Musical Chairs for the under fives

Each month I publish a free newsletter called Playing With Sound. There is always a new game or some other activity. (In February's edition, perhaps this month's highlight, I explain how to make an oboe out of a plastic straw.) Signing up is easy, as is unsubscribing if you decide it isn't for you. One aspect of it I have really enjoyed is the way it has put me in touch with people all over the world. The easy dissemination of ideas is perhaps the best thing about the internet.

I recently found myself discussing Musical Chairs with a teacher, Claudia, from Uruguay. The problem with knock-out games like this is what to do with the players once they are excluded. As soon as they are 'out' their interest is suddenly diminished and they may well have a sense of disappointment. So how do you keep them happily engaged in the session? The traditional method is to co-opt them as judges but as soon as they realise you suspect their professed impartiality you have lost them again.

I make a couple of suggestions in 'Adventures in Sound' but Claudia has one especially for very young children. She writes:

"You have the game, (ice breaker), "Musical Chairs". In the original, after taking one chair, the person who stays without a chair, loses. Well, that brought me a lot of trouble playing it with the preschoolers, who got really upset for losing and started getting bored - misbehaving, while not playing. So with that age level I play it the same but instead of staying out, the kids have to sit down on someone else's lap, and you keep on taking chairs out and they, as a team, need to sit all on top of the others. It's very funny. And I tell them that I am competing with them, as a group. That I bet that I'll win, and I try to chase the ones that are standing up when the music stops, and it is amazing to see the kids who are sitting down, calling the ones that don't have a seat. I think it is more fun... and builds a group spirit."

It does sound great fun. If you live in the UK (and probably a few other places, too), where every education and child-care establishment lives in fear of both litigation and government inspectors, you may need to carry out a health and safety assessment first, just to cover your back. If, on the other hand, you live in a country where common sense still holds sway I think you'll love this variation.

February's Game of the Month

Regular readers will know I post a free music game at the beginning of every month on the PlayWithSound website.

This month's is called Supercar and is a rhythm and speaking game, equally suited to both music classes and drama workshops.

It requires neither instruments nor any specialist knowledge but will nevertheless give your students and colleagues something to get their teeth into.

How to make a shekere

A shekere is a West African percussion instrument made from a dried gourd. A net is woven around the gourd with beads threaded into the mesh. The net is loose enough to permit movement but not so loose that it falls off. There are many different styles (this photo is from Wikipedia) but the principle is always the same.

A number of different sounds can be produced by shaking, hitting with the palm and damping the instrument. The net can also be moved across the surface of the gourd in the manner of a cabassa, producing a sound somewhere between a scrape and a rattle.

When I set out to make my own shekere I deliberately ignored the internet and relied on memory. (I don't possess a 'real' example of this instrument, although I intend to rectify that this week.) My aim was to produce a simple design using waste materials as much as possible. Nine year olds needed to be able to make it, at the first attempt, with the minimum of hands-on assistance. And I wanted to avoid impacting on a limited project budget. I tried various methods and materials. I was able to get some string, metal beads, bottles and plastic sweet jars from Miniscrapbox. I hope there is something similar near you. For my own I used:

1 x 5l (gallon) plastic bottle
8m of string
About 24 plastic beads (metal would have been heavier and better)
75mm (3”) of masking tape

Here's how I did it:

Cut the string into four equal lengths and feed each of them the handle of the bottle. Take one end of each piece of string and feed it through again. Make sure you have the same length of string either side of the plastic bottle and then fix it in place by taping it to the handle.




Now take two neighbouring strands and tie them together with a simple loop, the first stage of tying a shoelace. Do the same with the remaining pairs of strands. You should now have the beginnings of two bows on either side of the bottle. Don’t pull these tight but aim to have them all at the shoulder of the bottle.


Take the strings from one loop and thread them through a bead, the strings entering from opposite sides. Pull the strings tight and the bead should slide into place just below your first bow. Now secure it in place with a second loop. Repeat this around the bottle until you have attached four beads.

Next take one strand from each of two neighbouring beads, tie another loop about 5cm (2”) from each of the other beads and thread another bead in the same way as before, again securing it in place with a loop. Continue around the bottle in this way until you have attached another four beads. Negotiating the ends of the bottle, especially the end nearest the mouth, requires a compromise and you will need to allow a larger gap between beads.


