Crocodilus Niloticus and the Ration Book. Boo!

ration book front (2)This last half term has seen the start of a foray back into the classroom for me, delivering the music curriculum to some classes in a primary school on behalf of Yew Tree Youth Arts. As I have been determined to remain the composer and not revert to being wholly the teacher, my tactic has been to follow the request of the teachers to link what I do to their topics, but to create new music for the classes and also encourage the classes themselves to compose some music.

My admiration for teachers has risen from its already high starting point, but the term thus far has reinforced my determination not be a “proper” teacher again. Nonetheless my previously gathered skills as a proper teacher have been useful, particularly in the matters of crowd control, assessment and thinking on the spot. Oh, and for those who have known me in previous teaching incarnations, you’ll be pleased to hear that I have revived the weekly Awards for Musical Excellence!

Boo To My Ration Book fragmentThe “World War 2” classes have been a blessed joy. Their enthusiasm, friendliness and skill levels have enabled us to sing and create rhythms in a variety of time signatures for a selection of original WW2 songs including I Wanna Banana and Hey Little Hen. Solos were eagerly adopted and there was a general feeling of musical enjoyment and improvement. I composed a song in the cheerful-against-the-odds-WW2-style, “Boo to My Ration Book,” which worked perfectly as a partner song with Hey Little Hen, and clever them, they did indeed manage to fit the two together with skill and aplomb.

(Update in August 2020 – I’ve just made this video of the song so am inserting it here to sing along to!)

As you might imagine, I just set out the harmonic structure of Hey Little Hen, and fitted my new melody into this same structure. One reason I composed this song instead of using the popular partner song pairing of “It’s A Long Way to Tipperary” and “Pack Up Your Troubles”, is that these two songs have almost identical melodies and I wanted to challenge these eager youngsters with something a bit more unique. So, my melody, while fitting perfectly with the harmony, and dealing with similar WW2 issues of food shortages and rations has a quite distinctive tune. When I gave the two classes the choice of which song they were to sing in the partner performance, they both wanted my song, so this made me cheery!

Boo to my ration book!ration book list (2)

How I long for a soft, sweet banana for my tea.

Boo to my ration book!

And a bowl full of chocolate ice-cream, just for me.

I am patriotic,

But I like exotic oranges, pineapples and especially bananas.

Oh boo to my ration book!

How I long for a soft, sweet banana for my tea.

 

Mikey is my little brother. He is only four.

He has never tasted a banana cooked or raw.

Parsnip mashed with yellow flavoured sandwiches for school!

Mother dearest, don’t be daft! These parsnips never fool me!

The “Egyptians” classes have been a challenge for me, I have to admit. My expectations of attention spans and cooperative skills were wildly misjudged at the start, and I have been constantly adapting the way I deal with them and what I expect from them. However, musically speaking, we created a musical drama (without the drama) about Webaoner the priest and his Wax Crocodile, with body percussion incidental music, tuneful chants in 7/4 time (Crocodilus Niloticus), solos, multiple narrators and instrumental accompaniments.Crocodylus niloticus fragment

Now I do like to encourage youngsters to learn music in irregular time signatures. They never seem to struggle with it like adults do, so that’s what I did here with a 4-part chant in ostinato patterns, with three additional part in the form of verses telling the story. It was nicely  in their heads by the day of the performance. I caught some of them singing the chants in the corridors when it wasn’t even their day for music lessons. I composed solos into the song specifically for some of the bold volunteer singers, who even on the first day I met them were prepared to have a go. As the weeks went by, more and more became confident enough to sing on their own. We also set up a further ostinato pattern on the instruments, also in 7, and also forcing them to listen very carefully. Initially they were watching each other to see when to come in, but by the end, they were listening to each other to hear when to come in.

lard ration (2)This last week of the term saw performances of our efforts to each other and their teachers, and I have to say that they pulled it off with exceptional concentration and musical enthusiasm. They were, to a participant, proud of their efforts, and so was I. It never ceases to delight and amaze me how the presence of an audience, no matter how small and familiar, garners the collective effort to achieve splendid musical things. They were all a complete delight, and reinforces in me the fastly-held beliefs that showing others what we have achieved is an essential part of the musical learning process, and that music is a vital element in the overall learning of youngsters, fostering as it always does, self-confidence, teamwork, lateral thinking, making connections to nurture understanding, self-evaluation, enjoyment in learning, listening skills and plenty more!

I have no photos of our efforts to share. I have no time during these full-on sessions to wield the camera with my arms full of all the usual stuff plus playing the keyboard, so you’ll have to make do with a quote from one of the teachers hearing his class for the first time: “This was too good to just be heard by us in this classroom. We need to go out and show others what you have achieved.” Hurrah! I guess I’ll be back after the half term break then – this time with four different classes and being musical about Fire and Toys – perhaps hot at the same time though.

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