Mask Shied
Mask Shied
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Toca Origins Djembe African Mask 8 Inch $69.99 For 2012, Toca has released the all-new Origins Series Djembes. Origin Series wood drum shells are carved from a single piece of environmentally friendly, plantation-grown mahogany and are lathe-turned to maintain uniform thickness. The exterior shell features two traditional hand-carved designs - a classic African Mask motif and an intricate Celtic Knot pattern.The interior of the bowl of the drums feature lathed grooves and a rough-surfaced pattern that virtually eliminate overtones. The drums bearing edges are hand carved to precise specifications. The Origin Series Djembes have natural goatskin heads. The resulting sound is one of the best drums ever offered by Toca.Available in four sizes: 12 x 7, 16 x 8, 20 x 10 and 24 x 12.Two traditional hand-carved designs |
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Remo Djembe Multi-Mask 28x18 Inch $329.99 The Remo Djembe is key-tuned and fitted with a Skyn Deep head. These hand drums produce a satisfying range of sounds from high slaps to deep bass tones. The durable, lightweight Acousticon shell delivers excellent projection and is unaffected by weather conditions. A heavy-duty rubber bottom protects the shell from ground impact. The wide selection of cotton print fabric finishes provide great visuals. Originally from West Africa, the djembe drum has spread around the world to become the hallmark instrument of the world-beat movement. Since at least 500 A.D., the djembe has been used in healing ceremonies, rites of passage, ancestor worship, warrior rituals, and social dancing. Find out how much your hands can say with this traditional drum. Remo's revolutionary materials provide great sound, durability, and looks. |
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Remo Djembe Multi-Mask 24x12 Inch $199.99 The Remo Djembe is key-tuned and fitted with a Skyn Deep head. These hand drums produce a satisfying range of sounds from high slaps to deep bass tones. The durable, lightweight Acousticon shell delivers excellent projection and is unaffected by weather conditions. A heavy-duty rubber bottom protects the shell from ground impact. The wide selection of cotton print fabric finishes provide great visuals. Originally from West Africa, the djembe drum has spread around the world to become the hallmark instrument of the world-beat movement. Since at least 500 A.D., the djembe has been used in healing ceremonies, rites of passage, ancestor worship, warrior rituals, and social dancing. Find out how much your hands can say with this traditional drum. Remo's revolutionary materials provide great sound, durability, and looks. |
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Remo Djembe Multi-Mask 25X14 Inches $193.83 The Remo Djembe is key-tuned and fitted with a Skyn Deep head. These hand drums produce a satisfying range of sounds from high slaps to deep bass tones. The durable, lightweight Acousticon shell delivers excellent projection and is unaffected by weather conditions. A heavy-duty rubber bottom protects the shell from ground impact. The wide selection of cotton print fabric finishes provide great visuals. Originally from West Africa, the djembe drum has spread around the world to become the hallmark instrument of the world-beat movement. Since at least 500 A.D., the djembe has been used in healing ceremonies, rites of passage, ancestor worship, warrior rituals, and social dancing. Find out how much your hands can say with this traditional drum. Remo's revolutionary materials provide great sound, durability, and looks. |
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Remo Djembe Multi-Mask 24X12 Inch $199.99 The Remo Djembe is key-tuned and fitted with a Skyn Deep head. These hand drums produce a satisfying range of sounds from high slaps to deep bass tones. The durable, lightweight Acousticon shell delivers excellent projection and is unaffected by weather conditions. A heavy-duty rubber bottom protects the shell from ground impact. The wide selection of cotton print fabric finishes provide great visuals. Originally from West Africa, the djembe drum has spread around the world to become the hallmark instrument of the world-beat movement. Since at least 500 A.D., the djembe has been used in healing ceremonies, rites of passage, ancestor worship, warrior rituals, and social dancing. Find out how much your hands can say with this traditional drum. Remo's revolutionary materials provide great sound, durability, and looks. |
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Remo Djembe Multi-Mask 28X18 Inch $329.99 The Remo Djembe is key-tuned and fitted with a Skyn Deep head. These hand drums produce a satisfying range of sounds from high slaps to deep bass tones. The durable, lightweight Acousticon shell delivers excellent projection and is unaffected by weather conditions. A heavy-duty rubber bottom protects the shell from ground impact. The wide selection of cotton print fabric finishes provide great visuals. Originally from West Africa, the djembe drum has spread around the world to become the hallmark instrument of the world-beat movement. Since at least 500 A.D., the djembe has been used in healing ceremonies, rites of passage, ancestor worship, warrior rituals, and social dancing. Find out how much your hands can say with this traditional drum. Remo's revolutionary materials provide great sound, durability, and looks. |
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Clayton Friday the 13th Picks 6-Pack White Medium $5.99 6-pack of Jason Voorhees hockey mask guitar picks. Made of glow-in-the-dark celluloid, and the eye holes in the mask help with grip. |
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Clayton Friday The 13Th Picks 6-Pack White Medium $5.99 6-pack of Jason Voorhees hockey mask guitar picks. Made of glow-in-the-dark celluloid, and the eye holes in the mask help with grip. |
