Listen Up, Canada!

Introduction and materials

An unusual group of musicians have made themselves at home inside the abandoned instruments that are scattered throughout Skywater Woods. Led by their conductor, Tiny, their delight in creating music together is marred only by the presence of the rather scary bully‐beasts who live across the creek. A hot dry summer brings the two groups a little too close for comfort and tensions rise until Tiny comes up with a musical solution.

Big ideas: Music surrounds us. Intention changes sound to music.

Educational activity: Students respond to a short story through predicting, drama structure, and soundscape.

Materials:

Set of orchestra instrument cards (optional)
Small percussion instruments and/or found sounds

Before reading the story

Ask: What is music? What do you need in order to make music? Is music always written down? (You may want to chart some of the answers for later reference.)

Ask about orchestras: Have they heard an orchestra? Was it live or recorded? What instruments are in an orchestra?

The Concert in Skywater Hollow © Illustration: Jo Rioux

Reading the story

Read aloud The Concert in Skywater Hollow by Tim Wynne-Jones.

Step 1. Before reading, ask students to let you know when they hear mention of an instrument.

Step 2. Pause at “What would they do with all those bully‐beasts running around chasing them and raising a ruckus and ruining everything?” Ask students to identify what the problem is, first from the point of view of the musicians, then from the point of view of the bully‐beasts.

Step 3. During this pause, stage a town hall meeting with the students acting in‐role as Tiny and the musicians. You may wish to be the Town Chancellor and lead the meeting by presenting the problem. Acting in‐role, have students come up with several solutions.

Step 4. Return to reading or listening to the story, through to the end. Ask: How did the problem get solved in the story?

Step 5. Ask: Before we read the story I asked you some questions about music. Let’s check those questions again and see if our answers have changed at all.

Step 6. Lead a discussion from the responses and see what conclusions can be drawn. Expect a variety of answers, such as:

Sound is music.
Music comes from sound that is planned.
One person’s music is another person’s noise.
Music doesn’t have to be written down.
You can create music from just about anything!

The story: The Concert in Skywater Hollow

By Tim Wynne-Jones ● Illustrations by Jo Rioux

Tiny Rathbone lived in an abandoned piano in Skywater Woods.

Tiny was…well, tiny, and it was a very grand piano, so he was quite comfortable. His bed was a viola case and if it got cold he kept himself warm burning old sheet music in a fireplace made from an abandoned kettledrum. Skywater Woods was filled with abandoned instruments. There was a legend that a great orchestra had once lived there. Tiny lived on music and there was lots of it in Skywater Woods. He liked wild music the best. His favorite meal was loon song soup and wolf howl jelly. He liked the way the jelly wobbled.

“That orchestra sure must have left in a hurry,” said Ivy, plucking a cowbell from a bush.

“Maybe the bully-beasts found a way over Skywater Creek,” said Django.

Django worried a lot about bully-beasts. Except when he was strumming. Django strummed a lot: guitars, zithers, lutes -- he could play anything with strings. Sneaker laces, yoyos, even spaghetti as long as it wasn’t over-cooked.

Ivy was good at anything you had to hit, like xylophones, bells or mosquitoes. She whacked the cowbell a couple of times with a stick.

“Not so loud!” said Django. “The bully-beasts are near.”

It was true. There was a small herd of them down by the banks of Skywater Creek feeding on the candy-cane that grew along the shore.

“Take it easy,” said Tiny. “There’s no way they can cross the bridge.”

And that was true as well. The bridge was made of old bassoons woven together with violin strings. The bully-beasts couldn’t cross it on account of their hooves.

Ivy clanged her cowbell. “I’m not afraid of any old bully-beast,” she said.

But that was not true. They were all a little bit afraid. That’s why they lived in Skywater Woods. And across the creek the bully-beasts grunted and grazed on gummy worms and wild licorice and yelled and shouted and –
Oh, the caterwauling! The three friends covered their ears.

The bully-beasts didn’t like music. They liked noise and plenty of it. Especially the noise of squealing victims when they poked them with their bully horns or stomped on their toes with their bully hooves or bellowed at them with their bully bellows. So Tiny and his musical friends hung out in the safety of the woods, where apart from the abundant wild music, they made a lot of their own. There was a hollow in the heart of the woods with a tall cliff at one end and gently sloping hills on three sides: a perfect little amphitheatre, complete with a gurgling stream, which sang its own little refreshing song.

“Let’s play Something a Little Different,” said Tiny one fine spring evening, standing on the stump he used for a podium. The orchestra all knew what he meant.

“Listen,” said Tiny. And they all listened.

