Those were all the skills we used in the Drumming Workshop hour.

That was it for the Drumming Workshop.

Later on in the day, we had another hour of PA. In which we had to write down our Process Journals and as you can see I was pretty busy writing mine in a new Padlet document.

The skills we had to use now was only one which was the folloowing:
Remembering - We needed to remember what we had done in the previous Drumming Workshop Hour to know how to answer the questions.

After we had to write about the Drumming Workshop, we had to watch this video:
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TViLxRIUBDM


When I first watched this video. I was really shocked. This man had really put this amazing piece of music by just hitting on objects with two sticks? Well, I had the evidence right in front of my eyes and I thought that that was incredible. What I found amazing was that the man had come up with a really fast tempo and wasn't confused of what object to hit and didn't stop for a second to be found confused as to what he was doing. If I was the man playing in his place I would be confused and trying to remember what objects to hit and by what amount of force to hit them. Other than that, this video had a really fast tempo, multiple timbres created by using different types of objects (ex.pots and pans) and the rhythm is really catchy. The organization of the pots and pans in their place is real good and I wonder how the drummer remembers where he put the different pans and pots and how he knows which one to hit to make this amazing video.

I then watched the 2nd video that the teacher had told us which was found n this website:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FqJdzYY_Fas

This second video, was even faster and I have wondered the same things that I had wondered in the 1st video that I have watched. The objects used were just pots and they were less objects than the video I've watched before. The timbre to me sounded a bit plain and dull compared to the timbre from the other drummer. The beat was very effective and interesting. They both looked interesting visually though I must say that I am also surprised by the beat and rhythm that took place in the second video. I didn't know you could do an amazing rhythm like that with that many instruments though I was also surprised by the fastness of both drummers wrists going up and down while hitting objects in rhythm.

I liked the 1st video more because I really admired the beat, the tempo, the placements of the different objects (used as instruments). This one was the most exciting because it is long and I usuually like to make up stories and a story made up in my mind while I was listening to this video. The story began .... I also like this first video I've watched more because there were more different instruments with different sounds and the drummer had not even forgotten to tap on one of them.

A video that I've found of another drum/rhythm-based performance that used non-instruments is the following:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhKUhaeyb18

When I've watched this video for the first time, I realized that I've liked it as much as the 1st video that the teacher, Ms.Pob Joy had told us to analyze. Then I looked at the performer and realized oit was the same person but performing in Paris instead and not in Amsterdam and then I thought that he probably went all over Europe to show his interest in music and the pieces of music that he has made up. The story I got from this music is the following:

Today I've learnt that only one person can create an amazing ensemble of different sounds and make fantastic music. I've also learned that every song has a story (at least for me it's true.) and you make one up by the music change and the tempo in the music.
I've learnt a lot of things today, and this has given me a knowledge of how much I like music. And I will remind myself in the near future to try and make my own rhythm out of non-instruments (ex. pans and pots.).

Today, we had to perform!!!
At the beginning of the lesson, the teacher gave us 5 minutes in which to practice the presentation. 
In these 5 minutes we chose which slide people will explain and or perform.
When the practice time was finished she called us to bring our chair in front of the whiteboard and sit down. 
My group had to wait a bit before presenting.
The order of the groups that had to present is the following:

We were third to perform..

As I waited for each and every presentation to pass before it came to ours, I admit I was nervous. Though, I calmed myself down and pretended I was just analyzing this in my head but out loud. I thought the presentation itself was alright but who knows if we performed it well (the teacher knows of course).

While performing it, I followed what my group had planned, I performed the rhythms well, I said my lines. I then thought that the presenting went okay too.

The whole presentation went as planned. Manasvi saying her lines, me saying mine, and Yue saying hers. The rhythms that we performed where well performed. Everything was okay in my opinion.

Overal, in this presentation, I found the rhythm I had to do pretty difficult indeed. It was:

The rhythm he uses in the video is (in between 0:36 seconds and 0:57 seconds): ( I copied the rhythm showed in the video by the guy shown on the Process Journal "Our Second Performer")

I found it difficult because the hard bounce I had to do, the one that had to go over my head, I had to put a lot of force down the ball to make it jump high. Though, I managed doing it correctly in the presentation because of the practice I got the lesson before on Friday 6th of November 2017. 

That's pretty much the only thing I found difficult while doing this presentation in front of the whole class.

I learnt some things from the other presentations too. Two things I've learnt from them are the following:

At the end of the lesson, the teacher told all of us our grade. And we got an 8. That was the first time I got an 8 this year in PA. So my group and I were very proud of ourselves. 

