We were so thrilled so received a second round of funding from Arts Council England to work on part two of the BBC Ten Pieces project. In autumn 2014 we had put together a schools tour that covered five of the ten pieces and this second tour enabled us to run workshops covering the other five pieces.
We used the same set up as last time but with some new Rig adaptations from our fabulous new Blacksmith, Steve.
In the workshops the children learnt about programmable music boxes and bone conduction as we played ‘Zadok The Priest’ by Handel through our Music Box Mini Rig.
On the hand bells we looked at ‘Night On A Bare Mountain’ by Mussorgsky (we all practiced our Russian accents saying his name!) and ‘Mars’ by Holst. The children learnt that the thickness of the metal changes the pitch of the bell.
We covered ‘Short Ride In A Fast Machine’ by John Adams and other general musical questions in the ‘Pairs’ playing cards game. The children remembered facts that they had read on the cards and we talked about these later in the workshop.
Lastly, we composed our own body percussion piece, inspired by Anna Meridith’s ‘Connect It’. The children created their own sounds and movements within the piece and with the older children we added the idea of a musical canon. They were all so thrilled that they had created their own piece of music, and were excited to carry this on with their friends in the playground.
Phew! Well done everyone involved – another successful Rig tour!