Rap Workshops
The main aim of this workshop series is to give students an opportunity to be creative with the language informally to inspire them to use and engage with the language. Colloquial language in pop culture keeps English alive for young people. New slang is learned and developed in the yard, on TV, or from song lyrics. For the typical Irish learner however, the opportunities to access this aspect of the language is limited. In this workshop, students are asked to create or translate new words that could be used in Irish language rap music - this can inspire them to use language more widely in their own lives or in a creative setting.
Activites include:
- An inspiring live music performance.
- Discussion about rap music in Irish and in English.
- Developing a rap or rhyme dictionary.
- Writing couplets or 'luibíní'.
- Performance and expression.
Tradpop Workshop
This workshop involves using traditional instruments and melodies to create new contemporary material. The workshop draws from research by Micheál Ó Súilleabháin on Irish traditional music. The students will write a piece of music using “set accented tones” from a pre-existing traditional piece. They will learn the importance of rhythm in the melodic structures of traditional music and will also learn a composition process which takes advantage of this pre-existing body of material to create new works.
Activities include:
- Teaching of the composition process.
- The students use the process to create a piece of music.
- The students use this process to complete the writing of a piece of music.
- They arrange the piece of music using both traditional instrumentation and digital elements.
- We begin to write words to accompany the piece of music (Irish or English)
- Recording the piece of music.
Technology Workshop
Within this workshop the students will have to create a rap dictionary, emphasizing a key element of the structure of rap music - the reference. The reference is a nexus point between culture, identity and history that rappers use to protect and preserve the culture of marginalized communities they so often come from. Consequently, this tool can also be employed with an emphasis on the Irish language to create a new nexus point between the history of the language and the present day experiences of the students in the room. The students will use this knwoledge, with modern composition techniques to create rap music.
Activites Include:
- Performance of a piece of music using traditional music as a reference or sample.
- Teaching the importance of the reference or the sample.
- Creating a rap dictionary listing the most important elements in young people's lives, in pop culture, and in the history of the language with which the students can create a frame within which to write and reference.
- Using this process to write a verse.
- Learning the process of creating audio references or samples using technology.
- Compose a rap ‘beat’.
