Classroom Tales

Today, I was lucky enough to be part of a workshop led by a wonderful guy named Luke from the Philharmonia.

I thought the ideas he shared were so great, that I’d post a short outline of them here.  I’m really hoping I get the chance to weave some of these into lessons on my teaching practice!  [Of course, I'm guessing these may be quite common practices, but as a Trainee they were new to me!]

We first started with looking at  some paintings (which is why it was part of our course at the National Gallery) and were told to write down words that described the painting we were then told some basic info about it, and asked to write down some more words.

Back in the ‘classroom’ we worked on 3 different type of tasks, all of which used a range of music skills which are in the NC at KS2

Task 1:- A Journey using homemade instruments

One of the paintings we looked at ‘A view of Het Steen in Early Morning‘ by Ruben- was idenfiied as having a clear journey/pathway through it- so we were asked to represent this musically, only using the things around us (no instruments).  I thought this was great as it got us thinking about making sounds, and somehow removed the ‘Am I  doing it right’ response that apparently often appears when using instruments.  We had things such as water in bottles, sticks on the floor, coats flapping, sandpaper rubbing together, rocks etc as our ‘instruments’.

Next we were asked to create a ‘picture’ of our music- using symbols to represent the different sounds, and then one of us  was asked to ‘conduct’ and point to the pictures which represented the sounds to bring them in and fade the out etc…

I thought this was really effective, and the finished product wasn’t bad either!

Task 2:- Tuned and Untuned percussion to tell a story.

Another painting had a clear story.  We were asked to think up what different parts of the story would sound like (a party for instance was lots of feet stamping and shouting, a star constellation a simple tune on a xylophone) and worked together to create these.   Then a ‘comnductor’ pointed to different parts of the painting  and we all made the ‘music’ that represented that part.

Again I thought this was really effective- it also got us looking deeper at the painting and reading into the story (as obviously only a snapshot was represented in the painting) and how the characters would be acting/behave etc

Task 3- Tuned and untuned instruments to represent a landscape.

We were shown a landscape painting (Lake Keitele) and asked to use primarily tuned instruments to create a ‘soundtrack’ for the painting.  We were introduced to different types of chords/scales on a basic keyboard and xylophones and then worked out using the words we had written down in the gallery what sounds we might hear, what type of temp etc it should be..  again a ‘conductor’ was chosen who brought the different parts in by pointing at them etc…

We were really pleased with the results- apparently audio of it will be appearing online soon, so I’ll post a link when I have one!

Task 4- New Words to a pop song

This has to be my favorite activityy from the session!  After looking at the amazing painting ‘the toilet of venus’ we were played the backing track to Cheryl Coles ‘Fight for this Love’, we were asked to think about how the people in the painting would be feeling.

We then used some of these words to create a new chorus for the song-  we cam up with something along the lines of

“Cupids so bored, she’s looking at herslef  (x3)

But maybe she’s not bothered at all”

( I can’t remember the exact words- but you get the idea!)

We then played through the whole song (with wooden blocks going as a tap rhythm through the verses and Luke wonderfully playing the bassoon!) and added in our ‘new chorous’.   If you were doing it with a class and had more time, you could easily do new words for the whole song etc.

I thought this was really great.  Again it got us really engaging with the painting, as well as thinking about pop songs that we (or children anyway!) like.  It also introduced singing without us even really realising it.  Plus, having a 300 yr old painting represented by a really modern song was quite humorous!

Apparently this works amazingly in schools, and one school in london has taken the words to a Shakespeare play and re-worded a pop song and accompanied it by dance/actions etc!

It was also really interesting to see the effect that doing actions had on a performance when we added in actions the performances suddenly were given an extra bit of ‘gusto’!

What really stood out with these exercises is that they opened up a great deal of creativity for the participants, got us really thinking about music and what makes up different pieces etc, and also got us really looking in depth at a painting without even realising it!

I have more notes on these if anyone wants any more info!

I also have to say how exciting it was  and how privileged I felt to be working with such a top and talented musician and workshop leader!

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It’s just struck me that over the past few days I’ve blogged about the 3 main subjects that people on my course are most nervous about- Art, Music and ICT.  This week I’ve experienced different ways of teaching Art and Music which has given me a big boost of confidence in these areas- if only every trainee could experience what I have over the past (very intense!) days!

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Tomorrows my last day at the gallery and I’m really looking forward to finishing of the week on what I’m sure will be a high.  The snow has sadly caused schools to (unsurprisingly) cancel their gallery visits but hopefully some of the schools booked for tomorrow will turn up so we can observe the talented gallery teachers working again!

Although, saying that I am quite nervous as I have to present a short (15 min) session in the gallery tomorrow.  I’ve chosen to do it on the Ambassadors by Hans the Younger- even though I keep telling myself I’ve taught in front of whole class,  I’m still unnerved by the prospect of teaching in front of such a large and important painting in the gallery.   We are also planning 2  outline schemes of work tomorrow based on 2 paintings, which I’ll probably post on the blog incase anyone wants to use them!

After tomorrow, I promise the art based posts will stop for a while!!   I’m starting to think ahead to next week and the start of my next placement in a new (massive!) school- I’ll probably blog more about my hopes etc for the placement this weekend, but  hopefully I’ll have more success at learning names quickly than last time- thanks to all the suggestions so far on twitter!

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