For the preparation of the design for the map of Qian Duan Qi (see the previous posts on this blog), we invited a teacher expert in Chinese paper cutting. Xuan Zhi 琁芝 taught some basics and invited the students (children and adults) to create a few characters and words. Results were surprising like always ! Have a look to the gallery of this event.
First steps for designing the map :
1. Finding some names for two anonymous rivers and some various spots on Qian Duan Qi 千段崎 (including sections of the old path, area nearby ruins of traditional houses, forests, etc.). 09.08.2010
2. Designing some stamps for these names. Workshop held on the 28.08.2010 under the supervision of Wan-Shuen Tsai would just learnt about this technique a few days ago…
Beiguan (北管) is a Chinese music genre still surviving in Taiwan. Its origin is related to theater, but nowaday it is mostly instrumental, and if in the past most of the temple would host a Beiguan group, it is decreasing, and people who have interest in music are more concerned by Classical Western music or (even worse) Chinese National Music (國樂).
In the village of Nán-Kēng (南坑), in Hsinchu County, some elders were still practising until four years ago, then stopped rehearsing and performing. Last year we convinced them to reform, to record a CD and to perform for some events. It seemed to work at least for a moment, since they were invited to do a few other performances. This year we hope to include some of the recordings into a sound collection related to the life of Tian Tuan Qi, an old path which is nearly forgotten…
Below are some pictures of the last rehearsal.
Last year, our projects in communities, commissioned by Cultural Affairs of Hsinchu County, included a Hakka village nearby Beipu : Nán-Kēng (南坑). We had regular meetings and activities with the inhabitants, mainly older people who are treasures of knowledge about the local history and the agricultural past of this area. Their practices are still very rich and it was easy to catch their attention on it, wakening old gestures such as bamboo weaving, hand-cropping of ricefields and playing Beiguan music. We eventually released a book containing visual documentation of these events (some photos were shot by the elders themselves) and a CD devoted to the Beiguan group that we could convince to reform after four years of sleep…
This year, we are focusing on a old path, Qiān Duàn Qí 千段崎, which was once a very important road. Opened 100 years ago, it was constitued by stairs made in stone, more than 1000 pieces. It led to differents traditional houses and fields above the hills. Nowadays the path is almost forgotten, some stones have been burried or stolen. With the inhabitant we are trying to retrieve the history and stories about this old path. Write the anecdotes, document the nature around, record the sounds of the traditional practices which are related to the place, draw a map…
Bawnay Baesu is 67 year old Atayal living in Wulai and working in Mindouyou, two of the villages in the area of Taoshan. During his youth, he worked as a volunteer for a non-profit organization and had the opportunity to spend a lot of time with elder Atayal people, listening and learning quite a lot of things related to the traditions and culture of Atayal.
This day, 18.08.2010, he told us a fascinating story about a second world where frogs are boars and strawberries are foes.
We’ll translate it in English soon or later… 
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(recorded by Yannick Dauby - please don’t use without authorization)
On the facade of the oldest churches and cathedrals in Europe, one can see musicians holding various string instruments. Their attitude seem to us quite familiar : what an attitude ! Not unlike the classical guitar players, concentrated, sometimes in extasis. They may even remember us some guitar-heroes such as Steve Vai or BB King at the peak of their performances… Guitar has long history of hybridation and evolution. Adoption and adaptation. Integration and invasion. Even its name tells us the territories it had passed through : Sihtar (”three-stringed”) in Old Persian, Kithara in Ancient Greek, Cithara in Latin, Qitara in Andalusian Arabic, Guitarra in Spanish, Guitare in French, Gitarre in German, Guitar in English and Jita in Chinese Mandarin. From Middle-East to Europe to North-America and to most of the areas in the world, guitar is a extremely cosmopolite instrument.
Nowadays in Taiwan, most aborigines music can be interpreted in quite a Western way, using this instrument, connecting the indigenous ancestral songs into the American folk tradition. Aborigines musicians compose blues, rock, country music. Mouth-Harps and Nose-Flutes are (dis)regarded as treasures of identity in the best case, and symbols of tourism industry in the worst.
