Teresa / Jason SY22 Summer

Summer 2022

Learning to Listen / Learning to See

This summer Ms. Cosme and I taught two classes, one music, and one photography/film. The younger group studied drumming and the older group studied photography and film.

Learning to Listen:

Bomba, Listening, and Understanding Relationships. We listened to accordian music from Germany, Poland, Mexico, and Columbia. The students talked about the connections and differences between the various songs and approaches to music. Next we watched some videos of Puerto Rican bomba dance and drumming. The students were receptive to this line of inquiry so we spent the rest of the time pursuing drumming and the clave rhythm.

One of the very first days of class, we took a walk around the school building and made a list of all the sounds we heard. The next day, we made a map of the sounds from memory. 

We decided to use these maps as an inspiration for a drumming performance. A drumming performance that takes the listener in a journey. The students learned about the clave rhythm and Bomba music. The students had to learn the social aspects of playing music, not to play their instruments while another person is talking, and how keep the independence of their own part while fitting in with other players parts. But I think the most important learning was how to be bad at something, in this case drums, while learning. Cooperating with the whole group while finding individual opportunities to contribute was a daily struggle. Uncovering the mysteries of each instrument we used was also fruitful for the students. We used a shaker called a caxixi that at first was the least popular instrument to choose. After I learned more about it and showed the students some more complicated techniques, they were able to see the complexities of the instrument reveal themselves.

Learning to See

The older group of students was smaller and they told us that they didn't like music. In trying to redirect the class, we found that the students would accept studying movies. We started with Juan Bustillo Oro's 1934 film "Dos monjes." The opening scene is striking and from there were discovered the cinematographer Agustín Jiménez. Jiménez was also a photographer and his work was interesting to me. As the students were not willing to be filmed or film others, I decided to switch the class again to photography. The students were also inspired by this work and modeled their work on his, documenting the inside and outside of this school. Focusing on the objects that make up the visual identity of the building. We learned how to reduce the information in a photograph to isolate our subject and how to position the camera in relationship to the subject to create a balanced and personal representation of an image.

I printed the photos and the students decided which ones they wanted to exhibit. The students were also in charge of the installation of their photos. Film did turn out to be a huge part of our learning to see. Throughout the class, we watched the 2019 film "Roma" and talked about the visual storytelling.