The feedback that the teacher gave us for this presentation was the following:
"Your analysis was very detailed, describing the choreography and techniques used down to the second! The Venn diagram comparing the two performers was very impressive, and the demonstration with the ball was accurate and clear. Very well done!" 
We didn't get any negative feedback which was good. I am very proud of all the achievements I have reached during this lesson. Like not freezing up in front of the whole audience, performing the rhythms well,  kind of rushing through my lines. 
I am very happy of my grade and am excited of what we will do the next lesson which is on Friday 1st of December in 2017.
In this analysis presentation task I have learned that even the simplest of rhythms can sound quite good when put together with other simple rhythms to create a choreography and very interesting piece of music. I intend to use this as an inspiration and use for any future task that involves beats, choreography, making my own piece of music etc.
In this unit, I have realized that I am growing very fond of music which is why I am looking forward to the next task we will need to do.

She then tells us to copy the exact rhythm several times, to get used to it. You can find the rhythm in the Process Journal called

She called out when to start and the whole class did the beat that was showed at the same time together. We stopped when the teacher said stop, to show us the next step. We were then used to the rhythm but now the teacher would give us some other instructions to make it more complicated and into a sort of game afterwards. 

The next step was to make the part in which you clap your hands together, the part in which you clap your hands with somebody else's. 
To practice this, the teacher divided the class into pairs. I ended up with Yue.
We began by clapping our laps to times with our hands and then clap each other's hands together. We did this several times until we had mastered it and when the teacher stopped us to explain the next step that we had to add.

She brought up 3 more people from our class to show us what the next step was.
The people she brought up were the following:

They stood in a circle, including the teacher. They slowly started to clap their hands on their laps. And then, this is the complicated part, Ms. Pob Joy started to clap her hands with the person 2 times on her right, which was Camille. At that exact moment, Aisling who was standing in between them, bent down low, to not get hit by their hands which were clapping each other's. The other people, being Amber in this case, continue doing the main rhythm which is recorded on the Process Journal called,  "Recording of the Warm Up Game Played on the 5th of December 2017". 
Then, Aisling stood up to clap her lap two times and then Amber's hands two times, Amber was standing 2 places to Aisling's right, which is why Camille (standing in between them) bent down low to not get hit. 
After that Camille stood up and clapped Ms. Pob Joy's hands while Amber was bending down low (Reminder: the person which they clap with is always standing 2 places to their right.). They keep doing this and stop when Ms. Pob Joy thinks the rest of the class (including me) have understood. 

She then calls us all to stand up in a big circle with the whole class. We practice the same thing that they have done again. If a person got it wrong, we would start again from that person on.

When we have practiced a few times, the teacher said that we were now going to do it for real. That means that if somebody does something wrong they are out and do not participate in the rest of the game. The people who are still in the middle continue playing this musical piece until they are eliminated or until there are only 3 people left standing that are the winners. The winners get a type of felicitation card from the teacher. 
in both games I was out.
In the first game some people had done a mistake and so were out and we had to start playing again from the beginning (without those people). At a certain point, near the end, I got out. They continued playing until 3 people were left standing. Those three people were the following:

In the second game, i was out near the end (one of the last people that got out). Well, at least I improved since the last game! The last three people standing were the following (I think):

After the games, we discussed what skills we practiced in this activity. The ones that the class called out and suggested are the following:

Those were the skills we had to use in this game.

That was all for the activity, we had 35 minutes more of the lesson. 
In the 25 minutes at the beginning of the lesson we had played the game.
In the first 25 minutes we would continue working on our re-enactment. 
In the last 10 minutes we would be doing our Process Journals which you are reading right now.

Groups could ask the teacher for a practice room. My group had asked a practice room. The room was Bat 0.09. 
A little refresh, my group members are the following:

We so went to the practice room. We stood together searching for a good quality video that was interesting so it could maybe give us a good grade. We found it, it had good quality, it was interesting and had a lot of different instruments.
The video we chose is showed in the Process Journal called, "Video we are re-enacting." 

We have chosen this particular performance to re-enact because it is a good quality video, each person is obtaining a different role (which is pretty good) with different instruments. We want this because the combination of instruments will make a great performance as proved in the stomp video. Each person in our group will have to concentrate very hard to keep their focus on their piece and rhythm when performing and studying their person. We also have chosen this because other groups would probably not have chosen this because it is very difficult to find on YouTube. It is also difficult and complicated to concentrate on what one person is doing with all the noise going on, but I think we'll manage. It is a complicated and confusing video which will hopefully get our grade up for this assignment. That is why we chose this video.

