Festivities

Music is fun, as it should be. And seasonal fun is even better. Here's a film of Geoff, volunteer music leader at Count Me In, sharing his festive joy last night... so Merry Christmas to all our amazing group, and supporters, and music leaders - and everyone!

part of our local music community....

We were pleased and proud to open up the Wells Cathedral School newsletter - 'in the community' - and find a feature about  AllStars and a photo of a Heart Beats music session.

Thanks to Wells Cathedral School for hosting and supporting us so generously.

Active listening

Hear, absorb, process, react, respond. This is active listening - a communication skill - it's what we do when we're really engaged.

When you do this in improvised music sessions, it can become a transferable skill, so that listening in conversations - displaying empathy - becomes easier too.

By responding, we reflect and lead on. This is a fundamental of interactive communication.

Active listening can be hard work. Sometimes, in group sessions - often when things get loud! - as a music leader, you feel that people can become self absorbed, giving full attention to their instrument rather than other people, or maybe even not being fully present, in a 'zone' induced by rhythm and the physicality of playing. (Which is nice enough)

As a music leader you have to feel the balance of the sound, and make decisions as to whether the music is working or not. Sometimes just gaining attention, stopping for 4 beats and starting again will bring focus back. Sometimes it's ok to take the risk and let it find a level. ....And sometimes you might ask some people to stop for a while and others to continue playing, to allow a clearer listening space.

Tonight at the Listening Lounge we are going to explore invitations to play, inviting and respecting others. We shall play some listening games too - trying out ideas for the bigger group.

autumn sessions

Hi everyone - reminding you that there is no session tomorrow ; we next meet on November 10th at Cedars Hall, usual time.

Moving - and shaking....

Moving Heart Beats to a new location was a big decision : the creative space we build around ourselves as a group is important to everything we do. Many of us take a while to get used to new places.....different access, lighting, acoustics - there's a whole load of multi sensory aspects to consider.
We'll soon get used to the stairs and the lift, heavy fire doors, piles of instruments and music stands, and an energetic atmosphere with other people buzzing about.

Cedars Hall

Cedars Hall is an exceptional building because it's brand new, and designed with acoustics in mind.
Our room has carpet, acoustic panels, a specially designed floor,and big windows looking out across tree tops. Our instruments and voices sound different in this room.
In the corridors students are moving their instruments about and practicing pieces. In the main hall ('The 'Eavis Hall' ) orchestras rehearse and we can look down to see what's happening as we walk along the corridor.

Eavis Hall

Michael Eavis opened Cedars hall officially on October 8th. He said 'I learned to laugh about lots of things in Wells.'

What do our musicians think about the new music space? 
Katie says 'It's an adventure in a new place - I appreciate it.'
Emma -'I love the new place.'
Sophie - 'I like the lift!' 
Geoff - 'It's all fresh - a good atmosphere. This is a new achievement.'
Mark - 'The building has a phenomenal atmosphere. I liked seeing the orchestra.'

We're starting something new together.
We have a feeling the music we make in this new room will be quite different.

warming up at Cedars Hall

Testing the acoustics!

Here we are - the Listening Lounge gang - exploring how it actually sounds, and what it feels like, to play live music in one of our new rooms at Cedars Hall. We started as quiet as mice, made loops on the iPad and then - we were away!

Many thanks to Wells Cathedral School for hosting our music sessions this year.

The Listening Lounge

This evening we are going to Cedars Hall for the first time.
Our first group there will be the Listening Lounge.
This is a closed group run by Alex and Jane. The Listening Lounge brings young people with and without additional needs together to explore 'what music does' more closely. There's a lot of chatting, playing, listening to music and each other.
In our explorations, we use instruments, recorded music, voices, words, technologies, art and all sorts of spontaneous responses to sound.

exploring sound, pattern and colour

Heart Beats starts tonight!

A reminder that the autumn sessions start tonight.
This will be our last session at the Lawrence Centre before moving on to Cedars' Hall.

Tonight we'll be using our voices, and rhythms, to greet each other and make patterns of sound.
Theme of the evening is 'everybody jam' - chosen by Geoffrey.

See you there!

Local support makes lots of difference!

Here we are in the local press -  receiving a cheque on behalf of the group, generously given us by Radco through donations collected on their gala night.

Local support works in lots of ways, and donations do really help.

Click here to see the photo and read all about it.

Heart Beats is moving to a new home

We have some news! From the end of September we are moving our Thursday sessions (Heart Beats club, and the Listening Lounge) from the Lawrence Centre to a new venue in Wells.

