ABOUT

66 Advanced Higher Music pupils from 22 schools across six local authorities participated in Music Factory. Students worked on the creation of individual compositions inspired by musical concepts from the ‘Masterworks’ repertoire. The students composed new work for a trio of Scottish Chamber Orchestra musicians with support and guidance from a professional composer. The composers lead workshops in schools over a 3 month period and at the final session, the Scottish Chamber Orchestra made an informal recording of the work. Each student and their teacher received a copy of the recording.

Music Factory involved:

• – 66 Advanced Higher music students
• – 6 local authority areas
• – 10 teachers
• – 2 professional composers
• – 10 Scottish Chamber Orchestra musicians

The project schedule is available through Glow.

PURPOSE

SCO Connect’s flagship ‘Masterworks’ project for standard and higher grade students has reached many hundreds of pupils and has proved incredibly popular. Masterworks was so successful that it raised the question ‘what can you do for us now’?’ from teachers, pupils and parents, resulting in the development of Music Factory.

Music Factory was developed to support teachers in an aspect of the music curriculum often cited as being one in which they feel least comfortable. It also offers young composers the chance to engage with professional players and composers, thus understanding the reality of composing new music for players.

The project was designed to offer senior pupils and the more advanced ‘Masterworks’ participants an opportunity to further hone their grasp of the musical concepts and techniques they had been studying, by putting them into practice.

The purpose of Music Factory is:

• – To support and complement composition in Advanced Higher Music
• – To offer teachers and pupils the opportunity to engage with professional musicians and composers
• – To inspire young musicians through the work of contemporary orchestral masterpieces
• – To nurture young composers’ skills and confidence
• – To develop young composers’ understanding of musical techniques and concepts by putting them into practice

CHALLENGES

Teachers were strongly encouraged to attend sessions along with their pupils, in order to understand the process and be able to support the young composers as they worked on pieces in school between workshops sessions.

In practice it proved difficult for many staff to get themselves released from timetable to do so, however the design of the project enabled teachers to use the material produced by the composer with lower level classes.

“I have used the material with a lower level higher class. The results have been excellent.” (teacher)

Those teachers who did attend found the experience useful as good CPD and have gone on to apply the experience with other classes.

“It was good to ‘force’ the pupils to compose without their instruments or a computer programme. As a teacher, I also found the sessions extremely valuable as it reminded me that there is more than one way to approach composition. Thank you.” (teacher)

Funding agreements were reached with each of the local authorities involved in order to ensure schools could participate.

IMPACTS

Young composers reported that they had been challenged and encouraged to expand their creative thinking and practice:

“I used to hate composition, but the workshops showed me I can actually do it, they game me much more confidence and more enthusiasm to compose more music. Thanks!” (Young composer)

“I liked getting to work with professional orchestral players and communicate with other musicians” (Young composer)

Teachers responded positively:

“Would love to have this opportunity again – really inspiring and refreshing’ (teacher)

“It was interesting to observe the pupils being taken out of their comfort zone and getting to work with instruments they were not familiar with.” (teacher)

OTHER

Partners:

• – Scottish Chamber Orchestra Connect
• – 6 local authorities

Levels and Stages:

• – Senior phase
• – S6

Funding:

• – SCO core budget (via Scottish Government)
• – Participating local authorities
• – SCO ‘250’ Society
• – Scott Davidson Charitable Trust
• – Educational Institute of Scotland

Experiences and Outcomes:

The project specifically linked to the experiences and outcomes as follows:

EXA 4 71a, 17b, 18a and 19a

For More information contact:

Lucy Lowe, SCO Connect Director on 0131 478 8355 or email lucy.lowe@sco.org.uk

or visit http://www.sco.org.uk/education-home