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