Community: A group of people with similar interests.
Synonyms: togetherness/helping people.
When/ how community is present in music: entertainment purposes, language/culture, celebrations, funeral’s, birthday’s, representation for minority groups, festive music and atmospheric music, i.e. cafe music.
Music can be used on Tv shows and films to set the tone of a specific scene, or even in restaurants. Aside from that, community music is typically used for a celebratory event, I.e. Christmas, Easter, Funerals, Birthdays, Quinceanos, Dia de los Muertos and halloween. Community music can also be representation for minority groups, like LGBTQIA+ members. Another example of community music can be through language and culture, like the music to celebrate Dia de los Muertos.
Initial thoughts of Opera: High vocal range, powerful voice, classical/sophisticated, emotional and expressive. Audience is typically the higher or middle class gentlemen and ladies, or old rich people.
Streetwise Opera: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0nc-92Z_88
Streetwise Opera is a music charity for homeless people. They give the homeless a new opportunity and kind of a little redemption at life. They take people in from the streets to do a music workshop and then, at the end, perform it in front of an audience. This gives the homeless people something to look forward to and gives them hope, as well as something to focus on. One participant has said: “At the time that I have nothing, I still have my artistry. I still have my creativity. I still have my talent. And if that’s going to get me from homelessness to where I need to be, then I’m going to hone that, and Streetwise Opera is the perfect place for that.”
Streetwise Opera Statistics:
Music Education Hubs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xl5ATH3eXCo
A lot more arts funds are being cut by the government, meaning there’s less music lessons taking place in schools now. However, Hubs is an organisation that allows children to still explore themselves through music. This can be through private lessons or as a group. Hubs also have bursary’s so that money isn’t a factor that stops the child from carrying on with music as they get older.
Music in Prison’s: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBYRMgPny-k
Music in prison’s is to help the prisoner’s become a productive member of society once their times are done. The programs also offer more of a community and more hope into the prisoners life, it gives them something positive to focus on whilst they serve their time. One of the prisoners said it helps them “find the positive in a negative situation”.
One of the prisoner’s songs called “Tristeza”, which is “Sadness” in Spanish, is a song about finding the hope in the low points. The song expresses how everyone feels the loneliness and isolation so you’re never really lonely.
This program helps the prisoner’s personal and spiritual growth by being around a supportive community. It gives the prisoner’s purpose and teaches them discipline, so when they’re back in society they don’t feel like it’s so different.
Music in hospital’s: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0QvLJ1vK5Qk
Hospitals use a lot of music therapy, which is using music as a way to relief pain in a different way that what tablets and medication can do. This is especially used on mental health patients. The music can bring the person back to who they were before what ever changed them, which makes them that happy and joyous person they were before too. It’s been described as the “quickening art of finding themselves”. Studies have shown it’s incredibly effective, especially for Alzheimer’s and deep depressive states.
An example of this is how a person called Ed got hit by a speeding taxi, and was basically on the brink of death when he came in, but walked out singing after using music therapy as a way to treat him.
Purpose of Music Workshops:
Music workshops can give people of all backgrounds a chance to play some music. Music can be a way of expression and even give them hope.
Initial and Final Plan:
Our initial plan was to allow the students to create a song, using instruments, and have a complete song by the end of it. However, it might be a little difficult to teach them an instrument in an hour and half session so we decided to use the iPad because you can’t really play anything wrong on there, and it’s easy to fix it if they do.
We was going to start with the “guess the leader” rhythm game, and then move into them creating a beat on the iPad, with Adam teaching them.We started with the game so they’d get a basic feel and understanding of rhythm before they try and create some rhythms. This actually stayed the same in our final plan too.
After creating the beat, I was going to show them how to add nice guitar chords to the beat, just in the C major scale though. The reason it’s staying in C major is because it’s easier to use without having explain music theory. After teaching them chords, Isaac is going to teach them melody using the piano. It was initially going to be me showing them the melody on the guitar and Isaac showing them the chords on keys but I didn’t know how to teach them how to make a melody on the guitar without explaining some theory so we swapped it around.
