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Testing the pBugle: A Case Study

May 21st, 2020 | 3 min read

By Chris Fower

As part of our testing and evaluation in the pBugle development pathway our friends at Sheffield Music Hub helped us run a morning of workshops at a school in Chapeltown at Coit Primary School. Here we share with you what we wanted to achieve and how we went about it!

We worked with a year 4 class (aged 8-9 years) none of whom had played a brass instrument before and, as we had 12 prototype instruments, we divided them into three groups of 10. Rob Horscroft, trumpeter and Music Leader from the Hub joined us to co-lead the sessions and, as I’m a bass trombone player, provide some inspirational demonstrations!

The sessions were based around swung jazz and blues in Bb alongside the technical needs of learning to play the trumpet for the first time!

We ran short sessions at a fast pace, which kept the groups engaged. We simply used a generic Bb backing track found on YouTube which we kept running for most of the session after the initial introduction and games.

 

The learning objectives we wanted to focus on were:

        1. Instrument families

        2. Understand "what is sound?"

        3. How a brass instrument makes its sound

        4. Pitch, pulse and duration

        5. Posture

        6. Breathing and blowing

        7. Buzzing

        8. Form; head, solos and backings

        9. Call and response

        10. Improvisation

        11. Performing

An intro demonstration and question and answer session covered instrument families, leading nicely into the whole question of "what is sound?" and then how do brass instruments work. Some excellent demonstrations from Rob inspired the pupils about the possibilities of the pBugle and then we were off!

Using the backing track as a guide, an integrated scheme that moves from breathing in through blowing out, pulse and duration via good posture soon lead us to buzz on the mouthpiece. Although immediate progress was not as instant as with the larger pBuzz mouthpiece, around 70% of pupils were buzzing in the first 2-3 attempts and the reminder caught up on repeat. Call and response work on the mouthpiece created the listening and copy setting we needed to move to instruments and make music.

We then explored sing, buzz, and play, establishing a platform of pitch for the playing on pBugle to come next. Adding the instruments, with some posture work, we were now into learning a ‘head' pattern, listening and copying and improvisation.

Pupils at Coit Primary School play the pBugle

We used a pattern where we all improvised together as “covering fire” and then once the natural leaders had had a go generally speaking we found the group joined in one by one with perhaps a little support and encouragement here and there. This also gave opportunities for pupils to listen and respond to each other, beginning to identify which of the three pitches, high, medium and low their classmates were playing and by implication self-assess their own.

Now we had a really good sound for the first players, Rob introduced some basic articulation skills. We brought together a performance where all worked towards the following understanding; how to behave in a performance, the intro (backing track only) played the “Head” (bit like C Jam Blues), played call and response as an ensemble and improvised a solo.

Students at Coit Primary get to grips with pBugle

 

By the end of the workshops we observed the following:

All students
Most students had progressed further and ...
Some students progressed even further and ...
  • Were breathing and blowing to vibrate their lips to make a sound on the pBugle
  • Demonstrated good posture
  • Had an understanding of where the appropriate places in our musical form were to play
  • Had knowledge of what a brass instrument is.
  • Had experienced the flavour of swung jazz
  • Produced acceptable sounds on their pBugle and developed an awareness of their pitch and sound quality.
  • Made appropriate contributions to each section of the form
  • Improvised, making musical decisions to copy others or replicate fragments from the session.
  • Used the swing idiom to colour their rhythmic choices
  • Demonstrated awareness of performing and non-performing environments.
  • Made a well-controlled sound
  • Responded accurately to call and response, including pitch.
  • Created novel material in their improvisations
  • Accurately named the pitches produced by others.
  • Demonstrated leadership

 

This was a really good piece of testing and evaluation for the pBugle. It was interesting to see the variety of ways children decided to hold the instrument, which we were quite relaxed about as long as their thumbs were towards their faces. We were more interested at this stage that a relaxed triangle is formed by the arms, with a straightish wrist: the detail of the hold can come later.

We did all agree that none of the ways that children held the pBugle would compromise future development or any transfer to trumpet/cornet, and also that the pupils all looked comfortable. The teaching assistants, Rob, Jonty (our account manager), the class teachers and I were genuinely surprised by the progress in terms of real trumpet skills. In fact, Rob’s response to his leadership team was that "each group made fabulous progress".

On a later project, a colleague commented that "without the distraction of valves pupils’ focus can stay on breathing, blowing and sound quality, making progress faster and more authentic". We certainly witnessed this in our first field test with the wonderful pupils of Coit Primary School. It was a great morning and despite coinciding with Comic Relief Day the school was a wonderful host and the pupils' behaviour was excellent!

 

Chris Fower

As an undergraduate Chris studied Jazz at Leeds College of Music and then became a member of the Advanced Studies, post-graduate performers course at the Royal Academy of Music and Principal Bass Trombone with the European Community Youth Orchestra under Claudio Abbado. He then spent 25 years as a busy freelance performer based in both London and the North of England working with a wide variety of ensembles and artists, including being a member of Grimethorpe Colliery Band, The British Philharmonic Orchestra, Dame Shirley Bassey’s Orchestra and the Creative Jazz Orchestra.

Alongside this Chris has worked extensively in all areas of music education, latterly as a leading deliverer and trainer in informal, large group practice. This included roles as Leader in Wider Opportunities at Hertfordshire Music Service, Leader of Instrumental Development for Derbyshire City and County Music Partnership and as a face to face trainer on the Trinity Guildhall/Open University “Whole Class Instrumental Learning” national training program.

He became a key member of the team that created pBone, the plastic trombone in 2011/12 and has been involved with pBone Music in various roles since then. Chris is currently the Director of Creativity and Innovation for the company, a role that includes overseeing product development and improvement, quality and education.