Bed frame guitars and swimming pool drums? How our miniCLIP group built recycled instruments.
July 13th saw the return of Colchester Carnival, a vibrant display of the diverse communities from across Colchester. CLIP were invited to join by the organising committee, Colchester Diverse Communities Network – with attendance in the main parade as well as running the second stage at the festival.
Over a 6 week period our miniCLIP group, young musicians age 11 to 14, set about building their own musical instruments and writing music to perform as we marched through the streets of Colchester.
1. Research
With thanks to support from the National Lottery, our miniCLIP group meet weekly at Firstsite in Colchester. We began the project by researching different types of group performance, looking at a variety of acts such as The Highland Park Thursday Evening Gentlemen’s Society Circuit Bending Marching Band and Ladies’ Auxiliary!
After group discussion, they collectively decided they wanted to explore the rock music genre but with a twist…diy instruments!
2. Fabricating
The guitars, which started life as bed frame slats, were transformed with single coil pickups and amazing custom artwork. In addition, we found a collection of swimming pool chlorine tubs from a local school pool which we cleaned and transformed into drums! With custom artwork too, of course.
After a few sessions of painting and decorating, we started to explore the instruments and discover their sounds. The guitars paired brilliantly with guitar slides, so we donned portable battery amps and experimented with single string riffs. With some thumping percussion, too.
3. Carnival Day!
On the Saturday morning, the group donned their instruments and joined the Colchester Carnival procession. After a few short rehearsals we marched through the city centre with thumping drums and gnarly riffs to streets packed with crowds of people! Along the way we improvised new rhythms and riffs, using all the ideas we’d rehearsed and putting the DIY instruments through their paces.
THe procession terminated in the grounds of Firstsite, where the music continued on the CLIP stage with performances from our Colchester Academy group, alongside a wide variety of performances from other community groups. It was a fantastic day celebrating the rich diversity of culture within Colchester.
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