AADK Sonora

· Encourage new methodologies and forms of musical learning in formal education.
· Introduce a postcolonial and gender perspectives as transversals.
· Emphasise the value of process over results.
· Make contemporary music culture accessible to the rural society.
· Promote equality (gender, race, and class) through collective musical creation in socio-culturally diverse communities.
· Create sound situations of collective participation to develop attitudes of collaboration, trust, respect and empathy.
· Inquire the relational possibilities of music as a universal language.
· Develop an awareness of acoustic ecology and respect for the sound environment.
· Generate a long-term stable project that enable the participants their own learning rithm.
· Promote autonomous learning and active participation.
· Enhance the use of new technologies for a better understanding of current music.
· Create agency in arts and technology by DIY (do it yourself) and DIWO (do it with others) philosophy as well as the use of free software.

Creativity as a vital tool. A space to learn to listen and develop a thinking ear. Listen to know the world, listen to know yourself, listen to be free.

Active Listening is a tool that facilitates concentration and other aspects related to cognition, developing different communication strategies. Activating attentive listening as a habitual perceptual practice helps us to be connected with our environment, to improve emotional management and, therefore, communication with others.

METHODOLOGY

Depending on age, work is done differently with each group. With the little ones, the dynamics are very oriented towards the most basic observation and exploration of sound, based on games. As they advance in age, the contents become more complex. Theoretical elements are introduced, approached in a very visual and sonoric way, installing the use of more advanced technologies and reviewing historical and current references.

The classroom becomes a laboratory to enable learning and playing while thinking. A workshop where creativity and noise are used to free imagination. Cross-cutting dynamics are used to reinforce the values ​​of gender, race and class equality. We consider that small gestures produce great transformations.

CONTENTS

1st Block: Active listening

• Body relaxation
• Listening the silence
• Listening the environment
• Dialogue with colleagues
• Description of everyday sounds

Block II: The instrument in experimental music

• The instrument beyond the instrument / The expanded musical instrument
• The everyday object as an instrument
• Non-European instruments
• Construction of homemade instruments

Block III: Experimental music and sound art

• Amplification through contact microphones
• Field recordings
• Soundscape composition
• Sound performance
• Sound installation

Specialized Course in Experimental Music and Sound Art

Imparted by Carlos Suárez

1st edition: March 2018 – June 2019
Open to new proposals
Centro Negra / AADK Spain

#deeplistening #soundexperiments
#education #thinking #imagination
#noise #low-tech #DIY #DIWO
#spatiality #territory

This course is oriented towards the study of the concepts, procedures, and techniques that are necessary for the creation of artistic productions in the fields of experimental music and sound art, as well as the knowledge of tools and methodologies to develop innovative pedagogical programs in the field of musical education.

We work in the intersection between Music, Science, Architecture, Philosophy, and Pedagogy, to create a web of knowledge drawing together fields that perviously were often presented in a fragmented way.
The course is developed in the format of an art residency, providing a space of coexistence with the working group, as well as a more intimate relationship between the participants and the surrounding territory.

The methodology of the course is based on the realization of personal or collaborative projects in relation to the contents of the course, attending to the needs of each participant and in connection with the rural context of the Ricote Valley. A work system based on network thinking and direct experimentation with the sounds, spaces and materials of the area will be applied. We especially delve into analog technologies and the handmade sound universe, relying on digital machinery and specialized software for the development of compositions.

Carlos Suárez is a Galician-Venezuelan sound artist and educator born in Celanova in 1966. Master in composition of the Conservatorio Superior de Música Simón Bolívar de Caracas (specialising in electroacoustics). Ethnomusicologist of the Instituto Universitario de Estudios Musicales de Caracas. Master in electroacoustic composition of the UCV.

Guided experiences by three professional musicians working with different aspects of contemporary music, in collaboration with specific groups of diverse socio-cultural features, to create sonic situations in relation to the surrounding territory.

The process has a marked interdisciplinary character in which music, body and landscape enter into a dialogue. The experiences are carried out in urban or natural spaces in the environment of Blanca and have a visual and performative component.

The invited artists hold a participatory workshop taking shape in the form an orchestra that fuses the traditional music of the valley with contemporary music, collaborating with specific communities of Blanca. Each workshop ends with a concert, a sharing the outcome of the work carried out throughout the intensive weekend.

This set of actions aims to establish a festival which can serve as a point of encounter for musicians of diverse styles, ages and backgrounds: De la Raíz al Noise (From roots to noise), the first Festival of Experimental Music and Collective Creation of the Ricote Valley. The festival is an attempt to create new emotional links through the music and generate, theoretically, a community that is unlikely in principle.

A space for thought and debate around pedagogy, to elaborate and share innovative didactic resources to be implemented in the context of formal education. This action is based on the creation of a working group to explore new methodologies for musical pedagogy, aimed at music and technology teachers from primary, secondary school, music teaching, conservatories, fine arts faculties, middle grade and superior training cycles, and music schools.

The aim of this action is to develop educational materials and resources (practical and theoretical) that facilitate the inclusion of new forms of musical creation in the classroom and that allow teachers to integrate other ways of thinking about music as well as the possibilities of new technologies in the formal curriculum.

The proposed contents are:
· Sound as a tool of knowledge and enhancer of imagination.
· Active and deep listening according to the school of Pauline Oliveros.
· The music from the appearance of noise. John Cage: Silence, Luigi Russolo: The Art of Noises.
· Pioneers of Electronic Music. A historical review that incorporates female experimental musicians.
· Soundscape and field recording.
· Ethnomusicology: Music outside European-centrism.
· Creative Electronics: Philosophy of do it yourself (DIY) and do it with others (DIWO).
· Building musical instruments from recycled materials.
· Collective improvisation and creation.