But let’s think a bit in term of music pleasure : mouth-harps and double flutes are are amazing instruments ! Atayal mouth-harp is one of the rarest in the world with its hybrid material, bamboo and copper, with its string and its multiple reeds. The music which can be played on this instrument are unique. Atayal mouth-harp plays Atayal music. Guitar-players who claim indigenous identity should therefore think a bit about their way to use their instrument: why being submissive to the stereotype of US-style music ? Even if this influence went through japanese and taiwanese songs, is there any way to imagine another way of playing ? A way of playing that would be more related to the use of wooden and bamboo percusion that are still practiced ? Following the traditional Atayal melodical scales, refering to the rythmic patterns found in music and dance, using the antiphonal or responsorial forms. A way of playing that would not impose western-style harmony to the melodies carried through generations . A way of playing that would even allow a dialogue with the sweetness and roughness of other traditional instruments. The “Atayal Guitar” needs to be imagined and invented. It needs to be played so the oldest songs may still exist amongst the younger musicians.
Some ideas for the intervention at Tao-Shan Elementary School, Wufeng, Xinzhu County. Read about the context of this project here.
This project is directed towards the kids of a school located in the mountains, in an Atayal aborigine village. The aim is multiple :
- Let them experience an artistic creation process
- Let them learn about listening and sound
- Let them imagine other aspects of music
- Let them think about their own culture
So far we discussed about four ideas, kind of workshops that would be spread over 4 months of pedagogic interventions.
1. Mouth Harp
Atayal have a very special musical instrument : a mouth-harp based on metal and bamboo material, used with a string and which can have several reeds. We are trying to gather informations about this instrument and to compare it to other kinds of mouth-harp like those from Japan’s Ainu, Indonesia, Vietnam and Mongolia. This is an ongoing workshop which will start by a DIY workshop in order to document the process of making an instrument. It will be followed by in-site and in-door recording session, class about the instruments and collecting interviews and documentation about it.
2. Atayal Phonetics
Atayal language belongs to austronesian family. Its structure and sound material is extremely different from the Chinese Mandarin which is spoken now by the kids. Some phonems cause problems to the kids who can’t pronunce it correctly. We’ll make a game of this phonetic issue. Inspired by Sound Poetry from Raul Hausmann or Jaap Blonk, we’ll create scores only based on Atayal phonetics. The kids might draw themselves their own graphical scores and interpret them. The differents steps of this workshop will be recorded and often we’ll listen to the recordings, using them as a new way of playing.
3. Myth & Narration
Looking back for the myths of Atayal, old stories related to the nature or the landscape. We’ll start by collecting one or a few stories and try to find some themes or topics that we can extend with the children : imagining and expanding the context of these story-items, drawing them or creating parallel narrations. This will be done in Chinese Mandarin but we’ll try to focus on a few Atayal words : names of characters or toponyms, words refering to the items.
4. Listening and Imitating Nature Sounds
Birds, insects, rain and river sounds : what are the names of all these sounds, name in Chinese and in Atayal, what are the stories associated with these sounds.
We’ll do some games of sound imitation. At first we’ll listen to sound recordings, closed eyes or even with blindfolds. We’ll try to describe the sounds. Then we’ll imitate them by whistling, by singing, by whispering. If necessary, for bird songs for examples, we can slow down the recordings for revealing its melody. Sometimes we’ll use Atayal xylophone, in a completlely different way of the rythmic patterns : to play this instrument like raindrops, or like bamboos creaking under the wind. Sometimes we’ll use some natural found objects, like dried leaves or snails shells, stones and branches. Some parts of this workshop will be held in collaboration with the choir class, designing a score for vocal imitations of nature.
Atelier Hui-Kan started last year a collaboration with the TáoShān Elementary School, in Wufong Township, Taiwan.
