Magic Music-makers

The strangest sound-maker in my Storytelling Bag is what I call my Magic Music-maker. I put a lot of reliance on it: it can draw intrigued attention from adults as well as children, watching eyes as well as listening ears.

Ten-pence worth of magic

My original Magic Music-maker – a bendy, double-ended, pink plastic pipe – was bought for ten-pence from a box of sales items outside a Paper Chase shop at Waterloo Station. With caricature faces at either end, I think it might have been a Mr Men product. Whatever made me pick it up and blow into one end I have no idea. As soon as I did, I realised what interesting sounds it might make with a bit of experimentation. I took it home and the cat went wild as I practised, gradually extending the range of sound I could get. Eventually when I brought it into my storytelling, it got people sitting up and taking notice as soon as I began to blow.

Then one day in Cardiff, (more…)

The Sea-Tray

A large round tray-like object, it’s normally used, so I’ve been told, in the process of sifting rice and dhal. When I use it, however, it comes with a bag of pebbles which, when emptied onto the tray and rolled round, create the sound of the sea. Simple, hey?

My sea-tray as I call it is one of my most magic objects. When those tiny pebbles start swishing round on its surface, it immediately transports me to the rocky coast of North Pembrokeshire where I grew up. At once I hear the tide on Abermawr beach as the pebbles are flung forward by the press of the waves, then sucked back relentlessly as the waves recede. And the great thing is that whoever else is listening seems immediately to know the same sort of thing. They realise this as the sound of the sea – even if, like the Birmingham children I once worked with on a project with artist Catrin Webster – they’ve never even seen the sea. (more…)

Welcome again to Storytelling Starters.

Now we’re going to move on to the second lovely object that can set a good atmosphere and inspire many stories.

The Story Cloth

Fantastically flexible, fabulously focussing, restful and relaxing …if you open your Story Bag and bring out the Story Cloth you’ve put in there, you’ll quickly begin to discover just how useful it can be. It focuses attention. (‘What’s that for, Miss?’) It brings colour. (Colour is a building-block of imagination.) It gives energy and movement. (With just a swirl of the hand, it can suggest different things … a river, a snake, a bird, a garden.)

And that’s not all. Draped over unlovely or distracting objects before you begin your storytelling, your Story Cloth can provide your listeners’ eyes with a welcome point of rest. (Why should they have to look at you the whole time?)  Set beside you on the floor or a table, your Story Cloth can also help arouse expectations if you use it to set out special objects or instruments to be employed in your storytelling.

And then again … (more…)

…how the idea began

A few weeks ago on an impulse, I dragged my story-bags from under the shelves where I keep them. For the first time since last year (lymphoma!), I opened them up and began taking out the contents. As I looked at each one, arranging them around me on the floor, I felt enormous pain and pleasure. How I’d been missing sharing these things. That’s when this new idea surfaced. Since I’m not yet ready to get back out on the storytelling road in person (recovering!), I began to wonder if a new series of blogs could do the sharing for me.

Storytelling Starters – the plan

Storytelling Starters is meant for anyone who loves stories and storytelling and is keen to develop ways of sharing them with others.  Maybe you work with children in a school or nursery or after-school club. Or with adults in a community group. Or maybe your interest is because you’re a parent. Or perhaps you are just interested. And though the blog is not intended for ‘performers’, maybe if you’re a performer, you can get something out of it too. Since many of oral storytelling’s techniques are also applicable when reading aloud, the blog may also be useful to you if you don’t (yet!)want to put the book aside.

My plan is to put up a weekly piece, starting today on October 1^st – just in time for Children’s Book Week. In each piece I shall aim to tackle something that might help you get involved with storytelling and the first series is on The Magic of Objects. It’s about ways of creating a good storytelling atmosphere through drawing on the evocative power of objects and their capacity to attract attention and nourish imagination. After that, if all goes well, the blog will go on to talk about such issues as how you can develop your memory and imagination to help you familiarise yourself with existing stories and maybe make up new ones. Then there’ll be ways to put stories across, including techniques for developing participation. And that’s just for starters. So here goes.

Series 1: The Magic of Objects

The magic of objects is that, through showing and sharing, you can begin to establish a storytelling atmosphere in which you can start learning to listen. From my point of view, that habit of listening is fundamental for anyone who proposes working with either children or adults in a creative or educational way. The members of your group may not actually respond by speaking – or at least, not yet. But you need to nurture their thoughts. You need to inspire their imagination. And you can see it on their faces when it happens.

So once a week in this first series of blogs, I’ll put up a photo of one of the objects I’ve used in my storytelling and say a bit about it – where I got it (if I remember!), what I do with it and the kinds of things people have said in response. Where it’s appropriate, I’ll also say a bit about particular stories with which I connect it, myths or folktales or personal stories. But the initial idea is to draw attention to the sheer fascination of objects and the way in which they can succeed in taking our minds on journeys. It’s to encourage you to think about objects that tantalise you, evoking memories and dreams. It’s also to show in a practical way how such items can be employed to engage the listener.

Objects can create their own sense of story. I hope that, whatever the item I focus on – and this week, it’s the Story-Bag – you’ll get something out of it that might be of use to you. You might track down a similar item. You might make or find something equivalent. You might settle on something altogether different that is entirely to do with you. Whatever the case, I hope you will discover a way to share it in your work, whether that’s with children or adults, or maybe with family or friends. With luck, it will bring you the same sense of communication and pleasure that it has brought to me.

Item 1: The Story-Bag

My story-bags are extremely useful. They are colourful, they focus attention and they draw forth questions. ‘What have you got in that bag, Miss?’ ‘Well, what do you think is in it?’ Children usually guess that it’s going to be books. After all, I’m a storyteller, aren’t I? So the idea that I haven’t brought any books but keep my stories in my head is extremely fascinating to them. And that’s a very good start. For if there’s no books, what’s in the bag?

Well, it somewhat depends on the occasion. For a particular theme in a school – it could be animals, Africa, the seaside or space or any one of the myriad topics that different classes focus on – I’ll have sorted through the stuff I keep at home to select items that could help me introduce or illuminate particular stories I might tell on the day. In the bag too, there’ll be my standard kit, items that assist in creating what I consider to be the right conditions for storytelling whether in schools or with community groups. These include my story cloths, the bag of stones for my sea-tray, my magic music pipe, a fan that isn’t really a fan  – all are objects that help me get the atmosphere going, set the scene, invite my listeners into the world of stories. I’ll be writing about these in subsequent weeks. (more…)