Unit 59 - Music in the community

Monday 14^th May

The workshop

Today was the day of the music workshop which was being led by Kev and I in collaboration with the charity LOOK UK who work with children, young people and their families who are affected by visual impairment. The aim of the workshop is provide a chance for young visually impaired people to come together through music. It also aims to develop many skills such as communication, listening and confidence.

The workshop was due to start at around 4:30pm to allow people to travel from school/work. The original time of the workshop was going to be 5pm but due to the feedback from the participants, they said that it would be much better from the time to be earlier. On arrival, the participants were greeted by the first year performing arts student Robert, Kellyann and Molly. Kellyann was signing people in behind the desk whilst Molly and Robert were behind the desk serving refreshments. Here are some pictures of them carrying out their job roles:

At this time, I was upstairs with Kev in the performance studio going through the workshop for one last time before we delivered it. We worked out a plan of what to do depending on how many clients we had turn up for the session. Here is a photo of my and Kev going through the programme of activities that we had planned for the young people:

At just after 4:30pm, the young people came up to the performance studio ready to start the workshop.

To start the workshop, Kev did a small introduction about himself and what the workshop was going to entail. He then moved on to giving the group some information about the instrument that we would be playing for the first part of the session.

The first activity for the workshop was the ice breakers. There were many different exercises which we used in the workshop. However before we got started on the exercises, we told the group a bit about how to play the instrument which then led on to experimenting with a noise rumble and getting the group to stop and start at the same time. I then led the group through an exercise involving a crescendo. This is when the group starts really quietly and then begins to get louder. Here is a video of me leading this exercise:

We then introduced the group to another ice breaker activity which was called ‘Fish and chips’. This exercise involved playing a set rhythm whilst saying the words ‘fish and chips’. The rhythm was one beat in the middle of the drum and 2 beats on the outside of the drum. We then added the words fish and chips to this. Once they had got the hang of this, we were then able to add in a more completed rhythm – ‘mashed potato’. Here is a video of this exercise:

So far the workshop was going very well and we had actually run over the time that we had planned for these ice breaker activities. We had originally only planned for these activities to go on for 10 minutes but we were now 15 minutes into the workshop. We then decided to leave the rest of the ice breakers and carry on with the rest of the workshop. Because the workshop was running very smoothly and the children/young people had had some refreshments before they had come upstairs for the workshop, we thought that it was pointless to have a break at this time and therefore we made the decision to carry on with the workshop to keep in the flow.

For the next part of the session we were working on a song. The song that we have chosen is ‘Shape of you’ by Ed Sheeran. We picked this song because it is very popular at the moment which will most likely mean that everyone will know it. When we asked the group if they knew it, everyone knew it but even if they didn’t, it is a very easy song to get to grips with because it is very catchy. Another reason why we selected this song is because we can do a lot with it. There are several different parts to it which we can separate and layer.

For the first part that we introduced the group to was the ‘oh y oh y oh y oh y’. To begin with, we taught the whole group this part just to ease them in. They seemed to pick this up really quickly and so we moved on to teaching them the other part – ‘come on be my baby come on’. Here is a video of the group carrying out this part of the song:

Once both parts we learnt and secure, we split the group in half to get the parts going at different times and them singing them both at the same time. Here is a video of the group carrying out the exercise:

When the group was carrying this exercise out, it started to sound really good and tuneful. We then decided to take them onto another part of the song because they were picking up the parts really well and we still had enough time left. The other part of the song that we thought would be good to teach them was the riff part. This part is mostly heard at the beginning of the song but is played all the way through. To begin with, I taught the group the riff in body percussion. We did this by slapping our thighs and then clapping twice which then created the sound of the riff. It took the group a while to get this rhythm and I think this is because it is quite syncopated which makes it harder to grasp. Here is a video of me teaching the group the riff:

Once the group had learnt all of the parts, we were able to put some of these together and alternate between them to create a piece. We alternated between the riff with body percussion and the ‘oh y’ and ‘come on’ parts. Once we had put these altogether, the piece sounded really good and got the whole group involved.

In my opinion, I think that the workshop went well. However I think there is a few things that I would change if I was to do the workshop again.
In my opinion, I think that the workshop went well. I have received very positive feedback from the clients and their parents. Also after the workshop, some of the children were singing the different parts which we had taught them in the workshop which shows that they were engaged throughout the session.
Another positive of the workshop is that it was inclusive. We weren't sure about the age of the children that were going to come to the workshop so we made sure that we planned activities which everyone in the group would be able to manage. I think that we pitched the workshop just right as it suited everyone in the group even if we did have quite a large age range. Another aspect at making the workshop inclusive was making sure that the activities were suited towards visually impaired children. This meant that we couldn't use any visual tasks throughout the workshop because this may have segregated the group. I especially took this into consideration after the pilot workshop because I was running this with my peers who are all visually impaired. This then made me aware of what would work and what wouldn't work for a group of visually impaired children of a younger age. 
However I think there is a few things that I would change if I was to do the workshop again. 

Firstly I would change the length of the workshop. The workshop that we ran today aimed to last for only 20 to 30 minutes. Before the workshop I thought that this was going to be enough time, if not too much, but the time seemed to go very quickly and therefore we didn’t get to do all of the activities that we had planned. Therefore by making the workshop longer it will enable us to lead more activities in the time frame. Also, I felt like the group were in the flow of the activities and it was a shame to stop at the end of the half an hour because I felt like more could have been done with the group. I would like to run a workshop which would last about 45 minutes. This way it is not too long but it is also not too short so that more exercises can be done with the clients. We could also have a break in the middle of the workshop if the participants needed it.

Prior to the workshop, we did not have much information about the participants in regards to their ages, disabilities, level of visual impairment, etc. I think this may have been helpful when we were planning the workshop because we could have made sure that the activities were more inclusive and involved everyone in the group to the best that they could. I was expecting a lot more older children for the workshop but instead we had a massive age variety ranging from 5 years to 15 years. For the smaller children, their parents were able to help them with some of the activities which they found a bit more difficult. It would then be a good idea to have a set age range from 10 years to 16 years so that the participants feel comfortable and are all able to join in the the exercises. 

I think that also the advertising of the workshop should be a bit better. The event wasn’t very well advertised and if people were given a bit more notice, they may have been able to get to the event. By advertising the event more, we may have got more participants for the workshop. Having said that, we should have thought about capping the number of clients because I think that if we have too many in the workshop, it may become incontrollable and the young people won’t benefit from it. 

Another aspect to keep in mind if we were to do the workshop again is the time and day of the workshop. Originally we were going to start the workshop at 5pm but then a few people said that they wouldn’t be able to attend at this time so we changed the time to 4:30pm. However, I am not sure if it would have been better to do the workshop on a different day due to the school run. We could have even started the workshop at 4pm because this could have meant that the parents could have brought the children straight from school.