By ian_1969

 3 comment(s)

GCSE Comp 1 : Aiden (15) is a very talented bass player/composer who worked on a syncopated bass piece inspired by jazz bassist virtuoso, Jaco Pastorius.
He performed his piece with our drum tutor (Peter Huntington who recorded 90% of the drums on the last WHO album) and with me on electric guitar. The rhythm section was recorded live on our multitracker and the synth melody and keyboards were added later.

GCSE Comp 2: Chris (15) is a very talented guitarist/singer/song writer. He can be heard here with a "live recording" of his GCSE Popular Brit Song style "You Don't Care At All". Chris is generally inspired by Brit rock groups as well as bands like the Red Hot Chilli Peppers.
The lyrics are about the cruel loss of a girl's life who was left lying by the railway tracks. Chris plays bass, drums, acoustic and electric guitars as well as vocals. We added the crowd after the recording to capture the atmosphere it created when our school rock group performed it live at the end of year school concert. Chris now has tens of thousands of hits on his Youtube music video site "Mr Chris Monos"

GCSE Comp 3: Moises (15) is a very gifted composer/performer with a Brazilian background reflected in his GCSE composition in a Latin-rock fusion style, inspired by Carlos Santana. Moises plays the keyboards, bass guitar on keyboard, Roland digital drums and percussion. I am playing his electric guitar sections that he directed and suggested. You can hear how he builds the ending after a quiet interlude in the middle of the piece. I just love working with my students at this level.

GCSE COMP 4: Sarah (15 at time of recording) is a gifted female vocalist and song writer. Her composition is titled "Waking Up" and the lyrics tell of a teen's insecurity from parental rejection. Happy to say it has a positive ending! Sarah chose a southern blues style with slide guitar. Based around an altered minor blues progression, Sarah firstly recorded her vocal melody live with just our drummer. Next she recorded the guitars that had to follow her melody line. We would have loved to have re-recorded this with the band first just to improve the over-all feel. Never the less you can appreciate the level of her song writing that shows sensitivity and confident delivery. The lyrics came from another young girl's challenging home life experiences, giving the song authenticity.

Sarah went on to sing another of her original songs at the 2009 Glastonbury Festival along with our R'n'B band who won an international Nobel music prize for the song, "Walk Away", (about knife crime).

GCSE Comp 5: Sarah, Marzuq and Chili composed this song, "Walk Away", to help combat knife crime. It is in an R'n'B style with female vocals contrasted with two different rapper segment of 16 bars each. It was written and recorded all on the same day with bass, drums and guitar. Though the chordal sequence consists of just two chords, the syncopated rhythm and major 7th to minor 7th sequence is very affective.
This song won them a Nobel Peace of Art Award and a performance at Glasonbury 2009 with the band "Future Heads"

Catering for the gifted and talented in music.

How do you inspire and raise the attainments of the gifted and talented in music? I think one way is to challenge them by affording them opportunity to perform with established musicians. This requires them to step up to a new level in their performance and composing. It offers life long inspiration and motivation to go on to much higher levels.

I don't only mean playing along to the records of their favourite artist, but also actually jamming and recording with established musicians.

I have uploaded a number of the GCSE performances of my students' own compositions to show how the role of modelling has helped in nurturing their own natural talent. I have also included their main musical influence that inspired their compositions.

What do you think?

(Dennis) Ian Patterson
Canons High School
Harrow, London