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Hel­lo!  My  name is Ger­maine.  I have pre­pared for you some task-based games you can share and play with your friends.  I love task-based games because I feel like I am liv­ing the expe­ri­ence in a way.  When every­one involved is open and will­ing to par­tic­i­pate, then it feels like we are all in this togeth­er.  We receive and give in this very direct and delib­er­ate way that I think is an hon­est exchange for all of us.  Have fun, enjoy!

Part­ner Walk

Prepa­ra­tion:

1. Gath­er an object or hand­held per­cus­sion instru­ment and a stick you can play it with, find a part­ner and link arms.

2.  Each pair of play­ers can decide who will be the leader.  Once a leader is select­ed, they can put up their hand.

Let’s play!

1. The leader plays their object while step­ping at the same time.  Their part­ner will try to syn­chro­nize with them as close as pos­si­ble.  The leader can move for­wards, back­wards, side to side, or change the pace or rhythm of their movements.

2.  For social dis­tanc­ing pur­pos­es, you can also play this game 6 feet apart from your partner.

Feel free to get cre­ative with your move­ments, stay safe and have fun!

Hel­lo!  My  name is Ger­maine.  I have pre­pared for you some task-based games you can share and play with your friends.  I love task-based games because I feel like I am liv­ing the expe­ri­ence in a way.  When every­one involved is open and will­ing to par­tic­i­pate, then it feels like we are all in this togeth­er.  We receive and give in this very direct and delib­er­ate way that I think is an hon­est exchange for all of us.  Have fun, enjoy!

Path

Prepa­ra­tion:

1. Gath­er a bunch of objects around the house like cups, bowls, jars, what­ev­er you can find.  Test the sounds to see if you like them.

2.  Make 2 sound­ing pen­du­lums out of some mason jar lids by tying a long piece of string on each with a loop at the end.

3. With one friend or more, make a path­way with the objects leav­ing a space in between wide enough for a play­er to walk through.

Let’s play!

2.  The play­er starts to walk through the path while sway­ing the pen­du­lums gen­tly so that they come into con­tact with the objects.

3.  As the play­er gets towards the end of the path, path­mak­ers are respon­si­ble to keep on extend­ing the path with objects from the oth­er end.

The play­er can choose to walk back­wards or pause at any point, but must even­tu­al­ly con­tin­ue forward.

Path­mak­ers are free to change the shape and direc­tion of the path.

4.  The game ends when the play­er reach­es the end of the path.

Feel free to get cre­ative with your move­ments, stay safe and have fun!

This entry is a co-writ­ten account of “jam sessions”—an impro­vi­sa­tion­al musi­cal prac­tice based in Regi­na, Saskatchewan that embraces and accounts for rad­i­cal forms of access in son­ic expres­sion with dis­abled and Deaf folx. The writ­ers here are Dr. Helen Prid­more, a musi­cian-aca­d­e­m­ic who orig­i­nal­ly devel­oped the idea for “jam ses­sions,” and Dr. Chelsea Jones, a Mitacs Post­doc­tor­al Fel­low who assist­ed in sup­port­ing this vibrant work. The par­tic­i­pants in this project are mem­bers of The Big Sky Cen­tre for Learn­ing and Being Aston­ished! [insert URL: www.beingastonished.com], more com­mon­ly known as Astonished!.

1. Intro­duc­ing Jam Sessions

Helen: In ear­ly sum­mer 2019, I began to work with Aston­ished!, a fam­i­ly-dri­ven com­mu­ni­ty based orga­ni­za­tion offer­ing cre­ative and edu­ca­tion­al oppor­tu­ni­ties for young peo­ple with com­plex phys­i­cal disabilities.

Chelsea: At the time, my research focused on what “voice” can mean in the con­text of a bur­geon­ing, but under­rep­re­sent­ed, dis­abil­i­ty and Deaf art move­ment on the Cana­di­an prairies. I am not a musi­cian, so the ele­ment of impro­vi­sa­tion­al music-mak­ing was entire­ly new to me. I do, how­ev­er, strong­ly believe in doing work that usurps ableist and colo­nial ambi­tions of “giv­ing voice,” which is why it was impor­tant for me to sup­port Helen’s jam ses­sions, which con­tin­ue to be an impor­tant cul­tur­al con­tri­bu­tion to the dis­abil­i­ty arts scene in Regina.

Helen: My work with Aston­ished! is part of a large-scale project fund­ed by the Cana­da Coun­cil for the Arts. Enti­tled Mul­ti­PLAY, this project brings togeth­er artists and com­mu­ni­ties across Cana­da, explor­ing impro­vi­sa­tion, tech­nol­o­gy and col­lab­o­ra­tion. The first step in build­ing jam ses­sions was to meet with Aston­ished! mem­bers in Decem­ber 2018 to explain how impro­vi­sa­tion­al music mak­ing can work. Chelsea and I  pre­sent­ed the idea to stu­dent researchers and stake­hold­ers (such as fam­i­ly members).

