Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival - Items filed in 'Hugh Nankivell - Piano Dances'

4th day: the end of the project?

Thu, 04 Mar 2010 09:00:06 +0000

I stayed up late on Thursday evening sorting out the programme and the collation of all the new techniques and approaches and questions and Bob stayed up much later editing the first draft of the film of the children.

I was really pleased that on editing the material I discovered that every child had directly invented at least one new technique or approach. Thirteen new inventors, composers, choreographers and creative people who hopefully won't have their playful creativity squashed or repressed as they age into primary school and beyond.

Friday morning - we went to the nursery. We re-arranged the room, and Bob set up the projector and the AO white plastic projector screen on the piano. We welcomed in the children, their staff, some friends from the LBT, some other children from the school, the head-teacher, some of the adult group and lots of parents all on the floor or very small yellow chairs. In fact we had a parent/relative or carer for every child apart from one.

Later we chatted to the parents who really enjoyed it and though, in many cases, their offspiring did not directly talk to them about the project, there was enough energy or buzz about what was going on to inspire the mums and dads in. Emma and Isobelle (nursery staff) were really pleased and surprised by the turn-out.

Pat and I played a tune on melodica and recorder, we watched the film Bob had made (about 9 minutes) and then uncovered the piano. There was much playing at this point, which we curtailed after about maybe seven minutes. Very interesting to observe two girls who had not been in during the week, but came to school on the Friday. One, named Pearl, was clearly in need of having time to play the piano on her own as all the other children had, but in this context it was not quite possible. She looked very disappointed as every time she played others accompanied her.

The room got very hot and there was a real buzz. We ended with 'If You're Happy and You Know It', Five Little Monkeys and the Piano Bedtime Lullaby.

During the afternoon after we had watched Liz reverse ever so slowly and slightly into a taxi, we had a quartet rehearsal (Jac, Pat, Bob and I), trying out ideas from the new techniques for the evening. Some we tried and rejected, others we tried and felt that they would be great without further 'rehearsal', others we knew would work without even rehearsing.

The duet of Pat and Jac with elbows on piano was very wonderful to observe. Also nice to have a time to play, especially for Bob who had been so tied up in his filming, documenting and observing that he had not really had time to 'play'.

At 6.30 we gave a performance of Piano Dances in St Paul's Hall. I prefaced it by playing simultaneously two-pianos in a new phasing piece. We then watched the newly edited film which Bob had worked on in the afternoon. Finally a series of new pieces in solos, small groups and full group (22 performers).

NEW PIECES

1.   A Spell for the Piano - Based on Question 21
2.   Solos Together - Everyone chose one new technique or approach from the list, but especially Approach 15
3.   Playing Other People's Hands - Developing Technique 6
4.   The Piano Fairy - Inspired by Question 13 and also Approach 27
5.   Full-Group Bob - Starting from Approach 31 and going elsewhere...
6.   Graceful Elephant Teapots - Using Technique 4 as a starting point
7.   Kneading - A small group performance of Technique 7
8.   A Line Around The Piano - From Approach 4 and Questions 3, 9, 10 and 11
9.   Putting The Piano To Bed - Approach 40 and Question 15?

My favourites sonically were 'Kneading' - a kind of mix of Messiaen and Ligeti - and 'The Piano Fairy' - a wonderful original conceit. I also loved the choreography of 'Solos Together' and performing in 'Putting The Piano To Bed'.

We ended by bestowing a professorship of Keyboard Choreography upon Jac Gaile (prof KCC), only the second such position in the world.

Most of the performers went to a nearby Thai restaurant for a meal afterwards. Very lovely to be together socially. I instigated a Japanese tradition which is at the after-performance party to share round and read the evaluation forms together. They were all (all the ones that Heidi had collected) very positive and effusively generous. We shifted tables and managed to talk with most people, and then home late and tired, but with a very warm and harmonious feeling.

The day after Piano Dances Pat and I travelled south together, leaving Huddersfield and its sleet for the sunshine of South Devon. We were performing at the Plymouth Contemporary Music Festival, a programme of live music to a selection of silent films. We were chatting with Eduardo Miranda, the festival director, and explaining Piano Dances and he was very intrigued and enthusiastic. 'Maybe you should come and do it here next year?' So maybe we will. Roll on volume 4 of Keyboard Choreography wherever it may be.

Now I need to find some time to sleep.

Hugh Nankivell

Thursday 3rd day

Fri, 26 Feb 2010 09:43:42 +0000

Now finished all the workshop sessions at the nursery and with the adults. A real contrary emotion of a day.

In the evening the group made beautiful keyboard choreography and there was a clear feeling of a group and a shared energy. There was much laughter, thought and some tears.

As Hilary left she asked 'what am I going to do next week without you'? She played a beautiful piano solo while looking at her self-portrait, but prefaced it by saying that she couldn't play the piano. Of course she could.

