Tag: Drums

Musical Keys MKII

A brief account of the resumption of Musical Keys sessions for NAS West Norfolk.

INTRODUCTION

Yesterday saw the resumption of Musical Keys sessions for people with Autism in the King’s Lynn area. The sessions will now take place fortnightly at the Scout Hut on Beulah Street (youngsters 3PM to 4PM, older people 4PM to 5PM). The sessions are now being run by two new people, John and Kirsty.

FIRST SESSION BACK

The biggest change other than in personnel was the absence of i-pads – we were using real instruments, with the focus being on percussion…

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You can see here five drums that need to lifted above ground level to be played, one box which you sit on to play, generating sound by hitting the front, a wooden instrument that like the drums needs to be lifted to be played and a second wooden instrument (partially concealed), which comes with its own striking implements.

Once we had made our selections it was time to start playing, initially to instructions.

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The side of the drum I chose.

After a while I was introduced to a new instrument, a wooden frog with a hollow centre, which comes with a wooden striking instrument.

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Later still I switched drums to one of the larger ones…

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With this larger drum I could position the frog in the centre and vary the sound according to whether I struck the frog or the drum.

Everyone seemed to enjoy the session. John said that if anyone indicated that they wanted a particular instrument to be available they would try to make it happen.

SOME NEW PHOTOS

With one exception these pictures are all from today, from walks at each end of the day…

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This poster was on display at the Scout Hut yesterday.
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Moorhens in the Purfleet.

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These last three pictures are from this evening.

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Musical Keys and Imaging

An account of today at work and yesterday at Musical keys.

INTRODUCTION

This post has two very disparate strands – yesterday’s Musical Keys event for Autistic People and tody at work.

IMAGING

While I have imaged a wide variety of stuff today at work I am going to concentrate on some commemorative coin lots that were of particular quality…

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I did not have time to provide close-ups of all these coins…
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…so I selected the one featuring a picture of Nelson (we are in Norfolk after all) for the treatmnent.

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This lot featured an extra requirement.
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Namely providing a shot focussing on the coin and info sheet into which it is set.

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The last of the commemorative coins.

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A large collection of themed stamp books.

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Inidvidual mounted stamps
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A close up of a single set
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an even close up of two individual stamps.

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Old maps…

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… and an even older map to finish

MUSICAL KEYS

The 12 years and older session of the Musical Keys workshop run as an NAS West Norfolk activity started at 4:45PM yesterday and ran until 6:15PM. I was there both as participant and as one 0f the two designated committee members to be present at the event (the other was group leader Karan whose younger son was participating). As usual with Musical Keys the main piece of equipment we were using was a miniature computer:

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For the first part of the session we were playing computer drums:

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After a mid-session break during which a birthday cake which Karan had very kindly made (gluten-free as her son has an adverse reaction to gluten) and which was absolutely delicious, we moved on to the second part of the session, which featured a system whereby lines had to be drawn across the screen so that balls would bounce of them to create sounds. For those of my generation it looks a bit like a very early BBC Micro game!

The basic set up
An arrangement of lines which prevents any of the balls (released from the nozzle you can see top centre) from escaping. I do not know what kind of sound this generates, as at no time while the sound was on did I have this many lines in place.

As anyone who knows what the weather was like in King’s Lynn yesterday early evening will be aware it was not suitable for photography on the way to the Scout Hut, where as so often with NAS West Norfolk events this took place, but I did get this picture on the way home…

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