We then had to think about who were the different people in the stomp performance. The people in the stomp video are the following:

The people each of us will be re-enacting are the following:

The equipment that we will need for each and every person are the following (The numbers in brackets that are showed before is what every number that I'm going to be including in this next part is representing) :
1. The equipment that this person will need is the following:

2. The equipment that this person will need is the following:

3. The equipment that this person will need is the following:

4. The equipment that this person will need is the following:

5. The equipment that this person will need is the following:

The video that we are re-enacting is showed on the Process Journal called, "Video we are re-enacting". 
We are re-enacting it from 0:00 seconds till 1:14 since at 1:14 the characters start talking and we don't want to use our voices also because then the video would be too long and also because we didn't want to use our voices.
Adan was sick today and we couldn't bring any props to practice so we chose to analyze our characters separately, also because we don't know them by heart yet. We first continued to try modify parts of the video to suit our abilities and available props better. This is the part that we have modified of the video to suit our abilities and available props better:

So, each of us observed our chosen performers and copied their actions within the minute and the fourteen seconds.

The video that we are re-enacting is showed on the Process Journal called, "Video we are re-enacting". We are re-enacting it from 0:00 seconds till 1:14.
We had decided that each of us would analyze our own character in this lesson.
So, I had begun to analyze my character. This is my analyzation:
I will not do the exact same thing as the character I am re-enacting in the video. 
At the beginning the first person to make a sound will be Manasvi (The Hammer Repair Man), followed by Adan (the texting person), and Me (the Old Man), finally ended by Yue (the sneezing person). Amber won't be re-enacting in this part although she is in the scene. This order is also adapted to the video. Although, they do it several times and we will be doing it only 5 times until Amber plays the piano. 
When Amber plays the piano I will count the beats and play my own rhythm. In the video it is 4 beats which is why my rhythm is 4 beats long as well. Here is what I will be doing in each of the 4 beats:

This rhythm I changed a bit from the rhythm that the old man uses because his changes a bit every time, and I don't get the sense of the rhythm in the actual video. Which is why I chose to do this rhythm that I saw the old man playing at 
I hope the whole group can give re-enacting the chosen scene together an attempt and make adjustments when necessary during the next lesson.

That was all we did today, after we parted to go home for the weekend.

She then told us that we were going to pass it around the room. She began doing the rhythm, she then stopped and Adan on her left did the same rhythm she just did. He then stopped, and Amber did the rhythm she just did. It continued on going until somebody made a mistake with the rhythm or the timing.

After that, Ms. Pob Joy told us another rhythm which was the following: 

That was the second rhythm she showed us. You can find this rhythm in the Process Journal called, "12-12-2017, The second Rhythm Miss. Pob Joy showed us".
She then told us to pass that rhythm in the room and that she was later on going to pass a second rhythm around the room. This told us that this was going to be a bit more difficult.
The skills we used in this warm-up were:
Looking out - You had to look out for any rhythm coming your way so you will be ready for it and will know what to do.
That's pretty much all the skills that we used in this warm-up.

After this warm-up activity we parcticed our own re-enacment. Today, we din't improve much. All we did was practice our re-enacment over and over again and think about what we could do different to improve it. It wasn't such a successive lesson as most people were distracted by news. I hope that next time we'll be more successful than this lesson.

Today we started a new unit. This new unit is called, "STOMP". 
It is about creating rhythm without musical instruments (ex. violin or saxophone) as we have had an explanation last week in the Drumming Workshop. 

After this introduction of the unit, the teacher, Ms. Pob Joy gave us an example of, "STOMP" and showed us a video about STOMP in basketball (basically a group of basketball players using basketballs to create a STOMP performance). That video was about a group of people making different kinds of easy rhythms and then combining them together to make an extraordinary piece of music.
We first worked with a few simple beats from the video. After that exercise we were split into groups and aimed to create our own layers of beats using the given four simple beats. We also had to think about the kind of movement we could do to make the audience enjoy the performance visually as well.

We used a number of skills including our ability to recognize beats and to stay with the pace of the others. We also used our creativity as well as our team working skills. I found staying with the pace really easy while creating interesting visuals for my group's performance was more difficult. We also found it difficult to come up with a piece within the given 30 minutes (which you've got to admit is not a lot of time). Feedback we received included comments on how short our piece was and comments about the fact that the audience could not hear the different beats very well when they're merged together. But the rest of the feedback we got was positive. Though, I think we did a good job today as it was our first time creating a STOMP.