After Isaac has showed them the chords and everything’s recorded, we’re going to ask if anyone wants to record some vocals. If not, we’re going to let them add another instrument and let them play around with how their track sounds. Initially, we was going to do another game of “listen and draw what you feel”, so they could really get to feeling the music which should help with the lyrics, but there might not be enough time and it’s most likely that there won’t be anyone comfortable with singing/rapping so we just cut it out.
In between each different task, we’re going to be teaching them to quantise the tracks and loop them so they have a full track that’s in time. Once everyone’s done, we’re going to ask them all to share their tracks with everyone. If we have time, we might end on another few games of “guess the leader” just so it’s a nice fun end and they have left with something.
Practice Session Improvements:
To begin with, we didn’t introduce ourselves, which I think was just because we already knew them but need to have a strong introduction on what the purpose of this class is and what we’re actually teaching them. From the start, it was quite difficult to silence the class and get them to listen to us properly so we need to find an effective way to silence them so they can listen. Maybe, asking them politely or raising our voices.
During the first game, I told the leader to clap when the leader came in so it made them easier to be guessed. However, when I set 2 leaders, it seemed to work better and they listened more. I think it’d be good to let everyone have at least 1 go at being the leader and being the person outside so then everyone’s included. After the game, we need to make sure that we grab the students attention again before beginning the next part because otherwise they’re not going to be listening and it’ll make it harder for them to understand what they’re doing.
When we’re doing our individual parts, we all need to explain everything in detail so they understand it fully. This’ll also help the session last the full amount of time. Before explaining any other parts, we need to make sure everyone is on track and listening so nobody gets left behind.
We used a system of “sad face and smiley face” on the board, as a way to get the class to listen. However, this was ineffective because I think we highlighted the bad more than the good, which then made them act worse. I think we could ask them politely to quieten down. If they’re on their phones repeatedly then we could just keep being around them and keeping them on track with making the music.
When we’re getting the students to share their tracks, we should also comment on what’s good. We could try and get everyone to show their tracks and then get some of them to say what they like about their tracks.
Whoever isn’t talking needs to go round and check that everyone understands the task at hand. We can help people as the speaker explains the task, which’ll also help the session run more smoothly. Remembering to be as polite as we can is important in getting them to listen to us. Also, giving examples of what we’re meaning is very effective!
Approximately, each part gets 15 minutes, so that’s between the introduction/icebreakers, rhythm, harmony and melody. Then, we’re either doin the vocals or recording another instrument for 10 minutes. At the end of each task, we’re letting them show their work but at the end we have 5 minutes for them to show off their finished product. That leaves a coup minutes for another game of guess the leader.
For my part, harmony, I need to show three different common chord progressions. This could be 1,4,5 / 2,5,1 / 1,6,4,5 etc. We just decided that it might be a good idea to give them different words to base their lyrics off, if they’re comfortable singing, and then get them to sing and create a few different set of lyrics around the track they’ve already made and then let them record their favourite ones.
Community Workshop:
We had group of 6 people, all who were very up for learning about and creating music. From the off set, they were very chatty and we needed to quiet them a lot throughout the whole session. We started off with a few games of guess the leader but it took them a while to understand it. I think we probably should’ve demonstrated it to them before hand but they ended up gasping it after a few games. They seemed to really enjoy the game as a couple of them were volunteering to be the next leader towards the end. The game was a good way to get their rhythmical creativity flowing and it seemed to really start us off on a good note. If we were to do it again, I’d of probably demonstrated a game to them first so they’d understand it faster and got them all to have a go at being the leader.
