Unit 59 - Music in the community

Friday 11^th May

Following on from our initial meeting last week, I was working today with Kev to put together a programme of activities for the workshop which will be taking place next week. The workshop will be in collaboration with the charity LOOK UK who are a charity based at the college and work with visually impaired children and their families locally and nationally. 

In the meeting last week, we discussed many different possible activities which we could include in the workshop. This is a completely new area for me and therefore Kev is assisting me to plan the session and come up with some ideas of activities. 

We firstly talked through the structure of the workshop. The workshop will start at 4:30pm and will last for about 30 minutes. This will be enough time to go through a range of activities with the participants. 

We’ll start the session with an introduction including who we are and what we are going to be doing in the session today. We’ll then move onto some ice breakers to get the group warmed up ready for the main activity. 

There are many different ice breakers that we talked about. The main focus to start with will be getting the group to start and stop at the same time. This will lead them to using their listening skills from the very beginning. Once we have established starting and stopping, we will add in a noise rumble and a crescendo. Another ice breaker that we could use is called ‘Fish and Chips’. This involves a 3 beat rhythm – the first beat in the middle of the drum, and the other 2 beats on the outside of the drum. We can then add the words ‘Fish and Chips’ to this beat which may make it more memorable for the clients. If they get the hang of ‘Fish and Chips’, we can add in another rhythm which would be ‘Mashed Potato’. This includes 4 beats – 1 in the middle of the drum and the other 3 on the outside of the drum. Another ice breaker that I suggested was to do a ‘We will rock you’ rhythm on the drum but when we get to the clap, we would say our name. Once one person has said their name on one of the rhythms, the whole group would then repeat the name on the next rhythm. This activity will help people to get to know each other and hopefully become a bit more confident within the group.

After the ice breakers, there will be a short break where refreshments will be served by the first year performing arts students. After the break we will then bring the group back in to start on the main activity. 

For the main activity we will be focusing on a song. The song we have chosen is ‘Shape of you’ by Ed Sheeran because it is very popular at the moment and I think that most people, if not all people, in the group will know it. Here is a chord sheet for the main riff of the song and the lyrics for the song:

We have taken some parts from the song which will sound nice when they sung as a group. The part that we will teach the group is the ‘oh y oh y oh y oh y’ part. We will practice this with the group a few times until they get the hang of it. Whilst I am singing along with the group, Kev will be accompanying us on the guitar. Once they have got the hang of the first part, we will teach them the other part which will be ‘Come on be my baby come on’. Once they have also got the hang of this part, the group will be split into 2 and then each group will be given a part which they can sing at the same time. 

Another part of the song which we could teach the group is the main riff. This runs throughout the whole song but it is mostly heard at the very start of the song. There are many different ways in which we can create this riff. Kev will play the riff on his guitar then we can get the group to sing the riff in do’s – ‘do dodo do dodo do dodo do dodo’. In the same rhythm, we can then add in some body percussion which will go something like ‘slap clapclap slap clapclap slap clapclap slap clapclap’. We can do these different parts in many different ways. For example, one group could do the body percussion whilst the other group is singing the riff and then we could also add in some harmonies if we have time. Depending on how many people we have in the workshop will determine how we split the groups. This is something that we will do during the workshop and will therefore require us to think on our feet. 

At the end of the session we will talk to the participants about how they have done today. They will then be able to go downstairs and have some refreshments. We will also give them some evaluation forms to fill out so we can find out what they thought of the workshop. Kev showed me a few different evaluation forms and I selected the one that I thought would be the most appropriate for this age group. Here is a copy of the evaluation form that we will be handing out to the participants:

I found the session today really helpful as it gave me a chance to plan what was going to happen in the workshop. It also allowed me to practice some of the exercises so that I can help to lead the music workshop. 

I have created a session plan which includes the aims, objectives and activities which we have planned for the session:

Before delivering the workshop, I need to make all hazards and risks into consideration. To make sure that all of these are controlled, I have carried out a risk assessment which can be found below:

In terms of funding, the individual workshop will cost around £120 to run - £100 for the running of the workshop and £20 for administration tasks such as finding clients and advertising. Therefore, for the project to run over a 6 week period, the cost of funding would be around £720. This funding will have to be applied for and can be applied for through many different organisations such as Children In Need, The National Lottery and Arts Council England.