week 1 treehouse

Week 1 at treehouse

I took in lots of magnets that i had attached to wooden blocks.
Some where attracting and some repelling.
The group played with the blocks seeing if they could move other blocks without moving them, and just finding out what different blocks did.
I then had a sheet of clear perspex that we could put metallic objects ontop of and manipulate with magnets underneath the perpex.
We moved paper clips and also wrapped a ball in wire and made that move around. There was quite a queue to do this!!
I made a large tripod and hung a magnet to form a pendulum, we then played with the magnets to see how the pendulum moved when it was attracted and repulsed by different magnets.
We set up 2 pendulums one on string one on a stick (the stick one moved more strangely as the magnet could almost hover when repulsed).
These tripods were left up for the whole session and people dropped in and out of playing with them, quite often without supervision.
The group seemed to really enjoy the magnets, they seemed intrigued by the different way the magnets worked, things like attracting metallic objects are always magical and this group where no different, people would often return to a magnet and cover it in paperclips or return to the pendulums and observe the pendulums random motion. Even just feeling the pull of 2 magnets as a pleasing senosry stimulation.
(using coloured blocks and different sizes would give people lots of chances to use speech to descibe whats going on and to share the experience with other people, we could use magnets to make things spin to make things flip we could have explored magnets for weeks!!)

We then explored electronic music equipment.
a drum machine- with pre made drum beats on each pad, so multiple pads could be pressed, velocity of hitting the pads gave different volume. This was really popular with 2 boys, both seemed to like the bassy sounds and the rhythms and both understood the velocity idea very quickly.
Kaossilator- a touch control synthesizer, sounds are made by rubbing a finger on the pad, sounds are changed by rolling a dial. This is an instrument that people seem to enjoy by themselves and they can come and go with it, it is very exploratorary and has a wide range of sounds the young people could explore for a while then drift then return. It is very open ended and playful.
Microphone and kaosspad- the kaoss pad has alot of effects in it and the effects are changed by using a touch screen. This was a very strong item, the group really loved the repeats and delays that the pad made, one of the young people went through each sfx and worked out how it worked, others were into just hearing their voices, the delay made it really playful, The pad also has a pitch shifter so you can make your voice high and low and this made everyone laugh and drew people into saying alot and engaging for along time.
Microkorg keyboard- This is a fully functional synth with lots of controls, the group engaged with it for a while liking the electronic sounds but it didnt seem to sustain play as much as the mic.
(microphones are an amazing resource, something which i have used for 15 years in sessions, as a tool for self advocacy, they are great for helping people to express themselves, to be loud in a group, to be waited for and to be listenend to, they are great for turn taking and I have worked with 2 voluntary mutes in the past who have become vocal and singers just by having a microphone in sessions and by being asked questions and offered the chance to sing)

These items where brought back in week 2 and one of the young people really engaged with the mic and a delay using his voice alot and really entering into the moment of the session. He was really present and transfixed by the power of his voice and the delayng effect that multiplied his voice.

The group were really focused and had alot of fun playing with everything, they found ways to express themselves with the music and seemed to really engage with the wonder and weirdness of magnets.