Peruvian Dinner Music Evening

Primary Goal - To accompany the students toward a successful project.
Subgoal - To discover and learn about as much Peruvian music as possible. Within this goal is of course the idea that I impress upon the students as well the power of music. I know that so much about a culture can be learned through music.

After the Gamelan Week, I went to Perú for two weeks with five of my Hermann Wesselink College students, and with five students from Amstelveen College which is pretty much right across the street from our school.

I was initiated into this project the previous school year when I read an e-mail asking if there were any Spanish speaking teachers who may be interested in going to Perú as a part of a project from the city of Amstelveen. Since I've never in my six years of teaching at HWC gone on a trip with students, I thought that this was my chance. I asked, passed the Spanish test, and was accepted for the task.

What I didn't realize was how much work the project would be. Other teachers at my school have been on ski trips to Austria, to exchange trips to Norway, to Switzerland, Belgium, England, Luxembourg, Germany . . . And they only had to assist their students. This was then my chance to assist students and to take advantage of the European lust for travel. But instead of only assisting my students, I also had to attend meetings and seminars that last until the end of the year! I don't mind that, but it doesn't help my werkdrukte, and since I was later admitted to the Conservatory of Utrecht, it also meant that I had to miss more than two weeks of my own classes.

But that aside, I had of course a great trip. Only there was much less music in the trip than I would like to have experienced. We were scheduled everyday from 8 AM to 6 PM to make visits, tour, and to work on the project, so that there was no time to delve deeply into the musical culture. One of my students who is actually a family member of mine, (by marriage, but it's fun to enjoy the fact that we're related) Maxim Schoemaker is a fantastic and promising Dutch clarinet talent. We had both hoped to be able to do some jamming or at least catch a concert or something. For Maxim that didn't really get to happen.

For me, since I was always so interested in music, and they all knew from their visit to us in the Netherlands that I was the music teacher, the lieve Jersson Campos set up the concert that you see above in the living room of his grandmother, for me. O.k. it wasn't entirely for me, but I was the major catalyst for the concert. I was deeply honored to say the least. The mayor of Villa El Salvador and his wife were also there, and from a previous dinner party they too knew of my almost anthropological interest for the Peruvian music. Indeed I do consider myself to be an amateur anthropologist. With my passion for education, I can't just sit by and let National Geographic tell me via television how the world is. I like to see it and discover and deduce it's mysteries for myself.

Previously in my life I was able to study Cuban music with the Grupo Folklorico de Cuba. There as well I was able to put myself as deeply in the local musical traditions as possible. The same story in Hungary, England, Mexico, etc. . .

So my goal was to derive a rich musical experience for myself and my students and fellow begeleiders. Any intimate experience with music can be considered a success with such a general goal, so I feel that with the dinner concert, my talks with mayor Jaime Zea and his wife, and through other experiences, that I indeed have succeeded.

Aankomst in El Colegio Japonés

This school, the Colegio Japonés had the best music department that we'd seen. I spoke uitgebreid with the rector, and with the band director. The funding is very difficult they told me, but they do their best. Only one other school of the ten that we visited actually even had a music department. I wish that I could show you more of this experience. You can see all of the Dutch flags. They, much like the other school actually, went through so much trouble just for us.

The Peruvians in HWC Muziek

Here the Peruvians are singing with me at HWC. They were here for two weeks before we went there. I asked that they follow a class of mine one day, and we really had fun! I miss my música Latina, so this was so great to get to do with them! If only they had regular music lessons in their schools! They could be such wonderful singers with a bit of practice and training. What they lack in technique the certainly make up for in enthusiasm.

Gamelan Week

Something different about Dutch norms, they number their weeks of the year, and the week begins on monday, . . . Oh and they don't capitalize their days of the week.

In week 41, or, in the week of 6 October to 12 october, (and they don't capitalize their months either) that follows Monday threw Sunday, we in HWC Muziek had our Gamelan Week.

The primary goal is simply to expose students to a different ideas about music. The full set of gamelan instruments allows students to not only hear the gamalan orchestra, but of course, the students are also performing the music. Their rhythmic senses are challenged, and they can viscerally feel the responsibility of playing their part in an organizied orchestra.

It's a shame that not every class may participate, but this year our senior teacher Mr. Rot brought two brothers from a conservatory in Indonesia to help us. I was able to bring the following of my classes to participate this year:

- v3b (vwo 3 TweeTaligOnderwijs)
- t36 (vmbo-t3, gekozen vaak)
- h3a (havo 3)

I find it fun to see how the different classes relate to the not so familiar situation. Most of the students have actually in previous years already practiced and/or performed the same song on the gamelan instrumentarium, so it isn't so new to more than half of the students. For the entire blockuur, 80 minutes, the students literally bang out the strange tinkly-Eastern rhythms.

Considering that the students do keep themselves focused and busy for the blockuur, I feel that this year's edition was quite successful. I did incorporate a five minute break which did help things along, but overal, the combination of experienced and inexperienced students, and my own opgebouwed capaciteiten has made the strange much less strange. It would be good if I knew myself all of the parts and rhythms as well as Mr. Rot does, and I get better every year but , . . . I'll have to tally some feedback from the participating students this year when I'm back from Perú, but hopefully they all take home a richer idea of what and how music and art can be.

Leerdoel: Door het spelen in een gamelanorkest, de leerlingen kunnen:
- herkennen het geluid van een gamelanorkest.
- herkennen de instrumentarium van een gamelan orkest.
- onderscheid maken tussen de verschillende secties binnen de gamelanorkestopstelling.
- met het juiste ritme, en de juiste noten een liedje als gamelanorkest uitvoeren.
- de dirigent (trommelroepen) volgen om de juste dynamiek en arrangement te spelen.

Credo

I'm starting this blog because of an assignment from my Professor Suzan Lutke at the Conservatory of Utrecht. Otherwise, I tend to keep a journal already wherein I spew my feelings, aspirations and anecdotes. I would never leave those thoughts open to the public, but I will try here to submit a tamer version thereof . . . specifically wherein I can share my experiences as a music student, teacher and performer.

Our first assignment is to state a credo. The credo then serves as a basis for the learning goals that we have for our students, which in turn suggest the qualities of our lessons, the materials that we use, and the way that we use our lessons and materials to teach the students in the classroom.

I must say that I feel a bit unsure about my credo, it is not easy to just zomaar your deep beliefs bloetliggen, but here it goes.

I believe that education is perhaps the most important pursuance that human beings can endeavor. One of the conundrums of anthropology is the question why human beings have physically stopped evolving. I believe that our realm of evolution is taking place in our brains, and we must constantly feed ourselves with each successive generation to new intellectual and emotional heights. Indeed the third level cortex of our brains seem to bear witness to my amateur theory.

That may seem like a lofty statement for a mere music teacher, but for me, as an artist, music is but one facet of expression which I choose. I have some talent with musical expression, so it makes some sense that I should share my talents with younger generations in our never ending pursuit in this path of life's evolution.