Feb 14th: Music

On February 14^th, we each got a percussion instrument like shakers and tambourines from the trolley.  We then all closed our eyes and just played our instrument when we felt was best.  We had to time with each other and syncopate the rhythm for it to go.  The piece came to a natural end and afterwards, we all agreed that we followed the beat of the dominant sound which was Olly with his cowbell.  We tried again but tried not to follow Olly this time.  Afterwards, we agree that it didn’t work as well as there was no beat to follow.  I then got a hand drum and I led the piece with the main beat but afterwards we all agreed that the first time was still the best.  We discussed that it was because the request to just play randomly with our eyes shut was a bit abrupt and random as soon as we walked through the door and the fact that it was the best one is because it was spontaneous and none of us knew what to expect from it.  Because we thought about it more the more times we did it, it lost that spontaniousness.  We then thought of a 4 note tune on the xylophone or glockenspiel ad did the same again, just played whenever.  We discussed what we thought afterwards, some people said because we were all using different scales, some were high, some were low that it didn’t go and sounded a mess.  I disagreed; I thought that it sounded quite nice and that the fact we have a range added to the piece.  We each then came up with 3 short ideas on any instruments we wanted.  I did a short tune on the xylophone, a short piece on the hand drum and a short piece on the drum set. We then chose our favourite or best idea, mine was the xylophone and we had to write a graphic score for it and do the tasks set on the board.  They were, make it get louder, add another sound and make it get quicker then slow it down to a stop.  We then picked our favourite variation of our idea and wrote a final graphic score for it.  Mr Truscott then asked a few people to perform for the class.