Introduction the Module (Wednesday 23rd September 2015)

Today I was given lots of information on what the module would entail.

We looked at Module Aims and Module Content which is also in the module guide available on Sunspace.

The main task today was 'What is Music?' This sounds like a simple question but if you have a think about it, there are a lot of possible answers. At the beginning of the class we were asked 'What do you think music is?' in small groups we came up with a definition in a sentence ours was 'Freedom of expression without the need words'. We then discussed our ideas with the class and conversed about how we came up with our own definition. One group explained that they believe music was how notes are arranged, this was far different from my groups statement but they are both valid.

Later in the lesson, we were given a serious of scenarios from the book This is Your Brain on Music: Understanding a Human Obsession. All of the statements involved music somehow. We had to list the from what we thought was the MOST musical to the LEAST. At first I said jokingly to my group, lets put them all in a straight line because they all are and they laughed but actually I thought maybe that is right but we continued with the task accordingly and we chose an order the best we could.

Today's session was interesting and it helped me to broaden my horizons when thinking about music.

Fresher's Week Taster Session (Wednesday 16th September 2015)

Introduction to Musicianship CMU105

I was really nervous about attending this workshop! Lots of thoughts were going through my head; am I good enough? Do I have the skills? Do I need to be able to read music really well? However I was excited too because I love to sing and I play guitar. 

We learned some African Drum rhythms which was such good fun! I was expecting it to be a lot easier than it actually was, especially once other rhythms were added it was hard to keep my rhythm. I found that playing the African Drum made everyone work together, you could even feel the vibration from the other drums! 

I learned that sometimes the African Drum is also known as Talking Drums as they were used as a form of communication and then other objects were made into instruments such as the cow bell, this was also used as communication. I also learned that in Africa Music and Dance is one. This is fantastic as when I was playing the drum you have to make big movements with your arms and it makes you want to get up and dance. I like the idea that Dance and Music are one.

As a group, we had 15 minutes to create a piece of music based on a picture of a carnival. We used a few different instruments; African Drums, Cow Bells, Piano and other Bells to create this sound. We also used our voices. 

We decided to call our song Onion Rings as that is a typical carnival food and we named ourselves Curly Fries as it fitted the song perfectly.