Working
with Sirocco

Towards the end of Term 1 2005, all secondary and central schools received a copy of the Musica Viva In Schools Sirocco resource kit, as the first phase of a project entitled Multicultural perspectives through music. This project was a partnership between Curriculum K-12 Directorate and Musica Viva Australia and was funded by the Multicultural Programs Unit. It addressed multicultural perspectives in the new Music Years 7-10 Syllabus, offering secondary music teachers an opportunity to enhance their understandings of cultural diversity and inclusivity in their teaching practice.

The Sirocco resource kit containing a CD of musical examples, teaching strategies and background information has provided a valuable resource for all schools. The second part of the project was a series of one-day professional development courses which enabled participating teachers to workshop multicultural music with the members of Sirocco. The workshops were held in the Goulburn Regional Conservatorium of Music, Joan Sutherland Performing Arts Centre Penrith, Australian Technology Park, Redfern and Coffs Harbour Education Campus.

Teachers found the experience of playing and improvising with professional musicians both stimulating and valuable. They gained new repertoire, new ideas and new approaches to improvising and composing in the classroom; they found the exposure to new playing techniques and exotic instruments inspiring, and developed a valuable insight into Sirocco's music and musical processes.

 

Multicultural music comes to the ute capital

Matthew Kiley, music teacher at Deniliquin High School, talks about how his Year 10 class has made use of the Sirocco resources.

In a unit on Australian music I have tried to give Year 10 a very broad perspective on Australian culture by studying everything from Aboriginal music (both traditional and popular), to folk music, country, jazz, rock, art music and multicultural music. So, when the Sirocco resource landed on my desk it was perfect timing.

The resource itself has some excellent information and is set out in a very easy to use format. It was very easy to put it to use straight away in my teaching program and we started at the beginning with Track 1 Pacific.

Students worked through and discussed the listening activities for Pacific. Some activities, like the melody dictation, had to be shortened for some students to make it manageable. I also like to play the melody as many times as the students need to hear it. This helps the students get used to listening and reduces the pressure of worrying they have to complete it after only a short number of playings.

After the class had heard the piece a number of times, I added an extra rhythm dictation and asked the class to notate the rhythms from melody A and B in Pacific. Once students had the rhythms notated, they were able to complete two melodies based on the two rhythms of Sections A and B from Pacific, combining them with the C and F pentatonic scales to create their own melodies.

The class performed their compositions as an ensemble using bass, drums, guitar, xylophones, metallophones, keyboards and percussion. Accompaniment parts consisted of the chord chart provided in the resource kit and the student's own improvised pentatonic ostinatos.

 

Just after completing this work with my class I was able to attend the multicultural music workshop day with Sirocco in Goulburn. Not only did the group of teachers who attended get to hear and see the group perform many pieces on a vast array of instruments, but, we were also encouraged to take along our own instruments and to participate in making music.

The most valuable part of the day was being able to play the melodies and put together on-the-spot arrangements of these melodies with everything from a french horn, bass clarinet, flute, saxophone and various percussion instruments.

In the same week I was back at school performing with my Year 10 class the piece Majestic Forest, one of the pieces put together on the workshop day. Some of the activities included:

• playing the Sirocco recording of Majestic Forest to the class
• teaching the class the melodies in the piece by playing them on my saxophone and the class playing them back
• setting up a Dm7 rhythm pattern on bass, drums and guitar and then having students come up with an ostinato pattern to go with the rhythm section
• teaching the chord progression to the chorus section
• putting the whole piece together as an instrumental with rhythm, ostinatos and melodies and then moving around the group giving each student a chance to improvise over the Dm7 pattern on both melodic and non-melodic instruments
• making a live recording of the performance.

After performing these pieces, the class also spent a lesson listening to and discussing all the pieces on the Sirocco resource compact disc. When I first played the class Pacific, some of the group found it hard to believe that this type of music even existed, and why would people want to play it? Their opinions have changed since being immersed in the music and while they may not necessarily like it they have been able to develop an appreciation for it through listening and performance.

I would like to thank the members of Sirocco for such an inspiring workshop day and also for allowing me to take a small amount of video footage of the group playing. While the resource kit has been an excellent addition to my teaching program being able to show my students footage of the group playing their many specialised instruments has been extremely useful and valuable.

Matt Kiley
Music Teacher
Deniliquin High School