Chivenor House, October 2nd.

After a couple of weeks delivering sessions at the primary school, our Thursday afternoon sessions moved back to their proper home at Chivenor House last week; I’d like to say I noticed the ceiling repairs but I didn’t. I spent the first half of the session leading the group, all together, counting up to eight; not as easy as it may sound. The exercise centred on each person picking their choice of beats one to eight, and either clapping, playing or speaking on that beat. Musically this ticks a lot of boxes for children; all participants have to be able to keep the pulse together, all the counting happens silently, and the beat that they choose has to be ‘hit’ with some precision.

We experimented with clapping, clicking fingers, playing percussion, and finally saying a single word. I asked them to think of one thing that they’d seen on their way to school, or on their way to the session. All of this worked well, although taking things to the next step, where we only spoke those words that fell on even or odd beats was a step too far, this time.

For the second half of the session I asked the children to interview the older people about a particular theme; in this case ‘food’. We’ll have a proper listen to the results when we get to the next editing session.