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Singtastic at the British Science Festival

Each September the British Science Association hold a Science Festival in a university town. Last year we took the newly-formed Singtastic Singers up to Liverpool to busk. I'm pleased to say that Singtastic had a rather bigger presence at the festival this year, which took place in Guildford. The British Science Association booked the Singtastic Singers to appear at the Friary Shopping Centre on the Saturday and with children from two local schools for a performance of Tremendous Journey at the University of Surrey on the Sunday.

David travelled up on Thursday 3rd September to rehearse the children of Amesbury School and Fernhurst Primary School. He was amazed at how little he needed to do, as the children and their teachers had worked hard on the songs over the summer.

The Singtastic Singers and I travelled up on the Saturday morning, arriving just in time to hurry along the riverbank to sing in the Food Gallery of the Friary Shopping Centre. This experience was challenging, but at least this year the Singtastic Singers were indoors and had the musical accompaniment of David on the keyboard, Ian on his cajon and Lisa on double bass. Saturday afternoons will never be the same again in the Friary Shopping Centre! Later that evening some of us went to a lecture at the university and then we all met up for a great meal at a Thai restaurant. I'd like to say that we all got to bed early, but...

Sunday was a very busy day. Our concert venue was the impressive large lecture theatre in the Management Centre. In the morning David and I worked very hard rearranging furniture and sorting out the technicalities of lighting and powerpoint, tasks we couldn't have completed without the help of the festival staff. The Singtastic Singers skillfully managed their own rehearsal, with the odd note or word of encouragement from David. The children arrived, bursting with enthusiasm at 12-30 for a brief rehearsal before their all-important lunch break.

The audience were allowed in at 1-50, just as the powerpoint issues were resolved - phew! David introduced the children, then the Singtastic Singers, before delivering his Dawkins reading which led to the first song...and before we knew it, Tremendous Journey had triumphed again...inspiring yet another group of children and amazing another appreciative audience. After the concert David and the Singtastic Singers headed back to Devon, but I stayed, I wined and dined and was in bed watching TV by 7-30...don't tell them!

I spent the next two days attending lectures and meeting some great people. Shame David had to get back to direct the Community Choirs wasn't it?

Sue

Community Choirs Sing Darwin Songs

David’s two community choirs came together recently for the Darwin Day celebrations at Forde House, Newton Abbot, Devon.  Led by David, choir members from Teignmouth and Ivybridge performed songs on the theme of life and evolution in 3 half-hour sessions in the beautiful gardens of this ancient building.  They sang old favourites - Mr Darwin (of course), Mutate, Selfish Gene* - plus a few relatively new songs, such as Waterlife, written by David in collaboration with Starcross schoolchildren as part of the Teign Lifetime Project.

David was especially delighted to meet ‘Mr Darwin’ himself and his companion, ‘Mrs Dodo’ in the shape of Desperate Men, the two-man street theatre group, who were presenting their show about evolution and natural selection. It was a funny, engaging, educational show full of information presented in bit-sized morsels. Sue especially loved the illustration of the history of life on Earth using a 100-foot tape measure, but several members of the choir questioned the accuracy of their explanation of just how natural selection works amongst the finches of the Galapagos Islands!

We were greatly impressed by Darwin Day organiser Susan Eddisford's ability to arrange the only real summer's day in a period of several weeks for this delightful event.  We'd quite like a hint or two on how she does it…

*Selfish Gene will be published on the website soon.

Singtastic at Camp Quest

Singtastic was delighted to be part of Camp Quest 2009 - the very first science camp for children in the UK, held at Bruton, Somerset in late July, for 'the children of atheists, agnostics, freethinkers, humanists and all those who embrace a naturalistic rather than supernatural world view.' Excitingly for us, the theme for the camp this year was Evolution.

It was a feature on Radio 4 one gloomy grey Sunday morning that first alerted David to this exciting venture and without further ado he proposed a singing workshop.  "I'll talk to them for a couple of minutes about my work and how I write songs about science out of passion for the subject.  Then we'll do a fun warm-up that involves doing some fairly silly things (which all have a point nevertheless, that I'll explain to them) and which always breaks the ice very well.  Then we'll have an hour to learn a number of songs related to evolution.” Camp Director Samantha Stein, despite being understandably swamped by emails accepted the offer straight away!

Here is David’s account of what happened-
"Sue Blake and I had a really inspiring visit to Somerset today where we spent a very jolly hour or so teaching some of my science songs to the Camp Questers.  Camp Quest has received a lot of media attention over the last few weeks for the simple reason that it's not associated with any religious movement and that it's offering its participants exercises for the intellect as well as for the body.

When we arrived, the campers (aged about 6 to 17 as far as I could tell) were doing some terrifying-looking activity involving abseiling down from a platform that looked about two miles high to my timid eyes. I know they're doing rafting and canoeing and all the other stuff that summer camps offer, but yesterday they also had a seminar on Darwin and evolution and this evening one of the counsellors, Jens Christensen, will be taking them on an imaginary journey through the universe at the speed of light - just the sort of thing I do in my science oratorio Powers of Ten.

The 23 campers and their 10 or a dozen volunteer helpers were incredibly quick at picking up the songs. We started with the original version of Mister Darwin - I chose that rather than the Great Plant Hunt version because I wanted to bring up the subject of discovery and of how it's not always the first person to discover or invent something that gets remembered for it.  After all, Alexander Graham Bell certainly wasn't the first inventor of the telephone, the Wright brothers were probably not the first to fly a heavier-than-air powered flying machine and the basic concepts of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection were pre-empted by several decades on at least two occasions.