Everyone and everything got very, very quiet, until all you could hear was the forest breathing. Then the strings picked up on the serenade the wind was playing in the new leaves. The flutes and oboes picked up on the chattering, splashing of the stream. Some northbound ducks flew overhead and the English horns quacked right along with them and turned it into a duck song.

“More birds,” said Tiny to the wind section.

“More sunset,” he said to the horns.

“More nighttime closing in,” he said to the cellos and double basses.

Something a Little Different was different every time. Oh, it was fun to play written-down music, but sometimes it was fun just to make it up as you went along. To be together, listening and listening and joining in.

“Shhh,” said Tiny to the horn players who were getting, by now, to be a very rowdy sunset.

“Shhh,” said Tiny to the winds, for it was dark now and the birds were trying to sleep.

“Shhh,” said Tiny to Ivy on the timpani. She slowed her song until it sounded like the pulse of the sleeping forest. And Django played a lullaby on a mandolin.

Summer came and it was a hot one. The gummy worms wriggled deeper into the ground and the wild licorice dried up. The candy-cane along the creek wilted. The bully-beasts got restless and bad tempered and very noisy.

“I don’t like the sound of this,” said Django.

The bully-beasts stared longingly at the shady woods. They were afraid of the water but…

“What if the creek dries up?” said Ivy.

“Oh no,” said Django.

“Hmmm,” said Tiny. It was true; the creek was getting low. What would they do with all those bully-beasts running around chasing them and raising a ruckus and ruining everything?

One of the bully-beasts stumbled into another who started bellowing.

“Watch it!” he said. “No, you watch it!” said the other. And soon they were all pushing and shoving and grumbling and blustering and mooing and hooting and roaring and –

“Ach!” said Django, covering his ears.

“Yikes!” said Ivy, covering hers. But Tiny didn’t cover his ears. He listened and smiled. He had an idea.

“Get all the kids down to the Hollow,” he said to Django. “We’re going to have a concert and we’re going to have guests.”

Ivy came with him back to his place.

“Help me with this,” he said, grabbing a great big roll of carpeting that stood in the corner of the room. It was red carpet. The orchestra must have kept it around for visiting conductors or sopranos.

“What are we doing with it?” said Ivy.

“You’ll see,” said Tiny.

When they got to the bridge over Skywater Creek, the bully-beasts were still caterwauling.

“Listen up!” shouted Tiny.

And to make sure they did, Ivy banged a big fat pair of cymbals together really loudly.

“You’re invited to a concert,” said Tiny.

“They are?” said Ivy.

“A concert?” said one of the bully-beasts. “We hate music.”

“I know,” said Tiny, “but you love a good ruckus. Besides, you’re hot and bored – that’s why you’re all so cranky.”

The biggest bully-beast shouted. “Is this some kind of trick?”

“No,” said Tiny. “We’re going to play for you and you’re going to love it.”

“Are you out of your mind?” murmured Ivy.

But Tiny wasn’t out of his mind. He could tell how hungry the bully-beasts were even if it was just for something to do.

“How we gonna get across?” said the head bully-beast.

Tiny and Ivy rolled out the red carpet over the bridge of bassoons.

“Follow me,” said Tiny.

“And no funny stuff!” said Ivy.

When they got to the hollow, the Skywater kids’ orchestra was warming up.

“Hey, that sounds pretty good,” said one bully-beast.

“You ain’t heard nothing yet,” said Tiny, and he jumped up on the conductor’s stump and called for silence. The Skywater kids looked out at the herd of bully-beasts all around them. Pretty scary.

“What were you thinking?” whispered Django.

“Just plug in your guitar,” said Tiny.

“What’s it going to be Maestro?” called the first violinist. “Shubert, Schoenberg, or Schafer?”

“Not for this crowd,” whispered Tiny. “Not yet, anyway. We’ll have to win them over, gradually. Everybody just play your favorite tune. Play it loud and play it again.

“All at once?” said Ivy. “Cool!”
And it was cool. And it was loud. Skywater Woods rang out with a great big awful noise. The bully-beasts loved it.

When it was over those critters hooted and hollered. They’d have clapped, too, if they could have, but it’s hard with hooves. One look and Tiny could see they didn’t look half so cranky any more.

“What else do you cats know?” shouted one of the bully-beasts.

“Yeah,” said another. “We want more.”

Everyone in the orchestra looked at Tiny.

Django looked frightened. Ivy was gripping her drumsticks really tightly and the first violinist seemed to have caught a bad case of the hiccups.

But Tiny was prepared. “Let’s play Something a Little Different,” he said.