A net is emerging with a bead at each interstice. Work your way evenly down the bottle, always taking a string from each of two neighbouring beads for your next bead. Aim for a slightly loose fit to allow the beads to rattle against the bottle.

When you reach the bottom of the bottle, gather all the strings together and tie them in a large knot. This completes your shekere. Remove the masking tape from the handle and start playing. The bottles come with their own handle and I found some paintbrush handles to attach (with glue and a wide-headed nail) to the lids of the sweet jars. A short piece of dowel would do just as well.

There are more elegant ways of finishing, such as tying threads from opposite beads and then trimming the excess string but, providing there is enough length in each strand at the end, the big knot method works regardless of mistakes made earlier in the process.

The picture shows one nearly completed. I left my own in the school before I had a chance to photograph it but watch this space.

Why become a musician?

Why become a musician? Or anything else for that matter?

My father always wanted me to get a steady job; he often mentioned banking as a suitable career because of the security it offered. His own path had led him into an unexpected life in the military via the second world war, going back in after de-mob when he discovered teaching wasn't for him. The stable peace of the cold war made for safe and secure employment.

Today I wouldn't associate safety and security with either of those fields. But they obviously appeal to some for all kinds of reasons. The important thing is to follow your heart. I was told the following at a party last night:

Confucius said "find a job you love and you'll never do a day's work in your life".

Now doesn't that sound like good advice?

Synaesthesia and other holiday reading

Once in a blue moon I buy a copy of New scientist. It's good for camping: too small to catch the wind and with pages that are stapled together. I bought one at the station before boarding a train for the coast last weekend. I like to feel I know what's going on in the world of science and I get the gist of most of the articles (although the one on string theory felt like wading into quicksand). There's usually at least something interesting about sound. Fellow blogger Cogitator drew my attention to a NS item about echo location in humans in response to my blindfold post last month.

In the issue dated 30th May there were three articles directly relating to sound. The first to catch my eye was a snippet: 'Music eases baby pain'. Apparently it reduces the impact of minor invasive procedures. What sort of music isn't specified but presumably not the Dead Kennedys.

A slightly longer article 'Play together to stay together' suggests that music developed in order to increase cohesion in social groups. Apparently musicians are better at forming attachments to others. This surprised me as I have met many misanthropic musicians although I have not catalogued the encounters scientifically.

Synaesthesia is a condition in which the afflicted (or blessed) makes strong associations between one sense and another. They may taste shapes or numbers or else hear words or sounds in colour. The BBC has touched on this subject recently and, if you're curious, New Scientist was reviewing the book Wednesday is Blue: Discovering the brain of Synaesthesia by Cytowic and Eagleman (MIT Press). According to the article, evolution selected for the condition because it increases creativity. Apparently the condition is more common amongst artists and musicians.

Sensibly I also took time out to enjoy the North Norfolk coast.

Music in Literature

J K Rowling has had a lot of stick for the quality of the writing. As one who has read each of her books aloud, some more than once, I have often been tempted to send her a thesaurus, care of her publisher. But that would be churlish. She created a convincing world, spun a complex and riveting yarn and the quality of language improved greatly in the last few books.

Furthermore, anyone who uses their novel to draw attention to the importance of sound gets my vote.

For those unfamiliar with the Harry Potter series, Professor Dumbledore is a benign, immensely powerful yet endearingly humble, wizard and headmaster. He represents all that is good, in contrast to his nemesis, Voldemort, the personification of evil. In the first volume it is this prominent and high status character that Rowling uses to express the value of music.

In chapter seven, as the students of Hogwarts are drawing to the end of the school song, she writes:

Dumbledore conducted their last few lines with his wand, and when they had finished, he was one of those who clapped loudest.
"Ah, music," he said, wiping his eyes. "A magic beyond all we do here!"

Teaching disturbed children

Some years ago I taught woodwind to students aged 11 to 18 in a special school for children who were being given one last chance. If this didn't work out for them their next home would be secure accommodation of one sort or another. Some had been traumatised by severe abuse at home, some were from good homes but were chronic offenders and others had mental health issues that gave rise to antisocial behaviour. In short, they were challenging.

