Instruments that Unite





Team:
Iasmin Rios
iasmin.n.rios@gmail.com
Mila Carneiro
milacmm@yahoo.com.br

Social Group:
Carlota Cordeiro
cmeiremello@gmail.com

Escola Municipal Pedro Ernesto
Rua Professor Abelardo Lobo, 5 - Lagoa, Rio de Janeiro

Summary:

In order to accomplish the second project from the PUC-Rio’s design course, we observed Carlota Cordeiro’s work as an elementary school teacher for music classes, at the Escola Municipal Pedro Ernesto, in the city of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. In Carlota’s classes, the students study music in a very direct and practical manner, through the usage of various instruments and the completion of activities that help define musical compasses by counting footsteps. From the ensemble of words that compose Carlota Cordeiro’s vocabular universe, we recognized as a theme for our project: “The music is an instrument that unites all, and stepping the pace slowly joins the different ones”. This phrase relates well to her classes, since many of the activities she proposes in the classroom aim at uniting the students by joining different instruments and vocals in a song. Besides that, she always reenforces that one must count the pace very carefully and slowly, in order to understand the musical tempo. Out of the experimentations made along the process, we were able to define wich party we would adopt, we would make a percussion instrument that could be easily played by more than one person, and should be versatile. We then built three drums, of different hights and diameters, in such a form that one fits inside the other. Moreover, all drums have a retractile base, that can be uncoupled from the drum itself, allowing the formation of more sounds if bases are attached or not. We made the drums with PVC pipes and their prolongments, except the larger drum’s base, this one was made out of layers of Paraná paper and glue. The head of the drum was made out of synthetic leather. These drums are being used for the practical activities inside the classroom, helping the students to understand tempo in music. What was the use of this project experience for you (Mila): This experience made me pratice and develop more empathy, learning to put myself in another person’s place, in order to make something that helps someone else, based on their need, and not on what I simply desire. Besides that, this experience showed me that doing social design is very much possible and extremely rewarding, a design that promotes changes in the world and isn’t just for mass production that mainly generates capital. What was the use of this project experience for you (Iasmin): This experience was very enriching to me, because I was able to put in practice my inspiration to help my partner’s work. I had the inspiration to create experiments and a final prototype that can help Carlota and her students, focusing on what would benefit them the most, and to see this prototype being used to teach children music was very rewarding. Besides that, the way I perceive the concept of design changed very much after this experience, through this project I was able to understand what better what is social design, and how it promotes real changes based on the necessity of a group.

Gratitudes Iasmin:

I thank Carlota for being such a present and participative person throughout this project. She not only showed me the beautiful ideals she has as a music teacher for children, but also helped us create a final prototype that served to better reach those ideals, a prototype that unites the students and the different sounds, teching students how to count paces slowly. I learned a lot with Carlota’s teaching methodology and with her determination as a teacher, all of this motivated me enormously to make this project happen with love and criativity. I am thankful to my partner Mila Magalhães, for she went through all the steps of this project with me, always so envolved and excited. Our partnership throughout the semester was incredible, I can only thank her, since we were very supportive of each other and we also knew how to express our criativity and passion for setting forth a project that pleased all parties involved. Mila is a person who strengthened me daily, becoming a partner that proved insidpensable in the accomplishment of the project.

Gratitudes Mila:

I am thankful to Carlota for helping us during each step of this project with so much dedication and patience. This created in me the necessary confidence produce each experiment and, above all, the final prototype. She “walked” with us during the entire semester, and this was essencial for the development of something that could be necessary and useful for her. I am thankful for Iasmin for being such a great partner troughout the whole project, living each moment with me, from the happy ones to the most desperate ones. Her support gave me strength to overcome any difficulty and obstacle, even the unpredictable ones.

Assessment of Professor Carlota Meire de Melo Cordeiro

It is always a great privilege to participate in the Agreement Puc & EMS. The Mila and Iasmin surprised students in every encounter with their new experiments. It was very difficult to separate the experiments in hot or cold, as each new idea proposed different activities to have worked contents. The construction of three drums with different sounds was excellent and being able to store and transport the disassembled instruments was great. Grade 10.

Discipline: DSG 1002
Class: 1AC
Professorss: Ana Branco, Luis Vicente Barros, Luciana Grether, Vanusa Maria de Melo

e-mail: anabranc@puc-rio.br

Versao em Portugues