“What’s that?” said one of the bully-beasts.

“Shhh,” said Tiny. And everyone and everything grew quiet.

The cellos came in first, a little shaky and trembling.

“Good,” said Tiny. “But we need some real grumbling.” He pointed his baton at the double basses, who came in, in a very grumbly way. “And you,” said Tiny, pointing at a big old bully-beast, who was so surprised he grumbled good and loud.

“Moo,” said Tiny, and the French horns mooed. “More moos,” said Tiny, and a couple of bully-beasts mooed in perfect harmony.

“Excellent!” shouted Tiny. “Good mooing!”

And then one by one, under Tiny’s expert conducting, all of the bully-beasts got a chance to join in: grunting and grumbling, hooting and hollering – even roaring a bit, but only when Tiny pointed at them with his baton. They even learned, after a bit of practice, to stop, when he held up his hand, just so. But he made sure they all got lots of chances to moo and grunt and bluster. And they got very good at it.

Oh, it was a glorious noise. And a glorious noise isn’t the same as just a plain noise. It’s Something a Little Different. But please, please, don’t tell the bully-beasts that it was music. Because they enjoyed themselves so much they asked if they could come back another day. And Tiny said

“Okay.” And then Ivy said, “But no funny stuff.”

And the bully-beasts roared with laughter, but only until Tiny said stop.

The End

Django, The Concert in Skywater Hollow © Illustration: Jo Rioux

Composing a soundscape

Create a class version of Something a Little Different.

Step 1. Revisit the story and notice how the Skywater kids created their first version of Something a Little Different.

They started by noticing all the sounds around them.
Then they began to imitate the sounds.
They made suggestions about what to add, and how loud to play it.
Tiny conducted.
Things got rowdy for a while.
Then gradually, the sounds got softer…
And slower…
It ended with a lullaby.

Step 2. Ask the following questions:

How was the second version (with the bully‐beasts) different?
How can we create Something a Little Different?

Step 3. Have each student choose a special sound to make (could be something from the environment, small percussion instruments, or a new sound).

Step 4. Take turns conducting one another.

Ask: How will you signal each other to get louder/softer, slower/faster?

Step 5. Stage a final “performance” once you have decided how to begin, what order sounds will be heard in and how to end.

Ivy, The Concert in Skywater Hollow © Illustration: Jo Rioux

Extension activities

Language Arts

Character Traits: Choose one of the characters from the story and list 10 things you know about him or her. Then make a list describing what your character looks like. Compare your lists with another classmate’s. What character traits have you found in common?

Social Studies

Using the information from the story, draw a map showing the layout of Skywater Woods. (Teacher Note: The map should include the hollow in the woods, the tall cliff, Skywater Creek, and the three gently sloping hills.)

Visual Arts

Use a large sheet of butcher paper and paint in the sky, trees, and creek. Make a list of all the instruments mentioned in the story and have students draw them using markers, coloured pencils or pastels. Have some instrument picture cards close by for reference. When the drawings are finished, cut them out and paste on to the butcher paper.

Music

Create a background score with music by R. Murray Schafer and/or other composers. Begin by noting places in the story where a special sound effect would be welcome, then listen and link those up with specific recording excerpts. Make a list with all correct timings and try a read through with sound added!

Character Education

Consider why the kids of Skywater Woods don’t get along well with the Bully-Beasts. How does Tiny change their relationship?

Music class: Musical characters from Skywater Hollow

Play along on a recorder, flute or other instrument...

Tiny, the River and the Bully-Beasts are three very different characters. Here’s how composer Marcelline Moody imagines they might sound.

Download: Music Class: Musical Characters from Skywater Hollow (includes the additional versions of Tiny’s Tune and the River Ostinato)

Tiny’s Tune

Here is Tiny’s Tune for your recorder or other instrument. Can you think of words for this song?

Bully-Beast chant

Do the Bully-Beast chant with two friends! Read the grid below from left to right. Practice each voice separately and then try all three together at the same time. Start out by counting to 8 and clap on the beats that have symbols. Once you get the feel of the rhythm, each person can choose one voice (either High, Medium or Low) and use a squeak, snuffle, or grunt instead of a clap. It sounds great when all three voice go together!

River Ostinato for Tiny’s Tune

Here is the River Ostinato. You can sing it or play it on a recorder, xylophone or metallophone. Saying the words first will help you feel the rhythm correctly.

Can you try all three parts together (with help from your friends)?

The Concert in Skywater Hollow

Introduction and materials

Before reading the story

Reading the story

The story: The Concert in Skywater Hollow

Composing a soundscape