In this resource, pupils will take each of the seven episodes in These Particular Circumstances by Sean Shepherd and create their own musical responses to each movement. Some activities will be for the whole group, some for small groups and others for individuals. The activities will create the building blocks for a complete seven movement class piece. Don’t worry if your group’s piece ends up having less movements.

Learning Objectives

• To create a piece of music inspired the seven episodes in These Particular Circumstances by Sean Shepherd 
• To develop a greater understanding of These Particular Circumstances and to support the pupils' listening 
• To use movement as a starting point for composing and improvisation 
• To understand how musical elements of pitch, texture, timbre, and speed to can be used to describe movement.

Listen to These Particular Circumstances before you begin.

Resources Needed

• Spinning tops
• Feathers
• Paper plane
• Musical instruments
• Mix of tuned and untuned percussion.

Click HERE for the printable version. 

These Particular Circumstances is a twenty-one minute piece by Sean Shepherd composed in 2009 for the New York Philharmonic. The pieces is in seven episodes which he describes as:

‘a collection of contrasts: different characters and kinds of music are stitched together in time, without pause.... I viewed the large shape of the work as simply as I could: a waveform; or: up-down-up.'

Sean Shepherd

Stand with the children in a big circle. Clap to the child next to you and ask that child to pass it on to the next child and so on around the circle. Send it the other direction or send a different sound in the other direction like a shhh. Make sure everyone is communicating with the person next to them.

Try the same idea but with the children using musical instruments instead of clapping. Ask the children to match the length and articulation of the note/sound. Ask the children to think of contrasting ideas to send around. This might be anything from three short fast notes to one note that crescendos.

You could have two circles, one inside the other or three or four. Nominate different children in each circle group to start the sending of the short musical ideas around the circle. The groups could also send the musical ideas round in different directions. Ask the children to listen to the effect of the sounds circling. Experiment with different versions with different ideas until you find a version you all like. 

This is your circling music.

Set off a spinning top. Ask the children to watch its movement and think of a musical idea that might match the spinning movement of the top.

Some questions you might ask:

• Is it moving fast or slowly?
• Does the movement repeat or do different things?
• What happens as the top runs out of energy?

Give groups of 3 children, a spinning top and ask them to improvise a simple musical idea that matches the spinning top from start to finish. Their music must last as long as the top spins. Give them time to practice this. Listen to some of them.

Listen to BCMG musicians improvising spinning music.

Create a big texture of spinning ideas by setting off the children’s spinning tops to trigger their improvisations. You could set each groups spinning top off more than once.

This will be the spinning music.

Listen to the BCMG musicians play their examples:

Floating group:

Ask the children to watch a feather float down to the ground. Encourage them to experiment and find floating sounds on their instruments. Encourage non-traditional ways of playing their instruments – harmonics, breathing down the instrument, flautando, using just the headpiece of the flute. See if the children can match each others sounds even if playing a very different instrument. Select some of the sounds and with the children, create a texture of them.

This is your floating music.

Listen to examples created by BCMG musicians.

Grinding group: 

Ask the children to create a repeating grinding rhythm on their instrument. Encourage low dark sounds and ask them to think about the movement of big machinery in factory. After some experimenting time ask them to try learning each others rhythms. Tell them not to worry about exact pitches – the ‘crunchier’ the harmony the better.

Listen to the BCMG musicians play their grinding rhythm.

Now ask the children to create a piece using their different rhythms. This could be done by:

• Creating a sequence of the individual rhythms with everyone playing all the rhythms (remember you can include a rhythm more then once)
• Layering some or all of the rhythms on top of each other (if the harmonies crunch, all the better)
• Dividing into smaller groups, each group taking a different rhythm and then experimenting with the above 
• Doing a mix of the above

Listen to the BCMG musicians layering two grinding rhythms on top of each other.

Activity Five: Sinking

Ask the children to order themselves from the ‘highest’ instruments to the ‘lowest’ instruments. This again is not very exact as instruments like the cello or piano can play very high or very low. Work with the children to create a rough order, trying out different versions. Who can play the highest note, who can play the lowest note?

Divide the line into three or more groups: high, middle and low. Ask each group to invent a short musical idea that goes from the highest sounds in the group to the lowest one. Join all the groups together to create one continuous piece. Don’t worry if the pitch goes up and down a bit. The important thing is the overall downwards direction.

Listen to the BCMG musicians improvise sinking music.

Activity Six: Teetering

Organise the children in pairs and ask one of them to improvise a teetering movement whilst the other improvises music to match. Listen to all of these as a group and ask them to chose the one they think is the most effective and that can be replicated by the whole group. Create the teetering improvisation as a group.

Listen to these examples of musicians improvising teetering music.

Launch a paper plane and ask the children to watch its movement. Ask them to describe the movement, ie it has a take off, then soars. This could be seen as a short sound quickly followed by a long one.

For this activity the children will use some chords from These Particular Circumstances.

Chord 1: D G B F# A E        (short note: take off)
Chord 2: C# F A Eb Bb C   (long note: soaring)

Ask the children to pick a note from Chord 1 for the short note and from Chord 2 for the long note.

• Could you add dynamics?
• How can the group ensure it plays together?
• How can the group make the musical idea soar even more?

Listen to the BCMG musicians' version of soaring.

Now you will have the following musical material. 

1. Circling – whole group circling patterns
2. Spinning – spinning top improvisations making group texture
3. Floating – feather textural piece with half the group
4. Grinding – low crunching rhythms with half the group
5. Sinking – whole group pattern moving from high to low pitch
6. Teetering – whole group piece based on improvisation
7. Soaring – paper plane chord piece with whole group

This is in the order that composer Sean Shepherd uses but there is no need to follow the same order. With the group, listen to all the sections and decide on an order in which to perform the music. Also consider the theatrical and movement aspects of the performance. 

Listen to music created by children at our Music Maze workshop: