Taking the space, be as far / as close that you can to persons of your choosing

• ending up in a cluster, starting to hum

• one by one taking hands and going to a circle

 

Norwegian cow calling with bordunas

 

From the islands near to Indonesia (Samoa): a floor dance

A story about Elisa getting Christa, Soili and others and going to a scary forest

• run

• hug

• eat

• drink

• trees

• snow

• wind

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In the forest there were a rabbit, a wolf and a fox dancing

• In groups: why are they there? What has happened? Every group performs without words.

• Teaching the song

• Square dance, band playing.

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1. Focus on the learner's experience, possibilities for learning and interaction in the session

 

Pathways in learning: what possibilities for learning and experiencing music does this situation enable?

 

The session enabled various possibilities. There was humming with everyone's own voice and listening to others in the cluster, echo and call & response in the cow-calling and in the floor dance, echo singing when Elisa was teaching the Ulv, raev, hare song and playing in the band when the group was split in the end.

 

What did you notice about the interaction and group dynamics?

 

In the session there were times of working alone, working with a small group and working as a member of a big group. The session started with the exercise of space and distances, when everybody had to choose two persons and get as far from them or as close to them as they could. Concerning group dynamics the exercise is quite clever – everybody makes their own decisions and moves on their own, but they have to be aware of everybody else's movements at the same time, and adjust their position in the room every second. An excellent exercise for a band and an orchestra! It would be interesting to think of ways to take that idea to instruments.

 

When everybody had to get as close as they could to two members of their own choosing, everybody ended up in a big cluster. It was funny that the whole group ended up on the sofa, because Christa was there! It would have been a very different experience if the instruction would have been just “get as close as you can to everybody”, although the end result would have been pretty much the same. Now everybody was aware of the two persons they had choose. Again, interesting to take this to hearing and playing exercise! For example listening to two voices in the cluster of voices, two instruments in an orchestra etc. Or adjusting your playing or singing to two other players or singers, considering the volume, pitch, tempo, even scales...

 

Next step was working as a singing group, first all together and then split in two. I enjoyed the borduna and the way Elisa was leading the choir and raising the key one step at a time with the two groups. The intervals were very clear and the singing never stopped. That created a nice flow in the moment.

 

Then everybody sat on the floor and Elisa led the Sasa floor dance. Now the group was again all together, doing the call and response with Elisa. When she revealed the “photograph” of the rabbit, fox and wolf, the group was divided into smaller units and worked towards the performance. The participants were already very comfortable with each other, as this was the second day, and the group work seemed to be enjoyable. At least the end results were very funny. The beginning of the session and the amazing energy that comes from the floor dance - the call of the drum and the sharp movements - must have helped the participants to work so well and fast together.

 

After the amazing performances there was the final thing of playing and dancing the Ulv, raev, hare -song. First there was the teaching of the song, when everybody were together and Elisa taught the lyrics and the melody. Then Soili took the bigger half of the participants, divided them in groups of four, and showed the movements. Elisa was taking care of the band, and they prepared the accompaniment to the song. I wonder how the playing would have sounded, if this part would have been right after the beginning of the session. The group was very energetic, and although the band handled their part well, I think the group dynamic wasn't ideal for playing together and listening to each other – nothing like in the cow-calling choir. Time was also running out, so I get that there wasn't much time to deal with this. Dancers got their steps very fast, and the end result of the process looked very nice!

 

 

2. Focus on the pedagogue's actions, choices and presence

 

How did the pedagogue use different positions during the session? (e.g. Leading activities, giving instructions, maintaining engagement / intensity, providing scaffolds, encouraging, listening, inspiring, co-creating, being apart of the ensemble, supporting, observing...)

 

In the beginning of the session Elisa was giving the instructions to the group. I noticed, having done this excercise a couple of times before, that the group was a bit slow to react, and participants didn't perhaps take the instructions as literally as they were meant to be taken. Elisa gave a little extra help to the group (“perhaps you need to move all the time to get as far as you can from the two people you have chosen). When the cluster of humming voices was formed, Elisa started the process of getting everybody from the cluster to the chain and in the circle, but everybody got to choose a person who they wanted to pull from the cluster. The moment was beautifully orchestrated without any words. I felt so much presence and concentration, being part of the group in this moment.

