A diary of the project

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25th Apr Delivery Day 3 – Year 5 Planning session for Sound Garden.
Discussed how various instruments make sound. Children then produced ideas and designs for possible instruments to be built.

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26th Apr Lab day 3 Roebuck Hotel, Ware

16th May Delivery Day 4 - Year 5 Maths session.
Discussed counting musical beats and bars, and fractions of beats i.e. 1/2s 1/4s 1/8ths 1/16ths. Played a looped rhythm with children in a circle of time split into beat fractions.

23rd May Artists’ Maths Day Harlow Study Centre

24th May Delivery Day 5 – Year 6 Percussion Workshop.
Taught counting beats, playing a variety of instruments, how various patterns can be played simultaneously to produce a large scale percussion ensemble piece. Group performance at end of day

7th June Delivery Day 6 – Year 5 + Year 6 Percussion workshop.
Taught counting beats, playing a variety of instruments, how various patterns can be played simultaneously to produce a large scale percussion ensemble piece. Group performance at end of day.

13th June Delivery Day 7 – Global Learning Day
Latin-style percussion workshops with each year group 1-6

27th June Delivery Day 8 – Science Day
‘Sound Lab’ sessions for each year group 1-6. Using music production software on smart-board to look at how sound waves differ for various frequency sounds e.g. bass vs treble. Made audio recordings of children’s vocals and edited and sequenced them into rhythmic patterns

4th July Delivery Day 9 – Year 5 Maths session – Ratio
Discussed ratio and how it can be used. Measured and weighed bars from metallophones/glockenspiels to discover ratio between notes. Used this ratio to cut reclaimed steel tubing into lengths and produce a set of tuned tubular bells.

18th July Delivery Day 10 – Year 5-Year 4 Transfer Day + drum making
Handover of project from current year 5 to future year 5.
Also made a drum with small group of current year 5 children using reclaimed plastic pipe. Showed how tension affects pitch.

Summer Holiday

17th Sept Delivery Day 12 – Year 5 Maths session – Factors
Joined in with lesson on factors - discussed factors of 16, then linked to musical beats and fractions of beats i.e. 1/4ths, 1/8ths, 1/16ths

25th Sept Lab day 6 Henry Moore Foundation visit

1st Oct Delivery Day 14 – Year 5 Samba Percussion Session
Taught patterns for all the various instruments within the samba band and how they fit around the basic count of 4.
Worked with the different instrument groups to discover how their pattern fitted over a grid of 1/16ths. Produced a grid to show the whole band’s samba patterns.

2nd Oct Delivery Day 15 – Year 5 Maths Session + Samba Rehearsal
Continued work on volume and ratio. Used this to create the ‘Tubularphone’ made from recycled plastic tubing – tuned to cover 1 octave. Samba
rehearsals with both bands in the afternoon, firstlyt using made instruments, secondly using samba kit.

5th Oct Delivery Day 16 – New Building Opening Ceremony
Rehearsed 2 Year 5 samba bands through the morning and early afternoon for procession to celebrate official opening of the new building.

29th Oct Delivery Day 17 – Maths – Volume/Capacity + Digital Roots
Worked on capacity of shapes, bottles etc. Worked with a group to make a tuned set of milk bottles filled with varying amounts of water.
Looked at digital roots sequences and discussed work the children had done so far. Began to discuss how we could use the sequences to produce music.

20th Nov Lab Day 7 Swallow Gate Hotel + Harlow Museum visit

26th Nov Delivery Day 18 – Year 5 Maths – Digital Roots
Working with small groups to use DR sequences as a means of writing melody and rhythm… began producing a piece of music based on this work -‘Sounds of Nine’

3rd Dec Delivery Day 19 – Year 5 Maths – Ratio
Discussed ratio and how it can be used. Measured and weighed bars from metalaphones/glockenspiels to discover ratio between notes. Further work on ‘Sounds of Nine’

7th Jan 08 Delivery Day 20 – Year 5 Maths – Ratio vs Marimba
Using work done on ratio we cut reclaimed hardwood planks to create the bars for a large tuned marimba to go in the sound garden

14th Jan Delivery Day 21 – Year 5 Maths – Ratio vs Tubularphone
Continued working with ratio to make the remaining tuned tubes for the tubularphone. Ready to be put into the sound garden.

21st Jan Delivery Day 22 – Year 5 Maths – Circles/Angles/Fractions

Worked with a small group to find accurately the centre of a circle and work out angles and fractions. Used this to cut sections (1/2,1/3,1/4 etc) from reclaimed cycle wheel rims and produce a set of chimes for the sound garden.

13th Feb Delivery Day 29 – Sound garden build + install instruments.

18th Feb Website meeting - Roydon School
AJ and school project staff met with Elliot, the Technical and Logistics Manager from CRO Ltd, to discuss how best to present information and evidence. Following 4 extra days funded directly by school
E1 29th Feb Website Information compiling at Roydon School.
Working with Pip Vigo and Susan Massey (teaching assistants) … plus further musical arrangement on “Sounds of Nine” with Pip Vigo (music teacher/teaching assistant).
E2 3rd March Website material handover at Roydon School
Delivery Day 30 - Continue work to finish sound garden + instruments with staff and children assisting.
E3 7th March Delivery day 31 - Sound garden build + finish instruments
Staff and children assisted.
Rehearse ‘Sounds of Nine’ with children.
E4 10th March Delivery day 32 - Sound garden build + finish instruments
Staff and children assisted.
Rehearse ‘Sounds of Nine’ with children.

17th March Celebration Day – Roydon School
Final rehearsals then afternoon performance by children of
‘Sounds of Nine” in the finished Sound Garden.