As told by my brother, Paul Brody.

What is Paul Brody Up To?

I asked my brother, creative musician and composer in Berlin, Germany, if he had any stories about his work for our newsletter. He always has stories! —————

“As I think back about this year’s musical projects I feel very lucky. Most of my jobs have been in Berlin, Germany, where I live, and a great variety of projects: composing for an orchestra, creating sound design for a major museum in Berlin, playing jazz concerts. But the work that I have enjoyed the most is the work I have done the least, teaching. I thought, how can I give something back after having such a lucky year?

This past summer I worked for a museum in Berlin that sponsored art workshops for young people. A visual artist and I gave a number of workshops in schools and refugee homes. The kids in one of the refugee homes stuck in my mind for months! So I thought my ‘giving something back’ could be returning to that refugee home and volunteering to teaching kids music for about 10 sessions, until the end of the year.

The social worker at the refugee home told me she could get a group of kids between the ages of 6 and 11 together to do music every Wednesday afternoon. I thanked her for letting me help, and she thanked me for helping. I didn’t give the workshop much thought until the day of the first workshop, when the kids came into the play room at the home. I realized that very little of my musical training could be used to teach the kids. No amount of knowledge of jazz, of composing for orchestras, of sampling and electronic music, was relevant!

So I very badly tried to demonstrate body percussion, which involves a kind of call and response. I clapped on my chest two beats and then on my thighs, Bum, bum, pap pap. Then the kids imitated me, bum bum, pap, pap. We did some variations then, while keeping the beat with the kids, I recited the only kid’s rhyme I could remember, One two, buckle my shoe. Three, four, shut the door. Five, six… That that caught on well.

While trying to talk I was met by a number of blank faces. The social worker told me that most of the kids hadn’t learned German yet. Some could speak Arabic, some Kurdish, Chechen, Ukrainian. And after the break a brother and sister from Afghanistan came in. They spoke Persian - I was told that the social worker could communicate with them because Kurdish and Persian had words in common.

I left the refugee home with a problem. How can I teach music to a group of kids with no common language, and that had kids that came every week, but also had new kids join in. None of my expensive years of music conservatory training prepared me for this challenge! Rather than thinking that I’m an experienced musician and teaching kids would be easy, I spent the week preparing, practicing more body percussion, learning how to build percussion instruments out of almost nothing, sing songs.

So communication was done by example, not by talking. At home I built a drum out of tin cans and balloons and brought cans and balloons to the group. I found out how to build a simple kalimba out of scrap wood and hairpins and brought that example to class with the supplies for the kids.

We made a series of percussion instruments including shakers and raspy sounding wooden snappers and kalimbas. The instruments became the common language within the group. The kids drew pictures and colored their instruments and we became a real group!

Then something strange happened. I was practicing trumpet at the local park just before it got too cold. An elderly man walked by and told me that he belonged to a foundation that funded music for kids. So the volunteer work got a sponsor and the course will change from being good will to good funded, and we will have enough to bring other musicians to the refugee home to work with kids! That will be a truly good start of next year!

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