Magical music

Here are two film clips of some lovely music. This is Martha, who is one of the Heart Beats crew, playing some music she has composed herself. Magical.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gUbpmbo9CSA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1OE7WcEyCI0

We're so lucky to work with such amazing young people.

Sound cloud - listen to our song

Here is a link to a Soundcloud recording of a Heart Beats jam - working on our song.
Lead vocals by Mark. Backing vocals by David.
https://soundcloud.com/heart-beats-5

Winter Wonderland tonight!

SPARKLING
SHIVERING
GATHERING
WARMING
CELEBRATING

On the Off Beat in Woolavington

Looking forward to delivering a workshop for the Somerset Rural Youth projects' Soundscapes crew on Tuesday evening.
We're going for an 'on the off beat' feel - could be reggae, could be ska. Will be cool.

Winter Wonderland

Calling all parents, carers, siblings, families .....

PLEASE JOIN US NEXT WEEK…..

Our next session, on December 13^th, is the last Heart Beats session of 2012.

Please come in and join in the music. We will be having fun and creating music with the theme of ‘winter wonderland.’

We’ll be bringing hot drinks and mince pies too.

Don’t forget – Heart Beats starts again on January 10^th.

Underwater themes

Great improvising last night! David put it really well:

'I loved playing the instruments and the drums and being in the water, the river, and making music like swimming under the sea. Yes.'

Declan's gig - important!

Please can everyone note that Declans' gig is TUESDAY DECEMBER 4TH not Wednesday December 5th!
Do go and support him if you can, and spread the news. Thanks.

Declan's gig

'Our' musician in residence, Decan Millar, is out and about gigging. Please support him if you can!

Maggie and Bill Johnson form the Beacon Acoustic club say:

Dec performed at The Beacon last night and I'm still searching for an adjective that would do justice to his 'butterfly' song - how amazing to write songs of that calibre when still only 15 years old....

 

Anyway, if you fancy hearing more of his work now's your chance:

 

On Tuesday December 5th, Glastonbury Assembly Rooms' regular folk night, "Fabulous Furry Folk" hosts its youngest ever headline act in an evening of rootsy folk with a community vibe, and an opportunity for floor spots to support the main act. Recent "FFF" gigs have included headliners Robin Williamson, Martin Carthy and Martha Tilston but the final gig of the year brings it all back home with a chance for a local musician to play in the magical acoustic atmosphere of the Assembly Rooms' stone hall. Declan Millar has earned his wings over 5 years of appearances at Fabulous Furry Folk (yes - it's been going since 2007 when Dec was only 10!) and various other Assembly Rooms gigs. Still only 15 years old, he has also shared stages with Eliza Carthy and Lau and has recently been working on his first CD, produced in Bristol by Patrick Duff of Strangelove, and featuring his sister Caelia on fiddle and Brendan Sweetman on keyboards. His music blends influences including classic folk-rock and psych-folk; Declan is truly one of Glastonbury's finest troubadors. This gig will launch the new album and give the audience a chance to hear some  of his latest material as well as earlier songs.Support will be from various floor spots; please get in touch to play. Admission £5 on the door - 8 p.m. for an 8.30 start.(Nathan Williams)

Dates for 2013

We have some Heart Beats dates now for 2013.

They are :

1. Jan 10th
2. Jan 24th
3. Feb 7th
4. Feb 21st
5. Mar 7th
6. Mar 21st

Put them in your diary .......

Keep yourself warm with Heart Beats this winter

Never mind the snow, the wind, the rain, the frost .... come and keep warm with Heart Beats this winter.
We have a session this Thursday, November 15th - another one on November 29th - and our final meeting of 2012 on December 13th.

On December 13th we'll throw open the doors and have another Heart Beats tea party - Mums, Dads, sisters, brothers, friends, carers all welcome. Come and create a musical winter wonderland.
We'll have hot drinks and mince pies too.

If you are worried about the weather on any of these dates and would like to check if we're going ahead, please either
TEXT 07522 982574
or
EMAIL info@heartbeats.org.uk

MUSE

I'm excited to have come across the MUSE project yesterday whilst doing my 'other' job.
Here's their website
They seek to ' empower young, disabled musicians by helping them challenge any barriers to musical participation that they may experience. '
They are working across the SW region with Youth Music funding at the moment.
Really exciting stuff.

Themes

One great thing about being a music leader is that you get to work with themes. And because we're not bound to any curriculum our themes can be as diverse as we want - there's mileage to be had in all sorts of ideas -  and learning and fun too.
Themes of the week include :
journeys
colours
space jumps
spaceman dub
beginnings /endings
strange celestial roads .....