This venue is Cedars Hall at Wells Cathedral School.

Cedars Hall

This is great news, for two reasons.

Firstly, Cedars Hall is a brand-new state of the art teaching and learning centre built with music in mind. Building the hall has been a long standing project for Wells Cathedral School, and now it is ready to be used.
The hall has wonderful facilities and is accessible, designed with acoustics in mind and - of course! - perfect for playing live music. We shall be on the first floor, in a teaching space with adjoining rooms and observation space for break-out opportunities.

Secondly, the move brings us into a closer partnership with Wells Cathedral School.
Over the years we've offered supported training placements for Wells students, and more recently, staff as well. This has grown to become a vital part of our work as the 'AllStars ensemble' explore improvisation together with the Heart Beats crew, our core group of learning disabled musicians - it's a creative hothouse.

A professional development day with an integrated group

Wells C.S head Elizabeth Cairncross says 'we know that music and the performing arts must be inclusive, not exclusive. With Cedars Hall we will be able to expand our community programme, our teaching, our staff training, and our partnership work.'
Inclusion is everything for us. We do believe that everyone is musical, and that music can change lives.
Most of our group live in the Wells area.The school recognise that Cedars Hall is a significant community asset for Wells and the South West. We're proud to be included.

September sessions, coming soon

It's been a lovely summer, but we can't wait to get together again for our autumn sessions, which start on September 22nd at the Lawrence Centre.
If you know anyone new who would like to come, ask them to contact us at info@heartbeats.org.uk

Hope to see you there!

Avalon School

Look! we've just found a page on Avalon Schools website, with photos of our visit there last February. What a great day that was... see their report here:
HeartBeats at Avalon

Rowdeford school outreach session

When we ran our training for professionals earlier this year, we offered participants the opportunity to book an outreach session to see our work in practice.
Thanks to Sarah Curwen, last week we visited Rowdeford School in Wiltshire to run a morning of music on the very last day of the school year.

What a lovely place! We enjoyed meeting everyone, staff and students -  what a warm welcome. We enjoyed walking round the walled gardens, and especially liked the room we were in - the school arts centre.

The three music sessions were fun. Although we followed the same plan for each one, they developed differently as we followed the amazing suggestions and ideas of the young people.

Staff said it was 'perfectly pitched to the levels of our students and a delight to see and hear them all participating'.
They thought 'it was great the way all of the student's ideas were combined' and it was 'excellent fun for students (and teachers!)'.
'Fantastic - everyone completely engrossed!'
'Thank you for providing such a rich musical experience for us all.' 

HeartBeats summer party

What a great session last night.

We played some  excellent music, and danced too, with the help of Anna Golding who came up from Bridport to join us.

Sophie and Anna led some beautiful, expressive interpretations of an improvised piece of music.
Geoff and Emma shared their news from Bermuda and Geoff showed us Gombey dancing and rhythms.

Just to add to the mood was the exciting news that Radco have kindly donated us an extra £1000 to help our work.

A BIG cheque

Our next session is September 22nd. Have a good summer everyone!

HeartBeats summer party

One more session before our summer break.
We're meeting at the Lawrence Centre for some great music on Thursday July 14th - this week.

There will be pizza and treats, and we're being joined by Anna Golding who will lead some movement  and dance for us.

See you there.

Goodbye to Esther

Esther has been with us for a year now, both at the Listening Lounge and in the HeartBeats sessions.

We had a Listening Lounge evening out to say thanks to her for all the amazing music and to wish her well as she leaves Wells for a leap forward into higher education. We'll miss the harp and the smiles too. Good luck Esther!

Wells Musicircus

The Wells Musicircus on June 18th was something quite different for us - an outdoors performance, in the company of more than 500 performers all ranged around the beautiful Cathedral Green, with an estimated audience of between 2500 - 3000 people!

Not only did we enjoy playing, and audience participation, but it was a chance to hear some other music too. A great day.

Martina on tongue drum, Sophie on vocals

Mark on the Big Pan

listening to the music

ready to go!

Tom, Martyn. Josh

Josh on the tubes

Tom and Russ setting up

Beautiful! cellos right next to us

DartsFest

We are starting to plan our own festival, to be held next year, to celebrate the end of our project.

Have a look at this one - DartsFest .
It's a 2 day festival created with the needs of people with learning disabilities in mind.

It's near Exeter if you're thinking of going. 

