Borderless Musical Encounter

During the first week of September, new Ingesund’s students enjoy a great experience that it’s useful to meet new people and open our mind for music learning. A hole week full of workshops, repetitions and finally a great concert when we use all the things that we have learned.

•  Storkör

This was the first surprise for me. A choir without notes, an open ears choir. It was really interesting to see that we can learn music without use papers, only listening and repeating, like the oral tradition songs were learned over the centuries.

The first day we started singing only one voice, to start to memorize the most difficult and long songs. An then, in the rest of the days, we start to put different voices and melodies to this (estrange for all of us) lyrics.

It was a really good experience for me, because I had never sung in a choir before, and then I decided to join to the regular choir here because I liked this experience whit Sten Källman.

•  Stororkester

From the second day till the last, we were working in the orchestral workshop with Sébastien Dubé. We could play in an unusual orchestra integrating all possible instruments, from keyboards, guitars and electric basses, until the instruments that usually are in a “classic” orchestra.

The work in this orchestra was focused in rehearsal the staff to play the first part of the concert with the Ale Möller Band and the singers. But overall, we had to forget the techniques problems and think only in enjoy the music.

•  Folkmusikband

Following the same system that in the choir and in others workshops, listen and repeat was the way how we learned from cero a folk music theme to play together. The only difference this time was that we made two groups, the first one to learn the melody, and the second one to make a bass, rhythm, chords... And them, when we had learned our parts, we practise together the hole piece.

• Improvisation

In this workshop, we had some basic theory explanations about jazz, blues and other kinds of improvisation styles. After this, we tried to play some small themes in these different styles, and we listened also some examples from recordings. Like in the other workshops, is not a problem which instrument you play, all instruments can have a place, because any music is for a specific instrument or ensemble, and that is really good.

• Slagverk with Rafael

Make music with our hands. If we only use our voice to work in the choir, in this workshop it’s the turn of our hands. A lot of different drums were ready for us in the percussion room, and Rafael was waiting to teach us how to use them.

The concept of rhythm and the coordination between our both arms and hands, using them to produce also different kinds of sound in the same drum were our tools to make music. Also, after this basic learning, the next step was use more than one drum, where the coordination became the biggest challenge, and more than one need Rafael’s help to get it. Our ear also was the most important tool, like in the rest of the workshops.

• Grekist

If in the three first workshops we used our instruments to make music, and with Rafael we used drums, this was the only one where we don’t play the music, because this was a dance workshop.

We learned about greek and orient dances to use some of them in the concert.

• Musikanmöte

For me, this was one of the hardest workshops, but it was because in one of my first weeks here (even later) was really hard to be two hours sit and only listening people telling stories in Swedish. I really didn’t understand anything. But later my friends start to translate part of the things that the musicians told about their experiences during their musical lives and how they became musicians. So, maybe understanding Swedish could be one of the most interesting moments of the week, and the rest of the people looked really interested and asked a lot of things.

• Konsert

Finally, after a hole week of workshops and repetitions, the last they we had a great concert in the Aula.

The first part of the concert we played in the orchestra with the singers and the Ale Möller Band. So, here we used our knowledge from the orchestral workshop, but some people play drums also, using techniques from the Rafael’s lessons. Also here we play all together the folk piece and make an orchestral improvisation.

In the second part, we leave our instruments and use the things that we learned in the other two workshops: choir and dance. Also some people still playing drums.

For me, as classical clarinet player and as an exchange student from a conservative musical education system as the Spanish, this experience has been an opportunity to play different styles of music that I never have had played before, and that I never had thought to can play.