Early years music

It's great to see Frome early years music leader Willow Harwood has been awarded some funding for instruments through a Youth Music initiative.
Willow contributes her bit of wisdom to an online resource on Youth Musics' Network blog. Click here for the Youth Music resources page.
Some of the 'top tips' hold good for our work too. 
Willow says "Ensuring a mix of adult led and child initiated music making builds confidence in even the youngest of music makers."

In our project, we make music with young adults, but we value scaffolding and sound support as the foundation for confidence building too.
Heart Beats really appreciates the funding that enables us to have a good, solid team of music leaders, trainees, support worker, volunteer and musician in residence .... it's a great way to work.

chimes

Hooray, a BIG box arrived today - full of bass and alto chime bars - bliss......

some rock pics

Sharing the drum kit

Guitar section

working on the keyboard parts

Bass guitars

working together

rock'n'roll

concentrating

A good team on the electronic kit

Star trainee!

star trainee too!

James and Martyn leading

getting into the groove

vocals - the finished song

Here's some snapshots of our rock band workshop.....thanks to SRYP's Soundscapes team James and Paul....

Tonight

Tonight! - Rock Band workshop, 7 - 9, with James Brookes from SRYP.......

Alex's new drum

Here's Alex showing everyone his new Udu drum .... great sound.

Interim reports done!

Yes, all those rainy days of form filling, evidence gathering, teeth grinding, spreadsheets, tea drinking and general evaluating have been bundled up and submitted in one big information cloud to Youth Music..... phew.
Cheers, team.

Rrrrrooooock band evening!

On October 11th our Heart Beats session will be different.
James and Paul from Soundscapes - our partner project - will be coming with loads of new stuff to run a 'rock band' evening for us.
Everyone can have a go at playing electric music together, with drum kit too.
The times are different too - 7 o'clock to 9 o'clock.
Woo hoo.

New trainees!

Hi Elin and Ros - great to have you both on board. Welcome to Heart Beats!
Here's what our new trainees have to say....

More percussion, less discussion

Thanks to Rod Paton, and everyone who came and contributed to a day of Lifemusic yesterday.
We explored the concepts of Lifemusic; experienced a variety of approaches to establishing improvised pieces; had fun with sounds, our voices, and words; worked with storytelling and sound (thanks Vicki Ross from Openstorytellers for the story!); shared lunch and had a good old fashioned chat.
More days like that would be good!
Rod gave us lots of little things to consider and take away ..... ranging from Edward Lear (B was a bat) to John Cage (if it's boring, just repeat it) to Pythagoras (pentatonic scales) to the Higgs Bosun particle (!), to Frank Zappa:

 We remembered how much Lifemusic informs our work, and what fun it is to have the luck to work with music.

Lifemusic

Here we are, gathering lots of bits and bobs for tomorrows' Lifemusic day. Can't think of a better way to spend a Monday ...... bring it on.

Heart Beats - lots of new things coming up soon.

What some people may not know is that Heart Beats is a project in two phases. We're excited that when we come back from our summer break there will be lots of things going on in the Heart Beats universe!

We'll be starting our autumn sessions on September 13th - usual place (Wells Museum) and usual time (6.00 - 8.00). Don't forget to come if you're part of our gang - or, if you're not, but you'd like to join us, email info@heartbeats.org.uk for some information.

We'll be welcoming our new trainees too - Elin and Ros.

One session this autumn will be run by James Brookes, from Somerset Rural Youth project, who has promised us a rock band workshop. And we'll be going to Jame's project, Soundscapes, to run a  workshop for them.

This autumn we will be running a 'little Heart Beats' project at Critchill school in Somerset, to reach some new participants - this will be an after school club.

Next year we'll carry on. In 2013 we'll concentrate on helping our Heart Beats crew to take turns to lead the music.
So - when 'phase two' starts, we'll be taking Heart Beats out on the road. Next summer we can offer music workshops with our own Heart Beats music leaders, in schools and communities across the SW region. Do get in touch if you'd like to book a workshop or you want more information.

Behind the scenes....rainy day work

Sessions may have stopped for the summer but the work hasn't! Preparing piles of paperwork / bundles of field notes in advance of an evaluation meeting with our evaluator Nell Farrally : saving the interim budget reports for another day... probably, another rainy day.

Heart Beats tea party

Well well! that was an IMMENSE  session - in many ways. Thanks to all who came. Lovely. Have a good summer.

Trainees

Iona

The Heart Beats team and crew will be very sad to say goodbye to Iona and Sophia, our trainees. You've both been so valuable, helping everyone feel at home and adding lovely music with viola and trumpet.

Sophia

We wish you much luck for the future, in your exciting adventures at the Guildhall and Royal Academy of Music.... and here's hoping you find opportunities to do more community music.
It's a shame we didn't get to work with you for longer, but hope you will drop in from time to time to see how we all are.
Don't forget to find time to have some fun, too.

Ben's song

Lovely song, Ben.

Ben

Hello, my name is Ben.

