Creative Learning Journey Teacher ResourcesAnatomy of the Piano

Stages 1–2

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IntroductionThese Creative Learning Journey Resources have been prepared to help you get the most out of Anatomy of the Piano. These resources are full of activities and inspiration to prepare yourstudents before coming to see the performance, what you can do on the way, what you can do at the Sydney Opera House and then unpacking the experience back in the classroom.

You should adapt these Resources to suit the student age and stage of your class and thecurriculum foci and outcomes used in your school. These Resources are written as a creative document for you to bring to life. If you have questions about exercises or provocations please feel free to make contact to talk it through. We are always open to feedback, comments and working with you to assist and learn from you. Contact details are on the back page.

Some websites are suggested throughout this resource. It is recommended that you first visit the sites and assess the suitability of the content for your particular school environment before setting the activities based on these.

Performance Descriptionand SynopsisA fantastic pianistic adventure for students anda gift to teachers.

Join acclaimed musician Will Pickvance for an excitingexploration of the piano and the rich history of the greatmusicians who transformed it. The critically acclaimed one man show takes students on a fantastic pianistic adventure that sees them find Bach in a cave, meet a bad-tempered Beethoven and jam with ‘Fats’ Waller.

Anatomy of the Piano is the perfect way to introducemini musicians to the sounds and styles of thismagical instrument!

Written and performed by Will Pickvance.

Sydney Opera House Creativity FrameworkThese Creative Learning Journey Resources have been written using the Sydney Opera House Creativity Framework as the pedagogy. This Framework underpins much of what we do in our work with schools. More information can be found at the Sydney Opera House website. In short the Framework aims to define the creative process in a way that educators can use to teach and be inspired by.

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At a glance this Creativity Framework is:

Prepare: Tools and PathwaysPreparing mind, body, space, materials and time.

Buy in: Presence and EnthusiasmConvincing students that they want to be there.

Imagine: The Fertile UnknownExploring a subject through arts practice.Using form to uncover content. Allowing uncensoredexpression to reveal new ways of seeing a subject.

Question: Analysis, investigation and revelation Creating new understanding by analyzing what justhappened when honing the imagination.

Make: forging form from contentPutting shape to content and moving towardsa project; scripts, composition, choreography,project design.

Show: Commit, frame, judgementPerforming and presenting the work.

Reflect: Remembering, Processing, exitingCreating understanding and healthy memories fromthe creative process and product.

Creative Learning Journey Resource Notes Conceived and illustrated by Lilly Blue

Lilly Blue is a visual artist, educator (BFA, Dip Ed) and publisher with a background inphysical performance, installation and community arts. She edits, curates and publishesBIG Kids Magazine together with dancer/writer Jo Pollitt, which features the work of children and artists side by side. Lilly worked as Head of Creative Learning with The Red RoomCompany and travels Internationally delivering arts residencies, professional development, creative commissions and exhibitions, as well as designing programming for young audiences drawn from a rigorous personal practice. Lilly Blue is one of the Sydney Opera HouseTeaching Artists and was instrumental in developing the Creativity Framework.

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Anatomy of a Piano

Stage 1 Stage 2 & Stage 3

Stage 1 - Anatomy of a Piano

Outcomes Content General capabilities and cross-curriculumpriorities

English EN1-6BA student: Recognises a range of purposes and audiences for spoken language and recognises organisational patterns and features of predictable spoken texts.

Speaking & listening 2. InterculturalunderstandingCritical & creativethinking Personal& social capability.

Creative Arts Music MUS1.4A student: Responds to a range of music, expressing likes and dislikes and thereasons for these choices.

Listening.

Creative Arts Drama DRAS1.4A student: Appreciates dramatic work during the making of their own drama and the drama of others.

Appreciating.

Stage 2 - Anatomy of a Piano

English EN2-6BA student: Identifies the effect of purposeand audience on spoken texts,distinguishes between different forms of En-glish and identifies organisational patterns and features.

Speaking & listening 2 Interculturalunderstanding personal and social capability.

Creative Arts Music MUS2.4A student: Identifies the use of musical concepts and musical symbols in arange of repertoire.

Listening.

Creative Arts Drama DRAS2.4A student: Responds to, and interpretsdrama experiences and performances.

Appreciating.

Classroom Context andCurriculum LinksThis performance provides the classroom teacher withmany opportunities for learning activities that linkto the following curriculum

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Stage 3 - Anatomy of a Piano

Outcomes Content General capabilities and cross-curriculumpriorities

English EN3-5BA student: Discusses how language is used to achieve a widening range of purposes for a widening range of audiences & contexts.

Responding andcomposing.

Critical & creative thinking.

Creative Arts Music MUS3.4A student: Identifies the use of musical concepts and symbols in a range ofmusical styles.

Listening.

Creative Arts Drama DRAS3.4A student: Responds critically to a range of drama works and performance styles.

Appreciating .

