ASU ArtSpace @ Academy of Excellence: Week 4 Class 8- Gamelan

Thursday, February 11, 2010

Week 4 Class 8- Gamelan

Today we learned about one of Ethnomusicologists' favorite kinds of music: Gamelan from the island of Java in Indonesia. This music is created mostly from a variety of metal percussion instruments. After learning a little about the structure of the music, we composed our own complete gamelan piece and performed it with Mr. Ben playing the Indonesian Kendung drum.

After this we had an open jam session. It wasn't authentic Indonesian music, but it was fun nonetheless!

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About the Instructors

Adam Davie is a sixth year, Master's of Architecture graduate student at Arizona State University. He grew up in Sandusky, Ohio and graduated from the Ohio State University with a Bachelor of Science in Architecture. Adam has studied Architecture in Paris, Italy, and the Netherlands. He has previously taught Artspace as well as Architecture at ASU. His other interests include photography, music basketball, tennis, sketching, and hiking.

Ben Dumbauld is completing a M.A. in Ethnomusicology at Arizona State University, researching music-making in the Chinese community at Arizona. A native of Phoenix, he recieved a Bachelor's degree in Jazz Performance at ASU, and has performed with many of the leading orchestras, choirs, operas, and Musical Theater companies in Arizona. He is also a private music instructor and English tutor.

Artspace Theme

TIME

Few things are harder to understand than time; pleasantly then, time and space allow for educational and creative experiences to play off one another. Ironically, often youth, who have experienced the least amount of actual lived time, understand it best. This is certainly true today: a typical ten year olds vocabulary includes the phrases “real-time” and “virtual reality.” This theme draws from young people’s strengths to create learning environments for example, that familiarize them with classroom skills like linear time where history and science meet on maps and planets. It helps students see how the sounds and audible noises in our everyday lives relate and convey meaning. These lessons allow parents to see how and why a typical student today uses multiple media simultaneously.

About ArtSpace

ASU ArtSpace is a transdiciplinary arts and design afterschool serving the Phoenix area and establishing a new model of arts educational experience aiming to ensure that its students are self-confident, successful in school and proactive in making a positive impact in their community. ArtSpace was launched in Fall 2008 by a partnership between the Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts, the Phoenix Office of Arts and Culture and the Arizona Department of Education. The ASU ArtSpace program places graduate students from all Schools within the Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts at eligible schools to provide transdiciplinary programming focused upon their disciplines and thesis. The graduate students design their own transdisciplinary curriculum in teams of two based upon a global theme such as Time, Place, Communication or Storytelling under the guidance of Melissa McGurgan, the ArtSpace Program Coordinator.

ArtSpace classrooms are treated as creative spaces where students are exposed to a multitude of artforms, skills and collaborative processes and the graduate student instructors are able to test and develop experimental teaching methods, techniques and learning processes incorporating art, design and technology. The pilot semester of ASU ArtSpace took place in Fall 2008 and is now serving 12 schools during the 2009-2010 school year. The ASU ArtSpace program exemplifies the U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan’s charge for universities to form partnerships with local school districts and create a new generation of teachers while establishing ASU as an accessible educational entity which embraces new thinking and approaches to art and design to hundreds of children, families, educators and communities throughout the Valley.