There are times in the life of a composer when you walk into a new working situation – new faces, unknown expectations, talents and enthusiasms yet to be unearthed – and from the very moment you meet your new collaborators there is mutual trust, rapport, laughter, creativity, music-making of an exhilarating nature. It has been thus since the new year with the year 6 students at St. Michael’s Academy in Flanshaw, and our work together came to a temporary halt this week with performances of our new songs of the River Calder to each other after several sessions of composing, instrumental work and singing.

We began by exploring rivers in general and composing our musical rivers.

Both Year 6 classes at St. Michael’s Academy in Flanshaw, Wakefield were learning about physical geography for several weeks with their class teachers. To support this we composed some musical rivers in our first ever music lessons together. We explored some features of rivers such as tributaries, a confluence, meanders, estuaries, waterfalls and lakes, and we learned that rivers usually start up in the mountains and are fast flowing and small, and they usually end at the sea, where they are big and mighty.

6B included a confluence (where the bells stream met the boomwhacker stream) and a huge meander. Their river, which they called the River Of Raymond, became very mighty indeed as it flowed into the sea. They learned some musical symbols for notes and rests and made all sorts of decisions about the structure of their composition.

6c included a waterfall, some frogs in a lake, some golden fish swimming upstream, and some gentle waves as the sea met the beach. They also discovered the musical symbols for “getting quieter” or diminuendo and some other dynamics. Their river was the Musical Magical River.

You can hear both rivers and see their graphic scores here.

From this first session, I could see and hear that they were going to be full of creativity and eagerness. We got on like old musical friends. They were always happy to try new things, take on suggestions for improvements to their work, full of ideas of their own. They considered my interesting trousers something to be enjoyed rather than scorned. I have had the best of terms!

They then worked on small group compositions of parts of the River Calder (their local river in Wakefield) – the estuary and confluence being particular favourites of 6B, while 6C’s river-features-of-choice were the flood ponds and the wildlife therein. Here are a couple of their compositions:

One group decided to do the whole river after all!

I also composed each class a song – one about the flood lakes and “navigations” around Wakefield, and one about the mills that used to use the power of the Upper Calder. The students in each class contributed lots of the lyrics for the verses of the songs as well and composing their own incidental and accompanying music. These are the songs we sang to each other this week:

Mighty Mill Wheel

Rushing, gushing, rushing, gushing over rocks and crags and boulders, boulders, crags and boulders
Splashing, dashing, splashing, dashing, squeezing through chinks and crannies, chinks and crannies
Dancing, prancing, dancing, prancing, pirouetting, twirling downwards, twirling downwards,
Flowing, slowing, flowing, slowing, channelled to a lake then a water race, racing, racing..

Rattling, crackling, rattling, crackling, all the chains and ropes are crashing, lashing, chains are lashing.
Clanging, banging, clanging, banging, all the cogs and gears are turning, churning, gears are churning.
Bashing, smashing, bashing, smashing, grinding corn and spinning cotton, cotton. It’s so deafening!
Rushing, crushing, rushing, crushing, water flashing through the lake, then the water race, racing, racing…

Boomy, gloomy, boomy, gloomy. Children slaving in the shadows, shadows, noisy darkness.
Threat and danger, threat and danger, as they scavenge in the dust and fragments, dust and fragments.
Finger ripper, finger ripper, no-one hears the screams above the clamour, screaming clamour.
Steaming, seething, steaming, seething, cannot pause for a breather, machines don’t stop, they’re racing racing…

Mighty mill wheel keep turning,
Gather the strength of the water,
Machines powered by the River Calder

The Great-Crested Grebe

Sundays, Sunday mornings
I always went fishing with my Dad on Calder water.
Waiting, waiting for hours and hours,
I always thought that fishing was quite boring.

Then a pochard splash-landed,
Then a trout somersaulted,
Then a frog choir chorused,
And a great-crested grebe serenely glided into view.

Then a swan danced gracefully,
Then an egret swooped from a tree,
Then a heron crash-landed,
And the great-crested grebe silently dived out of view.

Then a pike from the river,
Made the quiet line quiver,
Then my Dad wound frantically,
But the great-crested grebe tranquilly gazed at the view.

Then a pair danced together,
Rose up from the water,
Shook their heads, then their feathers,
Then the great-crested grebes serenely glided out of view.

Update 2018: I made a video of this song which you can hear here.

There was a bit of extra feedback from members of the classes too!
I really enjoyed making this music with Mrs Camm!!! LEXIE (6b)
Helen: I liked doing this(i loved it)
Lucy, January 16, 2015 at 6:11pm: I also liked doing this with Mrs camm
Tyler: It was fun doing this piece of music