The school is located in Atayal Aborigine area. The school gather children from the villages around. This school is well-known for quite unusual reason : there is a choir of children which performed in Taiwan and USA, and released two CDs which have been appreciated. If the children are regularly performing with their Atayal-style clothes, the music and way of singing is obviously based of western classical music.
We are invited to work in this area by the Cultural Affairs of Hsinchu County, for a “Art in the Communities” project. We chose to collaborate with one of the very few Atayal teacher of the school, who has great interest into Atayal cutlure and linguistics and who is leading a class for traditional Atayal music. This class involve the traditional songs, the wooden percussion, and the Atayal mouth harp. Classical western vocal music and Traditional Atayal music are the two main references for these children, but one should not forget their favourite music style : Taiwanese Rap !
Firstly we organized in November and December 2009 some listening sessions for the children : playing sounds of nature, traditional music from various indigenous people of the world, a bit of experimental music, discussing about the context of different form of musics. The response of the children were surprising with a great success of Inuit vocal games and Jaap Blonk sound poetry !
This year, our intention is to make a musical creation involving different aspect of Atayal culture. The aim is to involve the children and other people of the surrounding into the publication of a CD which could represent another aspect of Taoshan.
During this Summer, we are collecting some documents and interviews about Atayal in Taoshan. Recording of old stories from elder, making some mouth-harp, following a hunter on a track… We’ll keep this blog updated with some extracts of these experiences…
Wikipedia page about Atayal people.
See on a map where is TáoShān Elementary School.
See a few pictures (chinese text only) of the previous listening session.
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聆聽就是發現聲音世界的可能性。用耳朵來探索自身的環境。
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偏遠校區的孩子們至少有一種運氣：避開了陣日轟隆隆的車陣與噪音，7-11的開門叮咚聲，高分貝播放的店家音樂，選舉期間對住戶和行人大肆轟炸的口號。他們 的聲音世界充滿了許多來自於自然界的聲響。特別是動物和水流的聲音。然而，我們仍然有需要教導他們去傾聽，而不是僅僅”聽見”。
這個在極有限時間內進行的課程, 目的在於擴展並開啟這些還非常新鮮的耳朵和心靈。給予孩子與社區青少年們一點對圍繞在他們週遭的聲音提出問題的能力，並且希望能幫助他們擁有更好的專注力。
我們也期待未來能夠在音樂教學方面協助開啟出更寬廣的可能性：人類的嗓音其實擁有極多樣化的面貌。而合唱團，在桃山國小已有數年的經驗累積與獲各界肯定的成 果，不過這個源自於西方的音樂形式，也僅是人聲音樂世界的一小部份。當我們從事任何一項音樂工作或訓練，也必需同時思考我們所處之地，以及為何從事此項藝術形式。所以雖然時間有限，但在本計劃中，學生發現了一些來自各方的音樂樣貌，以及驚奇有趣的聲響特質。
聆聽也是去試著透過聲音的遊戲讓自己驚奇，無論是個人的或是團體的遊戲。”美感體驗”所需要的真的不多： 我們所需要的其實是一個啟動點。而這個啟動點可以是一根摩擦著地面的樹枝，或兩個相互碰撞的石子。它也可以是當我們聆聽伊努特人的喉音遊戲，或者一首用著不存在的語言高聲唸唱的詩篇。
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〈桃山國小及部落青少年聲音創意工作坊源起〉 by Yannick
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〈Une breve introduction pour le projet pédagogique “Ecole aborigène Taoshan” 〉
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Ecouter c’est découvrir le possible du sonore. Explorer son environnement avec les oreilles.
les enfants d’une école un peu à l’écart ont au moins une chance : celle d’être épargné par les bruits de la circulation automobile, des sonnettes des portes de 7-11, des musiques diffusées tue-tête dans la rue, et autre camions de campagne électorale qui déversent leurs slogans et décibels sur les passants.
leur univers sonores est par contre composé de toutes sortes de sons d’origine naturelle. Chants d’animaux et de la rivière en particulier. Mais il faut apprendre à les écouter, pas seulement les entendre.