1. Mov­ing Beyond “Voice” through Jam Sessions

Helen: In ear­ly 2019, Aston­ished! participants—known as stu­dent researchers for their role as design­ers and par­tic­i­pants in uni­ver­si­ty-based research projects—and I met reg­u­lar­ly in sum­mer 2019 and ongo­ing into the fall, explor­ing ways to impro­vise togeth­er.  I want­ed to encour­age explo­ration of what would be pos­si­ble for them, and to dimin­ish fears that the vocal sounds pro­duced were “not good enough” or “not nor­mal.”  What is a nor­mal vocal sound, any­way?  My own world as a singer embraces many dif­fer­ent types of vocal sound, inten­tion­al­ly explor­ing vocal pos­si­bil­i­ties and work­ing to break down stereo­types of vocal “beau­ty.”

1. Work­ing with Technology

Chelsea: I began attend­ing the group’s jam ses­sions. I took notes as part of my par­tic­i­pant-obser­va­tion research. To ini­ti­ate ideas and to over­come ini­tial shy­ness at using voic­es, we used some elec­tron­ic tools such as iPads loaded with sound-mak­ing apps, and a loop­er which record­ed and re-played sounds and voices.

Helen: One of the first impro­vi­sa­tions we tried togeth­er was an audio depic­tion of Bren­da MacLauch­lan, one of the founders of Aston­ished!, on her bicycle.

“Imag­ine Bren­da rid­ing to cam­pus (the Uni­ver­si­ty of Regi­na cam­pus, where ses­sions were held) against the wind.  What kind of sound does her bicy­cle make?  Now she’s lock­ing up the bike, and com­ing to meet us…and now she is coast­ing home with the wind behind her…”

These kinds of visu­al stim­uli, found­ed in real life and fea­tur­ing a well-loved friend, pro­voked col­lab­o­ra­tive sound-mak­ing and some fun.

Chelsea: Because this work involved a com­bi­na­tion of embod­ied voic­es and tech­nol­o­gy, I spent time out­side of the jam ses­sions work with Aston­ished! stu­dent researchers on learn­ing the tech­nol­o­gy. This meant try­ing new tools—iPads, phone apps, edit­ing soft­ware, voice recorders, and keyboards—and learn­ing them for the first time, togeth­er. The idea was to find tech­nolo­gies that gelled with people’s ambi­tions in son­ic cre­ation and fit their embod­ied modes of com­mu­ni­ca­tion. For exam­ple, when it was not pos­si­ble for some par­tic­i­pants to hold iPads, Helen found mic stand attach­ments to hold and ele­vate the iPads for eas­i­er access.

Helen: As the sum­mer pro­gressed, the group began to explore actu­al vocal sounds, cre­at­ing sound­scapes on var­i­ous themes. We re-cre­at­ed the sounds of attend­ing a foot­ball game; we shared sto­ries from sum­mer camp, such as canoe trips and camp­fire ghost sto­ries; and we had some good laughs mixed in with the hes­i­ta­tion to use voic­es which func­tion in their own way.

1. Going Pub­lic: Jam Ses­sions as Dis­abil­i­ty Artivism

Helen: My inter­est in work­ing with the Aston­ished! stu­dent researchers is found­ed on my own research inter­ests in exper­i­men­tal voice and impro­vi­sa­tion.  How­ev­er, I must empha­size that my inter­est grew as I got to know this remark­able group of young peo­ple.  I was espe­cial­ly impressed with their efforts and cre­ativ­i­ty at the pub­lic sym­po­sium held in Regi­na in Novem­ber 2019, “Dis­abil­i­ty Artivism Across the Fly­over Provinces.” Orga­nized and pro­duced by Chelsea, this one-day sym­po­sium fea­tured a vari­ety of guest speak­ers, pre­sen­ta­tions and round­table dis­cus­sions, based on the themes of dis­abil­i­ty arts and cre­ativ­i­ty. Our jam ses­sion group was pleased to be fea­tured in the day’s activ­i­ties, and we pre­sent­ed a live impro­vi­sa­tion based on “a day in the life of an Aston­ished! stu­dent researcher.”