I think groups like STOMP can be successful because when they use so simple rhythms and then put them together like puzzle pieces the piece is extraordinary and it looks hard to make but extremely fun to listen to sand to watch. But if you try and separate the different rhythms combined together, it doesn't look very hard at all. The movement of the people making the STOMP is also very successful as it is very entertaining for the audience watching. I've realized this when I was watching the basketball STOMP in the class from the Interactive Whiteboard screen.

Today, we gathered in a circle of chairs (each person standing in front of their own) and started off with a warm up game. The game was when you would clap your hands to make different beats which have different meanings, such as next, go back and skip a turn. 

The different beats for each of the meanings said in the previous paragraph were the following:

We did this as a class. Ms. Pob Joy started clapping (she continued clapping throughout the warm up game to let us know the beat and when you need to clap when you have to) and the clap went around the circle sometimes people clapping twice meaning to go back to the person that had passed on the clap to them and sometimes people clapping thrice meaning to skip the person that you were going to pass it to and pass it instead to the person next to them that is not you (basically the person that is two places away from you in the direction the clap is going).We practiced first and then we did it as a game. You would get out and sit on your chair behind you when you have done something wrong like every other warm-up game we did so far.

The skills that were required for this activity were the following:

I think those were all the skills that were needed for this small warm up activity.

Afterwards we were introduced to our first task in the new unit. The task was that we had to make groups of 2-3 and choose a STOMP performance online and analyse 1 minute of the video in several ways. We also had to perform rhythms of the performance. This task was to be completed in 3 lessons.  I was in a group with the following people:

We created a shared Google slides and chose our video, which was a group of basketball players using basketballs to create a rhythm. It was a bit similar to the first video we watched last lesson about STOMP basketball. We didn't start the questions yet though we chose the minute that we wanted to realize which was The beginning till 1 minute precise. We will answer a third of the questions next lesson and start planning on how we will replicate the performance. We will manage to do this by dividing roles between us 3. 
The video we chose is shown on the Process Journal called, "Video we analyzed for the Analysis Presentation". We chose this video because it had a high video quality so against to many other STOMP videos, you can see clearly what all of the performers is doing. Also, the only props used are basketballs so we thought it would be easier to perform than some of the other videos, like the video we found on YouTube showing the performance using a whole kitchen (I doubt that the ladies in the kitchen will let us use it). This video was interesting mainly because the performers were very organized and structured and it was very fun to watch. 

Since we couldn't answer the General Questions we did that as homework. We each answered one of the questions. 
These were the questions we had to answer along with the answers:

The questions were really easy to answer so we took 5 minutes to answer them all

Today we started off with a recap on what we did last lesson. Then we did a class activity that was similar to the one we did at the beginning of the previous class. We had to each say a syllable of a sentence and whenever someone went out of the game we'd have to count them as a silent beat. The sentences we had to say were first "Pass the beat around the room" and then "Pass the (foot tap) around the room".  In this activity we had to pay a lot of attention and remembering.

The skills that we needed to use in this warm up activity were the following:
Memorizing - We had to memorize the sentence or we'll be out if you said the wrong word or didn't say anything when it was your turn to pass the beat around the room.
Listening to the beat - We had to listen to the beat to be able to say the word you're supposed to say or make the sound on the beat or else we would be out.
Paying Attention -  We would have to pay attention to what the others before you said before you say the correct word that you're supposed to say.

After this activity we had to get back to our Analysis Presentation. 
My group reassembled together. The people in the group were the following (short recap):

We now had to answer the Specific Questions which were the following (answers included):

Focus on one performer in the video.
You can find this in the Process Journal called, "Our Main Performer".

What rhythms do they use?
The rhythm he uses in the video is (in between 0:03 seconds and 0:25 seconds): 

That’s pretty much the only rhythm that he uses in the first minute of the video.

How do they move around?
This is how he moves around:

The things that I have found difficult in this lesson was to analyse the main character's actions during the chosen minute, which was quite difficult since there were a lot of performers dressed similarly, the camera kept on moving and his moves were kind of complicated. My group answered the questions together. We first discussed the answers to the questions while watching the video, and took notes. When all was clear we each started writing the answer to one of the questions.

I was glad of all the amount of work that we had completed in this lesson and I hope that next lesson we will be able to finish the whole presentation and practice some of the moves as well.

