Thursday, 23 April this will be mostly a response to the upper fourth lesson that Phil and I and Dennis did on Tuesday that was the first of two sessions with the idea of creating a media scape around the Sidcot school map I have created the map I have put the co-ordinates in I showed them the map at the beginning of the lesson gave them a very quick demonstration of the media scape software the idea of creating zones and then I showed them all recording equipment that we can use and the cameras and let them go off in groups just really do this first lesson to explore with no fixed idea as to what they would bring back I told them about the old scholars recordings we listened to a couple of those and they looked at the book but otherwise I didn’t proscribe what it was that they would do with this lesson they were really just to go out and explore and I am thinking of that at the end of the lesson they all had a great time they thoroughly enjoyed it they didn’t produce much at all and in a very limited timespan I wonder whether I do tighten up on it myself so that we get a media scape at the end of it or whether it is more important to leave it very free which allows the creativity or the possibility of creative accidents and creative thoughts rising up there is a section in dust and magic that I read a day or two ago about the creative process and how to begin with you just gather lots of ideas and information and then you go and walkabout imagining yourself into the situation of the people that you were working towards and then as you let all this stuff settle in your mind that’s when the creative ideas can start coming and once the creative ideas start coming then they can be developed so getting the idea is not stage one but stage three of the process and it sort of tax in a little bit to what we were talking about in departmental meeting yesterday thinking about how we introduce the A2 the current AS students and what framework and stimulus we need to give them what structure so it’s this question of structure versus fluidity but anyway what these people came back with from their recordings a few technical problems with garage band and equipment levels to high levels too low and metronome on and there is a difficulty with them walking around recording all laptops I really should have lots more devices that they can record on I am thinking that the mobile phone is going to be the best one in the Sydney Gardens because I won’t be too keen on them walking about the gardens with laptops and recording equipment I think that would be a bit daft. so I think that mobile phone has to be it at that one but for this the boys found the recording of voice very difficult they went to their ambient sounds of which there are very few the fountain ping on the door the Road traffic that really unless you have really good sound recording equipment it is difficult to get clear recordings of that sort of sounds I had another boy back in the classroom downloading ambient sounds from the partners in rhyme Web site and they are obviously much clearer and much more useful the girls went round it took a while to get into the garage band and they started by just reading the signposts and the notices that inspiration and playing about with all the different voice effects in garage band so they came back with a hilarious set of recordings which were Echoie and helium and various different types of voice mostly giggling and out of that came the idea that maybe this whole soundscape should be a sort of giggling laughter but that sort of fits with an idea of memory and echoes in the past and a sort of patchwork quilt and one of the boys went out with a camera and took lots of photographs of the buildings mostly not close-ups but quite standard sort of shots I suggested that maybe next week they should go out and take lots of close-up shots of things with cameras little experiences homing in on the minutiae ideas developed that this sort of patchwork quilt and sounds and what’s a sort of sounds would gather what snippets of information may be laid over the memories so sound quality isn’t what you go for. I think the other big issue that I found doing it was to fill the space the space of the island you have to have a phenomenal amount of material it’s such a huge area that really the scale of it was much bigger than I imagined otherwise you’ve just got to repeat the same sounds over and over again or it just gets extremely boring so the big question that came out of Tuesday to me is how you work an interesting narrative back into it that retains the spontaneity of the students recording along with some interest to the listener and the random nature of the narrative it doesn’t start here and end their duties wherever you go there has got to be something that keeps the interest of the listener

Tags:PedagogySilver ProjectSydney Gardens Project