School visits
The Dome schools project is targeted towards primary schools. The program, as well as introducing some of the preliminary concepts behind music and notation through a world of amazing landscapes, facilitates the development of aural-visual association skills. The animation is also designed as a springboard for exploring the relationships between music, acoustics and maths. The work also presents the issue of narrative in a musical work. Does music tell a story? How might it do this. What is the story behind this animated work?
The Experience
Discovery, Familiarisation, Recognition;
An 8 minute music visualisation
The work itself requires the setting of total isolation, a vast digital universe, where in some unknown corner of this vastness we discover three small digital entities. In our curiosity we follow these small entities around to explore their strange world. Having familiarised ourselves with it we begin to recognise the structure behind their existence, ultimately to depart, leaving them behind destined to endlessly repeat themselves in the vastness of this digital universe.
Introduction
Before a class enters the Dome a short presentation (around the same length of the animation, 10min) is given explaining what they will see inside The Dome and the concepts behind the detail in the work.
- Using my cello, kids are introduced to the concepts of how and why string lengths effect pitch .
- A large white board is used to involve the kids in drawing the line of music as defined by the shortening and lengthening of the string as I play a simple tune. This is then explained as the basic concept behind music notation and also what they will see in The Dome.
- A simple introduction of what sound is. Using an air cannon kids will experience the motion of air through space. This is extrapolated into the sound waves we experience as sound and explained as the furry stuff wrapped around the little acoustic entities flying around inside the dome.
The detail involved in these explanations will vary based on the age group.
Logistics
The Dome is about 6m in diameter and can accommodate about 30 kids, an average class size. Including entry/exit traffic there is a turn around time of about 10 min per screening. During each screening the next class is given a presentation.
The Dome can be setup both inside a hall or gym, or outside. As long as a power point is near by. It would be highly preferable to be set up inside as that avoids any issues with inclement weather including sun & heat exposure and makes the presentation much easier and effective to deliver.
Follow up material
After the school visit and kids have experienced The Dome, the school receives an interactive DVD rom. This is designed to take all the concepts behind the animation and explores them in further detail through PC based interactive presentations of musical and acoustic concepts. One focus of this product is to highlight the relationship between music and maths as a foundation for understanding some of the aforementioned concepts. It includes tasks which also engage maths skills to find answers to acoustic questions. There are also links to the internet for exploring certain areas in greater detail.
This is designed to be used as a PC based teaching aid to augment the school's music program. It is also possible to integrate aspects of this educational product into maths and science programs. Further detail about the DVD rom can be found in the poducts page.
