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CASE STUDIES OF HOTBED
USAGE IN PERFORMANCE CLASSES IN THE BA(SCOTTISH MUSIC), RSAMD. Dr Karen Marshalsay GENERAL OVERVIEW At the beginning of the 2001-02 academic term it was decided to operate
a few pilot projects in order to introduce the use of digital technology into
the curriculum and to gain an appreciation of user needs over a longer period
of genuine teaching use rather than just in the previous day long user needs
analysis tests. Staff were asked for ideas at the user needs testing and also at
a Scottish Music department staff meeting. The greatest initial interest and
enthusiasm for the project came from the Scots song, Scots language and the
fiddle tutors. All tutors were then also sent a mailout (to cover any who might have missed the staff meeting)
outlining the development and asking for ideas. The logistics were explored and it was decided that
the main requirements were the purchase and installation of computer terminals,
the purchase of other items of equipment such as scanners, 78rpm players, and a
digitisation period and methodology. It was initially agreed that a website
which could cope with sound files, text and scanned images and a basic search
facility would provide the best delivery option. However on further reflection
and discussion it was decided to go ahead and build a prototype database, which
would then be thoroughly tested by these pilot projects. As the locating and
selection of the right materials would be quite a lengthy project, as would the
digitisation itself, it was felt that there would be enough time to develop a
version 1 of HOTBED to deliver these projects. 1. SCOTS SONG Background There are two Scots song tutors, one female and one
male, teaching on the course who give one to one lessons with both principal
and second study Scots singers. There are currently about 6 students studying
Scots song. The individual lessons focus on unaccompanied singing and cover
such areas as repertoire (including background research and critical
listening), performance, presentation and vocal techniques such as breathing.
As in all disciplines students are assessed by means of a tutor report in both
first and second terms and by two recitals. These vary in length from 20 to 45
minutes depending on which year the student is in, and in the final years
(years 3 and 4) these recitals are open to the public. Students are expected to
present a varied programme of suitable songs and to introduce them to their
audience. There are also group singing classes both a principal study group for
all principal study Scots singers and a year group class for all 1st
and 2nd year students. The year group classes work toward a common
repertoire for all students and do not do much work in terms of style. Previous Practice Prior to the development of HOTBED the tutors would
make individual tapes for their students containing at least one but often more
versions of the song to be learnt. Sometimes these tapes would be especially
recorded by the tutor in the RSAMD studio but more often the tutor would simply
copy other existing recordings either of a fieldwork or commercial nature. This
obviously raises copyright issues, but the tutors felt that they had not other
viable option. HOTBED Integration Initially it was decided in consultation between the
Learning and Teaching Officer and the Scots song tutors to locate as many
versions as possible of 4 specified ballads, namely: The Twa
Corbies The Laird
o’ Drum Barbara Allen
The Dowie
Dens o’ Yarrow Nineteen versions of these
ballads were located in the archive selection from the School of Scottish
Studies from which we had permission to make digital copies. Other versions
were recorded specifically for us either in the RSAMD studio or by tutors or
acquaintances of tutors in their own homes. All of these items were then put
onto the HOTBED system as sound items only. It was decided not to make any
transcriptions of the lyrics available as it was felt that this was something
that each student should do for themselves as part of the learning process. The tutors then agreed to use these ballads in their
teaching and to direct students to the HOTBED system rather than give them out
taped copies. This met with mixed reactions from the students. Initially it was
felt that HOTBED was less accessible as they had to go to a computer to use the
system rather than have a tape of their own which they could play whenever they
wanted. Indeed as the students stated that part of the learning process was to
listen to the tape over and over again, and that they did this while engaged in
other more mundane activities such as washing the dishes or travelling by bus,
the HOTBED team began to investigate the possibility of acquiring MP3 players
which could be lent out to students who could then download the required items
and treat them in the same way as they did the tapes. This raised various
issues of costs, copyright and security and it was decided not to go ahead with
this option at present. All but one of the
students however came round to the idea of using HOTBED in the end. The student
in question was a first year and the difficulty they encountered was raised by
the tutor. The student was given individual training on the system by the
Technical Officer. The Learning and Teaching Officer then took several lessons
as a ‘student’ in order to ascertain exactly what the needs of this student
were. As it was felt to be too intrusive to observe the actual lessons with
this student the Learning and Teaching Officer underwent similar lessons and
was asked to complete the same tasks as the student. The LTO used the HOTBED
system to complete these tasks and then invited the student in to see how they
had been accomplished and to make sure the student would be able to repeat the
exercise again at a later date. The tasks were
None of these tasks were difficult to complete using
HOTBED, and indeed were easier and quicker than if the system had not been
used. The search facilities made finding the versions very easy. The use of
loops and index markers made learning the tune very practical and
straightforward by dividing it into lines and repeating them over and over
again singing along with the recorded item. The way HOTBED is set up allows the
user to also have a Word document open at the same time and the lyrics were
typed into this while listening to the recording. If one is a reasonably
accurate typist then it only takes 3-4 repetitions of the entire song to have a
typed transcription of the lyrics. Conclusions The tutors did not use HOTBED in their actual one to
one lessons, as they generally sang themselves any required songs or parts of
songs, but made it mandatory for their students to use the system to learn
repertoire, thus replacing previous methods of tape copying and distribution.
This worked well on the whole, although one tutor did feel that in the case of
one individual student (discussed above) using HOTBED had interfered with the
development of the student/tutor relationship as the student was not confident
or at ease with the system. However on reflection some time later the tutor
felt that other factors had also been at work and that it had been too hasty to
lay all the blame on HOTBED. This was one of the first ‘pilot’ projects of the
system and worked well, with students returning to use the system once more
material had been uploaded. The tutors felt that HOTBED provides easy access to
a range of differing regional styles and different versions of the same song.
Both tutors mentioned their worry that if the students were not exposed to
regional styles other than those used by the tutors then their repertoire would
be lacking in those areas and that HOTBED could be used to redress this
imbalance. 2. FIDDLE Background Lesson scheduling and assessment procedures are
similar to those described for Scots song. However there is a much greater
number of fiddlers on the course. At the start of the project all teaching was
undertaken by one tutor but this changed with the introduction of a second
tutor. Students are divided between the two by year. The fiddle syllabus is quite detailed and structured
and students follow a set lesson plan in each year that sees them studying, for
example, the work of individual composers such as J Scott Skinner, Niel Gow and
William Marshall over a period of several weeks. This meant that HOTBED was
often working to quite a tight deadline as if the relevant material was not
ready or operational during those few weeks then the project would need to wait
until the following year to try it out with the students. Students also learn a
great number of tunes in the year. In the 6 years of the course the fiddle
tutor has taught over 260 tunes. Previous Practice The aim of this teaching is to give the student both
information about the style and perhaps individual techniques of a particular
composer and also to teach them to play a variety of their tunes. Before the
introduction of the HOTBED system this would be done by discussion with and
demonstration by the tutor, by looking at published copies of a composer’s
work, and by asking the student to listen to recorded versions of the tunes.
The student would also be expected to bring a recording device, usually a
mini-disc, to lessons to record tunes and examples played by the tutor. This is
standard practice in all instrumental teaching on the course although some
students and disciplines use it more frequently than others. HOTBED Integration The Learning and Teaching Officer had several
meetings and discussions with the fiddle tutor during which it was decided to
focus on specific parts of the syllabus, namely the work of Niel Gow and J
Scott Skinner. The tutor recorded himself playing 7 Niel Gow tunes in his own
home studio and gave them to HOTBED on a CD. These were then uploaded onto to
the system along with basic metadata (title, composer, tune type, key and time
signatures, performer, date and place of recording). The tutor also felt that a
note should be made of which published collection that tune could be found in.
Several other versions of Gow tunes were later added the following year when the
additional tutor joined the staff and gave HOTBED permission to use items from
his commercial recordings. The fiddle tutor owned a large collection of 78 rpm
recordings made by J Scott Skinner in 1910 and it was decided to digitise these
and put them onto HOTBED. This meant we had to acquire a 78 player and needle.