Enter me. At the time I was teaching woodwind in a number of private and state schools, as well as privately in a desirable part of town. My expectations of my students, and of myself, were high. Success meant achieving good marks for my pupils in their Associated Board exams. If one of them had an issue with an aspect of their technique, or made a mistake in a piece, I would point it out and together we would address the problem.

What I wasn't used to was students who would assemble their saxophone with the crook (the top part) pointing the wrong way week after week, students who wouldn't accept they'd made a mistake in a piece of music and would fly into a rage if I even suggested it, students with attention spans shorter than a chocolate commercial, students who storm out of the lesson shouting and swearing and students who weren't in the mood that day so decided not to come.

I spent the first few weeks wondering how best to explain to my employers that these kids were unlikely to pass their grade one exams any time soon. When I finally plucked up the courage I discovered that they didn't care. They were interested in giving their students a new experience. They wanted to add value to these kids of a kind that a pass or fail at grade one couldn't measure.

And so I began to see things differently too. I learned to tell when a very angry fifteen year old was in a receptive mood and when to forget the clarinet and listen to her rail against the world instead. I learned to savour moments such as the first time a boy whose body, the visible parts anyway, was covered in burn scars, put the crook on his saxophone the right way round without prompting. I learned to appreciate the gradual increases in his co-ordination skills.

It won't surprise you to know that my attitude to teaching 'normal' students changed as a result of working at that school. People learn for all sorts of reasons that are not goal-oriented and to assume they all aspire to greatness is a mistake. My students in the special school were extreme examples but the principle is the same: strive to find out what it is they need and add value where you can. For most of your students that really is the best thing you can offer them.

What would music sound like in a post-carbon world?

As I write, gas supplies to the UK are under threat while we enjoy some of the coldest weather for some years. As well as being burned for heat, gas is used to generate electricity. With oil prices erratic and coal almost a thing of the past our reliance on fossil fuels can appear a little short-sighted. Nuclear power is problematic for a whole raft of reasons and alternatives still make a up a tiny proportion of the total power generated.

I rely heavily on electricity in my music work. I use play-along CDs and programs such as Band-in-a-Box and Cubase for my teaching. For composition and soundtrack production I am totally dependent on my computer. And then there is my treasured collection of CDs and LPs. Somewhere my brother has a wind-up gramophone and a collection of 78s. It may be possible to adapt it to the needs of my own vinyl but I can't see it handling mp3s very well.

So, if the power is switched off, what then? Well, assuming we don't all freeze in the first cold snap, we'd have to dust off all those acoustic instruments. If you have a piano it's value will suddenly rise and your popularity with it. My guess is that we'll face an enormous skill shortage. In a nation that loves karaoke shows such as The X Factor and Britain's Got Talent, one band can serve the needs of a nation on its own. Where will we go for entertainment once the TV stops working?

Which brings me neatly to my book, Adventures in Sound, which will still work in a post-carbon world. None of the games requires electricity or items manufactured in a carbon-based economy. And, by fostering co-operation and music making amongst the participants, it may go some way to solving the skill shortage alluded to above.

Instrumental tuition for the unworthy

Should primary schools screen out children who may not excel and bar them from instrumental tuition? For some years my local primary school has administered just such a test. I only became aware of its existence when my youngest child failed – much to my surprise because I had considered her quite musical. She could carry a tune and was able to mimic her favourite pop stars with a fair degree of accuracy. When I asked her about the test it turned out to have had a strong written component. No allowance had been made for the fact that my daughter had just joined from a Rudolf Steiner school where children are taught to read and write at a later stage of their development and at a slower pace. I let it go. Piano lessons (private, not at school) were going well and she was enjoying life. On top of this, the music teacher was about to leave and I hoped that the test would leave with her

I was prompted to obtain a copy of the music test when my barber told me that, much to his surprise, his own daughter had been considered 'musical' and was to learn the viola at the school. Obviously the test had survived the change of music teacher. The test is divided into four sections; pitch, tunes, chords and rhythm. Instructions are given, questions asked and then a tape is played and the children write their answers.