When Adam took over, we handed out the iPads and logged them back into the iPads but that made a lot of noise to begin with because everyone started messing about straight away. We probably should’ve asked straight away for them to not mess around yet, or not handed them out until dam had explained the drums first. Adam tried to explain how different beats sound but I don’t think they really understood because they weren’t really shown or given the opportunity to create in that style. He could’ve explained more using examples, like he could create that style and he could play just that drum sound so they really understood what he was trying to explain. As Adam explained, I went round to help them and listen to their creations. I listened and praised as much as I could because I remembered our feedback from the practice session being told that positive energy that is given to the students, usually is returned with positive energy. Sometimes we had to prompt each other into moving into the next parts or helping but I think that was more just nerves because we all warmed up after a little bit. As the session progressed, we all started moving around more and helping more. If we were to do this again, the drums should be demonstrated a little more, and maybe not run for as long, and we all need to walk around from the offset.
I stood at the front and then raised my voice to ask them to be quiet so I could show them the next part. I remembered that this would be an effective way to get the classes attention from when we did the practice run. They were all playing their track still so it was difficult to get their attention so I went around and asked them individually. Once they were all quiet, I started showing them how to get to the piano and some common chord progressions and then let them play around with it for themselves. I feel like it was more effective when they started playing around with it themselves because they seemed to lose interest when I was showing them some common chord progressions. As they worked on some sounds Adam, Isaac and I went around and checked they were all ok with recording their sounds in. I helped a couple because they couldn’t get the timing of the guitar to match the beat.As I went around, I also showed them all some different strumming patterns and picking they could do fi they wanted to so that they could get a little more uniqueness out of the chords. After, we quantised the keys track until they were all happy with their tracks. If we were to do this again, I think I’d have shown them how to follow the beat easier at the start because it did seem to be a little challenging as I had to click the beat for some of them so they could follow it easier.
After the chords, Isaac showed them how to make a really nice piano melody. There were quite a lot of disruption at this point as most of them kept getting up to leave so we just helped the ones who wanted to finish the track. Isaac started by explaining that melody is typically what the singer sings and how it’s like the most memorable part of songs, typically. He tried to show them some melody but the class got distracted quite easily so he just let them kind of play around with the keys. We all went around and helped the few that stayed because they seemed to be a little confused as to what keys they could use. I demonstrated to a few how to make a melody fit with their guitar and then when they were happy with what they made, I clicked for them so they could for the guitar rhythms and beat. This worked really well and we only ran over slightly. If we were to do this part again, I think it would’ve been useful to demonstrate a typical melody like “twinkle twinkle little star” or “happy birthday”.
Overall, I think we were quite successful as we had an outcome of three peoples tracks, two of which they sent to themselves so they could work on at home. Throughout the session, they had some questions about reverb and other stuff so we just explained it as well as we could. I think I really showed my leadership skills and natural teaching skills by taking myself to their level and clicking with them to help them understand better. I think I explained a lot of the tasks in depth but simplified and then went around to help them as much as I could, which also kept them on task and interested. However, we didn’t really have time to show them how to use reverb which I think would’ve been useful to the two that stayed, but it could’ve also been a little too advanced so maybe it was for the best that we couldn’t demonstrate it. I think we really showed strong leadership, even though they were quite an easily distracted class. We all helped them produce tracks they were really happy with and I think we taught a couple of them something new, especially with the melody part because most of them hadn’t played keys before. If we were to do this again, I think we would work on the pace of things because some parts did start to drag and you could see them losing interest and getting distracted. I think it would’ve been a lot easier to deliver the workshop if we had a little bit of background on them because a lot of them already had a basic understanding of creating music so a lot of it didn’t need to be simplified as much as what it was. For example, one of them were already a guitarist so she already understood the common chord structure and also understood some of the keys. I did actually really enjoy it and I was really proud when 3 of them came out with tracks they were happy with. I wouldn’t mind delivering another workshop because it’s fun to teach people how to make their own tracks and watch their ideas evolve from just a basic beat, into a whole track. I just wish we could’ve let them done some lyrics too.