July 7 – 12, 9 am – 4 pm (extended care available)
Pics from The Blues week 2013
The blues progression
Clapping on the off beats
Besides the tonne of musical games and other fun-in-the-park activities we do every week, Blues Camp 2014 explores the roots of the blues through the pentatonic scale, African American shouts, work songs and gospel tunes as well as the blues itself – from its swingin’ roots to present day R&B.
Campers will also:
build and compose on their own instruments (and explore some ideas about acoustics)
learn and improvise on the pentatonic scale, African American shouts, and work songs
vocalize rhythms and chord progressions of the blues
write lyrics to, compose, improvise and sing over 12-bar blues.
From the pictures above of Blues week 2013 you can see some campers making Diddley Bos (the precursor to the slide guitar). The plan is to make more of those this year but we’re also toying with the idea of building modified washbasin basses! We’ll be taking some time during March break to experiment and see if it’s doable.
In the meantime, click the picture below and have a listen to what a Diddley Bo sounds like (it’s so bluesy):
Check out our Gallery for more pictures of previous camps!
July 28 – Aug 1, 9 am – 4 pm (extended care available)
Aug 18 – Aug 22, 9 am – 4 pm (extended care available)
…. Special guest artist for the week includes AnnA Melnikoff and her orchestra of drums!
NO DRUM NEEDED! Special guest artist AnnA Melnikoff (along with her orchestra of drums!) will be co-hosting this week. Campers will have a chance to play the polyrhythmic accompaniment on 3 bass drums (known as dunun) and develop riffs and patterns on djembes. Focusing on rhythms that accompany rights of passage, participants will build masks and also explore the meaning of the drums and the rhythms from the very ancient Mande tradition. A drum will be made available to every camper.
Click on the gallery above to view more pictures and some video of West African Drumming camp 2013.
Click HERE to see MusiCamp campers perform in 2013
Click HERE to learn more about West African Drumming at MusiCamp
July 21 – 25, 9 am – 4 pm (extended care available)
Have a song you want to sing? A story you want to tell? Through a series of writing workshops and the study of different elements of music, aspiring songwriters and singers put their ideas to music. In a fun and practical way, campers are introduced to aspects of songwriting – like hooks, riffs, harmony, and rhythmic accompaniment, chorus-verse format, basic chord progressions, intros and outros, rhyming and storytelling. By the end of the week campers will have written and/or collaborated on the creation of original songs and arrangements. Kids who already have basic guitar chording are encouraged to bring their guitars. The week ends with a world premiere performances of our songwriter’s compositions!
Click the picture above to view our Flickr gallery of the Composition and Song camp from the summer of 2013. The pictures are of:
campers constructing, stringing and playing diddley bos (home-made instrument)
making/eating pizza (homemade by campers from a wood-stove) in Dufferin Grove Park (yummmmm)
campers writing lyrics for a song (we had individual and collaborative writing workshops)
some of the original lyrics-charts
performance day & the after-performance party with parents, friends, watermelon and (more!) pizza
It’s that time of year and MusiCamp is sorting out the summer schedule. We’re planning to keep our three themes from last year –
West African Drumming
The Blues
Composition and Song
But we’re juggling some other possible weekly themes, like:
OLD TIME & BLUE GRASS – details are still sketchy but the idea involves fiddles, guitars, and singing that old North American folk music (Blue Grass and Old Time music) featured so brilliantly in O Brother Where Art Thou? Special guest artist (to be announced) will co-direct this week.
JUST SONGS – this week is for serious singers! With a focus on technique and a blended sound, we’ll learn 2- and 3- and maybe even 4-part songs! Repertoire will be drawn from across the genres, from classical to world music, from madrigals to pop tunes!
Let us know what you think or if you got any other ideas. Anything is still possible!
For reference, below are the descriptions from last years themes…
We have added an additional West African Drumming Week for Aug 12-16, 9 am – 4 pm with extended care available for your music-loving, creative 8-12 year olds.
THE WEST AFRICAN DRUMMING WEEK is co-hosted by special guest artist AnnA Melnikoff and her orchestra of drums – so NO DRUM NEEDED – a drum will be made available to every camper! Campers will have a chance to play the polyrhythmic accompaniment on 3 bass drums (known as dunun) and develop riffs and patterns on djembes. Focusing on rhythms that accompany rights of passage, participants will have the chance to build masks and also explore the meaning of the drums and the rhythms from the very ancient Mande tradition. (To learn more about Mande music and what we’ll learn click here.)
The video below (click the picture) demonstrates a MusiCamp homemade diddley bo, which is the precursor to the slide guitar and arguably the first blues instrument.
In a few days (or maybe a few weeks ; ) ), I’ll post the whole lot of diddley bos campers made at MusiCamp in its inaugural Blues Week!
click on the picture to hear what a didley bo sounds like
OUR SOUNDWALKS WILL WORK SORT OF LIKE A MUSICAL TREASURE HUNT!
