CNMN > Projects > Exploring First Nations Ways of Knowing, Doing and Being Through Composition

Keitha Clark

  • Instruments acoustiques
  • 13 à 18 ans
  • Intergénérationnel

1.5 hours of class time ( 2 sessions) // 2-6 hours of individual creation time

  • Éducation
  • Diversité

Exploring First Nations Ways of Knowing, Doing and Being Through Composition

description

This col­la­bo­ra­tive pro­ject took place in the spring of 2022 with Den­nis Shor­ty and mem­bers of the Fidd­le­heads, a youth fiddle ensemble in Whi­te­horse. The pro­ject focu­sed on fin­ding ways to inte­grate a local First Nations sto­ries and musi­cal expe­riences into pri­vate les­sons and ensemble music classes.

ABOUT THE PEOPLE :

Pri­vate Fiddle Tea­cher Kei­tha Clark : 

Kei­tha Clark lives and teaches in Whi­te­horse, Yukon, on the tra­di­tio­nal ter­ri­to­ry of the Kwan­lin Dün First Nation and the Ta’an Kwä­ch’än Coun­cil. Her stu­dents range in age from 7–15, and her prac­tice focuses on connec­ting com­mu­ni­ties and cultures through fidd­ling. Kei­tha has a a pri­vate stu­dio with 25 stu­dents in Whi­te­horse and has also foun­ded fiddle pro­grams in Tes­lin and Haines Junc­tion. She is cur­rent­ly wor­king on her Mas­ters of Edu­ca­tion with a focus on how to improve arts pro­gram­ming deli­ve­ry in remote nor­thern communities. 

Elder Den­nis Shorty :

Den­nis is a Kas­ka musi­cian, artist and know­ledge kee­per from the com­mu­ni­ty of Ross River, Yukon. His music is writ­ten in the Kas­ka Dena lan­guage and cele­brates the land, ani­mals, res­pect, ances­tors and tra­di­tions. Den­nis and his part­ner, Jen­ni­fer Fröh­ling, per­form as Dena Zagi. They have played venues in Cana­da and Ger­ma­ny, and their album, Gucho Hin, was nomi­na­ted for both an Indi­ge­nous Music Award and a Cana­dian Folk Music Award.

ABOUT THE PROJECT (FROM KEITHA):

 I have wor­ked with Den­nis and Jen­ny for seve­ral years. I first met them at a com­mu­ni­ty BBQ while tea­ching fiddle at the school in Ross River, and we ended up jam­ming in their garage that eve­ning (super fun!). I went on to be part of their band and played at various fes­ti­vals and com­mu­ni­ty gathe­rings in the Yukon with them.

This pro­ject grew out of a com­mis­sion I recei­ved to arrange a ver­sion of Den­nis’ song, Gucho Hin (Ancestor’s Song), for the All City Band (with The Fidd­le­heads) for their spring 2022 concert. This was a large ensemble arran­ge­ment for 60 musi­cians with 25 dif­ferent ins­tru­men­tal parts. (The All City Band suc­cess­ful­ly applied for fun­ding from the Yukon Govern­ment to cover fees for Den­nis and Jen­ny, the com­mis­sion, tra­vel costs, venue and recording.)

Check out the video clip of the All City Band/Fiddleheads per­for­ming Gucho Hin.

This com­po­si­tion pro­ject was deve­lo­ped out of a desire to create addi­tio­nal oppor­tu­ni­ties for stu­dents to explore and respond to Den­nis” story.

EXPLORING FIRST NATIONS WAYS OF KNOWING, DOING AND BEING THROUGH COMPOSITION

Pro­ject Goals

  • Create a short, ori­gi­nal com­po­si­tion that responds to the expe­riences, sto­ries and culture Den­nis Shor­ty shares in this lear­ning video.
  • Reflect and engage with dif­ferent cultures using non-Euro­cen­tric ways of kno­wing, doing and being. 
  • Explo­ring how you can use the ele­ments of music to express your own ideas and emo­tions, as well as reflect the ideas and emo­tions of others.

Pro­ject Stages 

Stage One – Col­la­bo­ra­tive Brains­tor­ming (via Zoom – 45 minutes)

Stu­dents gathe­red on Zoom to watch Den­nis” lear­ning video, dis­cuss the main themes and ideas, and explore how they wan­ted to connect those ideas to their own crea­tive res­ponse using the ele­ments of music. 

Stage Two – Inde­pendent Com­po­si­tion Deve­lop­ment (2–4 hours per student)

Stu­dents used the basic ele­ments of music (pitch, rhythm, timbre, temp, dyna­mics, etc.) to convey their ideas. Examples include using ascen­ding scale frag­ments to convey the moun­tain pass Den­nis’ fami­ly would climb ; using piz­zi­ca­to to convey Den­nis’ Grand­ma picking ber­ries ;  incor­po­ra­ting minor scales and bars with extra beats to convey the uncer­tain­ty and sad­ness of Den­nis being taken away to resi­den­tial school.