In the morning, Jac led the session and we drew happy pictures of ourselves and Jac asked us whether the piano was happy or sad and what its name was and whether it was a girl or a boy?

Everyone did portraits and most then put the portrait onto the piano and played from it. There was some energetic and delicate solo playing and also a mix of group playing, but a lot less playing of the piano than on the previous days. It really felt like the piano was becoming part of the furniture of the nursery.

Serenna was obviously not well (she kept holding her ear and looked very sad) and her playing was without bunny-hops and was very doleful. Sophie again played and squeaked and was FULL of joy and Gael played with great confidence. There was quite a long stretch of time today without much attention paid to the piano and there were far fewer new techniques and approaches that we discovered, but by contrast there was lots of repeat-playing of earlier material.

Today there was a picnic at the piano and phone calls using cheese and calculators.
We ended with singing together and I led a lullaby story-song for the piano which had the following lyrics before we put the piano to bed and covered it up.

Bed time
Twinkle twinkle
Night night
Night night.

When we analysed the video in the afternoon we had a very good discussion about what age it is that a child loses the un-self-conscious-playful-exploration? This came about because one girl (and only one) seemed to play the piano mainly to attract adults attention or to be noticed and she was very clear about what we could or could not do at the piano (no picnics for instance!) whereas the others played it without reserve.

The new things we discovered were:

Techniques

1.    Play a note and hold it down, then add other adjacent notes and hold them down. Then take the hand off and do the same again. use thumb sparingly. Smudging. Serenna.
2.    Play with both hands. Only using index fingers. Contrary motion at all times, firmly. Contrary Index. Gael.
3.    Sit under the piano and play with the pedals with your hands. Pedal Hands. Lautrelle and Chloe.

Approaches

1.    Draw a picture of how you feel. Put the picture on the piano. Play.
2.    Place your score on the keyboard, covering some of the keys. Play.
3.    Phone someone up and ask them to play the piano with you. See what happens.
4.    Play your own hand, (from day one).
5.    Play while jumping at the keyboard, synchronised or unsynchronised. Morgan.

Questions

1.    Is the piano a boy or a girl?
2.    Does the piano have a name?
3.    Is the piano happy or sad?
4.    When you put the score on the piano music stand how do you know which way up it should be?
5.    Is the piano in good working order?

We have now made a set list for tomorrow evening of new pieces all of which are generated from the playing we observed in the morning. Our set-list will include

A Spell for the Piano
Solos altogether
The Piano Fairy
Full-group Bob
Playing other people's hands
Graceful Elephant teapots
Kneading
A Line Around The Piano
Putting The Piano To Bed.

We will have a sharing at 11am in the nursery and show them a compilation video with parents and friends and then a 6.30pm concert in St Paul's.

We ended the session this evening talking about how tomorrow we will be playing a different piano from the one we have developed a relationship with during the last three evenings and whether this is adulterous behaviour. The piano has been developing a character in a way that I have not experienced before, but perhaps I have been careless and fickle in my past piano dealings as, although I love the acoustic piano very much, I have in my time lost both a grand piano and a player piano.

Hugh Nankivell

Wednesday - 2nd Day

Thu, 25 Feb 2010 10:43:03 +0000

Just back to Meltham, after another long day.

We left in thick slushy snow that melted during the day and came back to bare potholes.

Bob led the hour at Christchurch Woodhouse nursery. We had three new children with us today and lost three from yesterday.

Everyone again played the piano, in groups and solos. There was only about 90 seconds of time when no-one was playing the piano.

We are blessed with having a very quiet piano, such that when three or four children are playing it loud with fists and elbows and the sustain pedal pushed down, it doesn't seem to dominate the room in the way that pianos sometimes can. It will be really interesting to see what the nursery does with the piano when the project finishes. Will it become another toy in the room? Will they move it? How quickly will it disintegrate? How will the piano feel?

Great to see some players play a similar solo to the one they did yesterday (Chloe, Serenna and Lautrelle for instance, and it was great in the afternoon comparing the video of the solos from day one to day two) and then also to see how some of them developed and changed and extended their playing (Sophie and Serenna) and to have the new players who came in and had to just get their heads down and play (Kaden, Brody and Doris).

We found 6 more new techniques, 20 new approaches and 7 extra questions to add to the list from yesterday. Here are the new list of techniques discovered today, we gave each one a title and then the name of the inventor(s).

Techniques from day 2

1.    Play the keyboard and lower your head below the keyboard to look underneath while still playing, then bring the head back up, still playing. Peek-a-boo. Lautrelle initially copying Brody.
2.    Both hands close together on the keyboard, use all the fingers (not thumbs) to make wave patterns. Waves. Sophie.
3.    Play the piano with nose on the keys and using both hands. Piano Close-up. Serenna.
4.    Raise both hands left then right, above your head, fingers pointing out, spiky hands, then bring them down crashing to the piano, right hand just before left hand. Witches Flam. Georgia.
5.    Press the end-blocks (and other parts of the piano that are not keys) to see if they move and what sound they make. End blocks. Serenna.
6.    Play deliberately with one hand - only using the index finger, but approaching from high above the keyboard. Crane. Chloe.

