Are you a youth worker or (other non-formal educator) who has never used music before and are wondering exactly how you can? Let Tune Green guide you…
Music can be a powerful tool in non-formal (or formal) education – it’s a rich sensory experience that invites active participation and communication between participants. It can be used to facilitate group bonding, self-reflection, self-expression and as a way to encourage confidence and sharing in young people. Music methods can be the central focus in a youth workshop or can be used in complement to other methods.
Below are some examples of music activities that can be used to fulfil various purposes in a workshop. All are the creations of our musicians – they are activities that make up parts of their own workshops. We made a selection of those that are reproducible without expert musical knowledge or expensive instruments/equipment – in fact, for most of them, nothing is required except a group of participants, a creative facilitator and a space to work.
Warm-ups, energisers:
Background and aims: Camilo’s workshop uses cumbia as a way to connect participants with their bodies and each other. Cumbia is rhythmical music that was born in the Colombian Caribbean region. This is the first exercise in the workshop, wherein Camilo shows how rhythm begins in, and flows through, our bodies.
Step 1: Participants stand in a circle and each checks their pulse with their fingers. When they feel it, they try to illustrate it with a simple vocalisations – with their voices, they show how the heartbeat goes.
Step 2: Now the participants move with their body’s rhythm. Following their pulse, they move around the room to the beat (of their heart) – walking, dancing freely, moving around each other in space.
Background and aims: This exercise is to warm up the vocal cords and body in preparation for the main part of Žiga’s workshop. It also gets participants started in expressing themselves freely with their voice and in the process of becoming grounded in their bodies – connected and ready to explore their creativity and common expressions.
Step 1: The group stands in a circle. Participants should relax their face, shoulders, arms and take a deep breath in. When breathing out, allow the gentle voice (aaa, oooo, … ) to flow out with the breath. Observe your head, face and their weight by moving them. Observe the body in this manner. Breathe in, moan out. Travel systematically through your whole body, observing each part of your body, stretching it, if needed touching it. The purpose of this exercise is to feel the body to be present in the body.
Step 2: Move altogether at the same time – your shoulders, then arms, wrists, hips…Play with your bodyweight, move slowly, expand your body in all directions. All the time, release gentle sounds freely – to relax even more. Observe what the sound does to your body.
Step 3: Be aware of others in space, keep calm. Breathe, feel the body, the clothes, the air, check the taste in the mouth, check what you can hear, … all this at the same time. The purpose of this step is to integrate the previous two steps and to be ready to work.
Beginnings, name games
Background and aims: In her workshop, Danaja presents methods for working with young children in music. This activity is designed to help the facilitator get to know the children and the children get to know each other at the start of a session.
Step 1: The workshop facilitator sings a song with their name in it. The whole group repeats it together. Then, going round in a circle, each child sings a song with their own name and everyone else repeats it with them.
Background and aims: Metka encourages expression through voice and theatre methods in her workshop which focuses on reflection on group dynamics and nurturing collaboration and cooperation. This exercise creates a starting point for connection between members of a group.
Step 1: All participants stand in one big circle. The mentor shows the participants a simple rhythm consisting of two claps, two chest beats and two foot strikes on the floor. Other rhythms can also be used.
Step 2: All participants play out the rhythm and, going round in a circle, each of them says their own name with the rhythm, in turn. After someone says their name, all the others repeat it in the same rhythm. Step 3: The facilitator encourages participants to find a new, different rhythm to pronounce their name, or to add a melody, or both. Going round in a circle again, each participant presents their idea and all the others repeat.
Team building, connecting participants
Background and aims: Jaka uses this activity as a part of his introduction to improvisation, and the transferable skills it can give us for life. The aim is to get participants to start listening and responding to each other and the world around them. It is the first step in the workshop, the focus of which is to develop the interpersonal communication skills and active participation of young people.
Step 1: The group sits in a circle in silence. A timer is set for 2 minutes. The instruction is just to listen to the sounds coming from the environment. Once the two minutes are up, participants are invited to share what they heard – which sounds, and how did they fit together? Did any follow on from each other as if in a musical composition? This step may be repeated once or twice, depending on the responsiveness of the group.
Step 2: The timer is set for another 2 minutes. This time, everyone is allowed to clap once – whenever feels right, however loud or soft they want, but only once. Once the two minutes are up, participants are invited to reflect on and share their experience – when did they clap? Did they hear patterns or connections in the claps (and ambient sounds)? This step may be repeated, depending on the responsiveness of the group.
