Seasons Project Update; Combining Music and Other Art Subjects

As piano teachers it is easy to get bogged down with the daily routine of teaching and to forget to see the life enriching properties of music. Over the weeks it becomes easy to let practice for exams and performances detract from the sheer enjoyment of playing the piano. By honing in on the interdisciplinary nature of the Arts as a whole, with music being just one part, it is possible to foster a more encompassing way of learning.

Therefore, here at Greenside we like to promote all aspects of creativity, with music at the forefront. We hoped that by creating a project that celebrates a variety of the Arts we would help to nurture the creativity of all our students and help them turn into more well rounded musicians who are able to draw inspiration from the world around them. We believe that, when performing, incorporating elements from the wider world is an intrinsic part of producing an expressive performance. For example, each of our soloists for the Seasons CD may summon a mental image of a seasonal scene or landscape in order to help them convey a specific mood or feeling.

Preparations for our charity CD and booklet are well under way, and we are hoping for even more entries by the deadline 11th July.

Every week last half-term during the breaks in the choir, the members participated in craft sessions which included colouring, beading and leaf rubbing in order to produce seasonal collages that will act as a division between each season in the booklet. 

For Spring, Catherine was inspired by various pictures of birds which she adapted in order to produce the final bird design which contained fun patterns to colour in. 

For Summer, Catherine loosely based the outlines of the butterflies on the Brimstone, Swallowtail, Orange Tip and Peacock. She then designed the inside with shapes that would be fun to colour in. 

For Autumn, Georgina collected a variety of leaves from the Greenside Garden and laminated them to preserve the young leaves and make it easier for the choir members to produce rubbings. 

For Winter, Georgina helped the children design snowflakes using beads and pipe cleaners. 

Each season's collage was placed on a trellis in order to provide a unifying link, and to create the feel that the birds, butterflies, leaves and snowflakes had just landed on the trellis. We also added other symbolic seasonal items that were sourced from the Greenside Garden: for Spring we added blossom; for Summer we included roses; for Autumn we added pine cones; and for Winter we decorated the trellis with holly.

Each photo contains a reference to a line in every season song sung by Choir.
Spring: 'beauty blossoms in the tiniest seed'
Summer: 'under cotton clouds in a bright blue sky sitting on the grass watching butterflies fly by' 
Autumn: 'the golden brown and orange leaves fly off and away from their trees' 
Winter: 'from delicate flakes of unique delights' 

We have loved seeing the sheer enjoyment on both children and adult's faces during the craft sessions, and are therefore saddened by the lack of emphasis placed on creativity within the English educational system. We hope that we inspire our students to embrace their creative, as well as academic, talents.