Writing by playing: ‘Cascara’

a piece to compose together

by LUCA ZARBANO
    School sections
    • Upper secondary school
    Educational subjects
    • Instrumental practice
    • Music, Rhythm and movement
    • Aural skills (Ear training)
    • Composition
    • Theatre/music
    • Music and technologies

Writing by playing: ‘Cascara’

The activity consisted in a collective composition, under the teacher’s guidance, of a musical piece for percussion instruments and body percussion to be played in ensemble. The specific piece composed originated from the musical stimulus proposed by the teacher, consisting of three rhythmic patterns, that were developed and structured by a group of students in a laboratory process. The final product of the activity consisted in a musical piece composed openly, which is still often performed during concerts and events in which the upper secondary school Liceo Musco participates, but with one or more improvised variants, evidence of the fact that the students have interiorized the processes regardless of the final product, which due to its intrinsic nature has remained dynamic and open.

Work tools

In order to carry out the activity, the spaces and instruments necessary were as follows:
- A classroom capable of holding 15-20 students

- Internet connection 

- A percussion instrument and a chair for each student
- A music processing software 
 

At the upper secondary school Musco, three classrooms were used: a classroom dedicated to the recording, the percussion instruments classroom and the auditorium. These classrooms were necessary in particular due to the high number of students involved, and to the need for large spaces given the movements that each student had to carry out during rehearsals considering the scenery to be used.

Educational purposes

The skills, goals and training objectives selected by the teacher for this experience are shown below.

Competences
    Listening
    • Interpretation
    • Analysis
    Production
    • Execution
    • Improvisation
    • Composition
    Reading and Writing
    • Use of conventional analogic music notation
GOALS FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF COMPETENCES [...]
Educational targets

The competences that the project aimed to develop were as follows:
- competences relating to specific learning objectives in line with those laid down in Ministerial Decree no. 201 of 06/08/1999, that is – with regard to competences:
- learn how to perform rhythmic patterns in 4/4 on membrane instruments 

- learn how to control different dynamics, accents and ghost notes

- learn how to play in group 

- learn how to write and read, in a score, the rhythmic patterns learned by ear and by imitation
- learn how to improvise during the performance in the parts where improvisation is required by the actual score

These competences corresponded to the following Specific Learning Objectives:
- Technical control in the various dynamics, and control of the sonorous quality 

- Development of the ability to read while playing an instrument, understood as the ability to correlate sign-gesture-sound

- Transversal competences, in line with the National indications as to the curriculum and with the European key competences, that is:
- Transversal competences relating to self-development;
- Digital competences

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