We also did this in groups. I was with Yue. The teacher was counting the beats as we did the Louisiana mud slap. The following is what we did:

The skills that we used in this warm up activity were the following:
Memorizing - You needed to memorize all the different steps on all the different beats.
Listening - We needed to listen to the beat to stay in beat with it.
Working with the beat - We needed to do all the different steps on the beat which is why we needed to work with it.

Later, we worked more on our STOMP analysis presentation. In this lesson we finished all of the higher level questions which were the following (answers included too):

Focus on a second performer in the video.
You can find our second performer on the Process Journal that is called ,"Our Second Performer."

What rhythms do they use? 
The rhythm he uses in the video is (in between 0:12 seconds and 0:27 seconds, and also in between 0:59 seconds to 1 minute):

How do they move around?
This is how he moves around:

Compare them to your first performer.
You can find the answer to this question in the Process Journal called, "Comparison of the two performers."

Can you demonstrate the rhythms, techniques or choreography?
When we finished them we started practicing the demonstrations of our chosen video since one of the directions in the Higher Level Questions was the following:
Use subject-specific terminology and do demonstrations where possible.

We practiced performing all the rhythms that we put on our presentation. Some of them are the following:
For the Main Performer:
The rhythm he uses in the video is (in between 0:03 seconds and 0:25 seconds): 

(Manasvi will perform this)

For our Second Performer:

(Manasvi will perform this)

(I will perform this)

We used basketballs and found some of the tricks quite difficult to demonstrate. We spent most of the remaining time practicing and adjusting the tricks so we can give a somewhat accurate representation of what was being done but at the same time not have to face a risk of messing up badly. 
One thing that surprised me was how STOMP as a music group interacted with professional basketball teams, audience, construction workers and chefs, etc. In their performances because I had thought they stick to themselves while performing but apparently they cooperate with a lot of other people in a wide range of professions as well. There wasn't anything else that really shocked me.
This is what we did today.

That would be my group for the project.
We were then able to choose the video we would re-enact for this project. The skills we are to use in this project are hand-eye coordination, teamwork, cooperation, recognizing and replicating rhythms, usage of equipment, etc.
Amber suggested a video straight away, she showed it to us on her phone. It was a video about 5 guys which are in an elevator each making a rhythm with a different object. They were using a variety of equipment to create a choreography. We then decided that we would choose this video because we thought it was very interesting and not too difficult either. We mostly chose it because we were sure that it would be fun to re-enact. The video is shown on the Process Journal called, "Video we are re-enacting".
The challenge that I predict will be in the upcoming lessons while doing this project is that we will have a lack of concentration for a period of time. I know that this will be a challenge that my group and I will have to face because I don't know. I just feel it. Although, I am sure that this will be a very good group.

According to the plan, we first started off with a warm up before going off into our groups to work on our re-enacment. In this warm-up the class gathered up in a circle on their chairs. And the teacher explained to us the warm up.
She said that she was going to start with a rhythm and pass it on to Adan on her left and that after a moment she would be passing another rhythm to Adan. By passing it to Adan she means making up a rhythm herself, showing it to Adan who then copies it and the person on his left copies him and the person on that person's left would do the same thing and so on. Everybody stood up and joined in the game, this was practice. The practice went off fine, there were a few people that made a mistake, but this was practice so they weren't out. 

The skills we have used in this warm up activity are the following:
Listening - We had to listen to the instructions the teacher gave us for the warm up activity or else we wouldn't get it.
Paying Attention - We had to pay attention to any rhythm coming to us.
Being Ready - If a rhythm is coming your way you need to be ready or you won't be able to do it.
Follow the Beat - You also need to follow the exact beat that the person that chose the rhythm did which brings us bak to that you need to listen in the warm up activity.
Those are all the skills that I can think of are used in this warm up activity.

We also continued to work on our STOMP re-enactments in our groups. Today Amber found and made some adjustments to the piano chords used in the video. We filmed around 1 minute near the end of the class. We have not actually performed altogether before and then we tried it with two rhythms going on on the right and the left. We then did it as the game. I got out and sat on my chair in the middle of the game. When the game was finished the teacher asked us what skills we needed for this game. Well, there were around 3 different rhythms and they were all going around in the circle at the same time, which meant we had to use skills such as re-enacting and recognizing rhythms but most importantly we had to focus.

Today, we showed Miss. Pob Joy what we had so far. You can see that on the video attached to the Process Journal above. The feedback that she gave us was the following: 
That our performance was not very STOMP like and that we needed more action. 

