The Aqua Project: Changing Tides
Innovative new project helps participants to reconnect with nature while challenging perceptions of creativity.
What do you think of when you think of water? Does the gentle flow of the river downstream make you feel calm and at peace with the world? Or do the powerful waves crashing at the shore terrify, yet intrigue you?
The natural world means something different to us all. In the ever-changing digital age, it has never been more important to take a step back and reconnect with our surroundings - to reflect on, consider and perhaps transform our relationship with the environment.
In February and March 2023, with help from the Youth Music Incubator Fund, Community Music Wales collaborated with Cathays Community Centre on The Aqua Project; a unique project inviting participants to make music inspired by the sounds of water and experiment with new creative technologies in the process.
Over the course of four weekly sessions through February and March, The Aqua Project worked closely with eleven adults with learning disabilities who attend the Inclusive Day Provision program at Cathays Community Centre. The project fuses the recording of sounds from nature with instrumental improvising sessions to encourage participants to experiment with a different approach to music making. After taking participants to explore Bute Park in a Soundwalk session where they collected sound recordings of the River Taff, they received the opportunity to experiment freely with hand percussion, vocal effects, guitars as well as MIDI keyboards loaded up with the water sounds they collected themselves.
The project was delivered by sound experimentalist John Thomas and professional drummer Jack Egglestone. “I was drawn to the project as I really enjoy the process of making music in non-traditional ways” says Thomas, “I like the explorative nature of finding sounds. Listening to our environment to inform music creation can be especially freeing and playful, and because it is not reliant on any prior experience on an instrument, it can involve everyone!”.
“My previous experience as a workshop facilitator with CMW was mainly in hand drumming, sing alongs and general music making. I jumped at the chance to be on The Aqua Project as I was keen to test out my relatively newly acquired music tech skills in a workshop situation.” says Egglestone. “The Aqua Project was perfect for this. I had loads of fun and learnt some new skills myself along the way!”
The Aqua Project’s musical creations were recorded, mixed and produced and have been released on Soundcloud. You can listen to the tracks below: