Thinking Outside The Box II - Mount Hills (trad. arr. Mel Biggs)

Thinking Outside The Box II, 20th May 2018, Whittonstall, Northumberland. Thinking Outside The Box is a 1-day workshop series I run to get players having fun doing something different with their instruments. Each event has a different theme designed to get you thinking beyond just playing the tune. Here is my group who attended the TOTBII event which was focused on dynamics, bellows and air control. This was the final play through of the day, trying out some of the brand new techniques that had been introduced and worked on throughout the day. I knew my arrangement of the tune was going to be a little ambitious for a one day workshop, but my group really lived up to the challenge with some fantastic results! You can hear how we start quietly and lightly, the landscape scenario I set was "breaking dawn". The sound gradually evolves on each repetition using additional extra chords, note shaping techniques and discrete areas of crescendo, diminuendo and 'surging' on certain notes. Through a series of bellows and pressure control exercises of my own design, participants were awakened to a more sensitive relationship with their instruments. By asking them to focus on how their body felt when playing crescendos and diminuendos, I was able to effect a greater awareness and control in the way my participants were producing sound from their instruments. All participants commented on how I opened a door in their approach to playing. That's a success!