Sound and Silence

Musical exploration in the classroom, directed by John Paynter and Peter Aston in 1970. Created and performed by students from several different primary schools England-wide.

Paynter's liner notes are absolutely endearing: "Band 3 Sea Tower (from Project 5) This piece grew out of an imaginative discussion about a fossilised sea-urchin which the teacher had brought into the classroom. The music is impressionistic -- the piano strings stroked gently with the fingers remind us of the ocean depths; note-clusters played on the keyboard with the flat of the hand suggest the violence of a storm. Against this backcloth recorders, glockenspiels and xylophone play melodies which represent the movement of fishes and an octopus, and the destruction of the submerged tower."



And here are some images from the accompanying book.