Looking at subject examples

A food chain shows the different organisms that live in a habitat, and what eats what.

Producers and consumers

A food chain always starts with a producer, which is an organism that makes food. This is usually a green plant, because plants can make their own food by photosynthesis.

A food chain ends with a consumer, which is an animal that eats a plant or another animal. Here is an example of a simple food chain:

When several food chains are joined together, a 'food web' is created.

A basis for musical exploration

We can explore the predator-prey relationships of this dynamic structure musically.

Divide the class into groups and assign each group one of the organisms in the food web. Their task is to create some musical material to represent the element they have chosen (A link can be made to Carnival of the Animals here). For instance the 'insect' group might make some quiet scuttling sounds, the 'thrush' group some melodic whistling sounds etc.

The chart is projected onto a screen as a large graphic score and the conductor adds or removes elements from the chart (this can easily be presented as a sequence of powerpoint slides or mind mapping software. This in turn controls the music that is being performed at any given time. For instance:

1. if the vole is removed the voles stop playing. The fox and the hawk play less (fewer notes, more softly) since they are getting less to eat!
2. if the slug is removed, the slugs stop playing. the thrush plays less because one of its sources of food is removed. In turn, the hawk plays less – because there are now fewer thrushes.
3. removing the grass would eventually result in the piece reaching a conclusion.

So this chart could be used to control the structure and texture of musical performance. Similar strategies for generating musical performance can be found in the work of John Cage and his followers.