Elements was a 4-week project with Wigmore Hall Learning’s Ignite ensemble.

The project was run by Julian (violin) and Lucy (double bass) who run innovative music programmes based around improvisation and collaborative creation of new music. The aim of the project was to link in with our theme of elements, using it as inspiration for making and recording some brand new pieces. The project focussed on the classical elements Air, Fire and Water as well as exploring the Big Bang and stars.

 

Week 1: The Big Bang

In the first week we wrote music inspired by the idea of the Big Bang. We came up with descriptive phrases such as ‘violent explosions’ and ‘stormy vortex’ to help us create rhythms, and drew our own constellations onto star maps to make melodies. The final pieces created in both schools include people’s individual constellations as well as starting with their ‘Big Bang music’.

Participants:  Alfie, Malika, Maya

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Week 2: Fire

Week two focussed on fire. Julian brought in a video of a bush fire which included a graph of how the temperature changed. The young people used the progression of the temperature to design the structure of their pieces, including looking at dynamics, texture and pitch. They also explored a raga based piece, Kalavati, which provided inspiration for their own fiery pieces!

Participants: Billel, Paula (and their mums!)

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Week 3: Water

In week three we thought about lots of different types of water to make some lovely music which conjures images of rain, oceans and rivers. We explored lots of different instruments and ways of playing them – listen out for pizzicato (plucked) strings and glockenspiel water droplets!

Participants:  Teyla-Marie, Veronica

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Week 4: Air

Our final session looked at air and clouds. We looked at pictures of different types of clouds and learned their names, using these to feed into rhythmic solos for our pieces. We also learned about whole-tone scales and different types of harmony including major, minor, diminished and sharp-11 chords and how they make you feel in music. We learned a groove and made up our own whole-tone solos on tuned percussion instruments to feed into our final pieces.

Participants:  Kacper, Noella, Jordan, Zaid, Pharell

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