2. Calibrating
- Inês Lapa
- Oct 28, 2016
- 3 min read
It didn’t take long to figure out everything has a different pace around here.
Even the roosters, that spend their days either wandering around everybody’s yard or crossing the roads followed by their chicks, seem to have no rules in regards to their crowing schedule. For some reason, not only they are used to do it all day long, but we actually hear them madly crowing at 3am!
I must say that changing from living in a hectic world’s capital to live in a small Caribbean island is definitely a curious lifestyle change. Within just a month and a half, Montserrat has made me reinvent my own routines and adjust to the island’s pace, while learning how to walk slower and have the senses more awaken.
Before moving here, I spent the past three years living in a city where I usually felt I could go anywhere as a stranger, sharing the train with other rushed commuters avoiding any sort of eye contact. However since I arrived here, I’ve been facing exactly the opposite. This is the kind of place where people know everyone and actually greet each other, always knowing who’s new in town. Every time, everywhere, on the streets, on the grocery shops, by the ice cream van, you bump into familiar faces that actually wait to hear your answer to their question “How are you doing?”.
Despite all the limitations of living in such a small place, we’ve been finding our way around and there are still quite a lot of unexplored sites to be covered. Luckily we have been taken for some good hikes, as well as a boat trip in which we got the chance to have a privileged view over Plymouth, the old capital which was mostly buried by the volcanic eruption and has been abandoned for the last two decades.
Meanwhile, kicking off all the music projects wasn’t an easy job, but right after the first blog post, all the groups were restarted with enthusiasm and quite a lot of new faces welcomed in. Now the National Youth Choirs, Strummin’ Strat Ukulele Club, Re-Beat (percussion group), Pulse (band) and some 1:1 music sessions are back on track!
In the first couple of sessions I focused on getting the students to know each other and to work together as group – for some of them, standing in a circle is already quite a challenge! I’ve decided to start with trying out some songs and a few creative exercises to assess their responses as well as to get a sense of their musical skills.
In the choirs, the students generally pick up the melodies quite easily and I found interesting to observe some habits naturally coming up - just as an example, the younger ones have a natural habit of harmonising the melodies in a certain way. I think it will be interesting to see their reaction once we start trying out some more complex harmonies that differ from what they are used to.
The ukulele students are quite enthusiastic and curious about learning new chords and sharing the knowledge with each other. Because it happens on Saturdays, out of the school routine, together with the fact these classes are run in smaller groups, it makes it more effective to meet the needs of every individual student.
Re-Beat, the band with recycled percussion instruments, already has some groovy beats going on, most of them collectively created with the students. Next week we’ll try to recap some beats from last year, while building up on new repertoire.
Pulse, the band formed by 5 secondary school students, has definitely been one of the good surprises. By helping them working on covers of the songs they like, it’s obvious their passion for music and it’s quite impressive how they find ways to improve their musical skills, even not having a proper music school to attend to in the whole island. They tend to carefully listen to the songs, picking up the chords impressively quick, while making a generous effort to get all the elements out of the original version.
In the meantime I’ve started planning the concerts and the repertoire that each group will be performing and getting quite excited about working on the arrangements for all that. More news to follow very soon!
