W7 DOCUMENTARY AND WORKSHOP

This week I found there is a documentary called Landfill harmonica showing at Dundee Contemporary Arts and a workshop with it.

• About the documentary

The document is about how kids live next to orchestra one of South America’s largest landfills play musical instruments made from trash. The documentary is inspiring. Children in the impoverished state can use instruments like violins and cello made from the garbage play classic symphony.

However, this document is not that related to my project. As my experience in that primary school in Yunnan province apart from financial states and education resources, the biggest issue is people despise art education there. As China implements examination-oriented education, art talent will not bring more competitive to children in that kind of area (which is contrary in metropolises). As a result, rarely people have even basic music skills nor do they have the awareness to let their next generation learn it.

That makes my product have to be a whole thing or at least half made as my user won't get help like children in the film. There is an adult who used to work as carpentry; he built all the instruments. Although the materials are from recycled materials like oil tins and wooden scraps, they been well processed.

I emailed the documentary production team to ask if they can help me with my project. Unfortunately, they replied that I would have to reach the luthier personally since he is the only one who knows how to make them! Unfortunately, he lives in a minuscule, poor community with limited access to the internet. But I'll contact them again after I finished my product to see if I can get my product out in the real world and benefit real people.

• About the workshop

There is a workshop held before the film start. It's about making your recycled instruments. I was hoping to observe how children make music instruments and their manipulative ability, but it turns out I was the only one there.

However, I met Ms. Eunice King, a vocal teacher teach children age 11 to 14. We discussed a lot. She told me in her experience

Accomplishment is the most motivative thing for kids to learn instruments. The color was used to help her beginner students to distinguish different strings.

She also told me many minority DIY instruments. We made some there. I tried to make more this week, but none of them can meet my need. I aim to make my project a musical instrument that can have accurate pitch rather than just a toy. The musical instruments I made without mechanic tools can hardly produce real pitch. And they sound awful.

• To sum

It's not realistic to let children DIY a proper musical instrument. Furthermore, if my product need to be assembled it best to be tool-free. I have been trying to get to touch with my users. However, it's challenge to find kids like that in this country.