Now That's What I Call Commonweal
Vol Four
The brand new Now That’s What I Call Commonweal CD, Vol 4 was released in July. It features 21 tracks from students past, present and future and staff, a total of 195 musicians! It is priced £5 and is available from the school's finance office and at local community events.
“The Now series has become something of an annual event – eagerly awaited, and like most creative things, in production up until the eleventh hour. Nevertheless, it is great to once again have the musical contributions of our community captured on CD – the diversity and quality of the songs is as good as ever in my opinion and I sincerely hope those who own a copy will enjoy it as much as I do,” Keith Defter, Headteacher.
There are contributions from Robert Le Kyng who asked our performing arts technician if he could rise to the challenge of writing a school anthem. This was then taken into the school and Ali Sutcliffe, head of music at Commonweal and Nick Weaver, arts technician taught the Yr 6 class the song and then recorded it. There are also contributions from the school’s other three cluster schools, King William Primary, Lethbridge and Even Swindon.
“This is the first time we have had all our cluster schools on the CD. It was a fantastic opportunity for them as a prelude to coming up to big school,” said Josie Williams, Community Arts Development Officer. “The CD wouldn’t have been possible if it wasn’t for the talents of our arts tech Nick Weaver. When I joined the school five years ago I wanted to do a school CD, but it wasn’t until Nick joined that this became a reality, I really don’t know what we would do without him as he has recorded the tracks, helped with rehearsals and writing and has produced yet another fantastic album of which we are all very proud.”
“'Another fine blend of Commonweal talent from students of all years. It has been a great harvest of bands this year with outstanding performances by yr 7 groups, The Frosted Teacakes and The Understanding.
We have had a lot of fun going into the Primary feeder schools, recording songs created around themes they suggested, so we have a Brazilian carnival song, and a Robert le kyng anthem!
Staff and students delivered a diverse collection of high quality compositions and performances proving once again that 'Commonweals Got Talent!' Nick Weaver
Info from the students
Paper Roses got their group together at the start of the school year, around November time. Sarah had already learnt guitar, as she had lessons since she started Commonweal in Yr7. Harriet had been singing in choir also since yr7, but had not yet had enough confidence to go solo. They are now both in yr9 and thoroughly enjoying the experience of songwriting and performing!
“Songwriting is a lot of fun to do because we can improvise anything we want to, and the end results are good quality”, says Harriet,” Our song was composed in one lunchtime ,and the end results have been fantastic. The school has been very helpful by providing us with the facilities needed to record. The fact that the school also specialises in performing arts is also a great help to us, because our teachers support us and our lessons enable us to understand more about music and recording”.
“Performing for both of us has become an easy thing to do, whereas before we were really nervous about just performing to our peers,” Sarah says, “we have found that practicing every day has improved our confidence a great deal. Now, we look forward to performing in class and possibly outside of school.”
Paper Roses have only recently recorded for the Commonweal School CD and that was a very fun experience because they hadn’t ever recorded before, and hearing Sarah's guitar and Harriet's voice played back was a surprise for both of them! Listening to them back makes them both think about how to improve, and the next time of recording or practicing they can both put those improvements into action, which changes them into altogether a better group with better song writing skills.
Freya Holmes
“My song is written for the special event part of our GCSE and the theme I chose was a funeral. It uses a harp, piano and piccolo. I was inspired to write my piece when I heard a funeral composition being played in class. I wrote my composition in a classical style because that is the style I’m most familiar with playing and I thought it was most appropriate. I really enjoy composing. Doing the GCSE music course has really helped me and I’m really glad I choose it as an option. I look forward to composing more in the future,” Freya Holmes, age 15.
Sophie – Rose Goldsworthy & Chris Prtichard
“When I leave school I am hoping to attend Britt School in London, so performing at school and having a song on the CD is a great experience for what I want to do in the future. Chris is a brilliant guitarist and singer so working together was good and as we are great friends it turned it into fun rather than work,” Sophie age 15.
“When I leave school I am hoping to get into A.C.M, a music college in London. I enjoyed working with Sophie and making this song and hope to create more in the future. I would like to carry on writing songs all my life,” Chris age 15