Background and aims: In this workshop, Ana guides participants in getting in touch with their voice and body, to create polymelodies and polyrhythms. In this exercise, participants improvise melodies in small groups.
Step 1: Participants divide into small groups (up to 5). Each group has its own sound, which it repeats. Together, the group puts together a melody and sings it in rounds.
Step 2: Each group chooses a leader who guides them in changing their melody. The leader steps in front of the group and ‘imposes’ the new sound on them as they sing – changes in volume, speed and rhythm as well as in melody are encouraged. Every 5 minutes, a new leader should step forward; then, every 2 rounds.
Main Content
Lavoslava Benčić - Graphical sound
Background/aims: This activity provides a simple, experiential introduction to graphic sound in Lavoslava’s workshop. Graphic sound (drawn sound) is produced by converting images or other visual elements to audio. In this activity, a mobile application is used to convert light signals coming into the phone’s camera into a sound. Participants use the app to explore their environment in synthesised sound.
Step 1: Participants download the PhonoPaper application onto their devices (available on Android/iPhone for free). Next, they open the app, click on the menu (three short lines on the left side) and choose the ‘Free’ mode. Now the app will scan everything that is in front of the white line on the screen.
Step 2: Participants take a walk across the room or space and scan whatever they want. Encourage them to observe: how the sound changes as we scan objects of different materials, colours and textures; the differences between objects that receive more sunlight and the ones in the dark; how the sound changes as we move closer to the object and as we scan it from a bigger distance. It is recommended that participants use headphones so they don’t disturb each other.
Jan Supovec - Everyone can make music
Background and aims: Jan aims to break down barriers to creating music with this workshop. Participants are invited to bring everyday objects from home to use in a freestyle jam.
Step 1: Set a rhythm on a phone/tablet/computer. You can use an app such as… for this purpose. It helps to keep the group together during the improvisation. All participants take an instrument or object.
Step 2: The first improvisation should be free of requirements and restrictions, so that participants can try out the instrument they have chosen or even change it while playing. The improvisation is followed by a short reflection by the participants.
Step 3: The workshop facilitator highlights the importance of listening and responding to each other during improvisation (with reference to the previous round). Participants can change instruments if they wish, and the new round of improvisation takes place with attention to listening and reacting. The improvisation is followed by reflection. This step may be repeated.
Reflection
Jenny Laahs
Background and aims: Jenny is a music therapist who shared some of her methods with us on our Kick-Off event. She uses this activity to get the young people she works with to open up a bit. Through playing an instrument, they can demonstrate how they’re feeling without verbalising – the dynamics and their mode of playing can show a lot about what is going on with them.
Step 1: Each participant takes an instrument, or object that can produce sound.
Step 2: The facilitator invites everyone to play in turn for a few seconds, in a way that represents how their day (or week) has gone so far. Movement can be used as a well as sound, and the result doesn’t have to be ‘musical’ – it can be whatever each participant feels like playing. If the young person wants to verbally describe any aspects of their day alongside the playing, they can, but it’s equally valid to leave the description as sound only.
Background and aims: Metka encourages expression through voice and theatre methods in her workshop which invites reflection on group dynamics and nurturing collaboration and cooperation. This exercise allows participants to express vocally, but abstractly, how they feel.
Step 1: The workshop facilitator marks out the area for the participants to walk (when working outdoors – indoors the area is the working room). Participants are then invited to start walking and to choose a sound that represents how the day has been for them. The sound is repeated and elaborated so that it is completely clear to the participants how it begins and how it ends.
Step 2: Once the participants have chosen a sound and started to make it, the facilitator invites them to intensify it on a scale from 1 to 5.
Step 3: The facilitator invites participants to meet other participants and present the sounds to each other.
Step 4: After each participant shares a gesture and sound with others, they then simultaneously enact their unique sounds and gestures, repeatedly. During this action they search for sounds of other participants that resonate to them. Through the processes of individual negotiation and non-verbal communication, the participants synchronize their individual sounds so that they evolve towards the whole group making the exact same sound repeatedly. The final group sound sequence might consist of one person’s sound combined with another person’s sound, or a new composite that integrates two people’s sound, and so on. The whole group eventually assembles, standing in a circle, as all participants continue to evolve their sounds. The goal is everyone making the exact same sound.
