CKME training day – 13 October 2002
by Len Tyler (BKA Newsletter, Spring 2003)
It was on a rather pleasant Sunday in October that a number of CKME graduates headed for St Margaret’s School in Kidderpore Gardens NW3. We were to take part in one of our now regular training days. The whole idea of these meetings is for those that have successfully passed the CKME one-year study course (run by David Vinden) to come together and exchange ideas and keep up with current thinking.
We were able to discover and sing extracts from 'Musica Transalpina', which is currently being transcribed and edited by David Vinden. 'Musica Transalpina' is a collection of 57 madrigals in 4, 5 & 6 parts by a variety of composers. They were mostly composers from 'across the Alps' with the exception of William Byrd. This was the first and largest collection of its kind and helped to spark off the flowering Elizabethan Madrigal School. This collection has not been edited since it was first published in 1588, so we all able to enjoy discovering music from over 400 years ago, brought to us with the help of Sibelius software.
There was a very interesting session on the application of Kodaly principles to instrumental teaching given by Brian Lloyd-Wilson and Rachel Good. Although this presentation was partly from a violin teaching perspective it was so easy to see how it could all be applied to virtually any instrumental teaching. Liz Alexander gave an update on work that she has been doing involving researching suitable Kodaly type material and books in support of the national curriculum. David Vinden introduced us to a new book by Jill Trinka. Len Tyler gave a short fun presentation on the use of characters and colours for the degrees of the scale, which could be suitable for very young children. All had great fun in discovering that Sophie (So) has long curly blue hair, while her special friend Mikhail (Mi) had short spiky yellow hair. Lara (La) is another friend of Sophie and Mikhail, but she lives further up in the mountains where it is windy. Her hair (which is Purple of course) blows straight up in the wind ...!!
By 7.30 that evening we had all had a most enjoyable reunion and I am sure that we had all gained a great deal. It was so good to come together with like-minded people and exchange ideas.
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