It was decided not to clean the recordings up but to leave in all the crackles
and hisses inherent in the originals. It was however decided to make sure that
the recording we would have on HOTBED would play at the correct pitch. As
students would be intended to play along with the recording this was an obvious
decision to make. It was also decided to put in a link in the ‘Additional
Information’ box directly to a biography of Skinner on the North East Folklore
Archive’s website. It was also decided to digitise recordings made in
the Shetland Islands, a very important regional area with regard to fiddle
playing with its own traditions and very distinctive regional style. These were
collected by fieldworkers from the School of Scottish Studies. Recordings by
Willie Hunter and Ronnie Jamieson were
of particular interest to the tutor. Students were directed to these recordings on HOTBED
and asked to learn material directly from them. However, while this worked well
in individual trials, there were various technical problems which negated the
success of the pilot as a whole. Some of these were outside the control of the
project as they related to the installation of a new firewall within the
Academy, which had implications for computers accessing the HOTBED site at the
period that the students were studying these modules. This was in fact one of
the reasons for the purchase of the laptop. It is unfortunate however that it
was also the fiddle tutor who encountered difficulties due to the laptop clone
not being regularly updated. This led to a less than satisfactory outcome of
this particular pilot but individual students did experience the system and
felt that it would be a valuable tool for them for the future. Going into the third year of the project another idea
was discussed with the fiddle tutor, which would put supplementary information
on the system. Students are expected to know and to be able to tell audiences
about the tunes and the people who wrote them as well as to write both
historical and analytical essays about the music. For these reasons it was
decided that it would be useful to expand HOTBED into more of a virtual learning environment with short articles
about the composers, background notes on tunes, extracts from Glen’s
biographical notes, more links to other relevant websites and so on. However,
while this was a popular idea and would be worth pursuing in the future, it
proved to be too time-consuming to prepare this material let alone begin to
upload it into the system. This is one of the constraints of operating the
project with only one full time member of staff and a 0.4 position. CONCLUSIONS The fiddle pilot was well structured and planned out
and the tutor was very enthusiastic and helpful. The students were keen and
were in the end converted to the advantages of the HOTBED system. The success
of the pilot was curtailed by the access problems already mentioned, however
these would be unlikely to recur and the indications are that once the system
is more fully populated it would be well used by fiddle students. The ability
to compare different versions, often recorded many years apart, was seen as a
vital tool in the development of the students’ own interpretative skills. For
example a student could listen to J Scott Skinner tunes recorded by the
composer in 1910 and compare them to modern recordings of the same piece by
their tutor and other players. 3. PIPING Background There is a separate piping strand of the degree
course, with an average intake of 4 students per year. In addition to the
standard classes they also study piping history and repertoire, piping
technology and have more instrumental tuition. Piping students receive weekly
hourly lessons on both light music and pibroch, and work in groups of both 2
and 4 as well as individually. These classes are taught at the Piping Centre,
which is located across the road from the RSAMD, by Piping Centre staff and the
degree is awarded and administered by both institutions. Previous Practice Pipers were mainly taught by instruction and
demonstration on both chanter and pipes, and also by means of canntaireachd
[literally translated as ‘chanting’ - a form of vocables representing the
pibroch tune in which both pitch and ornamentation are indicated by particular
syllables and consonants]. Students were expected to learn 8 pibrochs in a
year, spending about 3 weeks on each. The first week would teach the standard
setting and the other weeks would look at other settings. HOTBED Integration The lists of available material from the archive of
the School of Scottish Studies was looked at and discussed with Piping Centre
staff, who agreed to go through these lists in detail and highlight any items
which would be of use in their teaching. As piping is of such great importance
to Scottish music, and to Gaelic music especially, there was a great amount of
material on offer. Selected items were then transferred onto CD at the School
of Scottish Studies and subsequently uploaded onto the system. Each item had
quite detailed accompanying notes on the index sheets which had been filled in
by the original fieldworker. However as we were working off very faint
photocopies they were at times difficult to read. The material also proved very
time consuming to put on the system. This was due to the fact that many items
were lengthy interviews with informants. Each one had to be listened to in real
time, divided into segments, at sensible points, which would then constitute
individual HOTBED items, and have the metadata entered. It proved difficult to
enter the metadata as many decisions had to be made about the nature of the
item. For example:
As the project did not have a dedicated librarian or
archivist this task mainly fell to the Learning and Teaching Officer and tied
up her 0.4 post for several months. Once this material was on the system the Learning and
Teaching Officer cross referenced all the pibrochs currently taught by the
piping tutors with references to them in the new items. The piping tutors had
already decided to cut down the number of pibrochs taught each year to 4 and
agreed to teach the ones which had the most material about them on HOTBED, even
if this was not actual musical recordings but information given in interviews
with older pipers. Conclusions This all took up a lot of project time, and the
assistance and enthusiasm from the piping staff was excellent. However there
were practical problems which meant that the success of this pilot was less
than it should have been. The main problem is that piping students have been
seriously discouraged from practising in the RSAMD building itself. This is
because they have access to sound proofed practice rooms in the Piping Centre.
However there is no wide band computer access in the Piping Centre, which meant
that students really had to come over to the RSAMD to use HOTBED, but go back
to the Piping Centre to use their instrument. Although students did use HOTBED
for information, and could sing along to items, the usage was less than it
would have been if everything had been available in the one building. The
project team did not particularly foresee this kind of reluctance from students
to go out of their way to any degree. The Piping Centre itself has a large amount of reel
to reel recordings (about 700) from the BBC, and they also had a researcher
working on scanning images from early 19th century manuscripts onto
a CD Rom. There is a huge wealth of material here and it would be an exciting
project to work with the Centre in digitising this material, tying it in with
manuscript images, biographies, photographs and other material which would
create a VLE for the students. The Piping Centre also teaches many other
non-degree students and would welcome the opportunity to use the HOTBED system
with these students as well. 4. GAELIC SONG Background There are a small number of first and second study
Gaelic singers on the course at present.