And campers will use their found ‘sound’ treasures to construct their own soundscapes, following their own inspirations and creative instincts.
One of the things we’ll be looking at every week are soundwalks and soundscape compositions. But what are these? Before I tell you more about these things, have a listen to the following soundscape composition called “City Symphony” from the movie August Rush – a film about a young orphaned prodigy who uses his musical gifts to find his biological parents.
Soundwalks
Soundwalks are exactly what they sound like: walks that explore sound. You can explore the sounds everywhere – whether it’s deep in the forest of the Toronto Ravine system or in the commercial semi-industrial space behind Dufferin Mall. But what’s really interesting about sound walks is how much more you are able to see when you take the time to listen. Often soundwalks can even uncover hidden stories about a place or a neighbourhood…
Soundscapes
“A soundscape is any collection of sounds, almost like a painting is a collection of visual attractions,” says internationally renown Canadian composer R. Murray Schafer. “When you listen carefully to the soundscape it becomes quite miraculous.”
There are soundscapes that occur organically from our natural or urban environments – that’s what the composer R. Murray Schafer is talking about above. And then there are composed soundscapes.
This piece of art is actually the musical score written by world-renown Canadian composer R. Murray Schafer. The instrumentation involves an orchestra, 7 singers, and electronic sounds.
Soundscape Compositions
Soundscape compositions are compositions that rely less on what we usually expect from music, like a regularly repeated melody and/or rhythm. Instead, it explores sounds and silence, and is more directly inspired by a specific idea and/or emotion. Often this results in a musical piece that boarders on theatre or performance art. You can even see from the picture (which is an actual score by the composer R. Murray Schafer) how the score of a soundscape composition defies conventions and looks more like a piece of art than the typical musical notation.
at MusiCamp
As mentioned, at MusiCamp, our soundwalks will work like a musical treasure hunt and campers will be:
instructed to search for specific types of sounds
encouraged to connect the dots between what they hear and what they see to makeup a story about the place or neighbourhood they acoustically explore.
Back at the studio, campers will:
create a soundscape composition imitating the sounds they heard – perhaps to tell the story of the place or neighbourhood they just explored
and if campers wish to, they will also be given the opportunity to create their own score for their creation
During the West African Drumming Week, we’ll be exploring the Mande musical tradition – more of which can be read (and seen in videos) just below this introductory section on the history of Mande drumming.
In 1235, the Mande warrior king named Sunjata Keita rose to power and united many kingdoms in West Africa to establish the Mande empire and what would be a 200-year golden age of peace and prosperity in the region.
Musicians at this time were more than just musicians. They were highly valued as negotiators, praise singers and historians. This history and its musical tradition lives on in a large part of west African countries, including Mali, Guinea, Gambia, Senegal, Ivory Coast, Burkina Faso, and Guinea Bissau as well as parts of Nigeria, Sierra Leone, and Liberia.
By the way, the story of Sunjata Keita is incredible since he was born a cripple and was exiled from his home because of this. Yet, he not only overcame his disabilities but established the prosperous Mande empire. More youth-oriented information can be read here: http://www.africa-junior.com/en/youth/knowledges/sundiata-keita.html.
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How MusiCamp Will Explore Mande Music
Guest host AnnA Melnikoff , with her expertise in the Mande drumming tradition, will guide us through this week’s activities. She’ll be bringing her exquisite drums which include djembes and a set of 3 bass drums called dunun. Each dunun has its own pattern which overlap with one another to form a melody upon which djembes can solo. In this week, you’ll get a chance to learn the various dunun patterns, djembe accompaniment patterns as well as a group djembe solo.
Focusing on rhythms that accompany rights of passage, participants will also build masks and explore the meaning of the drums and the rhythms from the very ancient Mande tradition.
Check out the videos below to get a sense of what we’ll be playing in the West African Drumming Week!
An Idea of Mande Drumming in Videos
SOUNDS OF MANDE DRUMMING
The 3 drummers standing are playing the dunun – the smallest drum is called the kenkeni, the middle drum is called the sangban and the largest drum is the dundunba. The guys sitting are playing 2 different accompaniment patterns on djembes.
THE SOUND OF THE DJEMBE
This one the drum instructor is demonstrating the 3 different tones on the djembe – tone, slap and bass, or in French “ton,” “claque,” and “bas” . By the way, French is spoken in many West African countries.
THE SOUND OF THE DUNUN
This video starts with a pattern on the middle dunun drum known as the sangban. Then the kenkeni (the smallest drum) is introduced. Note it is the simplest of all the 3 drum patterns but has the most important role of keeping the beat steady. Finally the bass drum, the dundunba, is introduced.
The camp is located in a newly renovated studio in a private home on a quiet cul-de-sac close to Dufferin Mall (Dufferin and Bloor, see the map to your right).
Below are Flickr galleries of the indoors and outdoors from our 2013 summer music camps.
MusiCamp 