Cette intervention pédagogique a pour but d’élargir, d’ouvrir grand les oreilles. Pour donner aux enfant la possibilité de s’interroger sur les sons qui les entoure, pour devenir plus attentifs aussi.
Il s’agit aussi de donner une perspective plus large à la pratique musicale : la voix humaine peuvent prendre toutes sortes de masque. La chorale, forme musicale d’origine occidentale et pratiquée par les enfants de Taoshan, n’en est qu’une toute petite partie. Lorsque l’on pratique une musique, il faut savoir où l’on se situe. Aussi les enfants découvriront un éventail de musiques différentes, de sonorités surprenantes.
Ecouter c’est aussi essayer de se surprendre soi-même à travers des jeux sonores, individuels ou collectifs. Il suffit de peu pour vivre une expérience esthétique : il faut juste un déclencheur. Celui-ci peut être le son d’une branche frottée au sol ou de deux pierres entrechoquées. Il peut être aussi l’écoute d’un chant rauque inuit ou d’un poème déclamé dans une langue imaginaire.
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ps. Les habitants du village de Taoshan sont essentiellement des Atayals.
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桃山國小位於新竹縣五峰鄉桃山村，創立於民國六年，當時稱作井上教育所，是新竹縣五峰鄉最遠的國民小學，距離新竹市約48公里，道路狹窄且常因下雨造成坍崩。校址位於海拔約600公尺處，終年早晚溫差大。
音樂：桃山國小長期培育學生音樂方面的養成，目前有合唱團，木琴班和鋼琴教學等，其中木琴與木管琴皆為在地手工製作的樂器，為新竹縣泰雅地區國小中最具代表性的音樂教學場所之一。部落中亦有喜愛音樂青少年與成年人，除了桃山國小本身具備一間竹屋空間外，桃山村內的黑崮部落也有一間更大的竹屋，不定期做為音樂教室或集會使用。
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. 我們第一次和桃山國小的孩子見面是在竹北新瓦屋的花鼓藝術節。學生演出了一場以打擊樂器為主的音樂表演, 指導老師能夠帶給學生足夠的信心和穩定性, 而且從他們身上，可以感覺到對於演奏這些與泰雅傳統相關的樂器，是件值得驕傲的事。
幾堂課程主要針對三個年齡層的孩子：四年級與六年級生各一班, 以及一小群住在清泉部落附近的國中生(就讀於五峰國中)。上課地點在學校入口處的竹屋內，有時也會圍著竹屋中央升起的火堆進行課程。課程內容：在”聲音播放與聆聽”與分享和討論之間來回進行。因此學生們的參與性是課程中不可或缺的部份。所有需要聆聽的聲音我們都要求學生保持安靜並閉上眼睛。接下來會有一些問題，諸如：你們聽到了甚麼？或想像你在甚麼樣的地方？感覺到了甚麼？有時，某 些學生的回答十分令人感到驚奇。不過，最重要的還是在於讓每個學生都能提出一個以上並且屬於自己的觀點或感受，同時也要注意聽到其他人的想法。主要的活動為以下兩項：
