The Talking Music Group

Hallam Sinfonia cellist Sue Dumpleton writes about her recent experience with the Talking Music Group

A few months ago the Hallam Sinfonia was asked if one (or more) of us would like to offer to come and play for a recently formed “Talking Music Group”. So in June I went along with my cello to play for some very welcoming and friendly people who have been forced to flee their own country to seek sanctuary in the UK.

And there was music and there was talking to help improve their English. I enjoyed playing the Bourees from the Bach C major cello suite, and demonstrating the type of dance that used to be danced to a Bouree, and its usefulness in courtly dancing centuries ago. Later I played a mixture of short duets with Melanie Musman who came along to support me, and after every piece of music we talked about the different moods that one might experience,

represented by the music.

We talked about all sorts of things. I found it fascinating to hear about a home made sort of violin crossed with a dulcimer that one of the group used to play. It was great to hear that another participant had learned music at school through the doh, re, mi Kodaly method – the method that Julie Andrews used when teaching the children in The Sound of Music.

I was asked to talk about myself and my cello.

• How long had I been playing? A long time!

• How was my bow made? The white bit was hair from a horse's tail – hair that was much stronger than my own long hair! I loosened the bow to show the horse's tail.

  
  

I played Twinkle Twinkle Little Star on a rubber band stretched over a plastic take-away food box in order to demonstrate how I made music with four metal strings stretched over what was basically a wooden box. I was asked about my left hand fngers and how I used them, so I explained about varying the length of the vibrating string to make higher or lower sounds.

We even talked about the difference between stopped notes and harmonics. There was a lot of interest! Together we spent over an hour talking about and enjoying music and each other's company. The session finished with everybody joining in with some rhythmic fun. We had two groups and two rhythms being clapped, tapped and spoken, read from ta, te-te ta-a (crotchet, quavers, minim) cards on the floor.

The violinist who supports the group improvised on top of the rhythms, and I joined in once we'd got it working well. Then we ran out of time...

There was a lovely comment afterwards from one of the participants:

“Thanks for making this morning beautiful.”

And if anyone else from the orchestra wants to volunteer, they could help

create a completely different beautiful morning.