RSBC Unseen

RSBC Unseen Podcast | Georgia’s Musical Challenge | S.05 E.02

• Royal Society For Blind Children • Season 5 • Episode 2

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0:00 | 20:47

Our forum member Georgia is part of a music collective for her local church. For World Sight Day last year she challenged the group to memorise and play by ear a hymn she’d written, so they could understand how she engages with music.

 

In this episode Georgia chatted to Angela, Caroline and David from the collective about how they found the challenge and what they got from it.  

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Juliette Parfitt:

Hi and Welcome to the latest RSBC unseen podcast episode. My name is Juliette and I work here at RSBC. This week, I'm going to be talking to Georgia from our youth forum about a really fun experience that her music collective have been doing over the last few months. So, hey, Georgia, how are you doing? Thanks for joining us.

Georgia:

Hello. I'm very good. Thank you.

Juliette Parfitt:

So tell me, what is this music collective like? How long have you been in it? And what do you guys do?

Georgia:

Okay, so the music Collective is a group. It's like, sort of made up of musicians and singers called cantors. So that's like a solo singer in a church, and we basically lead all of the music in a church service. So we play every single hymn, and some of the Cantors will sing the Psalm, and sometimes they sing other things as well that we have. So it's really lovely and very rewarding thing to be part of, and I'm very grateful for the experience, and I've been in it for just over three years now. So I started off as a cantor, and I did that for a few months, and then I started playing keyboard as well. So I joined the more musician side of it as well.

Juliette Parfitt:

Ah, so you sing and you play the keyboard.

Georgia:

Yes, I do both

Juliette Parfitt:

amazing. That's so cool. And so you guys get to perform every week at like, church service and that,

Georgia:

yeah, so we basically lead the congregation singing. So it's really lovely.

Juliette Parfitt:

That's so joyful. I love it.

Georgia:

It's lovely, and it's so uplifting to hear everyone singing along with us. It's lovely

Juliette Parfitt:

Ah, okay, so tell me, what is this kind of experience experiment idea that your music collective has been doing?

Georgia:

Yes, so for World Sight day, I had an idea that I asked them if any of them would be interested in experiencing what it's like for me when I'm preparing to play at mass and when I'm actually playing a mass. So they all agreed that they'd like to do it. So I composed a hymn with all of the elements that I find challenging when I'm trying to learn a hymn. And I said to them to try and learn it from memory, and we'll all play it together without reading the music, which is how, how I do it, because I can't read the music at the same time because I can't get close enough to it. So, so we all did that, and it was, it was very it was interesting. And I think everyone found it very inspirational to see what it's like to be a visually impaired musician playing in a church to your congregation.

Juliette Parfitt:

Because I'm guessing, when you do it, you kind of, you have to pre read the sheet music and, like, memorise it, and then you just kind of perform it from memory.

Georgia:

Yes, so what I do is I'll, like, if I'm playing, I'll sit at my keyboard at home, and I'll have my, my big iPad Pro on a music stand, and I will be enlarging the sheet music to the biggest size it can possibly go, which means I can only see one note and one chord at a time. So I memorise that, and then I go on to the next bit. And it's so, it's so much scrolling, and it's very, sort of like disjointed, if that's the right word to describe. And it's so it's a lot about remembering and keep going back to what I've just seen. And it's, it's very confusing and very exhausting.

Juliette Parfitt:

I can imagine, yeah, I can imagine

Georgia:

Its lots of preparation to get it right.

Juliette Parfitt:

I mean, it's amazing that you do that and prep for things every week, though, like, your memory is probably super duper.

Georgia:

Thank you. It's very, very, very overloaded

Juliette Parfitt:

so you spoke to three of the people from your collective. It was Angela, David and Caroline, and asked them about the experience. So we're going to throw it over to you guys and hear what they thought about doing it, what they got from it and how it's sort of going.

Angela:

Hi, my name is Angela, and I am the music and worship liturgy lead at the parish with Georgia. And I love singing and playing really prayerful songs. I'm trying to think of what my favourite might be, with that the joyful songs we did, an amazing song recently called Amazing Grace. My chains are gone, and I really like those songs that are really uplifting.

Caroline:

Hello. My name is Caroline, and I'm a fellow worshipper with Georgia at Blessed Sacrament church in Heavitree. And like Georgia, I'm a great fan of music, particularly amateur music, and taking part in it, and being as good as I can at it. And I've been asked to say what my favourite song is. And I've it's very difficult to choose one song when you sing so many in your life. But. I've decided I'm going to choose O Word of God, which we sing during mass, which always makes me feel nice and calm, and it's a good way to introduce an important part of the mass when we're going to listen to the Word of God.