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『聲音和音樂手拉手』：這是第一堂課, 我們試著帶領學生回到起點：一起去想：”音樂是如何產生的？”從引起一串問題開始：聲音是甚麼？音樂又是甚麼？。透過循序漸近地聽一些例子，學生們發現 了，或者說重新定義了”旋律”。而透過蛙類的鳴叫聲，他們發現了”節奏”這個特質。然後大家聽了一些由樂器演奏的音樂(模擬史前時代的音樂，西方當代音 樂)，我們試著拓展學童們所認知的音樂世界。在聆聽活動的末了，我們嘗試了幾個聲音遊戲(練習)：嗓音，擊掌，以及用泰雅打擊樂器模仿剛剛聽過的，數種不 同蛙類的節奏狀態。
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『從嘴巴變出來的魔術』：這堂課的主題圍繞在”嗓音”。不過我們發現, 一些對於歌曲或嗓音最典型的觀念和印象，早已深植在學生們對音樂的認知中，例如：聆聽喇叭傳出一個老人的嗓音在吟唱傳統歌謠, 馬上會令他們聯想到部落音樂。對部份學生來說， 他們最喜歡的是嘻哈音樂，而對幾個參與合唱團的學生而言，西方的合唱方式和美感是他們最能認同的。這些從第一堂課就能觀察到的特點，促使我們修改了第二 次的課程內容。因此我們希望透過分享與介紹其它相互關連的音樂，來減低上述這寥寥幾種音樂類型對學生產生的獨佔性影響。工作坊中分享的有：1. beatbox與依努特族的聲音遊戲間的關係，2. 重新吟唱17世紀天主教聖樂的科西嘉島農民合唱，和當代芬蘭一個以集體叫喊為特色的男子合唱團兩者間的對照, 3. 使用母音表現的聲音詩，與巴布亞.新幾內亞的歌謠…等等。這些例子是希望讓學生們感受, 到底嗓音中的音樂性還有哪些其它可能的表達方式？
在接下來的工作坊時間裡, 我們和學生進行了一些發聲遊戲, 例如：1. 以非邏輯的順序唸一篇短文 2. 聲音接龍…等。這幾個練習的目的在於將語言中的意義暫時拿掉, 只讓參與者感覺他們自己和其他人從嘴巴所製造出的聲音。
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在這樣幾次極為有限的課程和對整體狀態的初步認識後，我們對於接下來可能延伸的方向， 也產生了幾個想法：
1. 聆聽活動：
在課程中, 最令我們驚奇的莫過於學生之間, 對於聲音和音樂接收態度的差異：那些接收度最高或最敏感的, 並不見得是有音樂學習背景的。而那些學習樂器或歌唱的學生, 也正是最需要音樂想像力的熏陶的。因此, 我們認為都應該引導所有的學生去發現一個更廣闊的音樂世界, 好用以對抗一些過度類型化的音樂類別定型於學童的觀念中。 這一點, 或許可以透過進行聆聽課程達到初步的目標。
透過這些, 學童們然後可以選擇他們所想要的藝術(音樂)表達方式, 或者至少理解到, 為何這些音樂都有他們存在的重要原因。
另一方面, 我們認為也許需要針對成人和青少年(特別是學校教師) 分享幾場聆聽活動：這可以是輕鬆的分享活動, 一起發現與交流各種不同的音樂世界。
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2. 重新思考或重新演繹傳統音樂：
在與桃山國小錢主任的幾次討論與對話中, 我們認為需要創造一個可以重新連結以下數種素材的工作方式或創作計畫：“改變後的傳統音樂(如團體打擊樂)“與西方的歌唱方式, 以吟唱為主要基調的泰雅音樂(獨唱或有領唱者的群唱), 還有極為珍貴的樂器(四簧或五簧琴)…等等。並且在這個過程中, 最好還能夠將桃山村周遭的環境聲響考慮進去(學校四周即是豐富的大自然), 以及泰雅語言中許多特殊的發聲特質(是中文或英文發音所不具有的)。
這個工作需要在教育與藝術性創造間取得一個平衡。而學校教師和藝術工作者之間需要緊密的合作, 並共同規劃出一個實踐時程。至於藝術工作者, 最好每次都能在當地停留數日, 以便於更頻繁地接觸, 特別是與學校環境外的學生接觸，並一起從事一些計畫中的相關活動。
泰雅口簧琴 / 桃山, 民都有藝文園區的創辦者之一依麗京.尤瑪為孩子們解說在地的故事。
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這裡有個小插曲, 可以總結以上的文字：在上完課的隔日上午, 我們以步行走過清泉部落主要街道(去覓食), 一個男學生看到我們, 跑來打招呼, 並告訴我們說他對我們與他們分享的beatbox影片印象非常深刻。因此我們追問他說, 那是否是他在這堂課中唯一有印象的內容？是否他也記得還伊努特人獨特的聲音遊戲？當他還在猶豫時，站在他身後的一個小女生突然接口說道：我這兩段都記得啊，兩個我都一樣很喜歡。
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