E-Scape in use at Kongsbakken School, Norway - 2005 report
At our school, Kongsbakken, we now have three pupils - one girl and two boys - who all have cerebral palsy. The girl has good vision and also is able to control her hands relatively well. She can therefore work both with E-Scape and other programs with music notes. One of the boys - Frode - has more problems with his vision and also more problems using his hands. The other boy, Arne, has very little vision, and can only use his head to operate the switches.
The girl is in her 3rd year, and the boys in their 2nd year. I am the teacher responsible for their lessons in the subject "arrange and compose music". Since September 2004 they have been trained to use E-Scape for this purpose. This has been done in parallel with lessons to read music notes (except for Arne).
We have been using E-Scape in different ways:
1. To write melodies they are familiar with
In this way the pupils also have been trained to listen to how the melody moves: eg upward or downward with small or big intervals, or successive repeating notes. Also it enables them to understand how the music is built up in simple forms, eg. aba, aabb.
The students also have made tracks with accompaniments or bass lines.
2. To perform scores written by themselves or by the teachers
This have been used very much by Arne, who is not able to sing. He participates in small concerts performed by the three pupils, the teachers and assistants.
Every year before Christmas and in the late spring we make a small concert tour to different institutions in Tromsų. We want the public to understand how Arne can play along with the others, so we get him to play solos, either by segments or one tone at a time (indefinite duration). When he is not playing solo, we often make a voice which goes along with the melody. In November, Arne participated in a concert for the whole music department of the school. He played with a small band and two singers in the song "Baby, it's cold outside". Arne had a small solo in the start and accompaniment further on.
3. To perform in large integrated concerts
In our next concert in December Arne is going to play together with a men’s choir. They will sing a Gregorian hymn, and Arne is composing original music to be played with the hymn. This was also done by Oyvin Kristoffer and Vibeke some years ago, if you remember, and very successfully. That was the first time we used E-Scape in concert, I think.
Arne is not able to press the switches at an exact time because of his injury, something that is important in most classical music. Therefore we work mostly with other types of music.
Until now we have not used E-Scape to play with many students at the same time. One reason is that the two other students have been singing (singing is their main instrument). We are however going to have a play session with SKUG on the 13th of December. We will then see how this can be developed in the future.
To conclude:
E-Scape has been very useful for all three students because it has made it possible to write songs and arrange them without having to know very much music theory.
Their motivation have been very high all the time. It might not have been so if they had to learn the difficult way. They are not very motivated to learn music programs where they must use music notes, and for Arne that is not possible at all. Frode also has some difficulties because his vision is not good enough, but he is using it to train the rhythms.
For Arne E-Scape is most important. He has no other way to work by himself with music. The alternative is that the teacher writes down his ideas, but in that way he would not be able to continue on his own. Arne loves to write and arrange music and is also very happy to perform. It makes him feel that he has his own instrument, and that he has a role in the music department of the school. We have just got the Norwegian version of E-Scape, but I understand it is still some time before we can get a Norwegian speech reader to go with it. Arne looks forward to that.
Sidsel Aarseth, December 2005