I have some feedback for our group too and that is the following:
I think more enthusiasm needs to be shown during the performance and we need to practice performing together with cooperation. One of the biggest challenges that we all faced in this project is that we all found it hard to focus and we kept drifting off task. We have improved that on the next lesson. All these lessons, people brought all their electronic devices to just show the video but I think we'll just have one electronic device to show the video on next time as too many can be a distraction. Personally I felt we had not put much effort into the project altogether and at times people were distracted by their phones or each other when they should be working on the tasks. The solutions that I can find are to avoid bringing electronics while practicing as they can be a distraction. I can't find anymore solutions except that one.

That was all we did that day and I admit that it wasn't a lot.

Because of this, my group and I assembled together.
My group included the following people:

We chose to stay in the main classroom which is BAT 05 as we find it difficult to focus and get work done inside practice rooms. We also agreed to not use electronics today because sometimes in the previous lessons some people in our group were looking at things on their phones or Ipads and got distracted, so we didn't get a lot of work done. These two decisions really helped our group grow more focused and useful and our productivity had grown in this lesson from the previous ones. 

While every group practiced, the teacher walked around observing what all of us had so far. Seeing that we were not were she'd originally expected us to be by this date, today was changed into a sort of where-are-we-now performance. 

So, the original deadline was changed to somewhere after the Christmas Holidays. 

Today was the first time we all cooperated a lot to practice together with all the adjustments we had made. The new adjustments that my group and I came up from last time were the following:
Adjustments that Manasvi had made were the following: Manasvi hadn't yet decided what specific object to use for a replacement of the hammer in the video we are re-enacting.We need to use another object for the hammer because first of all, we don't have one and second of all the teacher probably won't approve of us using the object. In this lesson, she had the definite idea of what her object would be and that object were the drumsticks which have a close sound to the hammer, are easy to use, isn't as destructible as the hammer and the teacher will approve of the object. This object is going to be safe to use and not going to be a different sound from the hammer, which is why her decision was great. Today, Manasvi was wearing ripped jeans (not like that matters) and that was how she got the idea to start off. She put the drumsticks into the ripped hole in her jeans. And when the performance started she would pull them out and start playing her piece.

Adjustments that I have made were the following: Last lesson I have used my foot to do my piece but today I have seen an object that would be perfect to use which was a medium-sized stick. So I practiced my rhythm with that. I also have got an idea of where I could do my rhythm, which was on a big box on a side of the classroom. If I bump my stick onto it it makes a very dark but high sound compared to the one it makes when I bump it onto the floor. This, I think, would be a good change to our piece because all the other instruments are more high. 

Adjustments that Yue has done are the following: She changed the coughing and head-scratching to different rubs against her jacket as cough and head-scratching could not be heard very well inside a large classroom and the original video was made inside a very small elevator which was quite a confined space. 

Adjustments that Amber has done were the following: Amber had decided to use Adan's iPad to perform her piano piece instead of on an actual piano as we had done in previous lessons. She had decided to use Adan's Ipad so she could move around (that was one of the feedback that Ms. Pob Joy gave us the lesson before so we could make it more entertaining).

Adjustments that Adan has done are the following: Adan used a kind of peculiar sticks that surprisingly made a lot of noise, maybe because they were plastic. In the previous lessons he had also used drumsticks but my group and I found the variation of instruments important. 

We were the first to perform and I think that this performance was great since  today was the first lesson during which we'd made any significant progress, when we did do great with cooperation when compared to previous lessons in which some people were kind of doing their own business. Some things that I thought we could improve were our sync together and timing because after about a minute we had started to lose track of the beat and everything became a bit confused. We received a bit of feedback. Camille (I think) said that she liked the variety of the instruments we used and that we were not all using the same instruments which was a bit more entertaining to the sound. I think we could also work on rhythms after the minute as the performance was a bit short when we actually performed it so I thought we could make up some of our own rhythms based on the original video and how it continued after the performers' conversation. At the end of the performance, I became aware that my piece didn't make much sense to what I was doing so I will change my piece from an old man to a boy that cleans chimney's as the movement of the stick up and down looks like that. Which is why next lesson I will prepare the props I will need rather roughly. The props I will be using are the following:
A hat in which I will tuck all my hair in so I will hopefully look like a boy.
My clothes will be a bit ancient looking like just a black sweater and jeans.
And this prop which I will be using to make my rhythm.

