Psychogeography: The Study Of The Specific Effects Of The Geographical Environment, Consciously Organised

Just one of the sound recordings I made in Victoria Park

Excited to be part of the community choir for this! Great to have something so interesting and promoting accessibility and the arts so close to home :)

Finally at MoMA after two years of hearing & reading about it & Loic Tallon's work on my MA Museums & Galleries in ed course & conferences :)

#norwood #funpalaces #jameswilsoncoffeeshop

Bonfire Night Session Plan

November 2016

Hello again,

I have been doing plenty of writing to describe the music sessions that I lead in L'Arche and so I thought it might be useful if I share the format that I use for them.

The sessions usually last about two hours with a twenty minute- half an hour tea break in the middle.

I am going to share the Bonfire Night session plan....

To continue from my previous blog entries... the session before the bonfire night one was about the rural work turning more to the towns and cities with the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. Elements included watching the Pandemonium section of the London Olympic Opening Ceremony. We beat on large metal and plastic flower pots and used glass nuggets to represent money in a noisy way....

I write the plan beforehand but then add any adaption I make (hence different tenses) - and there are often plenty of on the spot ideas!

As always I have many thanks to give to my fellow colleagues for taking part in the session.

Where you see the * and ** and *** you can see the ideas I learned from Emmie Ward. In particular her use of the Big Mack as a musical instrument and for recording voice. Emmie also has great techniques for the inclusion of people's vocalisations and interests into songs.  I also learned the songs for this session from Emmie. I'll ask Emmie to share more about that at some point as she has lots of great techniques :)

Bonfire Night  3

rd

November 2016

Attention Grabber Activity: Firework App on IpadFirstly just me taking it around before the hello song... everyone else got a turn in the soundscape

Soundscape: Bonfire Night Ssss of a Fizzy drink being opened, crackling of popping candy with water, firework app on ipad, sliding whistle, (rain maker (firework falling sound), crackling paper, bang of the drum (we said 1, 2, 3, bang - everyone has the opportunity to hit drum on the word bang) peoples vocal sounds on Big Mack to play (integrate their interests) *

Activity: ‘We’re all walking along to the fire’  song – action: we poured salt through a flower pot into a small washing up bowl and said it was gunpowder for the gunpowder plot and listened to how it made a quiet sound and we needed to be quiet… can say shhh –

Activity (Contd.): I then said let’s listen to find out if the plan worked! – I asked: Will there be the sound of Big Ben chiming or the sound of an explosion? We counted down and then… heard... yes big ben chiming (iPad) so the plot failedName activity: (soundabout) beat X 4 then name three times and move on. (we did one name and then another) This sort of connected as if naming the names of the conspirators pouring gun powder. (could link this more to the plot or being part of something in future) **

Rhyme: Remember, remember, poem call and response (I actually did this later in storytelling)

Rhythm: Boom Whackers – continue ‘hit, rest, rest, rest’ activity, with everyone having a chance to play them. We stamp feel throughout to keep a beat and i renew the rhythm in-between every person, but anyone can play any pattern they like as it all fits... I play it on the low red one, but again anyone can do anything... The stamping and me doing it in-between seems to help people to create a connecting rhythm.

Vocal Warm Up:Included Do re mi.

Songs:

London’s Burning

Ring of Fire (after singing through we repeated burn burn bit and people took turns to move the fire poi) ***

Great Balls of Fire (added peoples own endings to ‘Goodness Gracious) ***

East side streets....

Well I do believe that winter is just about here… and so before it fully arrives I wanted to upload some of my favourite photographs of the beautiful London Autumn with the crisp but stunning light… it may be like that every year, however, I noticed it specifically this year :)

And now just arrived at Brooklyn Museum..... Looking forward to looking around :)

Inspired by the Subway Project and more...

I've been quiet of recent… slowed down blogging upon completion of the written element of my dissertation. I have still been editing the interviews as you can see from previous posts - and have much more to do!

I quite often post links that I find useful to my course's Facebook page and was thinking that I could post some of those links here as well in case anyone is interested. Will also try and tie together some of my interests here.

As well as my museum and freelance work, I have been volunteering for the 'Inspired by the Subway' HLF project, which is a project that is collecting oral history and archive material related to the hidden subway in Crystal Palace Park. The finds will be gathered together to create a resource that will lead to an exhibition of work by local young people . Take a look at what we have been up to so far here: 

http://www.inspiredbythesubway.org.uk 

I've also been looking and applying for more work in the museum/heritage education field, which as you can imagine is quite a task! A hugely popular area to work in. However, I love what I do and feel that 2013 has been a great year for me in terms of gaining more experience and work so far! Fingers crossed for further work in 2014!

I hope 2013 has been a good year for you all and look forward to more adventures in 2014!

The Cloisters garden tour....