Chelsea: Fol­low­ing the lead of oth­er major dis­abil­i­ty-led arts events in Cana­da, such as Crip­ping the Arts [URL: http://bodiesintranslation.ca/cripping-the-arts-symposium-2019/] and Ren­dezvous with Mad­ness [URL: https://workmanarts.com/rendezvous-with-madness/] that cel­e­brate arts-based advo­ca­cy, this gath­er­ing focused on local dis­abil­i­ty arts entan­gle­ments with region­al under­stand­ing of dis­abil­i­ty pol­i­tics by ask­ing: how does the work of dis­abled arts disrupt—or “crip”—normative artis­tic prac­tices on the prairies? The col­lec­tive jam ses­sion served as a rad­i­cal arts prac­tice that might best be described using the words of Lucia Carl­son in her 2016 chap­ter, “Music, Intel­lec­tu­al Dis­abil­i­ty, and Human Flourishing”:

“This was not a ther­a­peu­tic endeav­or with a set goal; rather than being direct­ed at teach­ing, nor­mal­iz­ing, or cul­ti­vat­ing par­tic­u­lar skills, this musi­cal expe­ri­ence unfold­ed organ­i­cal­ly and was valu­able and val­ued for its own sake” (p. 41). 

Helen: Because our improv was sound-based, we were con­scious that it was not ful­ly reach­ing out to every­one in the audi­ence, as we had a large crowd of Deaf and hard-of-hear­ing par­tic­i­pants at the sym­po­sium.  There­fore it was a delight to invite our col­league, lead­ing edu­ca­tor in Deaf and hard-of-hear­ing pro­grams Dr. Joanne Weber, to lead a move­ment- and ges­ture-based improv that involved the entire audi­ence.  Dr. Weber passed on the lead­er­ship to one of her Deaf stu­dents and he ani­mat­ed­ly led the crowd in a spir­it­ed improv that includ­ed both sound and action.

Helen: I was thrilled to see and hear the par­tic­i­pa­tion of a large group in the impro­vi­sa­tion that began with the Aston­ished! jam group.  While the jam ses­sions are cur­rent­ly in hia­tus due to the pan­dem­ic, it is my hope that I can con­tin­ue to explore sound impro­vi­sa­tion with this friend­ly and engaged group of stu­dent researchers. Work­ing with them has cer­tain­ly enlarged my under­stand­ing of vocal beauty.

Mat­ter at Your Fingertips

Using play­dough, ‘Mat­ter at Your Fin­ger­tips’ is a play­ful ini­ti­a­tion to sound cre­ation. Objec­tive: to make a col­lec­tive com­po­si­tion fea­tur­ing a score made out of play dough.

By MariEve Lau­zon and Michel Frigon

Class I

1. Play the fol­low­ing sound para­me­ters using hands on a chair, desk or table. Empha­size visu­al con­tact to ensure a clean cut-off.

   1. Soft

   2. Loud

   3. Silence

   4. Sound that changes (Cycle 1; Gr. 1 & 2), crescendo/decrescendo (Cycles 2 & 3, Gr. 3–6)

   5. Short sound

1. Demon­strate how to rep­re­sent sounds using play dough. Explain the shapes for:

1. Show how to make sculp­tures by assem­bling shapes together.

Hint: warm play­dough up before mak­ing shapes.

1. Stu­dents make shapes.

1. Make a score using stu­dents’ shapes.

Hint: Use sto­ry as an anal­o­gy: a score need a begin­ning, mid­dle and end

1. Play the score (using hands on chair or other)

Fol­low conductor’s gestures

Fol­low student’s hand as the ‘cur­sor’

Class 2

Review the pre­vi­ous class. Eval­u­ate as appro­pri­ate (see work­sheet below).

1. Review dif­fer­ence sounds and shapes.

2. Ask stu­dents to make 2 dif­fer­ent shapes of their choice.

3. Cre­ate a col­lec­tive score. Stu­dents place their shape in a spot of their choosing.

4. Play the score.

5. Move shapes to make a new piece.

Eval­u­a­tion:

Invent (team­work)

• Clar­i­ty and pre­ci­sion of score

• Atten­tion to timing

Inter­pret

• Respect for the score (dynam­ics, silences, timing)

Appre­ci­ate (see work­sheet with questions)

• Iden­ti­fy sound para­me­ters of var­i­ous shapes (for younger students)

• Rec­og­nize sound para­me­ters by ear (e.g. dic­ta­tion of sounds for which stu­dents draw shapes or respond true or false to giv­en shapes)

Vari­a­tions:

Use instru­ments: boomwhack­ers, drums, recorders, wind instru­ments, voice, key­board per­cus­sion instru­ments, small per­cus­sion etc.

Asso­ci­a­tion of col­or of play­dough with: boomwhack­ers, vow­els or con­so­nants, vocal effects, instru­ment fam­i­ly, etc.

Add a sec­ond voice to the score

Hint: To help dis­tri­b­u­tion, take play­dough out of con­tain­ers and make one big ball of each colour. Wrap play­dough in plas­tic wrap to keep moist.