After Christmas, I will be working on the props I will use and keeping in time with the beat. Since in this performance I noticed that I wasn't very much in time with the beat and that people weren't sure as to what person I was so I will add some props that I have mentioned to help them understand who I am in the 
re-enacment. We could also could still improve in terms of cooperation so we could work on the later moves and beats as well as practice more to cooperate better.

Below is a video of our performance the previous lesson. We have made a lot of improvements since then but we had not filmed our performance in this lesson so this is the only video we have of this project in the STOMP unit. We have made a lot of improvements since this. Here is the video of our performance the lesson before which was on the 12th of December.

The bad news were that Amber was not here and she was a very important character in our piece of re-enacment. And so we had to move the date of the performance from Tuesday next week to Friday next week which would be the 19th of January. 

Today, we practiced our re-enacment straight away. We went to the VA (Visual Arts) room (which is basically BAT 02) to practice. We practiced with the video first copying the moves our characters did then doing it without the video. Today we made a homeless poster (you can find a picture of this on the Process Journal called, "Homeless Poster". ) and a broom that I will be using to act by cleaning the chimneys (you can find a picture on this on the Process Journal called, "Chimney Cleaner". I forgot to take a picture of it so you will have to wait until Tuesday so I can.). 

In this lesson, we practiced and talked about the scene which would be a street (that would be our setting for our re-enacment piece.). We also talked about the movements we would do in our scene. I won't stay writing and describing my movements so next lesson we will film what we got so far and so you will be able to know my movements throughout the performance as well as my group mates. 

That is all we did today.

We told them our theme and we also discussed who will be who.
This is who will be who (the characters are explained as who they are in the Harry Potter series):

That is all we discussed in this lesson, I just wanted to write it down so next lesson (tomorrow which is going to be the 23rd of January 2018) I will remember everything that we've discussed today by reading my Process Journal which you just have finished reading now.

We tried our best in this lesson to come up with an outline that evrybody felt and wanted to do. And a theme in Hogwarts School of witchcraft and Wizardry is great. For two reasons which are the following:
Reason 1: Everybody wanted and like the scene.
Reason 2: We had a lot of themed props (especially me and Yue as you saw above) as we own a huge amount of those and we thought that the choreography would look rather nice and that it would be fun to watch if we had a good amount of relevant props that show what our performance is about. If you would look at the play even for 1 second you would quickly understand that it is about Harry Potter because of the props (ex. the house banners, the wands, the ties. Literally by looking at the background and the props used.).
As this was the first main lesson in which we were going to start with our own Stomp, Yue didn't get her props as they are really big and hard to move around on a bike (as she bikes every day to and from school.). We later thought that we didn't need to bring the actual robes but only clothes that looked like them as they were really fragile and we didn't think our parents would allow us to bring them to school.
We also used my hand crafted broom that I made in the last task. Loukas will use it for his performance since he is cleaning the room and he is a caretaker. Scroll down if you don't remember it. 

We had many ideas for our outline, during the lesson we were debating about what outline to do. The outline that we then chose was the following one:
To summarize our outline so far, Camille is Hagrid and flips the pages of a real book on a stand as well as a replica book without pages. She also taps the stand with her wand and feet. Loukas is Filch and sweeps the floor with a broomstick while walking around. He occasionally bumps into objects. I am Draco, who is a bit restless and messes around in class, tapping objects with my wand, tapping my feet and scratching everywhere while sitting next to Harry (Me), who is focused and trying to work. In the beginning I am just tapping my work (parchment replica) with my wand (chopstick), but after a while I get fed up with Draco and stands up, I tap her feet and faces Draco. Draco repeats the process and they swish their wands around and move around in elaborate dueling movements. Filch cheers on the side, regularly hitting his broom on an object. The duel continues for around 30 seconds before it is stopped by Hagrid who flicks his wand, causing Draco and Harry to both lose their wands and fall backwards. Filch drops his broom in disappointment, making a big noise and Hagrid sighs loudly.

I am very satisfied with what we did this lesson and I think we worked together quite well. I am very excited for what will happen next lesson and can't wait to know what our final performance is going to be.

Here is a video of what we had in our routine by the end of the lesson.

In these two lessons, we did two identical warm-ups. 
Today, we gathered in a circle of chairs (each person standing in front of their own) and started off with a warm up game. The game was when you would clap your hands to make different beats which have different meanings, such as next, go back and skip a turn. 