Now call me thorough but these exercises need to be practised for the concepts to be understood. The instruction to the test administrator is 'Pause and check children understand'. My suspicion is that very few seven or eight year olds understood. In fact they understood so little that they couldn't even begin to explain. The silence around them just made them feel they were alone in not understanding. The answers are 'multiple choice' meaning you have a reasonable chance of success depending regardless of ability. It also means that the person marking the results has no real clue as to whether or not the question was understood.

I will not reproduce the test here as I find it abhorrent but I will email it to you on request. My point is not just that the test is flawed. I don't believe it should be replaced by a better one. My point is that everyone should have the opportunity to learn, whether they are future Mozarts or Hendrixes or not. If there aren't enough instruments to go round then draw straws. Are seven year olds barred from P.E. because they exhibit poor co-ordination? Of course not! Everyone can benefit from instrumental tuition. (More on teaching woodwind to disturbed and disabled children in a later post.)

With Christmas crackers a recent memory you've probably had enough of bad jokes. Please indulge me anyway: the kids that supposedly can't tell a high pitch from a low one, can't tell one tune from another and can't distinguish between two different rhythms, what happens to them? I'll tell you what happens to them. They get to join the school choir! Ho! Ho! Ho!

Ten tips for a great school concert

'Tis the season of school concerts again. I realise this post is too late to save you from your fate. However, with the experience fresh in our minds let the campaign to make them less of an ordeal in the future begin here and now. Depending on where you stand – proud relative in the audience or nervous teacher/accompanist in the wings – my guess is you will have found the greater part of the event rather tedious. The children plod through overly long pieces that are technically beyond them and that they don't understand. To all but the doting parent, for whom the child can do no wrong, one such exhibition is forgivable, two wearing and three irritating. An entire evening peppered with such fare takes tedium to a level so deep and trance-like it's almost an out of body experience.

Even when interspersed with ensemble pieces and items from the choir of reluctant, but pressed, cherubim, it remains hard to bear, for these items are far too lengthy and drag. Of course there are many factors to juggle. A cast of thousands means bums on seats and that is good for the supported charity or the music department's coffers. And yes, inclusiveness is a good thing; everyone gets a chance to shine. However, there is no need for all six verses of Once in Royal David's City. Nor is it necessary to feature each section of the orchestra in every instrumental.

You may call me mean-spirited, or Ebenezer Scrooge for that matter, but believe me: I've paid my dues. As parent and as teacher over many years I've sat through more of these events than I can remember.

Here are ten tips for teachers masterminding these events:

1. Keep the bigger picture in mind: When auditioning or rehearsing a piece remember it is only one of many.
2. Avoid solo performances: Unless you have a genius in your ranks these can be tedious. They can also provoke enmity. If you feel someone would benefit from a solo spot, feature them in an ensemble piece.
3. Vary the fare and try not to have two or more similar items unless the overall structure demands it.
4. Allow plenty of time for rehearsal. Stand up to your superiors in demanding this. Make sure they know that time spent practising is directly proportionate to the quality of the event. The event that showcases their school.
5. Bear in mind the demographic of the school and the ethos it is promoting. Nine lessons and carols may go down well in a rural parish but may be unsuited to an inner city area with a broader ethnic mix.
6. Apply quality control. If you really must include a piece you know to be poor or unready, shorten it. This will save embarrassment for both performers and audience. It will also mean the piece improves faster in rehearsal.
7. Choose material suited to the ability and understanding of the students. Otherwise they come across as trained monkeys.
8. Make sure children understand the words they are singing. Is it only me who is nonplussed by 'Lo he ab horse snot the burgeon swoom' in O Come All Ye Faithful? If you feel uncomfortable explaining the meaning of the words they shouldn't be singing them.
9. Edit. Be ruthless. Cut and cut again. Pare it down to the bare essentials and everyone will love you for it.
10. But: make sure everyone is in something. Kids in the show means adults in the hall.

Christian rock

Is there a worse genre? I am talking here not about rock played by Christians, of which there are plenty of fine examples from Elvis onwards, but about rock as a vehicle for the Christian message. Now I know there are always exceptions but frankly I can't call any to mind at present. Maybe this is because I have just been subjected to Primary aged children singing Bethlehem Rock, turning my brain to mush. I'm afraid it really brings out the bah-humbug in me. (More on school concerts after the obligatory 24hr cooling off period.)