(See below to view and down­load the Crea­tive Para­me­ters Han­dout used in this project.)

Stage Three – Ins­truc­tor Feedback/ Recor­ding Prep (1 hour)

Stu­dents wor­ked in Garage Band to record and arrange their com­po­si­tions inde­pen­dent­ly. (We were honou­red to have Den­nis and Jen­ny create a spe­cial tra­di­tio­nal drum track for the stu­dents to work with as they were wri­ting as well.) 

Once stu­dents had a first draft com­ple­ted, they emai­led Kei­tha the audio for feed­back. Stu­dents then had two days to make the final adjust­ments on their com­po­si­tions and cla­ri­fy their arrangements. 

Stage Four- Recor­ding the com­po­si­tions (15–30 minutes)

For the video, stu­dents were asked to intro­duce them­selves and their topic, the land­scape or expe­rience they were wri­ting about, thank Den­nis for sha­ring his sto­ry, include an expla­na­tion of how they used the ele­ments of music to express their ideas and brie­fly des­cribe how this pro­ject chan­ged how they think about music. 

Stage Five – Student Feed­back (30 minutes)

After wat­ching each other’s per­for­mances, stu­dents were asked to pro­vide feed­back to their peers. (Because the pro­ject was most­ly online, stu­dents crea­ted writ­ten feed­back on Pad­let for this.)

Feed­back cri­te­ria included : 

  • A com­pli­ment-  Be spe­ci­fic, did you like how they used a cer­tain scale, dyna­mic, rhythm etc. to convey their idea, or a unique pers­pec­tive they brought to their tune idea ? 
  • A com­ment on a way that they refe­ren­ced Dennis’s sto­ry or idea- What did you like about the way that they did this ? Is there any­thing you would like to see more of ?
  • A ques­tion – What kind of ques­tion would encou­rage the com­po­ser to take their work to the next level ? Examples include : What would you change about your piece if you were wri­ting this again ? What was your favou­rite part about this pro­ject ? Has this pro­ject chan­ged how you view music ? 

Conclu­sion

I loved doing this pro­ject with the fidd­lers ! They crea­ted work that sho­wed a lot of lis­te­ning and lear­ning ; both about the sto­ries and expe­riences Den­nis sha­red, and for how to find mea­ning­ful ways to reflect and respond to those expe­riences through music.

It was also ama­zing wor­king with Den­nis and Jen­ny for this pro­ject ! I was honou­red to have this oppor­tu­ni­ty, and gra­te­ful to Den­nis and Jen­ny for their willin­gness to share their music and sto­ries with our community.

Below are three examples of what the fidd­lers com­po­sed and reflec­tions on their learning :

Thoughts

Here are a few thoughts about this pro­ject and why com­po­si­tion is an impor­tant part of crea­ting cultu­ral unders­tan­ding (view video here).

Trans­crip­tion :

I thought this pro­ject was real­ly suc­cess­ful because the kids are real­ly enga­ged in the work, and we were able to reflect Den­nis” sto­ries and expe­rience in real­ly mea­ning­ful ways. I think one of the most power­ful things we can deve­lop as musi­cians is the abi­li­ty not just to create but to lis­ten in a real deep and mea­ning­ful way. I think the kids were able to do this with this pro­ject, and show true lis­te­ning to Den­nis” sto­ries and then show a real mea­ning­ful res­ponse by how they approa­ched wri­ting their tunes and what they reflec­ted in their pieces. 

To me that was the most satis­fying part of the pro­ject, get­ting to see them deve­lop those lis­te­ning skills and then be able to respond with their own crea­tive voices to what Den­nis’ sto­ries and expe­riences were. I think that’s such a gift of the crea­tive pro­cess : to be able to give young musi­cians the chance to lis­ten to expe­riences and sto­ries from dif­ferent cultures and find ways to mea­ning­ful­ly respond to those with the musi­cal skills they have and that they can deve­lop through these projects.

“In a way the world is a huge com­po­si­tion – a huge musi­cal com­po­si­tion that’s going on all the time, without a begin­ning and pre­su­ma­bly without an ending. We are the com­po­sers of this huge mira­cu­lous com­po­si­tion that’s going on around us and we can improve it, or we can des­troy it. We can add more noises, or we can add more beau­ti­ful sounds. It’s all up to us.” (R. Mur­ray Scha­fer in Lis­ten (2009), a docu­men­ta­ry film.)

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