Grigny: keeping the link, continuing to teach music and inventing the next day

Zicadanse in lockdown

Curious spring we've just experienced. While they should have been rustling with songs, guitar chords or scales played on a piano, the walls of the conservatory were silent for three long months. Yet the teaching team maintained contact with the students throughout this lockdown period. Although the lessons by live video call allowed the individual practice of music to continue, collective practice proved to be more complicated.

It is for this reason the project "Zicadanse en confinement" (Zicadanse in lockdown) was born. Each pupil filmed himself playing an instrument or singing to the tune of Stromae's "Alors on danse" ('Then We Dance'), whose lyrics were rewritten by the children themselves and changed for "Alors on change" ('Then We Change'). The video is expected to be posted on YouTube next September.

Adjusting to this period

Both students and teachers had to adapt to the period as far as possible. Teachers had to rethink the way they taught, which depended very much on the quality of the connection, performance and availability of computers in their students' homes. Sometimes, even with all their good will, they could not do anything about it. Either the student had no access to the Internet, or the instrument he was playing was defective (missing strings on a guitar) or non-existent (how do you get a piano into a small apartment?).

A platform for students, their families and teachers

Despite all the issues, the teaching team has found ways to continue teaching music. In addition to the video lessons, several digital collaborative spaces were offered to the students. There they found resource materials, homework assignments, advice from their teachers, and links to other digital resources (cloud, YouTube, etc.). On the strength of this positive experience, the conservatory management wishes to develop this new tool for the entire conservatory and thus create a real platform to keep contact with students and their families. It would also be a good communication tool for the secretariat in order to remind families of registration dates or changes in class schedules.

The teachers of the conservatory are mobilizing for the children of Grigny...

What impact will this health crisis have on attendance at the conservatory? This is the great fear of Edgar Solmi, director of the conservatory. Being inventive and thinking differently about music teaching has always been his aim. Because they wanted to see their students as numerous as they were, after the summer, twenty teachers will volunteer to teach music for them during a week in July.

Proteodies: work in progress

Quarantine has unfortunately halted the activity of Proteodies, an experience based on proving the influence of protein music on plant growth, planned to be one of the demo actions of the plan. As part of the "learning holidays" scheme, Pierre Gernioux, Deputy Director of the Conservatory and Anne Brochot, Director of the Maison des Enfants et de la Nature (Children and Nature House), had the idea of reworking the action in order to propose it several times during the summer period. This change will enable one of the animators of this strcture to be trained (from June 23rd to July 10th). He will take over autonomously the activity with the children, during the rest of the summer. Despite the health crisis, the demo action will still be able to be carried out.

  .  .  .  

Article written by Cécile Hussonnois. For more information, please contact her at cecile.hussonnois@grigny91.fr

Photos by Cécile Hussonnois