We then went on to my short and deceptively simple song, Stargazing (see Blog).  I sang it through to the group first, but asked them to think about what it was saying and tell me their interpretation. They were astonishingly quick to pick up the thoughts behind the lyrics. We then sang the song all the way through, but I was sad to see one very little boy get quite distressed about it.  It turned out that he found the song "emotional" (the word he used). A cuddle with one of the counsellors cheered him up and he sang along enthusiastically when we reprised the song later.

Hearty renditions of Planets and Mutate followed, then we did a little recital of all the songs we'd learned to round off the session before lunch.

Sue and I felt especially privileged to enjoy a long chat with Camp Quest's American co-founder, Edwin Kagin. It was great to witness him engaging in spontaneous debate with one sceptical young camper about the existence or otherwise of the two invisible unicorns that he - and all the other camp leaders - insist are living in the woods nearby.  This wonderful thought experiment is doing a great job of getting the campers thinking about the difference between faith and evidence-based knowledge.

The two UK Camp Quest leaders, Samantha Stein & Richard Craig are wonderful, sincere people who are just trying to provide a secular alternative to the numerous faith-based summer camps (even the Scouts have to declare allegiance to God and Queen).  They are not "teaching" atheism.  You can't really teach atheism anyway, since it isn't a belief.  It's simply an absence of belief in something for which there's no evidence anyway.  They are trying to get children and young people to think critically about stuff in between exciting and physically-challenging outdoor activities.  What could be better than that?

Sue and I are mightily chuffed to have brought something along to Camp Quest which both participants and counsellors seem to have enjoyed and valued.  We hope to be back there next year - maybe we'll even get to visit one or more of the American Camp Quests!"

On our return to Teignmouth David received encouraging feedback from Edwin and Jens, and got a mention in The Times!

Edwin Kagan

"Camp Quest has needed your songs," and "Hope to see you at Camp Quest Michigan." (17-23 August…tempting!)

Jens Christensen

"I think it is safe to say that you have helped make the camp a success. Even after you left we continued to sing your songs. I especially remember everyone singing the Mutate! song many times. I also think that your songs were a brilliant foundation for my Astronomy talk."

The Times

David was delighted to be described as singer-scientist, David Haines.

Tremendous Journey launched in Devon

Over the past few months we have been very busy developing the song cycle 'Tremendous Journey - Songs of Life and Evolution', which was premiered at Buckfast in Devon last week.

‘Tremendous Journey’ is based on David’s ‘Lifetime’ science oratorio which was first performed by a choir of around 400 children and adults at Dawlish Community College in 2004 and subsequently at Ivybridge Community College, at the Cambridge Science Festival (Massachusetts) at the Boston Museum of Science and MIT venues and at the San Diego Science Festival.

Tremendous Journey is a selection of just 15 of David’s “Lifetime” songs.

Some songs were performed by the Singtastic Singers (our small adult group of experienced singers), some just by the children (aged 4 to 11) and some altogether. Between the songs there were brief science readings which ranged from the sublime (Darwin and Dawkins) to the ridiculous (Douglas Adams).

The performance was a great success and we received very encouraging feedback all round...

"As a school we were looking for an opportunity to make Science fun and to really get the children enthusiastic and excited in learning about and caring for our world. The work we did with David and Sue exceeded all of our expectations. Our children have been inspired beyond belief. We now a have a school full of budding Scientists. We can't thank them enough!" Paul Brown, Headteacher, St Mary's Buckfast

"It was FANTASTIC to see adults and children performing together and I thought the music and enthusiasm were of an excellent quality!! CONGRATULATIONS. Thank you again for your warm welcome and sharing your talents with Devon communities. There were some really pretty pieces and groovy piano parts! Think my favourites were Reptiles, Lake and Taxonomy!!" Bernie Artuso, Devon Sing Up Area Leader Plymouth Music Zone

"We think “Tremendous Journey” is terrific. While I’ve been editing and playing it through, Wendy’s been bouncing around the house, singing her head off (she seems to know many of the words already!) and flapping her arms about on ‘Swallows’ – her favourite (“flapping along”!) We thought the kids were really good and they showed so much enthusiasm and control. They are lucky kids to have these rich musical opportunities." Mike and Wendy Gluyas, Sound Recordists.

The performance certainly achieved our aim of celebrating science through song – something that has been rarely attempted in the past.

We have exciting plans for ‘Tremendous Journey’ so, watch this space… and our blog of course!

Mr Darwin Prize

David's song Mr Darwin was chosen as the 'best Darwin song' by the New York Times in March this year. David has had to wait patiently for his prize, a copy of Richard Milner's book Darwin's Universe. It was certainly worth the wait! David was delighted by the book and amazed to find that he already owns (and frequently consults) one of Richard's books.

Here is a photo of David with the original book.

David was inspired to write the following comment about Darwin's Universe for Amazon.

"Recently I won the New York Times Science Songwriting Contest for my song "Mister Darwin," which has become very popular among school children here in England. My prize arrived today: Richard Milner's "Darwin's Universe," which I have found completely engrossing. I had not expected it to be packed with so many meaty, entertaining, and fascinating details about all aspects of natural history, as well as hundreds of rare and wonderful pictures. It's great dipping in at random then following a thread. Belatedly, I realized that I had long been an admirer of the book's predecessor, "The Encyclopedia of Evolution." What a delight to discover I've been a fan of Milner's work for so much longer than I realised - just hadn't taken the name on board!"

Read what Richard Milner has to say about David's work on our new blog

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