my own classroom that I can most speak to. In that classroom, I was allowed the space both to grow into myself as a teacher and to nourish individual student growth. The main curriculum I taught in that classroom was "Creative Musicianship.” This curriculum, designed and taught by myself and fellow program teacher and coordinator Douglas Farrand, teaches students a wide range of basic musical skills through and for creative applications. Through projects like instrument building, composing, and improvising, students discover the way of being a musician that best suits their strengths and interests. While you can listen and learn about this curriculum on SE's soundcloud page, I would like to share with you my personal big takeaways from teaching it this year.

Notes on the Creative Musicianship class board, made during a planning session for a group composition.

In the first unit, the students investigated the question "What is music?" - a time that involved both dialogue and sound-making. The conclusion arrived at was that "Music is sound organized in time." Although not every student may have fully understood this - especially the "time" element which is a bit abstract for the younger ones - the definition definitely proved to be very empowering to our little creators. What is so beautiful about children's - or at least our students' - approach to music is that, as long as they have worked to make a given set of sounds, they don't need to question their validity as music. If only more adults could be so wonderfully receptive, open-minded, and engaged!

In the second unit, our focus was understanding this "time" element more clearly, by learning rhythmic syllables for 8 basic rhythms. It was amazing to see, by the end of the unit, students as young as 6 years old essentially mastering rhythmic dictation - the process of identifying specific rhythmic patterns in neutral sounds -  a skill that many adults struggle to obtain. Though they could not so much talk about or write eighth, quarter, dotted quarter, and half notes, their mind-bodies understood how to differentiate one rhythmic pattern from another through practicing the syllables for each pattern. They understood in a deep way the difference between “off” and “on” beats, again, a great success even for musicians much older than they. As throughout the year we learned other musical systems like solfege syllables, this continued to be the case.

Students working on their electronic instruments.

The third unit brought experimentation with building basic electronic instruments out of broken speaker cones, wires, batteries, and found objects. As one of our students in a class we taught to middle schoolers at another non-profit put it, this was an activity you'd expect to find in a science classroom, not a music one. It was wonderful to see the technical prowess, the budding craftsmanship of some of the students come through during this time, and the thrill of all the students at building and helping others to build these noisemakers. True to our mission, this unit yet again made a space for unique musicianship in the program.

Students working on xylophone compositions.

The third unit of the year was perhaps the most rewarding for me, as I really saw and heard the creative and cooperative voices of every student I worked with come through in their classwork. Using newly purchased hand percussion, the students worked in small groups to create their own compositions. Using elements they had learned about in lessons - such as three-part forms, dynamics, and how to put together different voices or parts - their imaginations ran wild. It was so rewarding for them and for me to see them start to create simple notations for their pieces, to perform them for their classmates, record them, and even to watch as whole classes of students listened intently to one another's works and shared their enthusiasm for each other's ideas.

Although it became more of a struggle at the end of the year to get this kind of compositional concentration from the students, I was lucky enough to finish the vocal part of the program by running a "select choir." The choral component had been added at the start of the year to give the students an opportunity to work together in a large ensemble context; this was a good alternative to starting an orchestra, given our small number of string instruments, the age range of our students, and my own experience with the choral medium. Although the large choir was a great "think tank" for ways to get the students performing and working together as a whole, it was such a thrill to finally get to work with the students who were especially invested in singing in the more intimate setting. From the first day of the select choir, I could tell that this group was going to learn so much more here than they could have in the large choir. Each exercise they tackled with focus, and when their voices were raised up in song, they were caught up in the sound of themselves. They learned to strive for perfection and to not accept sloppy work from themselves or their classmates. The final performance for this group  - "Feelin' Good" by Nina Simone - was for me the ultimate anthem for the program's end. All of us in that performance were truly "Feelin' Good," despite the usual concert day chaos. The teachers and parents were beaming with pride, the students were enjoying the fruits of their efforts.

Ms. Downs conducting students at the NJPAC “Fiddle and Fa-la-la” Fest.

And really "Feelin' Good" has been our every-day anthem here in the program. We have strived to create a space for the kids where, yes, they are learning a lot, but they are also having fun. They are getting to be themselves and creating through playful discovery. I am going to miss this playfulness, this fun, this "Sonic Exploration" I have been lucky enough to be a part of as I move on to the next steps in my journey as a musician and music educator. But my hope is that the Oakwood kids will keep playing, and their teachers - whoever they may be - will join in, and that the joyful noise of Sonic Explorations will keep on sounding loud, through the school, and through the community.