A fantastic 2-day festival created with the needs of people with learning disabilities in mind. Live music, workshops, accessible facilities and more. - See more at: http://www.ahsw.org.uk/diary.aspx?id=1885#sthash.RSMs1aBN.dpufa

A fantastic 2-day festival created with the needs of people with learning disabilities in mind. Live music, workshops, accessible facilities and more. - See more at: http://www.ahsw.org.uk/diary.aspx?id=1885#sthash.RSMs1aBN.dpuf

A fantastic 2-day festival created with the needs of people with learning disabilities in mind. Live music, workshops, accessible facilities and more. - See more at: http://www.ahsw.org.uk/diary.aspx?id=1885#sthash.RSMs1aBN.dpuf

Wiltshire Music Connect are running a SEND music day

If you are free on July 16th , in Wiltshire, and want some inspiration, then this is the place to be :  Alex is speaking, and you can watch the SW Open Youth Orchestra perform.

Wells Music Circus

This Saturday we'll be in Wells for the enormous, ambitious Music Circus. The city will be full of live music.

Please join us if you can - there will be some empty chairs and some spare instruments.

We'll be outside the Music School on the Cathedral Green, next to the Museum. Our slots are 11.15 - 11.30, and 12.10 to 12.25.

At 12.30 everyone involved will be singing 'All you need is Love' together, and then we're all having a picnic together on the Cathedral Green.

We'll have plenty of lovely instruments with us for you to play.

Radco's year of support for our work

We often mention our major funders, Youth Music. But it's important to remember that their funds are matched by smaller amounts from others, too. It's a vital part of keeping our work going.

Count Me In have been the Radstock Co-Ops 'charity of the year' and they've taken a real interest in what we do. We've been grateful for their generous donations but were totally surprised to get a letter after their recent Gala Evening, saying "thanks to the generosity of our sponsors, guests, business partners and suppliers we raised a fairly significant amount for charities and local community groups. In this respect, we'd like to make a donation to Count Me In / Heartbeats to mark the end of the society's year of supporting the cause."

They also said "we'd like to pay tribute to the great work that Count Me In does in helping people to engage, communicate and express themselves through the medium of music."

So - brilliant news for us. We're looking forward to a visit from them : here's a picture of the last visit.

The Mermaid

Mark has been coming to the Heartbeats music sessions since we first started.
As well as being a dedicated drummer, lovely singer, inventive musician and all round good chap, Mark plays and composes on the hammer dulcimer.

Here he is playing 'The Mermaid'.

How do we know what we do is good enough?

It's not unusual to come away from a session feeling significantly better than when you first entered the building - but how do we actually capture that feeling? Those moments?

Evaluating our work is something that is a constant, ongoing process.
We observe, film, photograph, check that we're on track with aims and anticipated outcomes.

Sometimes it's easy, especially when you know people, to see change or capture 'those moments'.
When you're out and about working with new people, the challenges are more complex.

Recently we ran an outreach workshop with 32 students at a local residential college.
We felt it had been a good day, and we asked staff to give us some feedback.

Staff gave us top marks for meeting needs and getting the groups to work together.
What we did was 'age appropriate' ; 'engaging'; and 'easy to follow'.

The sessions were good!  We had everyone playing :
 'It was amazing to see two students who are normally noise sensitive smiling and really enjoying the session'

It was  'Excellent and brought something out in students that would not normally join in'

and, generally ' I loved it on a personal level and the students really enjoyed it – Thank you it was really fantastic.'
 ' Brilliant!'

Russ and Ben in the mood for a tune or two

Some quick tuning up before sessions

All good then.

Music for Alice

Our workshops wouldn't be the same without the instruments we've bought with funding from Music for Alice.
Read more about how their funding has helped us on their website here

The SRYP conference

Last Saturday, we went to the SRYP conference in Bridgwater.
Here's Geoff, Emma, Josh and Katie, with Russ and Michael Eavis. Michael joined in with our warm ups though he wasn't to keen to play the drum that was offered him!

The HeartBeats team

Our instruments looked lovely in the new theatre

SRYP conference

Somerset Rural Youth Projects' Rural Music Network have been a partner project for us in HeartBeats and the AllStars work.
We've shared expertise, done a lot of co-management support, and run workshops for each other.
Last month, James from SRYP came and ran a drum kit workshop for us. Different ... fun.

This weekend, Katie, Emma, Josh and Geoff are co-delivering two music inclusion workshops at SRYP's conference in Bridgwater. Jane Russ and Rachel will be there supporting.
We're looking forward to meeting other music leaders, new people, and - of course - Michael Eavis too.

Ben's disco....

Ben Waller and Loops Music are starting a new friendly and accessible night out at the Wheatsheaves in Frome.
Spread the word! Stay up late!