David:

I'm David. I'm also a fellow musician at the Blessed Sacrament. I play the flute. I'm a flautist for my favourite song. As said, I'm more familiar with tunes and then what they're called. So it takes me a while to remember. I think there's one of the very interesting name, like As the deer pants the water, Theres another one called the people of God.

Georgia:

Sounds like Christ is our king.

David:

Yeah, that one Christ is our king. So that would be my two favourites.

Georgia:

How did it affect your understanding about visual impairment? Do you think that the experience helped you?

Angela:

Well, it has really made me think about the the challenges that people with visual impairments have, because I realised that actually I, I rely so much on sight for playing so, so I've always been a good sight reader, if You, if you like. So when music's put in front of me, generally, I can read it quite quickly. But it really made me think about the fact that I don't retain that information. So say, for example, something that perhaps I've played for years and years and years I still rely on the music for. And so goodness that the thought of having to learn something you know by, by heart or by ear, and I'm relying on that only I found really, really difficult and and also the practice time that it would it would take me, I think what we decided Georgia wasn't it that we had done so badly at it as a group last week that we what we're going to do is record our progress, because we realised that we all really struggled with it. So it's yeah, it's really helped me to understand perhaps, how much I take for granted about being able to see and relying on on my sight.

Georgia:

What was it like to not be able to rely on seeing the music and the words when that is what you're used to?

Caroline:

Ah, well, now, yes, you set us that challenge. And of course, we all failed quite badly, because none of us had managed to find the time, but if I had achieved it, and when I do have to learn things, I find it a really good way to perform things, because you're not distracted by looking at the music, and that can Be a good thing, because you're more than concentrating on the sound that you're making, what everybody what other people might be singing around you or playing instruments around you. So I think you have a better understanding of the music and can appreciate it more when you're not concentrating on looking at notes and words on the page.

Georgia:

How did you feel when you were practising for it? Did you feel differently to what you normally do?

David:

It's just way more enjoyable. It's a new challenge, and it's a challenge that I enjoy because I'm developing my talents even more and being able to play more challenging songs and rely on the method that I naturally enjoy doing more. I think the challenge, especially for people that are from the RSBC, it can be very difficult, especially if you're playing a piano, because on a piano, you're doing not only different chords, but there's different arrangements of notes on music that's very confusing with full eyesight, being able to fully see. So not being able to fully see, that makes it extremely challenging, especially when you having to remember the notes

Caroline:

The idea of trying to play your hymn, or than as you say, as David was saying there, or learning all those notes in both hands, I think I would still struggle quite take me a long, long time to try and learn that.

Georgia:

How did you feel about performing it and when you were performing it?

Angela:

Well, I got the giggles, didn't I? I got the giggles, and that's because I was nervous and I knew I wasn't doing it very well. So I think the giggles were about being embarrassed that that we that we couldn't do it. I couldn't do it. I felt absolutely no help to the person next to me, and neither really was the person next to me much help to me. So yeah, I was nervous about performing. It because I knew how to rely on on what was in my head.

Georgia:

Do you think that it is important for fully sighted people to experience normal activities in the way that a visually impaired person would? If you think that it is important, why do you think that it is

Caroline:

That is definitely important. I mean, you can sympathise and empathise with people, but that's not quite the same as fully understanding what somebody with any sort of impairment or disability is going through. You need to actually sort of walk in their shoes as much as you can really.

Angela:

Lots and lots of work that I've done as a teacher in a school is is to help other children and other adults try and have a little bit of lived experience of what, What other people experience in their daily life. Because if we don't understand some of the challenges and barriers, it's very difficult then to understand why we should try and reduce those barriers, and even how we should reduce those barriers.

David:

I agree. I would echo what Caroline is saying. I think that not only do you get empathy, but you get insight, which actually enhances and develops that understanding. And you can get you can give better support for those people

Angela:

Inclusion, what whatever that looks like should be about making sure that everybody can use their gifts and their talents to the best of their ability.

Georgia:

Would you like to talk about any other thoughts that you had about it?

