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.