In cow-calling choir Elisa was the conductor, so the leading position was very clear, and also in the floor dance. When the participants were divided into small groups, there was no need for any leadership – the units worked alone. When there was the dancing group and the band, I observed Soili, when she was teaching the steps. She had the movements in a sheet of paper, and although she knew where to go and when, and was leading the group, I had the feeling that she was part of the group, and they were studying the steps together. Unfortunately I couldn't observe Elisa's leading of the band, as they were doing their parts at the same time.

 

How did the approaches affect the motivation, activity, agency and participation of learners?

 

This question made me think a lot. Overall I feel that the chosen material and the flow of the process have at least as much to do with the motivation and activity of the participants as the approach or the position of the teacher. If the process is well planned and the chosen exercises form a path towards the desired end result (which of course is not always clear to the teacher), the role of the teacher in the teaching situation is not that important. The fact that the teacher is there and that she is giving the right amount of instruction and direction is of course very important, but the teacher doesn't need to be the center of the group. If we look at the individual exercises, we could speculate how the different positions of the teacher affect at that specific moment, but when looking at the whole session and the process, I feel that the chosen order of exercises and the chosen focus spots in each exercise is more relevant.

 

In the beginning of the session the approach of teacher being part of the group and leading it at the same time was supporting the activity. Elisa's energy level was perhaps a little bit higher than the energy level of the participants, but this could be just my interpretation. In the cow-calling circle the activity and energy of the group felt quite high, and I think it was because the music never stopped and Elisa kept raising the key – as being part of the group, I felt that the modulations were raising the energy level as well.

 

In the floor dance Elisa was positioned in front of the group, and higher than the participants. I couldn't say if this was the reason that the energy of the group seemed to be higher than before, or if the order of the exercises, and the floor dance being in the middle of the session, affected. Either way, I'm sure that the biggest effect was Elisa's own energy and her way of leading the dance moves and the volume she used with the drum and her own voice. After the floor dance came the performance part, in which there wasn't much to teach of lead – the groups were taking the job quite seriously and were working with high energy.

 

Dialogue ad group dynamics:

How did the teacher enable dialogic learning?

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This session didn't have moments that enabled participants to teach or lead the group, but there was group work, where the participants were taking matters in their own hands. Elisa enabled it by engaging the group to the thrilling story and evoking imagination.

 

What did you notice about speech, gestures, facial expression, body language, initiatives of the pedagogue and learners?

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In the session there were calm and energetic times. The floor dance was a good example of the mutual energy between the teacher and the group, but in the beginning of the session the energy of the teacher didn't immediately transfer to the group. Did the position of the teacher and the form of the group affect this? Or just the fact that this was the first exercise, and the participants weren't quite prepared to move fast yet? I felt that the body language and facial expressions were overall quiet, and although there were members of the groups that had more energetic body language and facial expression, the pressure of the group affected them.

 

What kind of pedagogical choices were used? What kinds of possibilities for learning did these open for the learners?

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This is a hard question. It would be nice to hear what choices were made before the session and what changes to her plan did Elisa make during the session. I think that in teaching situation there are choices being made in every second – how long will each exercise and task last, what sort of feedback is given to the participants, in what way the participants are engaged to continue, is the planned order of progress good or does it need adjustments? I felt that in the beginning of the session there was the choice of not to push the group further into the exercise, but moving forward into the cluster, humming and towards the singing circle. For the learners, who I now think more as pedagogues who are interested in the process and ways of working and not as music students, this gave a little window to the many ways of taking the space, and in the bigger picture, of how to move from an energetic exercise to a concentrated and calm exercise, and how to make the transition between the group being all over the place to a very neat circle.

 

In the singing circle there was again many choices to be made: how to teach the cow-call (echo, call and response, sheet music, everybody at the same time, only a small group at a time etc.), how to try the different keys, in what formation to arrange the group, how to start and end the whole thing? Elisa decided to teach the cow-call with echo and with half of the group singing borduna all the time, and actually not giving the whole piece to the choir at all (it was always echo singing). The call was not a simple piece to sing, and I think it was clever to keep half of the group singing the borduna and listen the other half singing – the ones singing the borduna heard the parts many times, and learned the caw-call at the same time.

