I felt moss, I held water

The creative experience workshops for the community music project Burn of Sound, commissioned by Scottish Natural Heritage, have now taken place. Finzean, Logie Coldstone and Ballater primaries are rural schools and their pupils were clearly at home in the outdoors environment of Muir of Dinnet National Nature Reserve. The creative activities encouraged the pupils to observe, listen, feel, smell and imagine and write down their experiences in poetry and prose. In the end of the workshop each pupil was invited to write down their best writing on coloured pieces of paper that were collected in a sketchbook. The result has been an imaginative account of the children's nature experiences.

Reading through the pupils’ contributions to find material for the rounds, three things stood out. The children’s writing showed a wide vocabulary to describe their experiences. The ‘I spy’ activity generated long lists of words which were arranged in different combinations to make little sound pictures. The letter B, for example, allowed for the little poem ‘Burn, Bridge, Bank, Boulder’. At other times, pupils used simple words to capture evocative imagery. After looking for tadpoles in a boggy patch along Burn o’Vat one pupil wrote: ‘I felt moss, I held water’.

The writing also revealed unlimited imagination and ability to go beyond themselves. In one of the activities the children were asked to imagine they were the burn and describe their experiences. One pupil described the flow of the burn in the following manner: ‘Drifting downstream, turning, swirling, around and around, away in the blink of an eye’.  

During the workshops it tended to be sunny but blustery and this came through in much of the writing. The pupils were very attentive as to the effect of the wind on the trees and water and found a wide range of ways to describe this. I have included some of these observations in the round Wind Whispers (click here to listen to the tune: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SukJMEplsU)

Wind whispers

Leaves flutter, branches sway

I feel free, I feel free

Free when the wind blows down on me.

As part of the workshop, children were also asked to listen for the pitches and rhythms of the sounds in The Vat. In the round The Vat I’ve created a sound picture of the gorge (click here to listen to the tune: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YaPEdiD1q1g):

Drip drop, drip drop

Echo, echo

Crashing down, crashing down.

  
Copyright text, images and music Petra Vergunst.