Open Orchestra: Digital Score Creativity Cards to support inclusive music-making within Special Educational Needs.
Developing creativity cards to support inclusive music-making within Special Educational Needs for a large-scale devised digital score composition. Working with Open Orchestra - an inclusive ensemble from two Special schools in Middlesbrough LINK – a set of creativity cards and online resource was designed to structure an individual or group through the creative process of developing a digital score. The cards and workshop instructions guided a creative music leader through the conceptual ways of thinking and practical stages of development a large-scale, cohesive, symphonic work.
The Issue
Developing large-scale musical works for large ensembles requires very different ways of conceptualising, realising and inventing musical material. A major factor in this approach is to develop methods, materials and processes to sustain musical integrity and cohesiveness across longer timescales, and between larger forces. Compared to smaller scale works, with smaller scale musical forces, the challenge increases significantly as enhanced strategies are required to develop thematic material over longer periods of time, and across a diversity of musical and instrumental languages. Mastery of making work at this scale is developed over many years, and benefits from specialised training, perhaps years of trail and error.
These challenges are compounded when dealing with none-mainstream elements. For example, incorporating digital media into the composition as either a digital score or a visual/ projected element requires an equally substantial amount of specialist knowledge to master the interdisciplinary creativity. Equally, making large-scale, mixed media works in a Special Educational Needs (SEN) context deserves further specialist considerations. Overall, there are very few exemplars, guidelines, theories or training available to support such an under-taking.
The central research question with this project was: can the theories and approaches developed within the digital score project provide a support structure to circumvent some of the fundamental issues around large-scale development of works for large ensembles of student musicians from SEN schools?
A secondary question was: how can we encapsulate the theories and approaches of the digital score project into a solution that supported brain-storming, ideation, and creativity development of a digital score for a workshop leader outside the research team, leading to a successful outcome?
The Research
Overview
The digital score project worked with the Open Orchestra Middlesbrough music workshop leader Ben Hopkinson on a practice-based project that addressed the above concerns. DigiScore’s principal investigator Prof Craig Vear’s involvement was 2-fold: 1) providing the theoretical and conceptual guidance to Hopkinson, which supported his creativity and framing the conceptual development of his workshop and composition development; 2) Vear designed, developed and tested a set of creativity cards and online resource that were capable of operating as Vear in absentia, while Hopkinson led the workshops with the members of the Open Orchestra.
In initial discussion between Vear and Hopkinson, it was highlighted how previous work in this area had tended towards shorter scale works with restricted developmental opportunities and issues around the musical notation solutions for SEN music students. Additionally, it was observed that combining visuals and music tended towards one force simply being played along to another, much like a music video, with very little understanding of the audio-visual contract (Chion 1993) and the affective inter-relationships of the audio and visual into a cohesive whole.
Hopkinson’s desire for this year’s Open Orchestra project (2023-24) was for something that didn’t repeat this pattern and to create a cohesive, large-scale work for a large ensemble. This ambition was shared by the music teachers in the two SEND schools whose students formed the Open Orchestra Middlesbrough. Furthermore, the students themselves also supported this. This was communicated to Vear as a wish list to:
a) Create a large-scale cohesive symphony work for a large ensemble of music students from Special schools.
b) Have the student’s creativity drive the workshop process and development of materials used in the work.
c) Utilise the assistive technologies that are already mastered by the students in their school context as notational and instrumental devices, thereby maximising their engagement and potential for creative exploration.
d) Create an integrated digital media world of live sound, recorded audio and visual media that was more than music being played alongside a video.
e) Develop an innovative notational system that used a clear language appropriate for the SEN students and supported their creative invention during workshops, rehearsals and performance.
The project at the centre of this research was “Journey Through a Changing World” a 23-minute, 4 movement large-scale work for Open Orchestra, created by Ben Hopkinson and the music student members of the ensemble. It was created over an 8-month period (December 2023 – July 2024) and premiered at the Middlesbrough Town Hall.
The visual artist Layla Curtis was brought in to co-create with Hopkinson and the ensemble, and to offer a visual artists eye and sensibility to the cohesive nature of the digital score. These images then become part of the musical score which the orchestra followed (as with a traditionally notated musical score) but with images and colours defining what the musicians play. Vear built an interactive software system that allowed Hopkinson to make in-the-moment decisions about note choice, and form duration, which the musicians responded to. Overall, the Digital Score offered a new way for the students and Hopkinson, to work, create and perform. The young people developed musical and compositional ideas, which Hopkinson brought together to create the work.
Premiere performance: LINK
Developing the Creativity Cards
The ultimate challenge was the time and availability of Vear to support Hopkinson through the 12-month process of developing such an ambitious project. As such, a solution needed to be formed that a) supported the ambition of Hopkinson, the teachers and the students, and b) was time-effective for Vear who could not commit to being present during the 8-month developmental process across the two schools. The idea for creativity cards was proposed and developed.