The different beats for each of the meanings said in the previous paragraph were the following:

We did this as a class. Ms. Pob Joy started clapping (she continued clapping throughout the warm up game to let us know the beat and when you need to clap when you have to) and the clap went around the circle sometimes people clapping twice meaning to go back to the person that had passed on the clap to them and sometimes people clapping thrice meaning to skip the person that you were going to pass it to and pass it instead to the person next to them that is not you (basically the person that is two places away from you in the direction the clap is going).We practiced first and then we did it as a game. You would get out and sit on your chair behind you when you have done something wrong like every other warm-up game we did so far.

The skills that were required for this activity were the following:

I think those were all the skills we needed in this warm-up activity.

In the first lesson we didn't do anything but practiced and practiced our parts so it would get into our heads.
In these two lessons we did't do many improvements (we did most improvements on the second lesson) as Camille was sick the whole week and so we kind of lost faith. In the second lesson in which she was sick, we got the idea to video chat with her on Loukas' phone (and I must say that that worked out pretty well), then at the end of the lesson Aisling agreed to join us and Aisling and I together had an idea to make parchment. To make the parchment look old, we would wet the thing that makes tea have flavor and we will stain the parchment with it. I also had an idea that at the end of the video when Camille would get angry enough she would shuff the parchments off her table as a sign that she is angry. These are pretty much all the ideas we've had today. And also my group agreed to make the "tccchhh" sound every time they are pretending to wave their wand and make a spell.

In these two lessons we didn't make any videos of anything which is why there is no video at the end of this Process Journal. We focused more on the props and the choreography. We also thought about how to make more noise as the wizard duel in its nature is not supposed to make much noise. We also had a little crisis where some members of our group wished to change the theme of the performance completely.

ALso, we came up with a character that Aisling could be in the performance and that was Luna Lovegood. Here is some information about the harry potter character that Aisling is going to play:
Luna Lovegood (born on 13th February, 1981) was a witch, the only child and daughter of Xenophilius and Pandora Lovegood. Her mother accidentally died while experimenting with spells when Luna was nine and Luna was raised by her father, editor of the magazine The Quibbler, in a rook-like house near the village of Ottery St Catchpole in Devon.

This was all we did in these two days.

Hopefully next lesson we will make many improvements as that is the last lesson we can practice in. If we won't be finished that lesson, we will ask Ms. Pob Joy for a small extension of one more lesson.

Today, we started off with the warm up exercise, which was the same exercise as last time where we counted to and from 8. This time we added even more different movements and in the end everything got confusing and people couldn't keep up the routine anymore. 

Then, my group and I continued working on our own STOMP performance. This lesson we thought about the rhythm and how they could fit nicely together, as last time we mostly thought about ideas and props. At first we struggled a bit with stage directions such as details about who does what movements and when each person enters the stage and starts their performance. But at the end we got it. We also struggled even more with keeping a steady beat as we figured out our own individual rhythms but had difficulty doing them to a beat. Ms. Pob Joy (the Performing Arts teacher) helped us get a steady beat step by step all together, thanks to her at the end of the lesson we had a beat to the rhythms. We then broke such rhythms down to one person performing at a time and the others would listen. Afterwards we decided to make Camille's beat the standard while Loukas would count out loud for us since his rhythm is fairly simple and he was fairly good at it. Plus he was willing to do so. We also made some changes to the dueling scene between Draco and Harry so there would be more noises made, more rhythm to it and the entire scene would become more STOMP like by making a range of loud and soft feet taps and jumping movements during the duel. After school (today) I had an idea to make noises when you pointed the wand at others (like tcchhhhhh), I will share my idea on Tuesday (which is next lesson). We had done a lot in the lesson and I was really satisfied. I hope that we will have a nice performance at the end of practice and most of all that we will have fun when doing the performance.I n the final practices Yue and I will be bringing related props such as robes and replicas. We have ultimately decided to omit wands from the performance altogether because after reviewing the nature of our performance we decided there was a large risk of the wands being damaged if they were used in the manner we were using the chopsticks and so we decided to stick to the chopsticks for our performance. The subject: If we will bring our robes, is still up to debate as we are not sure whether we can bring them to school (as Yue is on bike) and if they will be damaged during the performance (even though I don't think so). This is all we did today in the class.

Here is a video of our performance and progress in this lesson. Mainly the Harry (Me)/Draco (Yue) scene. Also Loukas is the one filming so he is not featured in this short clip. The teacher was not available and Loukas volunteered to film and so we agreed that next lesson we would get Loukas in the end-of-class-progress-video too.