How to Play Your World
A Series of Musical Experiments for the Daring Educator Richard Marsella edited by Ben Bolden with illustrations by Gregory Pepper
© Copyright 2017 R. Marsella Illustrations © copyright 2017 Gregory Pepper Design: Gareth Lind, LINDdesign Published by Musagetes, Guelph, Ontario, Canada, with support from the Canadian Music Centre. ISBN: 978-0-9877238-6-4
The Rack
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Grade 2
Benefits
Pre-listening: Evergreen Club Contemporary Gamelan, Harry Partch
Materials • 5 lengths of 2" × 4" lumber • 4" Wood screws • Wood balls (1 per students) • 6" dowel (1 per student) • 1 pointing stick (for the conductor)
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Discussion: Discuss Javanese gamelan music and the idea of a communal group of people all combining to play one larger instrument. The New Harvard Dictionary of Music defines gamelan as “a musical ensemble” from Indonesia. Indonesian or Malay ensembles usually have gongs, gong-chimes, metallophones, and drums. Gamelan music is deeply rooted in Javanese culture, and is sometimes accompanied by shadow puppetry. Certain rituals are accompanied by different musical tonalities, and rhythms. Some pieces can last for days, depending on the ritual: funerals, weddings, religious festivals, etc.
How to Play Your World
The Rack
I built the rack illustrated opposite in 2005 while doing a special project at The Ross Creek Centre for the Arts, in Canning Nova Scotia. The rack is a fun instrument to introduce students to ensemble performance, and to following a conductor. It includes young students in an opportunity to develop a simple set of musical rules and follow them in a game-like structure. The Rack is a junkyard version of the gamelan.
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BENEFITS THE RACK is a great way to get young students following a set of simple musical rules. It teaches students: • Ensemble performance
Other Ideas
• Musical improvisation using simple rules
• Explore rituals in your own cultures to apply to The Rack.
• Creative student conducting
• Try building it into an already existing playground by partnering with your location city planner.
• Rule-making for musicians
• Launch a shadow puppet show with your class, where half the class performs on the rack, while the other half performs the shadow puppet show.
• How to use musical symbols (e.g., p, f, FAST, SLOW)
• Create and follow a score. I recommend devising your own functional score with your students, developing your musical language and notation symbols once you’ve mounted sound-makers to the rack.
• A better understanding of timbre, by mounting objects that produce different sounds on The Rack
• Instead of a shadow puppet show, how about scoring the soundtrack to an old silent film? There are many public domain vaudeville cartoons and short films available for free on the Internet, and these films work perfectly to begin accentuating visuals with music. Better yet… produce your own film and have the students perform a live soundtrack on The Rack! As you can see, there are no limits once you’ve built it.
Primary Units – Grades 1 to 3
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The Rack
Preparation Before your students arrive, pre-build a long frame using either wood, or ABS piping. The frame should be about 3 or 4 feet in height. If you use ABS piping, you can construct the frame using plumbing elbows and t-bars. Secure it with ABS cement or wood screws. Pre-drill holes into the horizontal wood plank so each of your students can mount a sound to The Rack. If all of your students cannot fit on one length of wood, you may have to build two frames in order to accommodate everybody. Once I found an old swing set in a dumpster and we used that to suspend our found objects.
Rack Ingredients
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How to Play Your World
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The Rack
How to Play
Symbols
When your students arrive, first compile a list of percussive objects to potentially attach to The Rack. Throughout the course of about a week or longer, students should bring in the objects from the list, and other sounds that they experiment with. Attach each object with string, and make simple mallets, using one wood ball and dowel per student. You can even pre-drill small holes and add guitar strings to The Rack using screw eyes to mount on the other end. A Styrofoam cooler guitar³¹ will work well (mount with washer and screw eye) as a resonator for the guitar strings.
Suggested symbols that you can add to THE RACK: • p = piano (play softly) • f = forte (play loudly) • FAST = play quickly • SLOW = play slowly • <> = play one after the other • s = solo (conductor points)
Symbols On one of the vertical side planks, draw a set of large symbols for all of the students to follow (see sidebar). Students can also come up with their own musical symbols throughout the year. This gives them direct creative input into how their music will sound and into the fun art of rule making. Choose one student at a time to explore conducting by pointing to each of the symbols. While doing this in Guelph in 2013 for my Scheherazade remix project, a creative student came up with Play What I Draw using a blackboard, chalk and an eraser. This gives young students early, low-stress conducting experience. Playing The Rack is great for outdoor or indoor concerts.
