Volume 26 Issue 6 - March and April 2021
96 recordings (count’em) reviewed in this issue – the most ever – with 25 new titles added to the DISCoveries Online Listening Room (also a new high). And up front: Women From Space deliver a festival by holograph; Morgan Paige Melbourne’s one-take pianism; New Orleans’ Music Box Village as inspiration for musical playground building; the “from limbo to grey zone” inconsistencies of live arts lockdowns; all this and more here and in print commencing March 19 2021.
96 recordings (count’em) reviewed in this issue – the most ever – with 25 new titles added to the DISCoveries Online Listening Room (also a new high). And up front: Women From Space deliver a festival by holograph; Morgan Paige Melbourne’s one-take pianism; New Orleans’ Music Box Village as inspiration for musical playground building; the “from limbo to grey zone” inconsistencies of live arts lockdowns; all this and more here and in print commencing March 19 2021.
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THEKATANDTHEFALLINGLEAVES<br />
city’s sonic <strong>and</strong> cultural traits. Community development, architecture,<br />
urban planning <strong>and</strong> grassroots politics; community health <strong>and</strong> playground<br />
design – from my Music Box Village research, all of these <strong>and</strong><br />
more will come into play when discovering your musical playground’s<br />
potential to help a neighbourhood heal.<br />
It will not necessarily all be plain sailing. An example: with community<br />
music models out there such as Luke Jerram’s Play Me, I’m Yours<br />
project (which has seen over 2,000 street pianos installed in 65 cities)<br />
<strong>and</strong> others that allow public access to musical experience, the notion<br />
of noise in a public space cannot simply be ignored. On this particular<br />
topic, I have always supported the concept of choosing, even helping<br />
shape, the noise <strong>and</strong> sonic l<strong>and</strong>scape of one’s community. I can think<br />
of a lot less constructive soundscapes in a city or neighbourhood than<br />
a musical playground.<br />
It’s a topic that slides easily into related areas, such as playground<br />
safety, <strong>and</strong> the danger in removing all risk from play – not an easy<br />
question to resolve, with national-level architecture <strong>and</strong> design policies<br />
to guide developers <strong>and</strong> planners in their decision making on<br />
the one h<strong>and</strong>, <strong>and</strong> a resurgence of child-led public play spaces on the<br />
other. Both can help cities make wiser long-term decisions around<br />
playgrounds. Playground safety is undoubtedly an important consideration,<br />
but musical playgrounds allow us to embrace some wellargued<br />
tenets: that “art should be dangerous”; <strong>and</strong> that a certain level<br />
of risk in play is actually healthy. Where better than a musical playground,<br />
with multiple intelligences being fostered between adults <strong>and</strong><br />
children alike, for these ideas to run safely wild?<br />
What city in Canada is daring enough to embrace a musical playground?<br />
The answer: very likely more now than would have before. As<br />
we collectively begin to reimagine our relationship with space, there is<br />
an opportunity to turn the corner towards innovative spaces that build<br />
community in a bold new way. With institutions of formal learning<br />
taking a good look in the mirror, this is also an opportunity to rethink<br />
education, <strong>and</strong> to set up informal learning spaces, because we know<br />
that this is where so much of the real learning happens.<br />
July 2012: Toronto’s Play Me I’m Yours installation, inspired by Luke Jerram,<br />
was the brainchild of the creative arts director for the 2015 Pan Am games,<br />
Don Shipley. 41 street pianos, each decorated to reflect a country participating<br />
in the games, were unleashed in places like Pearson airport, Union Station, on<br />
the Toronto Isl<strong>and</strong> Ferry <strong>and</strong> city parks, squares <strong>and</strong> streets.<br />
Let this gruelling pause we are in not be in vain, <strong>and</strong> as we<br />
begin to take baby steps in reintegrating as humans, let us all move<br />
towards playing more in communal spaces such as the Music Box<br />
Village in New Orleans. But here, with our own multiple weirdo<br />
Canadian twists on them, celebrating <strong>and</strong> strengthening the assets in<br />
our various communities.<br />
Richard Marsella is executive director at Regent Park School of Music.<br />
His recent doctoral dissertation, The Musical Playground as a Vehicle for<br />
Community-Building, is available online via the University of Toronto.<br />
To donate to the Regent Park School of Music, visit rpmusic.org.<br />
FEATURE<br />
TAKE ONE:<br />
Morgan-Paige<br />
Melbourne’s<br />
multidimensional<br />
practice<br />
GLORIA BLIZZARD<br />
When pianist <strong>and</strong> composer Morgan-Paige<br />
Melbourne recorded her first album, it was<br />
during the <strong>March</strong> 2020 lockdown. She did it<br />
on her own, with one podium microphone <strong>and</strong> an iPad.<br />
She placed her mic underneath the piano to capture<br />
the gritty sound of the keys working. She recorded the<br />
ambient sounds of the city. Sometimes she sang. The<br />
resulting EP, Dear Dysphoria, is beyond genre: it is an<br />
emotional soundscape, an artful negotiation through our<br />
challenging times via formal compositions, improvised<br />
music <strong>and</strong> songs.<br />
IAN CHANG<br />
10 | <strong>March</strong> <strong>and</strong> <strong>April</strong> <strong>2021</strong> thewholenote.com