Angela:

Yeah, so I Georgia. We've been, we've been playing music together and singing together for about three years, haven't we? And I on some weeks, some weekends, because you're so keen and very, very talented, it's easy for me to think that I can just ask you, Oh, would you just do this? Or, you know, maybe on a Friday or a Saturday, or, do you want to do X or and not really appreciate the the, not just the effort, but But what that might mean for you. So it really has made me think about the fact that you when you ask for things. So if you ask a week in advance, what are we playing next week? It's really helped me to understand that and you often say, I'm not being annoying. I don't want to be a pain. But actually, it's really made me think that, that's because you need that time to practice it and learn it. And you know you're performing to well, not performing, but you, but you are accompanying a church which is packed on a Sunday. We're talking 250 to 300 people and and look at how I felt and was in front of six people trying to sing the song that you'd written for us. I think just understanding the pressure that you must be under. It really made me think, I need to be able to, you know, be bit more prepared sometimes, to, you know, give you that music well in advance and you know, so that you can do what you need to do to be able to feel confident in playing it the following weekend. So, yeah, it's really made me think, and it's really made me appreciate just how talented you are, because you really are talented. You know, you're writing music, you're performing it, you're singing, you're playing the keyboard, you're doing all of those sorts of things, but with with a lot more challenges than than I've got in terms of of your siight.

Caroline:

Can you tell us, please, how it makes you feel when decisions about music for mass are left very late?

Georgia:

Yeah, it makes me feel really stressed about doing it, and takes away the enjoyment of doing it, because I have so much pressure on me to try to remember so much because I can't see the music at the same time because it's too far away from me. So when I get it quite late, I've got less time to spend looking at it and getting really close to it and learning small sections of it at a time, which is how I have to learn things because of how big that it needs to be.

Caroline:

Yeah, I can understand that. Yes. So let's move on to the hymn you wrote for us. So what inspired you to write that hymn and to choose those words?

Georgia:

Well, I just thought like Angela told me to set you on a really difficult challenge. And she said, like, find something that you're not gonna know. But it's like we know so many hymns because we're playing and singing them together every week and always learning new ones. So I thought, hmm, like, get a really good chance, the best chance possible of nobody knowing it. I'll write one. And I guess when I was writing it, I tried to think about all of the challenges that I face when I'm learning something and playing something in a group and singing in a group, like having lots of verses and trying to count how many verses, so I know when to stop trying to remember So many words to all these different verses. And another thing that I've never really talked about before being difficult is when there's a really lovely descant or harmony in it, because I love them so much, and they add so much to it, but they're actually really distracting when I'm trying to play from memory, because there's so much other noise going on that at the same time as that's happening, I'm trying to think, what am I meant to be doing to keep the tune going? So it's like a massive overload when there's so much happening. So I guess I try to think about the challenges that I have when I'm playing, and try to bring as many of those into the hymn that I wrote for you. So give you the best insight into what it's like playing with an impairment.

Caroline:

Oh, well, I certainly empathise with you losing track of the number of verses, because I do that because I have to concentrate so hard on what I'm playing I've no idea how many verses we've done.

Georgia:

You have to concentrate so much to tell me when to stop

Caroline:

well quite when you decided you were going to write something. Yeah, so did you already have tunes going round in your head? I mean, how do, how did that start? Did it start from a little germ of an idea, or did it all come in one big rush?

Georgia:

Well, it took quite a while to think of, think of something, and I had to write down a few ideas first before I got it. But I think it, it all goes back to trying to give you the best experience. Because I thought about like, what, what rhythms, like might be quite difficult to remember. I just tried to fit in every possible scenario that you could get. That's what inspired me to write. It was putting in all of those those different elements, and that's what happens.

Caroline:

So you try to make it as difficult as you possibly could

Georgia:

Well, While being nice to you as well, preferably

Caroline:

So my last question was, what do you hope we are all going to gain from your challenge?

Georgia:

I hope that it would have helped you to understand the fact that learning music is a really different experience for anyone with a visual impairment, and I hope that you enjoy finding out what it's like for me.

Caroline:

Jolly good. Well, I'm sure we will

Georgia:

yeah, well, I know Angela wants us to do it again and to perform it at the start of mass, without the music, so we'll see how that goes.

Caroline:

Indeed, yep, the challenge is still there.

Angela:

I just want to say thank you. Thanks for asking us to do it. And what I think, what we we should all agree with, with the others, is we'll let you know in the podcast, how long? How many months has it taken us to learn a piece of music with six verses that Georgia has written for us? Because I think we're going to be disappointingly slow.

Juliette Parfitt:

Thank you so much to Angela, Caroline and David for talking to us about this experience and sharing, like really honestly, how they found it. It was so amazing to hear how up for it they were and how open they were to learning about the different ways that visually impaired people have to interact with their hobbies and with music and to play us out today we have the Blessed Sacrament music collective with the hymn that Georgia composed. So singing and playing, they're going to be closing out the episode for us today. So take it away, guys, and we'll see you in the next one.