HOME-MADE MUSIC WORKSHOPS

(to learn more, or to host a workshop contact Eric)

This workshop is geared both to entertain and stimulate learning for a wide range of musical sophistication. An audience might consist of any of the following groups: kindergarten through 6th grade, children with developmental problems, educators, music students.

Using traditional jugband instruments such as banjo, fiddle, spoons, Jew's Harp, musical saw, washtub bass and assorted home made instruments, Eric takes the participants on an exploration of the world of sounds and rhythm and the special experience of making music together.

A variety of musical concepts are explored through both listening and active physical participation in a series of exercises sprinkled liberally with humour and action. Spoons, tin-can bongos, and plastic bottle rattles are passed around and the audience claps, sings and plays along discovering rhythms inherent in themselves and exploring how an instrument makes sound.

Eric demonstrates the physics of how sound is made using unusual instruments from the comb kazoo to his now famous sewerphone. Participants will also explore some of the rudiments of how to make music together: beginning and ending a tune, taking musical breaks, when to play and when to listen and how to follow a conductor. As a grand finale workshop members are invited to form an impromptu Jugband.

Wear very comfortable clothes.

Students are usually self-motivated to profit from the experience at their own level. Although classroom preparation is not actually required, a teacher may wish to enhance the experience by introducing concepts before the performance or, more likely, to expand on them afterwards.

Musical Concepts

1) Sound is air vibrating which reaches our ears. A musical instrument consists of a vibrator and a resonator. (Examples of vibrators: string, reed, stretched skin, metal bar. Examples of a resonators: box, tube, wood surface, metal bar). The vibrator is set in motion (e.g. by a finger, bow, breath, drumstick) and the vibrations are carried (sometimes by a bridge) to the resonator, which in turn sets the air vibrating.

Explore a piano, banjo, violin, saxophone, trombone, human voice. What is vibrating? Resonating? What sets the vibrations in motion? What happens when vibrations are slower and faster? Pluck a stretched elastic band to find out.

2) There is potential for music all around us. Making music need not be expensive. One doesn't need a lot of skill.

Find things in your every-day environment that can be made to vibrate and resonate. Try creating instruments using various household items. Here are some ideas: a xylophone made from bottles containing varying amounts of water; rhythm sticks; plastic containers filled with beans; a psaltery from elastic bands and a shoe box.

3) Making music together involves cooperation.

Explore clapping different rhythms in unison, beginning and ending together. Arrange a song with a beginning and end, giving verses to different individuals or groups of instrumentalists while the others hum, clap, or play a quiet background.

4) Making music together derives from a tradition of self-entertainment.

Have children interview parents, grandparents, and other people in the community to ascertain how they spent their leisure, entertained themselves, made music, etc. before television, extensive radio, stereos, etc. What form did a social dance take? What instruments were played in the community, and how many per neighbourhood?