An inspiration point for the cards was Dr Richard Wetzel’s Mixed Reality Game Cards from 2017 ( Wetzel, Richard, Tom Rodden, and Steve Benford. “Developing Ideation Cards for Mixed Reality Game Design.” Transactions of the Digital Games Research Association 3, no. 2 (2017). https://doi.org/10.26503/todigra.v3i2.73 ) . Vear had been part of a workshop in 2016 that had helped develop these cards and had subsequently used them in his own teaching of a module “Performing Mixed Reality” over 6 consecutive years at De Montfort University.
The DigiScore creativity card pack consists of 152 cards. They are organised into 3 separate types: Opportunities, Challenges and Questions (mirroring Wetzel’s original cards), each of which offer a different perspective for digital score creative thinking. The pack is also organised into the 7 modalities of digital scores, introduced here. The seven modalities framework can help to define how different digital scores exist, are experienced or expressed. These modalities can offer ways of describing, analysing and evaluating digital score composition and performance, and as a model for practical exploration of the digital score.
The final version of the pack is available on the DigiScore website for free, together with the instructions and examples LINK
Developing the workshop practice
An important aspect of this project was to develop Hopkinson to be a confident workshop leader and master of the digital score theories and concepts. To achieve this, Vear worked with Hopkinson over a 12-month period in 3 distinct phases:
Phase 1: Fellowship (July 2023) – Hopkinson spent a week embedded in the digital score team, working with Vear to understand the basic theoretical structures and approaches to digital score creativity. A first stage version of the cards was developed in advance and evaluated by Vear and Hopkinson through a series of rapid-prototypes during this week.
Phase 2: in-vivo workshops (October 2023) – Vear invited Hopkinson to work with the DigiScore research team in a creativity card workshop at Cimarosa Conservatory in Avellino, Italy. This workshop was an opportunity to develop the cards further and to test them on a group of music students, and for Hopkinson to see how they are used in practice.
Phase 3: interactive/ technical system design (July 2024) – After a period of creative development between Hopkinson and the Open Orchestra music students, a final version of the piece was becoming clear. Hopkinson needed a technical solution to bring all the elements of the digital score together, such as visual materials (supplied by Layla Curtis), temporal coordination of the sections, scenes, and textures that amounted to the core elements of the score; and a solution to interactivity so that Hopkinson could change visual elements to offer cues for the musicians, or to change colours of screens to signal note changes.
The Outcomes
The focus of this research project was on the transformation in Ben Hopkinson’s practice and creative potential to lead an inclusive ensemble to large-scale co-devised digital score composition. For Hopkinson he recognised that adopting the digital score theories and using the creativity cards to structure workshops transformed the following aspects of his practice:
• Immersive Experience: The immersive narrative score project transformed musical creativity by integrating narrative and visual elements, making complex musical ideas more accessible to a wider audience.
• Inclusive Practices: Efforts to engage SEND (Special Educational Needs and Disabilities) children and others through non-traditional methods and digital scores indicate a transformative approach to inclusivity in music education and performance.
• Audience Engagement: By providing an immersive experience, the project transformed the way audiences engage with music, making it more captivating and memorable.
• Evolving Techniques: The gradual development from initial ideas to more refined performances, as seen through weekly sessions and feedback loops, illustrates the transformative journey of both the project and its participants.
• Educational Impact: The process of creating and performing “Journey” was a transformative learning experience for the musicians, inspiring them to discover music in unconventional places and contexts.
Although not directly involved in the research case study, the music teachers offered the Digital Score project some observations about how their students engaged with this Open Orchestra project, and how this had differed from their previous engagements over the past 5 years. These are listed in more detail Beverley School impact and Priory Woods School impact, and highlight how Hopkinson and their “Journey Through a Changing World” project had impact on the following areas:
- Musical development
- Creativity and Imaginative development
- Social interactions, social coherence and collaborative working
- Confidence, self-esteem and emotional development
- Cognitive development.
Participants
Ben Hopkinson - freelance music leader Ben is a multi-instrumentalist from Guisborough, North Yorkshire, and have been teaching piano at Teesside School of Music since February 2015. Although he thoroughly enjoyed singing and playing the guitar and saxophone, it is the piano that offers the greatest musical connection. He has had a varied history in music; from singing as a chorister as a child, to performing in bands up and down the country. The last band he was a member of, Kingsley Chapman and the Murder, was regularly played nationally on BBC Radio 6. Composition and songwriting are also a huge passion of his, having composed for a number of short films and a radio documentary.
Musinc - producers Musinc provides opportunities in Middlesbrough for people of all ages, backgrounds and circumstances to make music, connect with others and explore their musical identity. Website Photo credit: Musinc.
Layla Curtis - visual artist Layla Curtis (b.1975, UK) is a British artist whose practice has a focus on place, landscape and mapping. Her multi-form work examines the attempts we make to chart the earth, how we locate ourselves, navigate space and represent terrain. She is concerned with how we map borders and boundaries, both real and metaphorical, to define territories and to establish a sense of place. She explores how we perceive, make use of and interact with the spaces we inhabit. Often, she seeks to understand place by examining its connections with elsewhere. Website