For the first two workshops, we visited DoReMi Humlehaugen, a kindergarten located in Trondheim. Here we had two workshops for children aged 4-6 years. This kindergarten is a normal kindergarten, but with an increased focus on music, singing, improvisation, theater and play with movement. I thought this would be a good start to try out our workshop, as the children would already have some experience of listening to music and seeing music being performed.
1. Start with music
- 2-3 minutes of improvisation
2. Introduction
- Who are we?
- Presentation of the concept: Drawings can become sound
- What are our instruments?
3. Let the children draw
- While we play, the children draw on a long piece of paper
4. Discuss the drawings
- Individually on the floor with the children
- Collectively in front of the children
5. Play the long drawing
On the left, you can see the format for the workshop that we had planned in advance. The only criterion we had was that we wanted the children to draw and participate actively in the conversations, which meant that we had to ask questions. We came up with this form where we would start by playing for them. Here we improvised over a drawing. Then we continued by presenting ourselves and the concept we work with: making music from drawings. Here we showed them the drawing we had just played. Then we continued by presenting our instruments. Here we showed some contrasting sounds that our instruments can make.
After the introduction, we planned to let the children draw. We were going to roll out a long piece of paper and let the children sit on each side of the paper. While they were drawing, we musicians would improvise music for them. The aim was for the children to draw what they heard. Afterwards, we would go down to the floor with the children and talk to them about the drawings, before doing it collectively together. The whole workshop would end with us playing the entire drawing for the children.
In the two workshops, we had two very different audiences. Looking back, there are many factors that could be the reason for this. The first factor is the number of adults in the room. In the first workshop, there were four kindergarten teachers present. At the second, there were only two, and at times only one.
The second thing that varies from group to group is age. The first group is with children aged 4-5 years, and the second group is with children one year older, 5-6 years, which in Norway means that they are the oldest children in the kindergarten. In both groups, all the children are familiar with each other and know both the other children and the kindergarten teachers.
The third point is something we all emphasise in the conversation afterwards: The second group, with the oldest children, has a much more articulate dynamic (Frøsa, 29.02.2024, p. 2). I state that the peer pressure seemed much stronger in the second group compared to the first where individuality seemed to be more present (Angelsen, 29.02.2024, p. 3). Looking at the videos, you can see that the energy levels are different, with the first group sitting more still and the second group moving around a lot, but in both groups you can see how the energy drops during the workshop. But in general, both groups talk a lot and participate in the conversation throughout the workshop.
A special moment worth mentioning is in workshop #2 when we improvise over the children's drawings at the end of the workshops. Suddenly the music gets noisy with a noise foundation made by me and Nicolas while Jenny plays strong rhythmic motifs over. What happens is that a child gets up and starts dancing. Slowly but surely, all the children get up and start dancing while you hear lots of laughter. After a while, the music becomes weaker and more transparent and the children sit down on the floor again.
In both groups, we tell them that we have brought drawing materials with us, and that we want them to draw while we play, and that afterwards we will play with the drawings they have made. We've brought a long piece of paper that we place in the centre and tell the children to sit on either side. While we're setting up the drawing equipment, we tell them to try to draw what they hear, but you can see in both groups that they start drawing before we start playing.
Since the children are sitting on each side of the paper, we can't be sure which side is the correct one of the drawings. What we see in the work from both workshops is that the drawings are a mix of concrete shapes such as animals, hearts, buildings and more abstract shapes that it is more difficult for us to interpret if it is just a shape or if it is meant to be a concrete thing. An interesting difference between the two workshops is that there are many more concrete drawings in group 2.
In the conversation between us musicians afterwards, an interesting point emerges about the music or how we experienced improvising in that setting. Jenny explains that when we played together before the workshop, it was all about the music, but with the children present, the way she focused on the music changed(Frøysa, 29.02.2024, p. 5). Both Jenny and I felt that we wanted to react to the children and that we therefore lost focus on the musical quality. Nicolas, on the other hand, didn't feel that he changed his attitude much, except that he accepted the responses we got from the children.
"I realised that I wanted to play a little more caricatured and not focus so much on the art, but just use the sounds, I didn't have the same focus as when we just played together." (Frøysa, 29.02.2024, p. 5)
Looking at the setup and exercises in the workshop afterwards, we were quite happy with it, except for the end where we all felt a little unsure of what to do (Transcript 29.02.2024, p.1). As you can see in both videos, the children start to get very tired. This, combined with the fact that we didn't have a clear plan for the ending, made us start thinking about what a natural ending could be.
"It's also possible to go even deeper into the idea of translating drawings into music." (Leirtrø, 29.02.2024, p. 1)
In addition to the closing, Nicolas suggested that we explore and go more into the idea of translating drawings into sound, and came up with the idea of bringing two or three drawings that only have one shape on them, and that we could ask how they sound to make the idea clearer when they draw later. We took this idea into the third workshop, where we tried it out.