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Toca Freestyle II Mechanically-Tuned Djembe 12 inch Red Mask $149.99 The Toca Freestyle II djembe has the same light, tough construction offered by traditional rope-tuned models in this tough, efficient mechanically tuned model. The extended collar hoop allows greater tuning range. Equipped with rubber tips on the end of tuning lugs. 14" model includes bag. |
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Toca Freestyle II Mechanically-Tuned Djembe 14 inch Red Mask $165.29 The Toca Freestyle II djembe has the same light, tough construction offered by traditional rope-tuned models in this tough, efficient mechanically tuned model. The extended collar hoop allows greater tuning range. Equipped with rubber tips on the end of tuning lugs. 14" model includes bag. |
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Toca Freestyle II Mechanically-Tuned Djembe 10 inch Gold Mask $119.99 The Toca Freestyle II djembe has the same light, tough construction offered by traditional rope-tuned models in this tough, efficient mechanically tuned model. The extended collar hoop allows greater tuning range. Equipped with rubber tips on the end of tuning lugs. 14" model includes bag. |
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Toca Freestyle II Mechanically-Tuned Djembe 10 inch Red Mask $119.99 The Toca Freestyle II djembe has the same light, tough construction offered by traditional rope-tuned models in this tough, efficient mechanically tuned model. The extended collar hoop allows greater tuning range. Equipped with rubber tips on the end of tuning lugs. 14" model includes bag. |
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Toca Freestyle II Mechanically-Tuned Djembe 14 inch Gold Mask $189.99 The Toca Freestyle II djembe has the same light, tough construction offered by traditional rope-tuned models in this tough, efficient mechanically tuned model. The extended collar hoop allows greater tuning range. Equipped with rubber tips on the end of tuning lugs. 14" model includes bag. |
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Toca Freestyle II Mechanically-Tuned Djembe 9 inch Red Mask $89.99 The Toca Freestyle II djembe has the same light, tough construction offered by traditional rope-tuned models in this tough, efficient mechanically tuned model. The extended collar hoop allows greater tuning range. Equipped with rubber tips on the end of tuning lugs. 14" model includes bag. |
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Toca Freestyle II Mechanically-Tuned Djembe 9 inch Gold Mask $89.99 The Toca Freestyle II djembe has the same light, tough construction offered by traditional rope-tuned models in this tough, efficient mechanically tuned model. The extended collar hoop allows greater tuning range. Equipped with rubber tips on the end of tuning lugs. 14" model includes bag. |
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Possible Selves: Harnessing Intrinsic Motivation in Mature Singing Students
Possible Selves: Harnessing Intrinsic Motivation in Mature Students
Cathryn Robson BA (Hons), CT ABRSM
www.singshop.co.uk - Online Singing Evaluations and Lessons
This essay will reflect on my mature students’ motivation for starting and continuing to sing, and my tools for channelling this motivation. This part of my studentship is remarkable because they have every reason not to start singing. Parental and peer pressure is far behind them, as is the influence of the education system. In many cases their voices are starting to be affected by natural deterioration. Furthermore, they are often armed with undermining memories of singing. Regardless these students recognise and value ‘…what it is that is intrinsically motivating in music…’1 so deeply that they choose to return to it later in life, with little possibility of external reward.
In surveying my mature students, many of whom are senior citizens, it was revealed that most decided to start singing in order to develop self-confidence and to provide an outlet for self-expression, typical intrinsic rewards for engaging with artistic activity. Any strategies I have take into account these responses and how they can be progressed within existing motivational models. It should be clarified that in referring to mature students I am referring to people of retirement age.
Mature students quite often come to their first lesson citing a defining childhood moment that has deterred them from singing for decades. In part they are convinced that they have no right to sing and that I, as the ‘expert’ will reinforce this deep-rooted belief. These undermining memories are simultaneously ‘away from’ and ‘towards’ motivators and if they are not addressed a stasis prevails. One student revealed a few weeks after we started working together that whenever she opened her mouth she heard her 20 year old self singing out of tune along to a Joan Baez song. The student had recorded herself on reel-to-reel, listened back and been so appalled by what she heard that she threw the recording away and decided never to sing again. Given the student’s evident ability this memory was surprising so in a subsequent lesson I asked if she would allow me to record her performing the material we were working on. In listening back she heard that her voice is in fact expressive, resonant and most certainly in tune which did much to improve her self-confidence, a crucial step in any motivational model. Further recording during lessons is providing a pragmatic and effective antidote for this student’s ‘negative transference’2 and new memories are starting to replace the 40 year-old one. The fact that ‘…students can be very complex, having a variety of conflicting motivational forces within them…’3 is something teachers need to be particularly sensitive to when dealing with less confident singers.
