THORNHILL PRIMARY SCHOOL
I was delighted to be able to undertake a creative workshop with ThornHill Primary School at the their new site on Silver Birch Avenue, located directly by Green Park and the future location of the bandstand.
With the assistance of artist Emily Tracy, two workshops were held with a class. The first being a collage session exploring the theme and shape of the bandstand. The current design of the structure and the decorative elements including a potential paving design will present the bandstand as ‘recording machine’ with references to dials found on a radio, an amplifier and speakers, and the pupils created some brilliant work exploring these design themes.
The second session involved using a microphone to record a variety of park and play related sounds, such as a ball bouncing or crisp packet being scrunched! The recordings were then viewed using a digital ‘ Oscilloscope ‘ to view the different sound waves and patterns.
The recordings were slowed down and speeded up to show how audio can create a variety of visual shapes and patterns.
Their recordings can be listened to on the ‘ SOUNDS ‘ page.
The children were encouraged to think through the artist process for the design of the bandstand, from an aesthetic perspective, and also to consider practical aspects of the design such as size, shape and materials. The children started by thinking about weather that the structure would need to stand up to, and decided that wind, rain and sun were all important weather conditions. Through discussion they came up with the following materials suitable for the design; metal, brick and wood. They then created structure shapes using elements of audio equipment dial and switches and speakers, creating a covered stage area and roof.
They brainstormed names for audio devices. They came up with: Boom Box-Hi Fi-Stereo-Casette player-Ghetto blaster-Sound system-Music player-Ipod
The second session involved using a microphone to record a variety of park and play related sounds, such as a ball bouncing or crisp packet being scrunched!
The recordings were then viewed using a digital ‘ Oscilloscope ‘ to view the different sound waves and patterns.