As in other disciplines students receive one to one tuition. First study
Gaelic singers must also take Gaelic language classes (these are for different
years either compulsory or an option for other students). Lesson scheduling and
assessment procedures are similar to those described for Scots song. Previous Practice Much of the teaching is done by demonstration and
repetition, with students also spending time on correct pronunciation and
understanding of the words. A lot of the material came from the extensive
personal knowledge of the tutors and also from their own personal collections
of written and recorded material. HOTBED Integration The initial stages were very similar to those
undertaken in the piping pilot. The Gaelic song tutor spent time going through
lists from the School of Scottish Studies and highlighting what were considered
to be valuable items. These were then brought through from the School on CD and
uploaded onto the system. The main problem in this discipline is that not all
project workers are familiar with the Gaelic language, which caused problems
with metadata and also with identifying individual tracks and knowing when to
divide them into several smaller items. It was agreed to ask the Gaelic song
tutor to listen to the most problematic items and to pay for this work to be
done, however owing to constraints upon her time this did not in fact take
place. Conclusions The Gaelic song students proved to be very interested
in the material stored on HOTBED and successfully incorporated some of it into
their repertoire. It also became an early port of call for essay and research
work in the area of Gaelic music and song. They were the first students to
perform material learnt from a digitised source, with their rendition of Fhir
a’ Chinn Duibh at the vocal showcase less than two weeks after a user needs
session when they were asked to learn this tune from the School of Scottish
Studies archive recording of Alasdair Boyd, which was available on a pilot
School of Scottish Studies website (Pearl). This was their first exposure to
the song, and they made the initial memorisation of it singing along to the
computer playback. The song was then further explored and worked on in
conjunction with the Gaelic song tutors. This was an important point that most
of the Gaelic singers made, that while they were happy to initially learn
material from HOTBED, they would not feel competent to perform it until they
had also worked on it in with their tutor in the standard manner. This piece
stayed in the students’ repertoire for over a year, with an expanded version
incorporating pipes and harmony vocals being performed on their tour the
following year, as well as being recorded for the department CD. This is very
much in line with what happens to repertoire learned from more usual sources,
proving that HOTBED can easily take its place alongside more traditional ways
of learning pieces and developing repertoire. In later discussions with the Gaelic song tutor it
was recognised that she has an immense amount of personal knowledge and
expertise which she would like to pass on and safeguard before she retires. To
this end it was suggested that some of her lessons and lectures (she regularly
gives lectures on Gaelic song to all students on the course and also to
students on the BEd course) could be videoed and that she could go into the
recording studio in the Academy and record specific songs. It also transpired
that this could become quite a large research project as she felt that she did
not know all the relevant information about certain songs but knew who to go
and ask. She also already has many text transcriptions from both her own
research and that of her daughter.
Various supplementary items were also identified, for example
interviews, music and text transcriptions in Tocher of items which are
on HOTBED, and biographical articles in Gaelic publications such as Gairm. However as much of this material
would also need to be translated into English this was becoming too large a
research project to fit into the current evaluation phase of the HOTBED
project. It remains an interesting and potentially very important project which
would enhance HOTBED tremendously, but as with the suggestions for
supplementary material relating to the fiddle syllabus, would be taking HOTBED
further down the VLE route. 5. OTHER PERFORMANCE STUDIES There are several other disciplines which are studied
by the Scottish music students, such as piano, harp, whistle, flute, accordion,
concertina, guitar and cello. There is very little material recorded on these
instruments in the tapes which are available to us from the School of Scottish
Studies. In the future it would be possible to record specific items of
relevance to each discipline and indeed some of this was done for harp when
video recordings of lessons from a visiting performer were made and put onto
the system. As the system stands however it is still of vital use
to these students. Repertoire is not limited in the Scottish tradition to the
instrument for which it was originally composed, with all instrumentalists
playing pipe tunes for example. Students need an awareness of the other
instruments and of any specific points about a tune which will enhance their
own playing of it. Using HOTBED in this manner requires either that the tutors
become very familiar with the available material, which would be very time
consuming for them and they may not be able to do that amount of preparation
work, or that a series of detailed contents guides are produced. This would
need to be done in consultation with the tutors who could provide lists of material
taught, especially tune types, which could then be cross referenced with the material stored on the system. For
this to work to its best advantage the interviews would need to be summarised
and entered into the metadata so that it could be searchable. For instance you
might want to search for information on strathspey playing, which would then be
useful for any instrument. This type of development would involve a fair amount
of time but would make the system much more useful to the groups whose instruments
are not directly represented.
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This page last modified: 18:03, Fri 25 Jan 80 This page published by HOTBED Project at RSAMD. |
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