 

How did the pedagogue act in relation to

a) supporting and leading the structure of the session and

b) pedagogical improvisation?

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It's hard to say which of the pedagogue's acts were pre-planned and which were improvisation, but we know that the story in the floor dance was improvisational, although Elisa probably knew that she was leading the story towards the rabbit, the fox and the wolf. But that's hardly what this question means. I felt that everything Elisa did in the session was supporting the structure of the session, and the route was planned, but again, it's hard to know. This would be an interesting question to ask myself as a teacher after a session.

 

3. Focus on the process: development of the process and structure of the session

 

What elements of music practice were used and how?

(Singing, exploring voice, playing instruments, listening, movement, dance, creating, composing, improvising, visual arts, drama, stories, poems, story-crafting.)

 

Singing, exploring voice by humming, playing instruments, listening, movement, dance, creating, drama, stories.

 

How did the prepared map and structure

a) enabled pathways for learning that were initiated by the teacher?

 

This question has so many different answers depending the roles that we give to the participants and the teacher. I'm going to connect this to the next question, and look these pathways through artistic and pedagogical learning. With the artistic content I'm thinking mostly of the musical elements that were present in the exercises, and with the pedagogical content the pedagogical elements that the participants as music teachers could be interested in.

 

Artistically the session began with an exercise which enabled pathways for learning something about perception of space and one person's relation to others with physical exercises. These are both important musical skills. The humming cluster enabled learning listening skills and adapting one's own voice to others'. If I remember correctly, Elisa gave a major scale of five tones, where we build the cluster, so there was also harmonic and melodic elements. The choir circle with the cow calling song had many musically artistic possibilities for learning – maintaining the borduna, learning the melody and rhythm, listening the intonation between the borduna and the song, changing the key, again adapting one's own voice to others' voices. The Sasa floor dance enabled possibilities of learning a lot of rhythm skills, such as staying in the pulse, clapping the unison rhythm after the call of the drum, performing the dance moves within the pulse and doing them sharply (staccato). The group work with the Ulv, raev, hare -theme enabled learning performance skills and improvisation skills. The last part of the session enabled learning many skills concerning music – the band was working with harmony, rhythm, timbre, melody and lyrics, and the dancers with the choreography, coordination, poise, rhythm, melody and lyrics.

 

Pedagogically the session had many interesting ways of working with the material. The opening exercise has a lot of pedagogical potential – with only a few words and one contrast (near – far) lots of fun and useful things will happen. It was also a nice way of changing the form of the group. The cluster enables the learners to experiment a little bit with their voice, in the context of the scale. With the Ulv, raev, hare -song there was a nice pedagogical idea of doing first the story telling part and the group work about the subject, and then introduce the song. It's good reminder that it's useful to commit the group to the subject with their own work, and then introduce the part the teacher has to give to the matter.

 

b) Open up possibilities for learner-initiated improvisation and creative working? (leading, directing, structuring – improvising, creating, innovating in dialogic process)

 

The Ulv, raev, hare -process gave the biggest possibility for creative working and improvising, especially when the participants were creating their own performances. The band work probably gave room for their own musical creating as well, as they were able to choose their instruments and work with the harmony to create an accompaniment for the song.

 

What kind of artistic, pedagogical, interactive, holistic piece of art did the session build?

 

Artistically the session had many elements – listening, speaking and singing, instrument playing, movement and dance, art integration and improvising, expressing and creating were all present in the session. The group were in contact with the form of music, rhythm, melody, harmony, dynamics and sound colour. Pedagogically there were several working methods used: simultaneous imitation, echo, call and response, ostinatos, exploration, improvisation, arrangement and games. The session gave possibilities for interaction in many levels – there was solo work, small groups, everybody together and teacher against the rest of the group. Holistically the session set up a nice environment for developing participants physical, artistic, creative and social potentials.