HONK U!tag:blogs.uit.tufts.edu,2008:/honku//5622008-10-13T15:24:09ZMusician Emily Hoyler and artist Sarah Moshontz de la Rocha share their experiences shadowing ethnomusicologist Charlie Keil as he works with Somerville students, preparing them to march as a band in a national marching band music festival.Movable Type 3.31HONK! Festival Parade!!tag:blogs.uit.tufts.edu,2008:/honku//562.45042008-10-13T15:22:03Z2008-10-13T15:24:09ZIt could not have been a more beautiful day Sunday for the HONK! Festival Parade. Over twenty Honk bands gathered in Davis Square to Honk together for peace, community and celebration. Musical traditions of the New Orleans groove, the Afro-Cuban...Emily C. Hoyler
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Some brass honkers of HONK! Utag:blogs.uit.tufts.edu,2008:/honku//562.45032008-10-13T15:21:25Z2008-10-13T15:21:36ZEmily C. Hoyler
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HONK! U approaches Harvard Squaretag:blogs.uit.tufts.edu,2008:/honku//562.45022008-10-13T15:20:42Z2008-10-13T15:21:01ZEmily C. Hoyler
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HONK! U gathers at Granoff Music Centertag:blogs.uit.tufts.edu,2008:/honku//562.45012008-10-13T15:18:42Z2008-10-13T15:19:52ZHONK! U prepares to march to Davis Square to line up for the parade....Emily C. Hoyler
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Honk band members convene for open discussiontag:blogs.uit.tufts.edu,2008:/honku//562.45002008-10-13T14:52:28Z2008-10-13T14:54:24ZHONK! Festival Weekend was kicked off Friday with a symposium and workshops for Honk band members at Tufts University. It was incredibly exciting to see the number of band members from all over the country and world who gathered today...Emily C. Hoyler
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Instrumentalists get excited to HONK!tag:blogs.uit.tufts.edu,2008:/honku//562.44652008-10-08T14:58:59Z2008-10-08T15:08:49ZRehearsals were held Monday and Tuesday nights for brass players, woodwind players and percussionists who will be marching in the HONK! parade Sunday October 12. Charlie Keil led the rehearsals, teaching march beats and chants to the group. A collection...Emily C. Hoyler
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HONKing Away!tag:blogs.uit.tufts.edu,2008:/honku//562.44642008-10-08T14:57:27Z2008-10-08T14:57:56ZEmily C. Hoyler
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Setting the beat in the drum sectiontag:blogs.uit.tufts.edu,2008:/honku//562.44632008-10-08T14:56:08Z2008-10-08T14:57:02ZEmily C. Hoyler
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Teacher discussion with Charlie Keiltag:blogs.uit.tufts.edu,2008:/honku//562.44412008-10-04T23:01:28Z2008-10-04T23:04:21ZGranoff Music Center was filled with activity today as workshops were held in preparation for next weekend's HONK! festival. Charlie Keil held a teacher’s workshop this morning to brainstorm with teachers about ideas for enhancing music education. Dr. Keil emphasized...Emily C. Hoyler
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Getting people moving for HONK!tag:blogs.uit.tufts.edu,2008:/honku//562.44402008-10-04T22:59:11Z2008-10-04T23:00:30ZThe first of several movement workshops was held today at the Jackson Dance Lab with Professor Alice Trexler. A team of dancers is learning steps to coordinate with the samba bands they will be marching with next Sunday, October 12...Emily C. Hoyler
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Charlie Keil and bell players at Winter Hilltag:blogs.uit.tufts.edu,2008:/honku//562.44302008-10-03T01:35:08Z2008-10-03T01:35:37ZEmily C. Hoyler
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Winter Hill students learn the shaker!tag:blogs.uit.tufts.edu,2008:/honku//562.44292008-10-03T01:33:36Z2008-10-03T01:34:17ZEmily C. Hoyler
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Reflections on Charlie Keiltag:blogs.uit.tufts.edu,2008:/honku//562.44452008-10-02T20:48:36Z2008-10-05T20:57:40ZThe motion of the Way is to return; The use of the Way is to accept; All things come from the Way, And the Way comes from nothing. (tao te ching) Rush hour on the Tobin Bridge: a less than...Sarah I Moshontz De La Rocha
tao te ching)
Rush hour on the Tobin Bridge: a less than ideal situation. However the stop and go traffic on a Wednesday afternoon seems a blessing, because it gives me ample time to make conversation with renown ethnomusicologist Charlie Keil.
Despite his reputation for being a radical within the field of music and politics, his manner is soft-spoken, subdued. He is telling be about one of the last masters theses he advised. “It was about singing in the shower,” he says with a surprising and profound seriousness. Of the six or so individuals who were interviewed about shower singing, two of them had recently stopped because someone had told them it was a bad thing to do, or had showed a negative reaction. “We are such sensitive individuals, we are so quick to respond to negative feedback,” he explains. I too, looked back at when I quit high school band because of a mean band teacher, whose strictness and adherence to form cramped my groove, as it were.
This thought remains with me as we make our way to Zumix in East Boston, a community music organization for kids to learn instrumental, DJ, and radio skills. A non-assuming stucco building, Zumix would be easy to miss were it not for the constant inviting music coming from its doors. The walls are covered in large hip-hop graffiti paintings done by the students, who are scattered around the building individuals in their celebration of music. The workshop that Charlie is here to hold will bring these individuals together, to create a collective sound and movement.