Drawing Sounds

Close your eyes and concentrate on your breathing until everything becomes very still and quiet. Listen to as many different sounds as you can. Listen to the sounds in the classroom, inside your mind, in your body, above the roof and under the ground. Stretch your ears as far as you can to hear the furthest, quietest, tiniest far away sounds. Listen to your own heartbeat. See if you can hear your teacher breathing.

Do you think it is possible to draw sounds?

Draw as many different kinds of lines as you can on a page. Notice how each of these lines could represent a certain kind of sound. Close your eyes and listen deeply to every little sound near and far. Draw all the sounds you can hear. Keep your eyes closed while your are drawing.

Dotty, curly, curvy, jagged, straight, stretched, stumbling, squiggly, soft, rough, pressed, light, long, limp, wavy or wild.

• Don’t draw the things you think are making the sounds. Draw the way the sounds feel. For example if you can hear a car don’t draw the car. Draw a line that looks like it is vrooooming across the page. If you can hear a bird singing don’t draw a bird. Draw a line that looks like it is tweeting and looping and swooping and soaring across your paper sky.

Dancing Pencils

• Listen to a piece of music with your eyes closed.• Let your hands and arms move to the rhythm and melodies.• Choose a pencil and let it dance in the air to the sounds. • Bring your pencil down to your page and let it slide, scratch, slip,

tap and curl lines across the paper in response to the sounds.• Don’t draw hearts or faces or words or puppy dogs. • It is important that you don’t try and draw something you can recognise.• Allow the music to move your hand so it feels like the pencil is actually dancing, flipping, dotting and spinning across the page like a dancer.

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Musical Narratives

Instrumental music has the capacity to tell stories without any words and is a wonderful way to inspire imagined narratives, characters and storylines. Different genres createa particular ambiance, mood and feelings that can be great inspiration for art-makingand storytelling.

Choose a few pieces of piano music in different styles: instrumental, ambient, classical or world music and play small portions to students followed by some of the following questions.

Close your eyes and listen.

How does this music make you feel?If this song were a colour what would it be? If this music was an animal what might it be? Think of adjectives to describe this piece of music? If this music was a conversation what do you think it would be about? If these sounds were telling a story what do you imagine the story would be? Do the melodies remind you of something that happened orsomewhere you once visited? If it were possible to swallow sounds what do you think this song would taste like? Why?

A Story

Choose an emotional piece of music and play it acouple of times so that students can appreciate the way it shifts and changes in mood and feeling.

Imagine that you are actually listening to a story.Write the story in as much detail as possible.Where does it begin? What happens? How does it end?

Once upon a time..........

Ideas for MusicFlight of the Bumblebee, by Nikolai Rimsky-KorsakovMoonlight Sonata, by BeethovenFur Elise, by BeethovenClaire de Lune, by DebussyRondo Alla Turca, by MozartToccata in d minor, by BachTake 5, by Dave BrubeckAin’t Misbehavin’, by Fats Waller

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Listen. Can you hear the music in the sounds of the world? Is the weather a song? Is the wind a melody? What music does the traffic make? Are the lilting, chattering, laughing, squealing voices a cacophony? How many rhythms can your hear right now? Your heart is always beating.

Make up a song with your friend during your trip to the Opera House. It might only have one sentence that you sing over and over and over. It might have rhyming lyrics. It might be made from percussive sounds of the surfaces around you. It might just be a melody that you hum in unison. Sing or play it together quietly...or loudly!

Explore The Royal Botanic Garden

• Take your shoes off and feel the grass between you toes.

• Lie down on your back in the shade and look up intothe trees for a long time. Even when you feel likegetting up stay a little bit longer. Imagine you aresinking into the ground or floating up into the branches. Breathe. Keep breathing. How do you feel?

• Follow the poetic pathways to find poems hiddenby poets from The Red Room Company throughoutthe gardens. Find the map below.

Visit: New Shoots – Poems inspired by plants.

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Reflections

How did you feel when the lights went out? Did you know anything about the show before it started? What did you expect?

How did the piano help Will tell his story? Think about what he played while he was talking about “tearing off the wrapping paper in a mad frenzy”.

What can you remember about the stories that Will told? Why do you think that story was memorable?

Did something surprise you, or make you laugh?

What did you learn about how the piano has changed and adapted over time?

What was your favourite part of the show? Why?

Ideas

• Imagine what the ‘skeleton’ of a piano might look like. Imagine that a piano could have scales and teeth and gills. Draw a piano living under water with scales, gills and 88 teeth.

• Gather some interesting objects from around the classroom.Explore the sounds you can make with them. What happens when you bang one object against another? Create a composition using only the sounds you can make from the objects and surfaces in your classroom. Perform it for your class.

• Will Pickvance is a wonderful storyteller. Think of a story from your own life and imagine that you are telling it to an audience. How could you use sound effects and music to enhance your

storytelling and make it more interesting for your audience? Use musical instruments to make your story more powerful.

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