Further using technology in the studio, I have started to video students during lessons, naturally with their consent. As I have found these observations so instructive it occurred to me that students may also find the experience useful. One elderly student had poor posture and this was compromising her breathing, despite her best attempts to address it. It was only when she could observe herself stooping and tensing in the footage that she appreciated what we had been trying to previously eradicate. The beauty in using digital technology is that playback is instant and painless and corrections can be put into practice immediately. It also gives me an alternative to correcting through ‘negative demonstration’, which can be interpreted as tactless by fragile students. When a student is shown that the tools for improvement are easily within their reach they become motivated to put these into practice and their self-confidence expands. In this above case the student re-sang the aria after adjusting her posture and the improvement to her sound was immense.
Though all of my mature students cite self-expression as a main reason for starting to sing many of them are wary of what this actually involves. Considering this, I introduce the exploration of emotional colour through routine scale and arpeggio warm-ups. Foreign language phrases are used in these musical shapes so that there is no intimate or immediate meaning for native English speakers. As a result the exercise is unthreatening and paradoxically the emotions explored become impersonal. The student and I take turns singing with a specific emotion in mind, leaving the other to guess which emotion we are trying to convey. Dynamics, tempi and improvisation are explored. Successful attempts are noted and analysed so that the student starts to build a sort of vocal palette of expressive sounds and techniques. The most inhibited students lose themselves in these ‘nonsense language’ exercises and we have a lot of fun. This has been keenly evident in my most taciturn and self-critical student, a septuagenarian, who recently told me he is starting to trust his ability to emote in songs. Already he is preparing for the next student concert, choosing unusual and exposing material. Similarly, one of my mature female students stated that she felt she had ‘come home’ after working with belt technique, a sound many women initially experience as being raucous and ‘unfeminine’. Older students have proven to grasp the exercise’s efficacy, i.e. its transference to repertoire, more quickly than my younger ones. Suffice to say that in exploring emotion and texture in their voices singers can come into contact with vocal ‘possible selves’ – those entities identified by motivational theorists. Students are motivated by having crossed into what was expected to be vulnerable territory and surviving. This is no small task for any student though entrenched habits of ‘not doing’ can make it more taxing for mature ones.
Increased self-confidence has a positive impact all round and moving on to tasks such as tackling challenging repertoire is less daunting as a result. Acknowledging that ‘…motivation is likely to increase when the pupils understand why they are doing what they do...’4 I have started to classify the repertoire I cover with all of my students, grading it and pointing out how it benefits them, e.g. good for legato singing, agility, working the chest register etc. The self-confidence of my mature students has soared seeing the grades of the pieces they are undertaking and they have reacted well to the fact that I have high expectations of them. This is mirrored in their practice; my clarity is rewarded by their clarity as they are more certain about what they are aiming to achieve during the week. Not many of my older students were aware that singing can be formally examined and several are beginning to express an interest in this possibility. These students seemingly appreciate teacher-led and traditional methods of learning, perhaps due to being of a generation where such approaches prevailed.
The intrinsic rewards of singing, the aforementioned self-confidence and self-expression desired by my mature students, cannot thrive in a vacuum. Singing is not a solitary activity. When a student sees and hears themselves through recorded media as a result of lesson tasks it crystallises their awareness that their intrinsic motivation can be expressed in an extrinsic goal i.e. live performance for an audience. Most students do ultimately want to share their discovery of musical and self-expression with others. This is something that all of my mature students have started to do, many for the first time in their lives. Locally there are few but notable outlets for this e.g. a choir for retired people and a local amateur dramatics group made up of the same. Other opportunities to facilitate this transition between intrinsic and extrinsic are put into place by me with student concerts and recordings. The ‘new task’5 of live performance and its subsequent completion, ensures students keep travelling the motivational circuit, consolidating technique, new skills and confidence as they progress. The deadline of a student concert focuses efforts all round and all stages of the Crozier/ Harris motivational model are explored in preparation for it.
