Expérience 3: Music From Scratch

[traduction française non disponible]

Friday, February 27, 2009, from 3:45 pm to 4:00 pm

With Jerry Pergolesi — Artistic Director, Contact Contemporary Music (Toronto)

(The following is the complete presentation, provided by Jerry Pergolesi)

Summary

Music From Scratch is a free, week-long summer workshop for youth presented by Contact Contemporary Music in association with University Settlement Music & Arts School. Community members with and without musical training are engaged in the process of creating music. The workshop provides a means for participants to explore alternative ways to be creative with music, that involves listening to their environment in a different way, and to organize their thoughts in new ways in order to convey their (musical) message. Together, participants in the workshop, along with artists create works that explore their environment and personal lives. Participants are given several new tools with which they are now able to think creatively in order to express their own realities.

Music From Scratch

In partnership with University Settlement Music & Arts School, Contact Contemporary Music presents “Music From Scratch”, a free, week-long workshop for young people between 15 and 21 years of age. Guided by professional Canadian composer Juliet Palmer, participants engage in creative listening, writing, vocal, movement, graphic and improvisation exercises leading to the performance of a series of collaborative sound works. The creative process is facilitated by the CONTACT ensemble; professional musicians well-versed in improvisation and experimental music. Palmer’s approach is rooted in acoustic ecology and a belief in the innate human capacity for creativity. Through a multi-sensory engagement with our natural and urban environments, participants develop new skills and the confidence to take risks both as listeners and creators. Emphasizing acoustic sound and face-to-face interactions, we step outside the virtual worlds, which increasingly occupy young people’s attention. The workshop develops a greater awareness of human impact on natural systems, diverse social structures as expressed in musical forms and an openness to new artistic expression.

I was fortunate enough to experience the week-long Music From Scratch workshop in July of 2007. As a recent graduate from Memorial University’s School of Music, I was interested in immersing myself in a musical opportunity that combined individuals from diverse backgrounds with varied musical skill levels. The workshop was a great opportunity to explore music from many perspectives and its level of economic accessibility ensured that many views were represented. I left the workshop with a renewed love of music, many ideas and many more friends. Opportunities such as this are few and far between — I think that anyone, no matter their age or occupation, would benefit from participating in Music From Scratch.

Allison Corbet

Community members with and without musical training are engaged in the process of creating music. The workshop provides a means for participants to explore alternative ways to be creative with music, that involves listening to their environment in a different way, and to organize their thoughts in new ways in order to convey their (musical) message. Together, participants in the workshop, along with artists create works that explore their environment and personal lives. Participants are given several new tools with which they are now able to think creatively in order to express their own realities.

Participants are invited to meet daily in a rehearsal setting where works are created and developed throughout the week-long workshop, culminating in a final concert presentation. Although there is a concert scheduled to present the resulting works, the focus of this project is the richness of the experience, participating in the creative process, exploration and collaboration that will be afforded to learners of all ages and artists alike. Each participant was also given a recording of the final concert (see support material).

Participants are encouraged to “join” the ensemble as performers, however it is not a pre-requisite that participants play a musical instrument or have musical training in order to participate in the project. Participants are invited to take part in “open rehearsals” featuring works such as Riley’s In C and Ann Southam’s improvisatory Throughways, challenging learners to re-think what they know (or might think they know) about structured composition.

The objectives of the workshop are:

• To create a forum for artists and community members to exchange ideas.
• To provide community members who may or may not have musical training the opportunity to be creative and present musical works that tell their stories and empower individuals.
• To create new musical works which reflect present realities while maintaining a universal appeal
• To broaden the scope of new music organizations’ reach into the community in a significant and meaningful way.
• To engage youth in a community based art/music project during the summer months to encourage collaboration, learning and musical experimentation

Music From Scratch offers youth an opportunity to explore new ways of expressing themselves; new ways of listening and engaging with music, art and their environment. For artists, the workshop is a new forum to reach out to the community, in particular, youth who are future music and art creators, listeners and supporters.

The new music community needs this kind of workshop to connect with people outside of its regular support base. Participants come from all walks of life with various levels of exposure to music… most have little or no knowledge of contemporary music. This is a small but significant step in connecting and building links to the community at large.

Part of Contact Contemporary Music’s mandate is to engage audiences and make contemporary music accessible and available to everyone. New, experimental music is at the forefront of musical creative expression. Many popular artists of today owe the existence of their careers to the research and experimentation of “contemporary” musical pioneers who created works and musical genres that have now entered into our popular consciousness.

Music From Scratch is unique in that the program integrates composers, musicians and community members at the same time, so that the response to ideas is immediate, allowing for further exploration, change in approach or further development of ideas instantly. We were able to literally place a group of people from different backgrounds and various levels of musical experience (from no experience to music PhD’s) and have them exchange ideas in a cooperative way where all participants are treated equally.

Evaluation

Progress is measured through daily exercises, trial of ideas (with immediate feedback from the ensemble) and daily discussions as to how the workshop was affecting the participants. The program ends with a performance that is open to the public but is more focused on family and friends. Participants are encouraged to document their progress throughout the project in order to contribute to a survey to help evaluate our effectiveness and success in delivering the program.

Impact/Results

In July 2007, Contact Contemporary Music instigated a workshop called Music From Scratch, enlisting youth to collaborate with composer Juliet Palmer and members of the CONTACT ensemble in a free week-long workshop. This workshop was at capacity in its first year, and challenged participants to hear their world and communicate in new ways. We created music collaboratively using various unconventional techniques such as graphic notation, improvisation and found objects… people with no musical training side by side with professional artists, communicating, collaborating and creating. Our goal was to broaden the scope of our organization into the community. The success of the program far exceeded our expectations.

Music From Scratch was featured in a full-page article in the Toronto Star (music critic John Terauds actually participated in the workshop), leading to an inquiry from Sheridan College to create a similar workshop for early childhood education teachers, so that the same experience can be had by teachers and passed on to younger children.

The participants of the workshop also created a "Music From Scratch" Facebook group that is growing, and is an extremely positive indicator of the success of the workshop. Members of the group have begun exploring other new music groups on Facebook, My Space Music, and other internet sources. This forum is also a way for Contact Contemporary Music to keep in touch with participants and reach out to the community through the internet. The Facebook group is driven by workshop participants, not the organization, so it is organic in its structure and growth.