Keeping the skills up

Geoff with his djembe

Geoff has been a volunteer music leader and musician in residence with Count Me In since 2003.
Geoff was at our recent in-house training session with Hugh Nankivell.

'Training is part of the fun! And a new skill - fun, and interesting to be part of the workshop leader team, and meet old and new people. It's fantastic to be part of the team - my interests are about people and socializing!'

At the AllStars training session

Partnership working

AllStars and the Heart Beats Music sessions are funded by Youth Music. We are a 'fund B" initiative, which means we are running several projects at the same time, that all fit together.

Our big aim is to bring all sorts of young musicians together (trained or not)  to experiment with sound and explore their love of music : all the music we play is original, new, and improvised - the shared product of a group of people.
Our core team and some volunteers have a range of learning disabilities and we believe, if things are right for them, then they're right for all of us.

To help us run our project, we have some partner organisations.
These are : Wells Cathedral School; Spaeda; Elmwood and Penrose Schools Federation in Bridgwater; and the Somerset Rural Youth Project (SRYP).

All of these partners are valuable to our work - they provide information, support, networks, help with recruitment, venues - and workshops too.

Tonight James Brookes from SRYP is bringing a team from his Rural Music Network, along with several drum kits, to lead a rhythm workshop.
They've been running kit sessions in Shepton Mallet and Castle Cary, and want to share what they do.

We're looking forward to this - a different way to play ourselves into the Easter break.
Last time James came to work with us it was awesome....  everyone enjoys to try something entirely new, and meet new people.
Let's hope there will be enough mini eggs to go round.

animated improvisation

Unexpected things can happen at the Listening Lounge .....Here's an improvisation inspired by St Patricks' Day, played by the one-and-only Esther on the harp. Animations by Josh. Dancing and laughter by everyone.

Music and place

Lovely day - and it's St Patricks Day too.
At the Listening Lounge tonight we're going to get in the mood exploring rhythms and atmosphere, jigs reels and slow airs.... thinking about music and place.

Close your eyes ... and open your ears

We're continuing with our exploration of the sensory aspects of improvised music.

Yesterday, our group experimented with playing whilst having their eyes shut.

Alex asked us to 'pass a clap' around the group - first with eyes open, and then eyes shut.
The difference was striking! It took us about 3 goes before we began to recognise the unqiue sound of the person next to us and find our place in the sequence.

Later, Jane asked the group to improvise a piece quietly, eyes closed, with no prompts other than a significant sound for 'start' and 'stop'. People were told they could contribute as much or as little to the piece as much as they liked.
Together we created music that had a distinctive atmosphere, shape and sound. It felt complex but respectful.

In feedback, a lot of people said these things were their favourite part of the session.
Geoff said 'our two ears are connected to our brain.'
Without visual input, our sense of listening became much more important.
There is some research that states our brains divert activity away from our visual centres during listening tasks.

In our sessions, especially when there are so many people, we tend to use physical conducting  gestures to sculpt the music -  so this was different.
It is also a way of exploring what it is like to be part of the group for the group member who is visually impaired.
From a music leaders' point of view - it removed the need for active music leading. Perhaps this was possible, and successful, because we've all played together so much already?

As a group activity, it showed us how connected we are to each other, and how we can  feel more relaxed without the need to process visual information.
You might think you become less aware of others if you can't see them : what we felt was that we could listen more clearly, and because of this, become more aware of others.

Wells Musicircus

In June, we're taking part in Wells Musicircus, which is being co-ordinated by our project partners Wells Cathedral School.

Inspired by the composer John Cage, musicians will perform simultaneously from every available space, creating a joyous musical marketplace.

This will be the largest gathering of musicians Wells has ever seen, flooding the city with a cacophony of sound...

The event begins in the market place and wends its way across the Cathedral Green, to end in a huge picnic by the new Cedars Hall.

Our role in this? we'll be there playing music that will reflect the mood of the day and of course - we shall offer instruments and a chance to join in with our HeartBeats group.

Youth + Music = SW conference

Count Me In are going to this music conference on April 23rd.
We shall be running some workshops where people can get a taste of what we do, and talking about our work.

There will be lots of other great SW organizations there too:
Wren Music - Action Track - Somerset Rural Youth project - RIO - Bristol Plays Music - Bath Festivals - Supreme Youth Project.

The guest speaker is local chap Michael Eavis.

Tonight....

Hey folks, it's HeartBeats tonight!
Russ is off to the farm to get all those lovely instruments.