• Laugh = all laugh • SING a FUNNY sound • Scrape • Shoes • Play What I Draw
Primary Units – Grades 1 to 3
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How to Play Your Bathroom
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The Daring Grade 3/4 Soloist
Background
Benefits How to Play Your Bathroom teaches students: • score reading • time signatures and rhythms • alternative musicmaking and concert development • timbre
How to Play Your Bathroom is a fun solo piece that students should take home to perform. Once students can distinguish note values, and basic score reading, they should introduce this piece as an alternative musical composition. The piece explores the different sounds in the bathroom, and the wonderful potential that all sounds offer. If we can learn to not discriminate between “musical” and “non-musical” sounds, we can redefine music. Teachers should discuss different spaces in society, from city hall to the library to the bathroom. Students should be encouraged to compile lists of the different sounds associated with different spaces. Once they’ve done this, they should attempt to mix unexpected sounds from each environment. For example, how might an office bell and a typewriter sound in a subway station?
An Added Treat Offer an alternative music series in your school, where students are encouraged to perform a set of short concerts in non-traditional places. For example, students can get very excited about a bathroom concert series, or a weekly recess concert series under a distinct tree. Poster making and other promotional tactics are also usually embraced with this series. Be sure to discuss why this is important. A concert series should be taken seriously anywhere it is launched. We must return to an age where music can be appreciated in spaces other than the mere concert hall. Students usually remark that the music actually sounds better acoustically in the bathroom than in the main concert auditorium space!
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How to Play Your World
How to Play Your Bathroom
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Ingredients Flushing toilet Teeth brushing Spit sound Water tap Gargling Blow dryer Toilet paper rolling Toilet paper tearing
Score Review
Nose blowing
The teacher should distribute one copy of the score (refer to Appendix D7) to each student and review the piece during class time. Students should feel excited to go home and try performing and recording it. How to Play Your Bathroom does not give any pitch details. It gives rhythmic instructions, and is organized to begin getting students comfortable with reading a score.
Spraying the mirror Cleaning the mirror Running a bath Rubber duck squeak Fan Pouring water into a toilet bowl
Conclusion How to Play Your Bathroom is a humourous piece of music. It makes fun of music, in a sense, by squeezing sounds out of a mundane environment. Students should be encouraged to evolve their own graphic notation systems, to compose their own similar pieces, and share them with their peers. Some might ask: “Would you actually listen to somebody playing their bathroom and call it music?” I think that with imagination, the sounds found in a bathroom can become just as expressive as any traditional instrument.
Primary Units – Grades 1 to 3
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How to Play Your Kitchen Families of All Sizes
Background How to Play Your Kitchen is a fun piece that students should take home to try and perform with their families. This composition is more elaborate than How to Play Your Bathroom, as it mixes different rhythms depending on the number of participating musicians. The piece explores the different sounds found in the kitchen (refer to Appendix D8). Teachers should discuss different spaces in society, from city hall to the library to the bathroom. Students should be encouraged to compile lists of the different sounds associated with different spaces. Once they’ve done this, they should attempt to mix unexpected sounds from each environment. For example, how might a train whistle sound in a closet? These exercises get young children thinking about sound, the environment, and their relation to music making.
Score Review 10 minutes The teacher should distribute one copy of the score to each student and review the piece during class time. Students should feel excited to go home and try recording a performance of this piece with their families. How to Play Your Kitchen does not give any pitch details in it. It gives rhythmic instructions, and is organized to begin getting students comfortable with reading a score.
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How to Play Your World
How to Play Your Kitchen
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Ingredients Cheese grater (with yams) Oven door Glasses Large stainless steel bowls (with water) Scissors Spoons Fork on cookie sheet Sharpening knives Sloppy banana/apple eating Mustard squeezing
Conclusion
Cracking eggshells
How to Play Your Kitchen is not too serious a piece of music. It makes fun of music in a sense, by squeezing sounds out of a mundane environment. Students should be encouraged to evolve their own graphic notation systems, to compose their own similar pieces, and share them with their peers. This approach costs very little, but is abundant with creative learning stems.
