Reflections: Eve Maguire

My time in Voss was fantastic.  I think one of the things that made it so great was the scenery - snowy mountains surrounding the town which had a river and little forest running through the middle.  Our first placement was in a school, where we took part in music classes.  It turned out to be very interesting to see how differently the students were taught.  For instance our main time signature is 4/4 but theirs is 5/8 which i found very interesting. One of my favourite classes was the music history class, the students taught Sarah and I a Norwegian song and in return we obviously taught them Shetland dancing.  By the end of the class we had all the students joining in, and the teachers, who we could tell were really enjoying it by their "woo hoo’s" in the Boston Two-Step. By the end of it Sarah and I had gotten to know a lot of the students and still keep in touch with a few of them, which I think is one of the main thing we brought back from our experience in Voss.

Our second placement was completely different, we worked in a cafe at a biathlon, we mostly delivered food from the cafe to the tents outside and coffee to the people organising the thing biathlon and the people at the finish line.

Our last placement was definitely the best, we worked at the famous Jazz Festival they have in Voss each year. We started by painting two rooms in one of the music venues and helping some of the famous musicians while they were practicing.  We also got to play our guitars at the Festival and put on a little show while people were drinking soup and buying tickets.

This whole experience was very beneficial for me because being a music student and getting to work at a huge music festival is definitely something I could put on a CV which will benefit in later life. Also I have a better understanding of how differently students get taught in different places and managed to take away some of the things I learnt and can teach them to my class in Shetland.  Lastly, another benefit from this experience is that I even picked up some Norwegian.