Morgan (2-yr-old) on flute at Cocoon

1 - Morgan (2-yr-old) on flute at Cocoon
(1 min 18)
Listen below:

We have been playing instruments together in Cocoon. Morgan shows us he wants to play the flute through gesture and vocalising. He takes the flute from Kate. Morgan is holding the flute. His mouth covers the hole in the mouthpiece, which is usually blown across to make music. Morgan is singing into the flute. He travels around the space. He is working very hard, as you will hear. We’re interested in what different people hear and notice in this, so please pop comments and questions into the chat. If there is time later in this session, we will revisit these.

The clip is 1 minute 18 seconds long.

He sings F-sharp (F♯) above middle C (F♯4)

2 - I play flute for DMP (1 min 25)
Listen below:

This happened straight after the clip you have just heard.

DMP - Development Movement Play. Go to Jabadao to learn all about this.

Morgan handed the flute back to me. I am attempting to play the same notes that Morgan had been singing. Morgan instigates stamping, holding mammy’s hand. They stamp in unison circling around. The music follows the rhythm of his bare feet: as he speeds up, the music speeds up. As it gets faster, Morgan and mammy circle quicker and quicker until they are almost running. As the music speeds and whirls into a fast and high pitched ‘scribble’ of notes, Megan goes ‘splat’ onto the ground, lying on her back with arms and legs wide like a star fish. You will hear Morgan laughing at this point. This repeats a few times, Morgan joins in with the ‘splat’ on the last time around.

I play C above middle C (C5) and A above middle C (A4)

3 - Morgan and mammy making music, singing and chatting (3 mins 16)
Listen below:

We are in a small IKEA circus tent. Morgan indicated he wanted all of the instruments, mammy and Kate in the tent. It is a squash and a squeeze. We’re making music with pentatonic glockenspiels, with various different beaters. Some have rubber ends, some have wooden ends. We also have a pentatonic harp. Morgan sometimes uses the metal tuning peg to play the harp.

You’ll hear Morgan singing directly into the microphone we’re using at one point. Morgan leads the band - when he stops playing, we stop. We mirror and copy his choices, movement and rhythms. He is aware of this.

Why audio?

Closing my eyes and listening back to these clips is totally different to watching a video or reviewing photos and voice notes from the same session. There is something ‘pure’ about this audio, and I was fascinated to study the exact notes we were playing and vocalising. When we shared this work as part of our Youth Music Energiser project, others got totally lost in the audio and were immersed in new ways.