Get Set Samba help light up the town!
Since establishing Get Set Samba in September 2021, our young people’s samba band has performed a multitude of times across the county from Queen’s Jubilee events to award ceremonies and Winter parades- even scoring a short spot on ITV News performing at NE Youth’s ‘Projects With Pride’ Awards evening, celebrating the efforts of youth-led projects and organisations in the North East endeavouring to create change in their communities.
However, the biggest challenge for the group was between September and December of 2022, in which time Get Set Samba had to very quickly get to grips with an array of our house band (Runaway Samba) material in order to perform at our very own Crook Winter Light Parade! A celebration of Light and Music to bring in the New Year. A lot of the young people involved in Get Set Samba had joined in January ‘21 after having seen the bands playing in Crook Winter Light Parade that year, and they were extremely keen to be involved themselves this time round.
At the start of September Get Set was still just getting comfortable with the first 4 songs in their repertoire and getting their performance refined- needless to say the addition of 4 more songs to get familiar with and not only perform but parade in 3 months time was an intimidating prospect as a facilitator. Parading with a samba band in general has a number of challenges associated with it even for adult performers- the addition of lack of line of sight to the leaders, size of drums compared to younger participants and comparative distance on sometimes very little legs/alternate modes of transport can make it even more taxing. We overcame some of these challenges by specifically tuning nesting drum surdos regardless of their diameter (the usual indicator of a samba drum’s pitch) to the same notes as the larger Hi, Mid and Lo surdos played by the adults in the band. This let us fit the drum to the young person rather than having a preset drum size per pitch. Even still, parading is a test of endurance, and we were very careful to embed solid parading technique in each session in the lead up to the parade itself.
I want to give a huge shout-out to our team of young leaders- Eve, Jacob and Dylan, (all members of Runaway Samba and excellent musicians in their own right) who aid the delivery of Get Set sessions, are incredibly supportive of the group and at this point have such an overarching understanding of the young people participating, the music and the shape of a session that I can pass band leading and teaching over to them in times where I’m needed for 1 – 1 or pastoral assistance. With their help, the daunting prospect of teaching 4 entire songs in 3 months and getting Get Set Samba parade-ready went from monolithic and daunting to challenging but manageable- a real testament to their skill and approach to music and working with younger young people.
For each of the new songs we used the same set of teaching techniques up to the parade- demonstration, deconstruction and repetition.
Demonstration – perform each part on each drum independent of one another, allowing each instrument section to understand their part on its own first. Being able to play your own part solidly and with confidence even when other parts of the band may be wavering is a vital skill in paraded samba music in particular where a lot can happen very quickly.
Deconstruction- take those individual parts and break them down in to small phrases to be played back a step at a time. Often times an entire rhythm can be made of only two or three repeated rhythmic or melodic ideas. Taking longer parts and breaking them up is a key way of approaching samba music tuition (and music tuition in general in my experience)
Repetition- Ah, the bit everyone loves. Playing the thing. A Lot. Just, So much. Round and round- But keeping it interesting by throwing in instrumental break sections and flairs and dancing! This also applies to Deconstruction. If a group plays each part of a rhythm first by playing it back to you, then assembles it in to a full rhythm then it’s far more likely to sink in and stick.
I feel like I say this in every blog I write, but at this point I want to note again, how mind-blowingly absorbent young people’s minds are when it comes to music. Like. It’s unreal. Not just the ability to repeat back, but the ability to quickly understand the music and how each instrument interacts with the others. The group inherently take cues from one another in the lead up to musical breaks and changes in groove. It makes teaching and performance so much more fluid, and honestly it’s a skill that some professional musicians work to attain their entire lives.
The parade itself flew by so fast, but feedback from the young people was ecstatic. The lights, the sounds, the v o l u m e were all things noted by our young performers. Being a part of something so large, a staple in our community, and having worked toward being a part of it themselves after having seen it year on year was a really meaningful experience for everyone. There was even an impromptu collaboration with our friends from The Baghdaddies at the end of the parade- an improvisation session that all in Get Set Samba got to join in with on New Year’s Eve.