by Karine Blemur-Chapman

“Sounds show us what is inside of us, in our minds and hearts.” —Darius Kaufmann

Imagine yourself lying quietly in a cool, dark room, listening to mesmerizing hums of ancient instruments and rhythmic chanting. What would you envision? Where would you go?

Last week, the musicians of Journeys with Sound, Darius Kaufmann and Ron Pizzi, invited Lower School students to take mystical inter-dimensional journeys. Just as people from cultures around the world have done for centuries, the first and third graders were encouraged to pay close attention to what they were feeling, hearing and seeing in their heads as they traveled between time and place. The evocative sounds of deer-skinned drums, Aztec wind whistles, Scottish Bagpipes, Tibetan chimes, ocarinas, and crystal singing bowls coaxed from their minds dreams of courageous warriors, horned dragons, pink ponies and unicorns, wise bats, spirit-chasing monsters, silver river fish, grieving hawks, prehistoric civilizations, and tree-top flights. “I traveled through time, making visits into different centuries,” shared a third grader. “I surrendered to the moment.”

The Journeys with Sound ensemble has been visiting BFS for five years. In particular, third graders are able to connect the experience to what they are learning this year about the Haudenosaunee culture. In music class, Piper Macleod has been teaching them to play the traditional Native American flute and compose simple songs. Darius showed them how to creatively improvise by combining basic finger movements. Overall, the interactive presentation encourages all students to acknowledge the interconnectedness of the natural world, to search for symbolic meaning in their imaginings, to and discover their inner serenity and power through music.

Try this at home! An Australian Aboriginal didgeridoo is wind instrument made of a dead eucalyptus branch which has been hollowed out by ants and termites. When played, it creates a vibration that imitates animal sounds. (Some say it sounds like the scientifically magnified echo of the Earth spinning through the universe.) You can make your own didgeridoo by painting a cardboard tube of wrapping paper. By buzzing your lips and blowing into one of the openings, your can experiment with creating your own animal sound.