Education ViVA

Derby Music Centre
St. Benedict's School, Derby
2 April 2011

On Saturday 2 April workshop leader James Redwood led a creative session with members of the senior ensembles at Derby Music Centre. Members of the senior wind band and senior orchestra took part in the morning's workshops which focused on Shostakovich's Piano Concerto No.2 which the Derby Music Centre orchestra are going to perform in the summer term. James was joined by sinfonia ViVA musicians David Ayre (double bass) and Matthew Dunn (clarinet).

"The creativity. James, Matt and Dave were fun, approachable and easy to work with. They inspired us to get involved." - Participant, Derby Music Centre

In the first half of the workshop James introduced the participants to Shostakovich's musical signature which was made up of his initials DSCH and these letters relate to the notes D, Eb, C and B. This musical motif appears in much of Shostakovich's music including his second Piano Concerto. The participants learnt to play his signature and the four notes within it B C D Eb form the start of an octatonic scale, which is an 8 note scale made up of alternating intervals of semitone, tone. Another musical feature of Shostakovich's Piano Concerto No.2 is 7/8 time which appears in the final movement. The participants explored this time signature with a rhythmic exercise, clapping a pattern in 6/8 and one in 7/8 simultaneously, which created a phasing effect.

"It was really different and I enjoyed being spontaneous." - Participant, Derby Music Centre

The participants were split into groups but stayed within their instrument families. So the groups were split violins; violas, cellos and double basses; flutes and oboes; clarinets; brass; saxophones and percussion. Each group created a musical motif based around the Shostakovich signature, and then all the groups played the motif they had created to each other. All the participants then worked together to create a piece using the motifs they had just created and the octatonic scale. They decided which order the motifs should be played in and experimented with different combinations of the motifs. Working together in this way the participants created a piece which they played through together.

"I learnt how easy it is to just pick simple notes and make cool music out of them." - Participant, Derby Music Centre

In the second half of the workshop the participants were split into mixed instrument groups. Each group had a short melodic extract from Shostakovich's Piano Concerto No.2 which they played through before working as a group to create a short piece inspired by the extract. The groups worked together to decide how they should interpret and develop the melody they had been given, exploring different ways of playing the extract, creating new accompaniments and melodies.

"Mixing the instrument groups encouraged pupils to work with players they might not otherwise work with." - Head of Centre, Derby Music Centre

At the end of the morning all the participants came back together to share the music they had created. They were joined by family and friends who had been invited to see and hear what they had been doing during the morning. All the groups performed the short piece they had created reworking one of Shostakovich's melodies from Piano Concerto No.2. The participants then performed the piece they had created all together during the first session of the day using the DSCH signature and octatonic scale. It was a very productive and creative morning that allowed the participants to explore Shostakovich's second Piano Concerto and create music as a group inspired by certain musical features from it.

"It was an interesting and enjoyable process." - Participant, Derby Music Centre)

We very much hope to develop our relationship with Derby Music Centre in the future.