Music in the Streets

On any given afternoon in Toronto, one can walk through the UofT neighbourhood and hear the music of an interesting kind. Often on the intersections of Harbord and St. George or Bloor and St. George is a man with an autoharp playing his own brand of music. His sound is large, echoing and brilliant. It rings out through the streets in a dreamy fashion that manages to penetrate your thoughts. While the timbre and harmonic qualities often remind me of the Christmas season, his music can be heard all throughout the year. He plays with a easy smile on his face as passer-byers respond with similar enjoyment. His music has a distinct quality to it that reminds me of Toronto. Perhaps it's the friendly environment, the politeness, or the general sense of comradery often found within our city streets.
These qualities make up the best part of our city. If anyone ever attempts to cycle or rollerblade through our city they may understand a little bit more about what I am writing about. Cyclist all know the dangers involved in our streets, often overcrowded with cars and pedestrians. Yet we still negotiate through it all, aware of the eminent fear of potential injury or even death. One result of this fear is the friendly comradery that you will find between two cyclist when paused at an intersection. It seems strange, but I found it absolutely true. Often portrayed in a simple nod or gesture, both cyclist are aware of the risks we take and the need for cautious observation. The gesture implies the acknowledgment of each others existence, something that motorist often forget. It's as if to say, I'll look after you if you do the same for me. This spirit lives deep within the core of our city, and can be found in the strangest of places.
I find this acknowledgment from our musicians and street performers as well. I often move around from place to place with a guitar strapped to my back. The guitar becomes a kind of badge that symbolizes my efforts as a musician amidst the thousands of others. When passing by other musicians with similar badges, I often get a smile and a nod, another way of saying good luck and god speed. You can compare the struggle of establishing one self as a musician in this highly competitive scene to the struggle a cyclist endures to stay alive while traveling through the streets, either way, the people you run into during your travels will likely offer a kind and reassuring acknowledgment. Something that I think characterizes this city. For whatever reason we seem to want to look out for one another. And if there is some common ground that becomes apparent in the process we take advantage of the opportunity.
Don't get me wrong, not everybody in the city is on our side. Mainly impatient motorist or cranky, stressed non-musicians turning up their ipods because the busker is drowning out their top forty pop hits. But it is apparent to me that these people don't get it. The city offers a closeness and intimacy found only when large populations co-exists in such close corners. If you really desire the peace and serenity found in silence and non-disturbance, perhaps a smaller city may suit your needs better. For the musician on St. George and Harbord playing his autoharp, the spirit within our city allows him to exist. His music often acts as a pick-me-up when feeling overwhelmed with the stresses of school and its inevitable deadlines. All he asks for in return is a friendly smile and a nod.

Service Learning 2

So our group got to go down to the service learning center a second time and this time we were a little more prepared. Not only did we know exactly what to expect, we also knew what worked and what didnt'. We opened the session up with a stretch followed by a Dalcroze exercise in order to get them moving. We knew they liked the Beatles so we stayed with the classics, Hey Jude and Yellow Submarine. The crowd remembered us and and the songs and got right involved. We also knew not to worry so much about teaching the lyrics, particularly for songs like yellow submarine. We were fortunate to have Will Snodgrass with us this time to help lead a percussion session for the second half. We passed out the instruments and Will directed the group to play either loud or soft according to his hand gestures. He also walked around the group pointing to people who he wanted to play. It was a good exercise because it got everybody to pay attention and focus on what the leader was doing.
Overall the experience was very positive. On a personal level it was quite rewarding to help cheer up the faces of these young less fortunate ones. You can tell that their motivation to participate and have fun is very high, much higher than your average fortunate high school student. I know I was like that. I think a greater lesson to learn from the whole experience is not to take for granted what you have, and that the best way to express this is through community service. We happen to be a group of musicians so it is only natural for us to lead a music session. I appreciate the efforts of my fellow group members and look forward to working with them in the future.
Ciao for now,
Brian

Service Learning Journal

Well, my group (group C) went to the work station last week on March 13, and none of us new exactly what to expect! What we found was: approximately 60 participants ranging in age from 20 to about 40 with most people in their young 20's. There disabilities ranged from a minor learning disability (being a little slow) right up to fully incapacitated in a wheel chair. The first five or ten minutes were pretty intense because we didn't know how they'd react to our program.
The good news is they responded very positively to our program! We were prepared to teach three songs, Yellow Submarine, Hey Jude, and Lean on Me. They seemed to love the idea. We wrote the lyrics of the chorus on a large sheet of paper and than played the song a few time while singing along with who ever wanted to. Hey Jude went so well, many of them got up and danced while the song was playing. Some of them were quite the dancers! So after playing and singing and dancing to Yellow Submarine and Hey Jude, we decided to pass out the percussive instruments. We decided to stick with Hey Jude for the rest of the session because they responded so well to it.
Overall the response was very positive and once we got started it felt easy and quite natural to continue with whatever worked best. Simple ideas work best.
The next step for us is to create a more organized format of the program so that the participants learn 4 or 5 new musical terms. The terms could be orchestra, or conductor etc. Also I hear there has been a request for some African music, so I plan to look into so good examples for the group. We'll be back in the first week of April. Good luck!