Christianity has given rise to a vast amount of wonderful music over the centuries and the tradition continues. Tallis, Handel, Bach, Mozart and Tavener have all turned their hand to it. And there is a host of moving and rousing hymns and carols. Why not get the kids singing some of these? Songwriters in more recent times have had fun with the secular side of Christmas to good effect, often using rock'n'roll as a vehicle.

But rock'n'roll is music born of angst and the need to party. When it hit the news in the 50s it was called the Devil's music and it had horns. It can't be sanitised, or have religious lyrics set to it, and then be passed off as a viable alternative to the real thing. Only a brain-dead youth could even pretend to like that. It's the equivalent of Satanists writing pastiches of Barry Manilow tunes. At least, when torturing teenagers, they have the sense to use it in its pure and unadulterated form. Time is the only known cure for adolescent angst. No one can hope to woo the young away from 'the dark side' with Christian rock. The only ones who'll come aren't worth wooing.

Junk Shop - a game for Christmas and beyond

Can we truly hear something unless we start from a point of silence? Is it necessary to clear the mind of all the expectations we place on sound, and in this case sound organised into music, to respond honestly? To listen without leaping to a judgement?

I wrote last time (http://playwithsound.blogspot.com/2008/12/learning-to-listen.html) about the challenges of developing listening skills in children. The fact is that children have fewer pre-conceptions with regard to sound. The older we get, the more we take for granted. A child, on hearing a familiar sound, is far more likely to look for the source of the sound than an adult. They are open-minded (or naïve) enough to make a visual check that the sound corresponds with what they assume to be the cause. An adult will tend to assume that if they hear a familiar sound then it has a familiar source. And no criticism is intended. If we didn't then our concentration spans would shrink to zero.

What is interesting about this, however, is that it means that children are more open to the possibility of the sounds they hear emanating from someone or something other than the people and things generating them. Of course we are all open to this possibility. If we weren't then sound effects in the cinema, known as foley, would be rendered ineffective. The sound of a stick of celery being broken takes on a whole new meaning when laid alongside a movie of someone getting their arm fractured. Working backwards, some imaginative soul must at some time have snapped a stick of celery and thought 'this sounds just like a bone being broken'.

So here's a game, an experiment really, to play with children or adults. Let's call it Junk Shop as a working title. I'm sure you can adapt it for use at Christmas dinner.

Age group: children, teenagers and adults.
Duration: 20 minutes upwards,including discussion
Aims: to develop listening and concentration skills; to encourage the group to think imaginatively about sound.

You will need:

• A screen – nothing elaborate. A pile of books on the front of a desk will suffice.
• A selection of articles such as paper, scissors, woodworking tools, bottles – plastic and glass, thick cellophane, cutlery, a pair of leather gloves, bubblewrap, a 12" (30cm) ruler, a plastic box full of metal bottle tops, an aluminium drink can etc, etc. Basically anything you can get a noise from. The toys in those Christmas crackers have to be good for something.
  
• Two sheets of lined paper, one with the lines numbered.
• An able, literate and inventive volunteer to make the sounds.

The volunteer hides behind the screen with the assembled 'noise generators' and the numbered sheet. Everyone else sits where they can't see the volunteer and the stuff. It might be good to have them sitting with their back to the screen. The volunteer makes a sound, using the items in front of them, and writes down what they did to create it against number one on their piece of paper.

Now everyone else tries to guess how the sound was made. Record all the suggestions against the number one on your piece of paper. Teenagers and adults will find it easy to guess many, if not most, of the sounds. Here the game is to think of as many plausible causes of the sound as you can before identifying the true source. Encourage outrageous flights of fancy. Once you have exhausted the first sound the volunteer makes another. Keep the sounds coming. Don’t let your group get bored. When you feel you've had enough, have the volunteer step out and tell you whether the guesses were right or wrong. Have them demonstrate some of the more interesting sounds in front of the other players. Now everyone can have a go at making the same sounds; and new ones too.