Whipping cream from a can Microwave timer Several radios
Primary Units – Grades 1 to 3
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The Fart Machine
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Grades 7 and up
MaKey Makey is a new, and affordable technology that allows everyday objects to be transformed into triggers and touchpads. Anything that conducts energy is fair game to try, for example, bananas and peppers could be transformed into keys on a strange vegetable keyboard! Discuss MaKey Makey technology, and give a basic introduction to the technology to your class. This is a great way to introduce your students to the idea of conductors of electricity, perhaps bringing in the Theremin too at this point? For example, a green pepper, an aloe vera plant, and graphite pencils are all great conductors for triggering sounds using MaKey Makey. From there, the mission is to build a fart machine, triggering sample fart sounds using MaKey Makey. Be creative, and see what your students bring to the assignment. This one is a great springboard from the Whoopee Cushion Organ, discussed elsewhere in this manual, and once again usually generates smiles, accidental learning, and serious engagement from your students!
Junior Units – Grades 4 to 8
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The Whoopee Cushion Organ
D1 Materials • Long ABS pipe piece (1) • Short ABS pipe piece (1)
• Self-inflating whoopee cushion (2) • String (1)
Directions Safety Concerns Be careful when handling the edges of the ABS piping. It can possibly cut your hands.
1. With a piece of masking tape and a marker, please write your name on one of the ABS pipes. 2. Apply masking tape on the ends of your piece of string. 3. With your partner’s help, tie double knots around both holes of the short ABS pipe piece. 4. With duct tape, apply three strips under each whoopee cushion, connecting one cushion to the end of both the long and short ABS pipe pieces.
Tip Teamwork will get you there faster!
5. With the help of an adult, fasten both pipes together with ABS cement.
How to play The whoopee cushion organ plays different notes, by blowing air through different lengths of ABS pipe. With a group of friends, you can play your favourite melodies! This instrument is sure to bring a smile to your face, but after a while, we hope that you can forget that the sound is funny, and become more interested in making interesting music with the instrument.
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How to Play Your World
Styro-Guitar
D2
A
Tools
Materials
• Sand paper and mask • Screw driver
• Styrofoam cooler or sauce can (1)
• Tape strips
• Washer (1)
• Skewer
• Small screw (1) • Screw eye (1)
Directions
• Wood plank (1)
1. Write your name in marker on your wood piece.
• Dowel (1)
2. Feed the guitar string completely through the hole marked with the letter “A”.
• Tuning peg (1)
3. Line up the guitar string to the end of the wood plank. Using a marker, mark the end of the wood, where you would like the tuning peg to be placed.
• String
• Guitar string (1)
Construction Instructions and Handouts
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D2
Styro-Guitar
Safety Concerns • Be careful of splinters when handling the wood pieces. • Use duct tape to cover all of the metal parts that look dangerous. • Use extra caution when handling the guitar string. • When you are winding up the string, wind it away from your eyes, as the string could snap. • Wash your hands after each time you handle your instrument.
4. Find the tuning peg and line it up with your mark. Once you are happy with where the tuning peg is placed, you may screw it into the wood with your small screw. 5. Once the tuning peg is tightly screwed in, you may begin winding up the string by feeding it through the tuning peg. Wind up the string slowly, to make sure that it does not break. 6. Call your instructor to cut off the end of the guitar string. 7. Once your guitar string is wound up, carefully insert the dowel piece under the string. This will raise the string enough to vibrate. 8. Apply the duct tape pieces on the end of the cut string for safety. 9. With the medium screw eye, place the washer in the centre of the Styrofoam cooler, and gently screw a hole through it. 10. Tighten the screw and washer into the wood plank through the letter marked “S” (or “C” if you’re using a sauce can) until the Styrofoam is secure. The Styrofoam (or sauce can) allows your guitar strings to resonate, and for you to hear the guitar easily. 11. Wrap masking tape around both ends of your strings and poke them through the remaining holes of the wood plank. Use the skewer if required to help the string through. 12. Tie triple knots on both ends, and the string will serve as your strap.
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How to Play Your World
Styro-Guitar
D2
How to play The student should hold the instrument like a guitar, plucking the strings with the right hand, while changing the length of the strings with the other. A guitar pick is recommended. Pick lightly, not violently, or your guitar string will go out of tune easily. You may use a spoon in your left hand to experiment with changing the length of the string. Listen to how the pitch changes as you change the length of the string! Try to play simple melodies on the guitar.
Construction Instructions and Handouts
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d7
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How to Play Your Bathroom Score
How to Play Your World
How to Play Your Bathroom
Construction Instructions and Handouts
d7
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d8
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How to Play Your Kitchen Score
How to Play Your World
About the Author Richard Marsella is the Executive Director of the Regent Park School of Music, and a PhD candidate at the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Music. Since 1996, he has released over ten studio recordings and toured the world under the artist name Friendly Rich. Learn more about his work at friendlyrich.com.
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How to Play Your World