Mature students are exciting to work with as performers and artists. Life experience equates with emotional maturity and this can be harnessed by interpretive tools in a number of ways. The most recent method I have utilised is the ‘ad lib story’ which can clarify motivation within a song, and therefore result in a more informed expression by the student. The student and I decide on the parameters of the story, relating it to the theme and characters of the song to be worked on. We pass the story back and forth until it has reached a natural conclusion and the student is motivated to sing. As a result the student launches into the song with more expressive clarity and connection than they would have had otherwise. This exercise has proven to be a success with all of my older students despite some initial reticence and claims of ‘not being good at stories’.
Another interpretive tool I introduce is the neutral mask, a standard training device for actors. The student puts on the neutral half-mask and sings a chosen song in front of the studio mirror. The mask helps the student in two respects; its blankness can facilitate the student in moving into an impersonal and timeless space from which freedom of emotional connection in the singing can take place. The second benefit of the mask is that the limits of personal body vocabulary become evident as the usual focus of communication, the face, is hidden. Working at moving in a free, open and impersonal way helps the student open into the song. The mask facilitates expression and has proven to be particularly useful for shy students. One elderly student remarked that working with the mask gave her the confidence to perform in front of her peers. Both the ‘ad lib story’ and neutral mask remove the burden of personal responsibility for the song. A bonus of both exercises is the insight I gain about how comfortable a student is approaching right-brain tasks.
Gentle competitiveness is also a good motivator. Mature students can be very competitive with themselves, through watching and hearing their recorded performances and targeting how they can be improved. They also bounce off each other through this watching and listening, giving feedback on each other’s performances and being inspired by seeing their peers achieving vocal goals. After the most recent student concert the video recording and feedback circulated for weeks. As vocal role models for older people do not proliferate in our youth-oriented society, these group experiences are affirming.
Motivation is a vast subject and my work would benefit from more exploration of its different facets. In reflecting on intrinsic motivation it is clear that the psychological aspects of teaching and singing merit further investigation. I feel that the work of Lucinda Mackworth-Young and voice coach Patsy Rodenburg would provide good starting points for this route.
Mature students come to singing out of the blue for many different reasons and with many different expectations. When Keith Swanwick states that a ‘…strong sense of personal significance occurs frequently enough to motivate many people to put themselves in the way of musical experiences...”6 it is initially for me to discover what this personal significance may be and to go about expanding and nurturing it. Responding to older students’ intrinsic motivation is rewarding because it is varied and such students have a maturity and clarity in their aims. Another significant benefit I have gained through working with older students; listening to tales of lost vocal experience from their perspective motivates me even more keenly to not produce the vocally damaged of the future. I endeavour to anchor my younger students in their voices and to give them the tools for making their vocal ‘possible selves’ accessible throughout their lives.
Bibliography:
Hallam, S (2002) Musical Motivation: towards a model synthesising the research
(Music Education Research Vol. 4, No.2)
Mackworth-Young, L (2000) Tuning In: Practical Psychology for Musicians who are Teaching, Learning and Performing (MMM Publications)
Crozier/ Scaife/ Marks (2004) All Together! Teaching Music in Groups (ABRSM Publishing)
Swanwick, K (1999) Teaching Music Musically (Routledge)
Crozier/ Harris (2000) The Music Teacher’s Companion (ABRSM Publishing)
Footnotes:
1 Hallam, S (2002) Musical Motivation; towards a model synthesising the research
2 & 3 Mackworth-Young, L (2000) Tuning In: Practical Psychology for Musicians who are Teaching, Learning and Performing
4 Crozier/ Scaife/ Marks (2004) All Together! Teaching Music in Groups
5 Crozier/ Harris (2000) Circular Motivational Model for Learning
6 Swanwick, K (1999) Teaching Music Musically
© Cathryn Robson 2009
About the Author
Cathryn Robson (BA Hons, CT ABRSM) is a trained vocalist and internationally qualified voice coach versed in the latest singing and teaching methods. Her coaching experience spans a decade and includes both private tuition and group classes of beginner to advanced singers. She is the founder of Singshop on-line voice coaching which offers singing evaluations and lessons for beginners to intermediate singers.
Cathryn studied singing and composition at Brighton University and Goldsmiths College, London in addition to performance training with English National Opera's 'The Knack'. Her singing experience includes contemporary, jazz and classical repertoire. She is a certified voice coach with the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music and a member of AOTOS (Association of Teachers of Singing, UK) and the PRS (Performing Rights Society).
She has performed and recorded extensively throughout the UK and Europe, including appearances on Classic FM, Radio 3, Liberty Radio, London and BBC Radio Napa.
She is currently collaborating with British composer Billy Cowie on the installation 'Ghosts in the Machine'. She is also voice coach for European choreographer Lia Haraki for the contemporary dance project 'Party Animals' which will be shown in London, Prague and Athens in Summer/Autumn 2009.