I'd love to know how this went for you. Oh, and I almost forgot to mention it, there are more games, like and unlike this one, in my book Adventures in Sound available from Amazon.

Learning to listen

Ah, the joys of self-employment! When there's no work I should be resting, basking in the warm glow of past success and spending my well-earned fees. Instead I'm mooching around, fretting that I'll never get any work again and seriously considering applying for unsuitable employment, positions I mean here, that would drive me insane. So when the offers finally come in I want to say yes to everything in case nothing else ever comes. I overload and get stressed by impossible and incompatible commitments and deadlines. But this is the kind of stress I love.

Just at the moment there is very little happening besides my regular woodwind teaching and occasional gigs. But suddenly I have had a variety of offers of work after Christmas, all of it exciting. Would I play clarinet and tenor sax in a production of The Threepenny Opera? Well of course. Am I interested in helping primary school children explore their concerns around death, pollution and the environment through sound? Yes, absolutely. Would I like to work with a performance poet on a project aiming to improve listening and communication skills in eight year olds, taking food as a theme? Count me in. And the icing on the cake: write some music for a video about heroes and villains. What fun!

Of course another thing about being a self-employed artist is that things rarely happen on the timescale that's been given at the outset and sometimes they never happen at all. Apart from 'Threepenny' these are all to be confirmed, but it's very exciting all the same and what fate can't take away is that I've been asked. And that's enormously flattering.

The projects involving schoolchildren will both require them to develop their listening skills and become sensitive and discerning with regard to sound. My years spent teaching woodwind have shown me that it is only when students learn to hear themselves that they become musicians whose playing might please others. This faculty arrives at different ages in different people. Like self-awareness generally it can be encouraged and facilitated but can't really be taught. This month's featured game, Copycat, is ideal for developing listening skills, especially in children, and has applications far beyond the teaching of music. Try it; it's free and without obligation. You will find that many other games in Adventures in Sound add value in a far wider context. We could all be better at listening - to ourselves and to others.

The NAF forum

Last week I attended the Norfolk Arts Forum day in Norwich. A thoroughly enjoyable get together of many members of the local artistic community. The theme was 'Internet Technology, Digital Media and the Arts' and, giving us their take on the subject, we had the very able Taylor Nuttall of Folly and the charismatic Hannah Rudman of Rudman Consulting as guest speakers. Exciting times ahead as far as technology and the arts are concerned with much public money being expended on reaching new audiences via their computer screens. While I am very interested in this aspect of the arts I can't help feeling there's something wrong with putting so much emphasis on the means of delivery at the expense of the content. I was relieved when other delegates raised concerns along similar lines. Problems with the monitoring of content for suitability to general audiences and the difficulties faced by those wishing to opt out when digital content is displayed on huge screens in public spaces were mentioned. Also brought to our attention was the irrelevance of it all to a group which gathers in a room to sing acoustically. (This left me free to put in my own question about the electromagnetic 'fog' caused by mobile and wireless devices and its effect on bees and other animals. Blank faces all around. It's as if wireless technology, like aluminium pans and nuclear power, simply has to be a 'good thing'.)

I am no Luddite and the fact that you are reading this on your computer, along with the fact that my book is available on line as a download, hopefully assures you of this. However, and you can probably feel a plug for said book coming, there is something wonderful about meeting people face to face and engaging with them in some artistic pursuit.

I am privileged to play in Jurnets Bar every now and again. This bar is in the crypt of a house that dates back to the 12th century. There is a wonderful sense of place that no virtual environment can emulate. The long history of the rooms culminating in recent decades with its use as a venue for acoustic music augments the splendid, but 'working', architecture. It was built long before electricity or the internet and will probably outlast both. Dwindling oil and gas supplies will not force its closure. Power cut nor computer crash can bring your evening to an abrupt halt. Only the time-honoured 'Drink up now, PLEASE!'

And so, finally, to Adventures in Sound. This is a book that can make use of technology if you like. It can be read in electric light or use factory-made instruments. But it requires neither. The games and activities are not culturally specific and can work anywhere. OK, I admit the facilitator needs a working knowledge of the English language but beyond that… Download the taster and let me know what you think. I can guarantee some real and meaningful interaction with your fellows. And a lot of fun.