A Creative Classroom Experience Supported by the Juilliard School

Nord Anglia schools are supported by the Juilliard School through visiting artists, teacher training, and an amazing set of teaching resources called the Creative Classroom. Our High School and Middle School orchestra were led through a Creative Classroom lesson today where they first brainstormed playground games from their (recent) childhood, selected five that could be represented by sounds, and in sections decided on what sound represented one of these games. When they put the sounds together for a composition they realised that the loud games (like King Of The Hill and Tag) drowned out the soft sounds (like Mud). They worked through how to balance the layers in the song and then determined a way to close the song out by cutting off layers by loudness. They then used this understanding to help them better with the four layers present in a section of a song they are currently working on, "On A Hymnsong Of Philip Bliss". Fantastic learning!