Music Musings Monday - Saying goodbye

At this time of year across Australia secondary teachers are saying goodbye to their year 12 students as they prepare for final exams and departure from the school system.

Those of us teaching music (or for that matter any of the arts) know the special nostalgia of farewelling students after sharing years of arts-rich teaching and learning experiences with them - experiences which both student and teacher will remember for many years to come; probably for life.

Over the past weekend I had two opportunities to reflect on the power of music and the arts in our lives.

On Friday as I packed up to leave school, a colleague and friend mused on the coming week when she would say goodbye to her year 12 singing students. A number of these kids had done weekly voice lessons and several choir rehearsals with her for the past five years. In time the weekly lessons may retreat to the back recesses of their collective memory, but it is likely that most will carry memories of their choir performances for life.

 On Saturday I attended a reunion of my own old school year group. I attended an all-girls school and back in my day music was not offered as a subject at the school. Our school music experience involved some half-hearted group singalongs with a well-meaning volunteer teacher in the old stables building at the back of the school. Although I was learning piano outside of school, I probably played the school piano fewer than five times in as many years. Nevertheless, at the reunion several old girls asked me whether I was still playing piano. I was pretty amazed that they remembered at all – but obviously they saw the piano playing as part of who I was.

 There is no doubt that we tend to remember our school arts experiences – music concerts, drama productions, musicals, dance shows and so on. What do all of these experiences have in common? I think that part of the positive memory is tied to the discipline, practice and training that precedes the performance and contributes to the satisfaction of getting to performance standard – being stage worthy. Best practice in the performing arts is hard fun. And that is what creates those lifelong memories.

Media Term Thursday #21

Cult Film

Non-mainstream, eccentric films which avoid using traditional narrative and technical conventions. They appeal to a small but passionate audience who enjoy their controversial subject matter, oddball characters and highly stylised design. Some do achieve commercial success and some mainstream films acquire a certain ‘cult status’ but most cult films are usually too outrageous or contrived for most audiences.

They range from such movies as Freaks (1932), Reefer Madness (1936), Little Shop of Horrors (1960) and any film by director Ed Wood; to such mainstream films as Pirates of the Caribbean (2003), It’s a Wonderful Life (1946), Two for the Road (1967) and Scott Pilgrim Vs The World (2010).

Excerpt from Media Key Terms and Concepts

Drama Term Tuesday #21

Method Acting

Stanislavski

The Method

System of acting derived from Stanislavski and popularised in the USA by Group Theatre, Lee Strasberg, Stella Adler, Uta Hagen, Elia Kazan and Boleslavsky amongst others. There are various interpretations of method acting.

There is a focus on creating life-like realistic performances with actors drawing on their own emotions, memories and experiences. Based on the sense or emotional memory process, method acting focuses on actors fully immersing themselves in their characters in order to sense all of the experiences the character would sense.

Well suited to film and realistic acting, Method Acting has been highly popular and also highly criticised for over indulgent focus on internalised emotion and excess.

Excerpt from Drama Key Terms and Concepts

Media Term Thursday #20

Over Exposed

Too much light has reached the film or photographic paper to produce a correctly exposed image.

Whilst taking the photograph, the light meter will register above the line (the aperture is set too high or the shutter speed too slow to allowing too much light to hit the film), resulting in an overexposed negative.

In the darkroom, the photographic paper may be exposed for too long, resulting in an overexposed print.

Overexposed images appear as being too light.

Excerpt from Media Key Terms and Concepts

Drama Term Tuesday #20

Dada

A nihilistic art movement, which began during the First World War and thrived in France, Switzerland, Germany and The USA. The movement developed from disgust and despair over the war and was founded on theories of irrationality, anarchy and cynicism as well as a rejection of the cultural standards of art from the past. Dadaist theatre and art is often referred to as anti-art.

Excerpt from Drama Key Terms and Concepts

Media Term Thursday #19

Verisimilitude

Appearing to be true or real.

Most viewers tend to respond to the content of media presentations as though they are very close approximations of real life situations or experiences. A high degree of verisimilitude means that the work is very believable and realistic. Verisimilitude relies on credibility, plausibility, probability, actuality and/ or truthfulness.

The willingness to suspend one’s disbelief. When the intensity of the story or interest in the characters overrides our need to believe that things are scientifically correct.

Excerpt from Media Key Terms and Concepts

Drama Term Tuesday #19

Unities

Unities of time, place and action

The three principles of dramatic structure.

Unity of time: action in drama takes place in “real” or actual elapsed time; in some traditions, unity of time means that dramatic action takes place within 24 hours.

Unity of place: action takes place in one location.

Unity of action: Drama is focused through one plot with no subsidiary plots or subplots.

Excerpt from Drama Key Terms and Concepts

Media Term Thursday #18

Point-of-View

positioning, subjective

In a film, the audience is positioned to view the narrative from the perspective of one or more of the characters. As events unfold, perspective may change several times. At any one time, we are seeing the story from one point of view. The audience is encouraged (positioned) to identify with that character at that time. We may not always approve of their actions or ideas, however, our value systems will almost always be reinforced by the outcome of the film.

Point of view is very dependent on the position of the camera, framing and focus. The camera can lead us to notice certain details in a scene.

If there is a narrator, the audience is told the story from the narrator’s point of view. Whether the narrator is a character or not, their narration may be very objective or just as easily very subjective.

Excerpt From Media Key Terms and Concepts

Drama Term Tuesday #18

Gestus

Sometimes referred to as the social gest, gestus is a theatrical technique created by Brecht, which combines gesture and social meaning in one movement, stance or vocal display. It is the embodiment of an attitude or aspect of a character, it is never cliché but very specific and can only come out of a deep exploration of character, context and story. In performance it serves to alienate the audience in order to show them the bigger picture.

Excerpt from Drama Key Terms and Concepts

Music Musing Monday - Toy Pianos

One Saturday recently I drove from home to WAAPA listening (as I do most Saturdays) to Andrew Ford’s Music Show on ABC Radio National.

The featured guest that day was Margaret Leng Tan, known for her work in championing the work of John Cage since the 1980s but also in more recent times, for her use of the toy piano as a serious musical instrument.

During the program Margaret Leng Tan spoke extensively about the toy piano as a musical instrument in its own right. She also performed pieces composed for the instrument by Jed Distler and Phyllis Chen.

You can catch the program on https://www.abc.net.au

As I listened, I mused on several things.

Firstly I have never thought of using a toy piano as an actual musical instrument. I thought of them as cheap, rather tinny and unattractive-sounding Christmas gifts for children from childless relatives – the family members who would also give a toy drum kit gift to a toddler.

A quick online search revealed a number of sources for buying better quality toy pianos, though it should be noted that Margaret Leng Tan considers that the toy pianos being manufactured today are not as good as those from the last century. 

My second train of thought started when there was brief discussion about the toy piano being the perfect instrument for scoring the soundtrack for a horror movie. As I listened to performances on the instruments during the show I could definitely hear how the quality of the sound – very different from a full sized piano - could invoke tension and suspense.

As I reflected on the show I wondered - could a toy piano make a useful and versatile addition to a school performing arts department? The music department could certainly use it in improvisation and composition projects.

The media department could utilise it in sound effects. And no doubt the drama department would get in on the act as well.

Toy pianos – who would have thought!