This page describes the practical realisation of the notes from stage 1 carried out by Fraser Trainer and members of the London Sinfonietta, with staff and students from St. Martin’s in the Field School, Tulse Hill, London and Maria Fidelis Convent School, Euston, London.
The first visit to both schools began by introducing the London Sinfonietta musicians to the students and explaining everyone's role in the project. The students introduced themselves.
Fraser Trainer then gave a brief introduction to Toru Takemitsu and his music, before beginning some practical exercises:
1. To prepare for working with the music of Takemitsu, we first explored the differences in pulse based, rhythmically constructed music, with that of Takemitsu's more free, flexible approach to rhythm.
First we said our names, one by one, over a strong pulse. Then we increased the rhythmic energy by asking the whole group to respond by repeating each name in unison.
This exercise was then developed in a very different way to produce rhythms of a completely contrasting nature. Each student was asked to experiment with the amount of silence inbetween each spoken name, making sure that at no time did we introduce a regular pulse. To complete this process we manufactured a "wave-form" in which the gaps between each spoken name became shorter and shorter before getting longer again.
To all these exercises the students responded extremely well, listening and concentrating to a high degree.
2. Next we introduced the Japanese "dark scale" and Takesmitsu's own mode which is used in Tree Line. We first sang the modes before learning them on our instruments.
Students from St. Martin’s in the Field school
The students were encouraged to become familiar with the modes and scales by playing solos and improvising with notes from the scale over a drone and simple accompaniment.
Students from Maria Fidelis Convent school
3. For the final part of the session, the classes split into three groups, each composing and orchestrating their own melodies from either the "dark scale" or Takesmitsu's own mode.
4. We performed and recorded each melody and experimented with improvising a simple accompaniment to each.
St Martin's in the Field:1.
2.
3.
Combined
Maria Fidelis Convent school1.
2.
3.
Combined
All the melodies invented will be developed and added to in the future workshops.
[stage 1] [stage 2] [stage 3] [stage 4] [ls 1] [ls 2] [ls 3] [ls 4]
Contact us: treeline@soundintermedia.co.uk