As we gather in a circle and Charlie begins to do his thing - grooving collectively with simple beats and rhythms - the kids are hesitant to join in, to enjoy. Self conscious smiles, they eye each other shyly - is this cool enough for me to enjoy? they say with their glances. There is an easy kind of inhibition, and the excitement is at the tip of our fingers. As we begin our hesitant groove, Charlie remarks “Wow, you guys are great! Look a you, you don’t even need me. Goodbye!” He jokingly waves and begins to walk out of the room. Everyone laughs, and the collective energy of the room relaxes. Despite the adolescent need to be cool, we begin to forget our selves as individuals. We are now a collective; a single organism grooving together, communicating through music.
From nothing, we have become a sonic motion. For a moment I rest in this motion, accepting the noise of shakers and bells, horns and drums that we are playing to create a single song; then I return to the rhythm of the single bell that I am hitting - ding - dong dong dong - ding - dong dong dong dong,
And again, Charlie remarks on the talent in us all, and the room smiles. In this moment I think of the way of Charlie Keil, of his quiet and radical ability to take all of us inhibited shower singers and with a gentle word or two, transform us into motion, into sound, into joy.
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Winter Hill Workshop attracts a Dancing Teachertag:blogs.uit.tufts.edu,2008:/honku//562.44232008-10-02T01:25:52Z2008-10-02T01:33:29ZCharlie Keil held a workshop for students at Winter Hill Community School yesterday morning and garnered excitement for samba beats and the HONK! Parade on October 12. It was the first of several school appearances he will be making to...Emily C. Hoyler
Charlie Keil held a workshop for students at Winter Hill Community School yesterday morning and garnered excitement for samba beats and the HONK! Parade on October 12. It was the first of several school appearances he will be making to get kids involved with HONK! Dr. Keil, along with trombonist Kevin Leppmann and drummer Ian Gendreau, met first with a group of seventh graders and showed them different beats for the surdo drum, bell, and shakers. Before giving out instruments, Dr. Keil showed the kids how to beat the rhythms on their legs, arms, or in the air to mimic the motions they would be using with the instruments, and showed them some basic dance steps. When the instruments came out, there was certain excitement. Everybody got an instrument so they could play all together, and they each got a chance to try each different instrument with its corresponding beat. By the end of the session, the kids were getting a hang of the beats and getting a sense of the group pulse.
Next Dr. Keil met with a group of fifth graders to teach them the samba beats. While most of the students practiced the rhythms for the surdo, bell, and shakers, a couple students who brought their instruments went aside with Somerville Schools music supervisor Rick Saunders and Kevin Leppmann to practice some riffs. The fifth graders playing percussion established a solid feel for the beats, and when the melody of the saxophone, trumpet, trombone, and flute were added, things got really exciting. There was such a great groove going on, that one Winter Hill teacher was pulled from the hallway and danced into the room with some great moves. Dr. Keil pointed out that this phenomenon is exactly the reason we play samba or any music: to make people want to dance. Good music brings good dancers and good dancers make musicians even better. The session ended with some joyous dancing and drumming as the kids practiced some of the breaks they learned with great spirit and energy. It is incredible what these kids could learn in less than an hour. Every kid should get the chance to discover his or her talents for rhythm and that’s exactly what Dr. Keil and the HONK! team are setting out to achieve!
Come Join UStag:blogs.uit.tufts.edu,2008:/honku//562.44172008-10-01T16:14:39Z2008-10-01T20:39:30ZMaybe you played in your high school band, or maybe you and your friends had a band in high school. Or perhaps you always wanted to play an instrument, but felt that you didn’t have a sense for music. However,...Sarah I Moshontz De La Rocha
Oliver Sacks, “Music can move us to the heights or depths of emotion. It can persuade us to buy something, or remind us of our first date. It can lift us out of depression when nothing else can. It can get us dancing to its beat. But the power of music goes much, much further. Indeed, music occupies more areas of our brain than language does--humans are a musical species.”
Indeed, this is the spirit of the HONK! festival, for “as often as they honk in protest, they also perform to celebrate the causes and institutions they support: multicultural festivals, peace conferences, social forums, artists collectives, community gardens, children's workshops, neighborhood fundraisers, block parties, relief benefits and homeless shelters. In these cases, as in every case, the honkers’ ultimate goal is to have fun, to relish the art of making fun as a form of individual and collective transcendence, and to encourage others to see and do the same.”
One of Tufts’ goals is to engender a sense of community activism in students, to create well-rounded individuals through “active citizenship.” The Tufts/Somerville Honk U! Project will hopes to provide a unique way of engaging with community activists working for social justice through art and music.
In becoming part of HONKU!, students will not only be able to participate in the festival, but will also have the chance to work one on one with Charlie Keil, Tufts’ Artist in Residence. Keil believes that everyone was “born to groove,” like Sacks, Keil posits that humans are a musical species, but his approach is based on a more social and community level than Sacks. For Keil, everyone is a musician, and music is not about perfection, rather it is the imperfection in music that gives it beauty. The world is imperfect, life is chaos and change, and music should reflect that. Music should be a space for connection, for celebration of the chaos and change, in defiance of a society that constantly demands perfection.
In creating a space for connection, we also create the possibility for participation, for an exploration of the self within the context of a community. From this participation, blossoms a chain of further connections; “Participation = consubstantiation = sacrament = pre-symbolic merging of consciousness and matter = the feeling that you are in the music and the music is in you = groove = the happiness and health (mental-and-physical) of all this “joyous science” as a foundation for imagination and creativity” (Keil, Participation Theory). This view of music as a celebration of the imperfection, as creating community, and as a nurturer of imagination and creativity is not widely held amongst the institutions of cultural propagation in society.
Keil asks of us, “What is the extent of musical participation in your local schools and communities? Is musical study exclusive and “by audition-only," or is music all-inclusive and open to all who have an interest in making music? What can be done to open the doors wide enough for all to join in?” It is a rare and beautiful opportunity for music enthusiasts to come and participate in HONKU!, to engender and nourish the imagination and creativity that gave birth to the HONK! festival.
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