I have recently started working with Heart Beats so Leah can go and have another beautiful baby. I work in a special school and play a whole heap of instruments including banjo, guitar, accordian and autoharp. The 2 sessions I have been involved with so far have been amazing fun and I am looking forward to making loads more fantastic music with the Heart Beats gang. I'm bringing my autoharp too this week so we will have 2 autoharps for the price of 1.

Autoharp

Ta Da! new autoharp now in tune and sounding very Americana!

Here's lovely June Carter with hers.
Thanks to the Somerset Community Foundation for making this purchase possible. We're looking forward to using it in our session this week.

http://www.hobgoblin.com/local/GR6304_p_Ashbury-21-Bar-Deluxe-Autoharp-Page.htm

Thanks Hobgoblin - we are excited and waiting for our new autoharp.

Jamming

And here's a jamming moment - the background sounds are people arriving, chatting, and setting up the room. But there's not a moment to spare for the Heart Beats music makers ...

Improvisation

Improvisation : a beautiful focused Heart Beats moment

steel pan

Liking the look of this pentatonic steel pan .... mmmm....
shall we get one?

We feel good

Here's some of the Heart Beats crew, feeling good. Like they knew they would. Yeah!

This one speaks for itself! See you on Thursday everyone.

We can now confirm our Heart Beats CPD day is happening on Monday, September 17th at Wells Museum, Somerset. This day is called 'Lifemusic - creating community through music' and will be led by Dr Rod Paton.

Rod will show us that we can communicate through music because:

Everyone is musical

There are no wrong notes in music

Every sound has a meaning

Making music is an act of trust.

 

This will be a day of music, fun and exploration, with friendly people in an inspiring setting.

We have a limited number of places available at £30 for the day. People who may benefit from this day could include music leaders, educators who use music in their work, music therapists, and people who work in creative settings with young people and adults with learning differences.

Please email info@heartbeats.org.uk for more information.

 

Heart Beats in April

Can't wait to get together this evening, it's been a long time ..... Heart Beats are Go.

Heart Beats training day

Breaking news! We've booked top class music leader and creator of Lifemusic, Dr Rod Paton, to lead a training skillshare day for us - we'll have a few places to spare if you know anyone interested. The date will be September 17th, 2012, and we have the lecture room booked at Wells Museum. More to follow soon.

Heart Beats March 22nd

Loving the Heart Beats crew. Great session yesterday, highlights including an unaccompanied song from Daryl (go Daryl!), Charlie leading a piece on the new electric guitar, and some stunning instrumental skills from Iona on trumpet and Sophia on viola - beautiful.
Good to welcome James and Paul from Soundscapes too. Hope you enjoyed!
As Martyn said, 'it was fun in there.'

Soundscape

I've been visiting the Soundscape project in Woolavington this evening. Lots of lively young people down there!
James led an improvisation session, everyone learning riffs and then adapting them to make new pieces.
Looking forward to welcoming James to the Heart Beats session this week. The co-project work is really interesting.

In Leicester

Twitpic - Share photos and videos on Twitter

At the hotel in Leicester with the Openstorytellers crew, heading off for another exciting day at the conference.

Embrace Create Connect

Russ and Jane have just returned from the learning disability arts conference in Leicester - Embrace, Create, Connect.
We went there in a team with our friends from Openstorytellers.
This was a really well organised event - stimulating, challenging, friendly, varied, exciting. We've spoken to so many people and connected with lots of ideas. There's a lot of dance and theatre-based stuff out there : not enough music, though - we'd love to run a presentation if this event happens again.
Outstanding for us was the crew from Sage Gateshead, representing their programme Community Music Sparks. This is a picture of Andrew and Michael, who had us dancing in the aisles.
Our dream is to pay them a visit - see their team in action, share some ideas, get some top class CPD.
Is Gateshead a long way from Somerset? mmmm.

Heart Beats news

It's so great to be underway with this fabulous project - another fine session last Thursday.
Lots going on!
We're putting our evaluation strategy to the test, with a visit from our evaluator Nell to the session last week.
The trainees Iona and Sophia have had their induction session and are ready to rock'n'roll.
Musician in residence Declan is now a fully fledged team member. Thanks for the great song last week Declan!
I'm visiting our partner project SOUNDSCAPES to sit in on their 'improvisation' taster session next week.
We're organising our parallel mini-series of workshops which we hope will happen at Critchill school in Frome.
We're plotting and planning our Professional Development day which will happen in late spring / early summer. We've got our eyes on someone really good to lead this day, and there will be a few places for sale .... more info to follow soon.
And, last but not least, we're starting to wonder about how to spend out equipment grant from the Somerset Community Foundation. Mmmm - lots of nice things out there. Send us your ideas.
Russ wants : a steel pan...
I want: big fat chime bars....
What do you want?