28.10.2010: Pawang teaches the Atayal mother language to the kids. We collaborate with him to imagine some games based on Atayal phonetics. To “warm up” the class, we firstly played two videos extracted from Youtube : the famous Inuit Throat Singing duet by Kathy Keknek and Janet Aglukkaq and the amazing interpretation by Jaap Blonk of “Ursonate”, composed by Kurt Schwitters. No need to say that the kids loved these extracts…

For our small exercises we asked Pawang to translate from Chinese to Atayal a short text we wrote, derivated from the story told by Bawnay Baesu. We extracted from this narration a few phonems that are specific to Atayal and don’t exist in Chinese Mandarin. We repeated them, the result being somewhere between sound poetry and war ritual :-).

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The Atayal text transcription :

mnanak na qalang
ki’an yan gwiloq na paris
qpatung ga bzywak
bzywak ga huzil
ihi’ ihi’ cila cila
hala ta’ qalang na Tayal

The Chinese version :

一個奇怪的地方
那裡有像草莓的敵人
(他們的)山豬是(我們的)青蛙
(我們的)山豬是(他們的)獵狗
唉呀!唉呀!快跑!快跑!
帶我們到太陽(人類)的世界

And the English translation :

A weird place,
There are some enemies who are like berries,
Their wild boards are frogs,
Their hunting dogs are wild boars,
Aya ! Run away ! Aya ! Run Away !
Bring me back to the world of the Sun.

That workshop involve observation of documents of the Atayal traditional weaving. This practice was once forbidden by the Japanese during the colonization era. Their aim was to eradicate Atayal culture, and they succeed to harm it. Later the Nationalist Government of Taiwan, the industrialization and social changes helped the slow vanishing of traditional activities. Weaving is an activity only for women and one must be skillfull in order to get the traditional facial tattoo. When a lady pass away, she’s judged by her ability before being accepted into the Ancestors realm, beyond the Rainbow. Weaving and hunting are extremely important in Gaga, the Atayal Ethic. Nowadays only some families still keep this knowledge. But in some villages, some workshops try to revive and share this fundamental aspect of Atayal Culture. One of the most successful is Yumataru in Miaoli County. In Taoshan area, the Mindouyou village also hosts a workshop.

The workshop we held with kids from 5th and 6th grade was to draw some patterns from traditional weaving. (27.09.2010)

Classes in Taoshan for visual interpretation of the story told by Bawnay Baesu.
1. Listening to the recordings of the story
2. Drawing animals involved in the story (frogs, dogs and boars)
3. Cutting and exchanging the heads of the animals

Workshop with 2nd and 3rd grade (23 and 24.09.2010)

Listening to a story in a language that you don’t understand. The words can’t describe anything. But the voice, the onomatopea provides images. This is what we discussed and recorded with very very young students… (14.09.2010)

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.

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.

Introduction of the project in Chinese and French.

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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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