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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

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