ConfluenceWork with GCSE and A level students
Confluence
Our schools projects have been enabling experiences, in which young people have worked alongside professional musicians in composing. The experience of having the range and effects of an instrument demonstrated by a professional, and hearing their pieces played back, focussed and enhanced the students work in a way that no amount of dry theory could inspire.
The projects took place over a period of seven weeks, with a performance at the end. The first, in early 1999 at King Arthur's Community School in Wincanton, involved Karen and Helen in collaboration with soloists from the Bournemouth Orchestras. This project aimed to take these young composers through a sharp learning curve with hands on experience of writing for expert musicians alongside close individual tuition. It also set out to reinvent wells for this young generation, their myths, legends and current resonances. Each pupil was given the task of writing a solo piece for one of the four musicians. As they were all at the beginning of their life as composers, this gave them the opportunity to explore in depth the sonority and technical requirements of one particular instrument in close consultation with an expert performer. It also gave us single strands of music, individual springs in the headwaters, with the possibilities of expansion and orchestration as the river gathers force.
The first workshop took place over a whole day. The morning was spent getting to know each other, having fun and games and then settling down to a lecture demonstration about the double bass by Andy Baker of the Bournemouth Orchestras. The afternoon began with the pupils being asked to read a variety of articles about wells (spanning local history, general folklore and myth through to broader world issues.). We then took a rainy walk to Shatterwell to look at their local spring (once supplying the town with endless clear water but destroyed when the railway came in). The day rounded up with the pupils being asked to choose something from their afternoon's research as a spring board for their compositions.
The next couple of sessions were spent in demonstrating the rest of the instruments and helping open up different ways into composing a piece and developing material. After this point the pupils were busy composing with Karen, Helen and the music teacher available for help and guidance along the way. The role of teacher then becomes much more intuitive as ways to help each individual follow their own ideas develop while at the same time the potential within their material is opened up.
After a couple of sessions the instrumentalists returned and played through some of their initial sketches. The players were able to expand on their ideas, using different registers, different ways of articulating passages, experimenting with dynamics, improvising around the theme etc. All this is a marvellous way to illustrate to young composers the complex and subtle matrix of elements which make up a good composition (so easy to pass by when working in isolation at a key board). The players returned once again at the end of the course to give the pieces a final run through before the performance.
The performance was given at the school to an invited audience of parents and friends. The event comprised the pupils' work interspersed with pieces written for the event by two music teachers at the school, as well as Helen and Karen. Peter Hoare, head of music at the school, had the final say: "It is impossible to put into words how much the group gained from working alongside professional musicians... Chances like this don't come along too often in schools."
The second GCSE project, in Sturminster Newton High School at the end of 1999 was similar in concept to this first project, in that the students worked to a riverine theme and were guided in their work by professional musicians. However, both the inspiration, and the musical resources available were very different. Firstly, the theme of the compositions was Sturminster Newton Mill, and as with the wells in Wincanton, the student group were taken around the mill as an initial inspiration and idea gathering exercise. Secondly, the professional musicians they were to write for and with were unconventional: a percussionist (Ron Vint), and a vocalist specialising in experimental repertoire (Frances Lynch). The results were eclectic and diverse.
Helen and Karen were also able to work with other groups leading to the Dance and Art students from the school also participating in the performance. The art classes decorated the hall with sculptures based on machine parts from the mill workings, and the dancers choreographed and performed their own accompaniment to several of the music students' pieces.
Canford School, near Wimborne, was the only school to respond positively to a letter sent to every state and public school in the lower catchment containing an offer of school composing projects. Karen and Helen worked with eight GCSE music students. Each wrote their own individual piece of music with titles such as Harmonious H20. The standard of instrumental performance in the school is relatively high, so it was not necessary to bring in outside musicians to perform the compositions. A warm letter from their music teacher demonstrated that the difference our presence had made was much appreciated.
In the last months of Confluence, in 2001, Karen worked with teenagers at Grange School in Christchurch to form a scratch percussion group. Around 20 children joined in developing a piece of music which drew on African fishing rhythms to present the commuter belt traffic of the area as shoals of fish. This piece was performed as part of the Lantern Procession event of the Christchurch LEAF (Local Ecology and Arts Festival - see Festivals) in May, and was then further developed for incorporation into The Confluence at Christchurch Priory concert in July.