In the evening session we made many more new pieces, using the work of the nursery children as the starting point. We also had much great discussion and laughter.

To begin with we shared personal stories about pianos. We tried a meditation 'Don't play the piano and put it from your mind' (I found it almost impossible), and we cast spells on the piano and talked about pianists as a breed.

Bob drew a line around the piano and we had to play it from behind that line.
The session ended with Chris completely covering four prone piano players and the piano with chairs as they played.

Hugh Nankivell

Tuesday - first day

Wed, 24 Feb 2010 09:32:54 +0000

We had a great morning with the nursery group - 10 children one aged 2, one aged 4 and the others aged 3. We were a big group of adults in their small space.

Barry had done wonders with the tuning of the piano and in retrospect it was quite a quiet piano and even when lots of people were playing at the same time it was not too noisy.

There were many wonderful moments; when Chloe played her solo and everyone listened rapt, also when Morgan went to the piano and played without making any sound. A real '4.33' performance with silence from the audience.

Afternoon analysing the video and loving the upside-down seasickness of Jac's flip videoing.

We came up with 11 new techniques, 20 approaches and 15 questions.

Here are the questions.

QUESTIONS

1) What is a piano?
2) How near do you have to be to be enraptured by a piano?
3) How far from the piano can you be and still be a piano player?
4) Is the piano a road or a garage?
5) When someone plays the piano for the first time, can you tell what they are going to play?
6) How do you open a piano?
7) What is it about leaving the piano that makes you cry?
8) Are you aware of the audience when you are playing and does it affect your playing?
9) Is the piano a height chart and a reach chart?
10) How territorial can the piano be?
11) What does it mean to share the piano?
12) What does the piano stool represent?
13) Is there such a thing as a piano fairy?
14) Why might you need to wear a hard hat at the piano?
15) How do you say goodbye to the piano?

In the evening we explored many of the ideas discovered in the morning with a lovely group of open-minded adults, including trying out question number 5. The answer was (generally) no!

Roll-on tomorrow.

Hugh Nankivell

Monday

Tue, 23 Feb 2010 10:56:38 +0000

Cold Monday in Huddersfield, but warm people. Visited the nursery school and met Emma and Isobel and visited the space, which will be warm and cosy, and saw the 'new' piano that has been donated. Barry later was tuning it and was very glad when we said that it didn't need to be raised to concert pitch. It is very flat and battered.

Planning the project at Huddersfield Uni. The team is me - composer and musician, piano player and melodica. Bob - actor, director, improvisor, film-maker and much more. Jac - speech therapist and educational interest in early years and playful. Pat - composer and musician, guitar, bass.... We all have different interests and expertise, but a real desire to see what happens when we explore creativity with three year olds and then analyse this and take the upcoming ideas and work on them with adults.

We spent some time discussing how we might notate and describe the new techniques. if we are too detailed will this give enough scope to the adults in their creativity and will it reduce the possibility of mutations, which is of course one of the main ways in which we evolve and change.

Hugh Nankivell

KCC

Tue, 23 Feb 2010 10:54:14 +0000

Tomorrow we start the Huddersfield leg of the world tour that is Keyboard Choreography Collection. I'm coming back to my old home and really looking forward to it. The warmth of the people and the cold of the snow!

A year ago, in January 2009, I began a new project with Japanese composer Makoto Nomura in the north of Japan. A wonderful theatre called Ezuko Hall just south of Sendai invited us both to come and lead a new project, and so Nomura asked what ideas I was interested in. I said that, since moving to Devon I had been working with pre-school children, searching for pianos and exploring ideas with dance companies, and perhaps a project that incorporated all three would be good. And from that Keyboard Choreography Collection (aka Piano Dances) was born.

Nomura and I, working with a dancer Shin Sakuma, spent each morning with a nursery (The Elephant House) encouraging the children to play the piano, in whatever way they wanted. We filmed the sessions and spent the afternoon analysing the video - discovering many new techniques and approaches which in turn raised a whole series of questions. We then worked with adults each evening using these techniques to create and develop new pieces of music/dance/theatre.

In July of 2009 we then brought the project to England and ran similar programme at The Sage Gateshead and The Baltic Gallery, again playing with a nursery (and a piano from freecycle) and a group of older adults from The Silvers.

Now we are coming to Huddersfield and tomorrow meet the nursery and see the spaces and plan the sessions. I can't wait. This time I am working with Bob Lockwood, Jac Gaile and Pat Allison, none reknowned (yet) for their dancing skills.

Hugh Nankivell