Teaching Demonstrations

This survey of teaching demonstrations administered in Spain & New Jersey are from three different multimedia projects: A Cacophony of Unrequited Love, Field Recording of a School in Valencia, and JOURNAL PROMPT. Each project has a unique history with a set of educational goals for a particular audience which ranged from 8 years old to late adulthood. These teaching demonstrations accurately represent my teaching philosophy and showcase education as lecture, performance, workshop, installation and open studio.

A CACOPHONY OF UNREQUITED LOVE

In the Spring of 2016 I had the pleasure of facilitating a classroom lecture and performance of A Cacophony of Unrequited Love in Performance Pedagogy at Berklee Valencia. It was fun trying out my experimental vocal score with a group of extremely talented musicians and educators. Over the years I've found that this project has caused people to open up on the very delicate subject of unrequited love.

This lecture on voice artistry included the works of Mike Patton - (00:21), Marina Abramovic - (01:49), Ute Wassermann - (03:18), and two iterations of A Cacophony of Unrequited Love - (04:52 & 07:00).

Below is text from the vocal score:

POETIC PHRASES

Think of people in your life most likely to say the following quotations to you. Also consider when you have said these quotes or similar ones to yourself or others.

1. “I will not get lost in your fantastical romantic sketches”

2. “What is a relationship?”

3. “What led you this far?

4. “Is there something I should feel about you?”

VOCAL INSTRUCTIONS

Perform all of the above poetic phrases continuously and interchangeably for five minutes. Use the following vocal onsets:

1. Repeatedly speak any sentence in your normal speech.

2. Repeatedly speak any sentence with a fixed gaping open mouth.

3. Repeatedly speak any sentence with a casually whisper.

4. Repeatedly speak any sentence backwards.

5. Repeatedly speak any sentence with a single breath until your air support is completely diminished.

Below are a classroom performance and studio recording of A Cacophony of Unrequited Love:

FIELD RECORDING OF A SCHOOL IN VALENCIA

Field Recording of a School in Valencia was inspired by my creation of a long form manipulated field recording of school children playing during recess in Valencia, Spain. This recording was made on May 26, 2017.

In 2018 I administered the following community art workshop for elementary school children during Mini Intramurs at Les Petits Escuela de Infantil in Valencia, Spain. This workshop focused on the creation of visualizations of the field recording which were made by a small group of local elementary students.

In 2019 this workshop became an all ages audio-visual installation during La Nit D’l Art at Espacio El Sol in Altea, Spain. The installation transformed the space of an outdoor garden and courtyard by featuring the loud public city sounds, cheers of children, and student visualizations created in Valencia. Viewers were able to walk through the outdoor space and make connections between the sounds and visualizations. There was also a station with markers and paper reserved for making new visualizations to add to the project or to take home.

JOURNAL PROMPT

JOURNAL PROMPT began as a piece of experimental music I created on the weekend of September 30, 2016. It was a type of journal entry documenting how I chose to use the weekend, which was to make experimental musical sounds. The music represented my desire to focus and reflect on life through the creation of a unique sonic space. Later in 2017, fellow musician JOHNNY O responded to this music with a journal entry, writing the following lyrics and recording a vocal performance to forge ideas about self-care and action within one’s community:

“But I still feel so free, but I still feel so free…

I heard a battle in the desert and I left to find it

When I return I’ll report back on it

And if I never come back

Tell them that this version of myself loves them so

You have one conscious life at a time

So find your style and polish it

Bring others along if you wish

But stop trying to change the world

You’re only responsible for your own soul

The sociological condition of the world is not your cross to bear

But please make sure you leave it in better condition than it was found

Find something to say and deliver it to yourself

The living will love you for it and the dead will move along

A scripted weave is all I could see

The coding makes me feel far from free

But I still feel so free, but I still feel so free…”

Listen below to the instrumental & vocal versions of JOURNAL PROMPT and a brief story to gain a deeper understanding:

On March 7, 2020 I presented an installation/open studio of JOURNAL PROMPT for Art Making Day at Artworks in Trenton, New Jersey. The installation/open studio featured the vocal version of JOURNAL PROMPT and documentation of the in-person October 14 & 15, 2019 journaling workshop I administered at Piscataway Public Library in New Jersey.

The audio excerpts below are from a lecture for JOURNAL PROMPT that was given online through Zoom on October 29, 2020 during the second iteration of the workshop at Piscataway Public Library in New Jersey.

As a curriculum JOURNAL PROMPT focuses on the practice of journaling for fostering greater self-understanding of one’s experiences, occurrences and daily observations. Each theme in the curriculum relies on the concept of the “journal prompt”, which is commonly known as a topic that can be a catalyst for written reflection. Participants define what this means to them in various contexts with specific concern to the daily lives they live. Participants are exposed to a plethora of relatable subjects to write and reflect on to promote their self-discovery and self-understanding. JOURNAL PROMPT is ideal for late high school age and adult participants.

ENDURING UNDERSTANDINGS

• Journaling is a life-long practice for developing your self-understanding and a critical approach to personally engage experience, occurrence and observation within your daily life. 

• Journaling is a tool to help you develop a plan for your self-care and the care of others.

• Journaling is a tool to help you create an action-plan for yourself or your community related to important issues.

CORE OBJECTIVES

• To articulate and develop your own definition of what a  “journal prompt” can be

• To articulate and develop your innate style and personal motivations for journal writing 

• To develop an ongoing assessment of your sense of becoming/self-actualization related to your journaling practice

• To develop skills for audio and video creation to be used as a method of journaling

• To articulate and develop your personal ethics when sharing your journaling life with others

• Developing personal approaches for incorporating music, art, philosophy and various areas of the humanities within your journaling practice

  REQUIRED MATERIALS

• Journal, lined writing paper or drawing paper

• Assorted writing and drawing utensils (pens, pencils, crayons, colored pencils, etc.)

• Personal digital audio and/or video recorder (i.e. cell phone/voice memo or laptop computer) analog devices are also welcome for journal creation (i.e. tape recorder, camcorder)

• Access to email & social media platforms (i.e. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc) for researching personal and public figure examples of contemporary journal creation