During our music class we followed our teacher, Mr Anjarwalla, to an unusual location: to the gym (the castle’s former riding stable). Once there, we made music with basketballs. In class, we had been learning about rhythm and note values. During our “Stomp“ project – the idea started with a British percussion performance group – we learned that it is possible to create music and rhythms with a whole lot of different objects.

Using basketballs, we rehearsed a rhythmic canon that had different patterns (rhythm groups). To do this we bounced the balls on the floor or threw them against the wall, while also clapping our hands or clapping our basketballs. At the beginning we thought the project would be easy because all we had to do was create some kind of rhythm with basketballs. But it really was not as simple as that. To be honest, it was very difficult.

There were four different rhythm sequences. We had to practice each of them and make sure that everyone in the group kept the same tempo. Combining all four patterns produced a highly varied sound in the hall. We practiced this during four class hours in order to get as perfect a result as possible. Our final performance can be seen below.

This was a completely different kind of music lesson, and we all had a lot of fun.

Lutz Diem (6D1) and Julian Schneider Hofer (6D2)