'a different outlook on improvising and listening to one another.....'

On Saturday we ran a training day - music leadership skills development. It was inspiring and fun to spend the day with a group of talented young musicians, who have an interest in community music and music therapy.

Days like this are rare enough -  and short, too - so we needed to get straight to the point. We wanted to talk, share, play, and explore concepts.

Being given the opportunity to share what you do begins with plenty of thinking. The idea was to explain what we do in our sessions, and why, and put some context on it all. We needed to cover all areas of interest, through doing as well as telling.

Between us we covered a lot of ground, from information on how the brain is affected by music, to receptive and expressive communication, to what happens to your listening ability when you only play for 50% of the time in an improvisation.

We asked everyone what they thought of the day - was it useful? Some comments...
- inspirational, invigorating, eye opening, educational
- very grounding, so much de-stressing - so warm and friendly
- a different outlook on improvising and listening to one another
- meditative, insightful, really fun
- cemented my want to be involved in community music and music therapy
- JOYOUS! - expressive, relaxed, informative, and personal in the sense that I felt as if I and other members of the group were expressing personal things through spontaneous music making
- I hope we can have future sessions like this!

We're already planning how we can offer more sessions like this. Thanks for coming, everybody.

Sharing what we do

Doing our final planning for our music leaders development day this Saturday, we are reflecting on what we do and how we do it - and of course, why we do it.
The trick is to share that usefully with other people so that they will be inspired by it all.

We like running training sessions. It's worth acknowledging that our main funders, Youth Music, support and encourage CPD within projects.
It helps define what we do as a team, and what is unique about our approach.

There's a lot of interest in musical inclusion at present. Between us we've been working in this area for plenty of years. The privilege of wide experience gives us something worthwhile to add to the conversation.

some serious listening!

Here's some feedback from our last open training day

- fundamental, free, expressive, understandable
- what a great combination of theory and practice!
- amazing - I learned a lot. I learned, what is music.
- life affirming. It opened my eyes to a different type of work
- inspiring, motivational, therapeutic

If you would like us to come to you, in whatever setting, and deliver some training, do get in touch.

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.' 

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

Inner ear, outer ear

Jackie took a few photos on Saturday :

Rachael leading the improvisation

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  'I really enjoyed meeting other practitioners and community musicians of all ages and experience.'

Inner ear / outer ear : 'Playing music with others in such a safe, 'polite' environment has made me feel good too.'

The fishbowl 'what a great combination of theory and practice!'

Listening and responding 'Lots of things to reflect on about listening, relational space, timing / contribution.'

Thinking, discussion - 'Makes you think outside the box.' 

Discussing rationale :

‘It’s been great to see some  more of the philosophy and workings behind HeartBeats’

‘all good skills and ideas to bring to my teaching and work in hospitals’

'Brilliant fun. Exceptionally skillful and experienced leaders, thank you.' 

 

 Some home made instruments - kazoovuzela' - Freedom to allow ourselves, and the group, to express our musicality'

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Reflecting, understanding, and sharing - working in a team

Leading a training day for other professionals, who come from a range a backgrounds and experiences, forces you to reflect on what you do - pick it apart - and distill it down into a cohesive presentation.

We work as a team of three independent music leaders who deliver sessions together, with an interconnected  approach.

 As musicians our job is to scaffold the music in the group whilst waiting our turn to lead - it's interesting switching from leading to modelling and support, whilst our colleagues interpret the plans we make together. This gives you a real sense of how effective the music leading is, too.

When we were planning for 'Joining In' training this Saturday, we started with the premise that we bring three different approaches to the whole.

The day was about approaches to 'musical inclusion'.

Obviously between us, we have a range of expertise. To keep things clear we focused on the AllStars  'musical inclusion' approaches:

• Alex, as a music therapist, spoke about the personal outcomes, the process-based approach;
• Russ, as a musician, spoke about musical outcomes, and enabling everyone to be included in a musical process;
• Jane, as a community music leader, spoke about social outcomes, participation and communication.

It worked! - we managed to re-affirm and support each others' work, whilst describing our broad and cohesive approach.

Just through putting this together, we learned a lot through reflection and sharing.
A great experience.

Some feedback:
'fundamental, free, expressive, understandable'

'Inspiring and eye opening'

'It made me realise what a variety of things music does and has taught me not to be so regimented with music.'

'Makes you think outside the box.' 

'Amazing, I learned a lot. I learned, what is music.'

 'Life affirming - opened my eyes to a different type of 'work.''
 

Joining In.....

Today there's a headful of ideas whirling around, that have been sparked off as we plan the final details of our 'Joining In' training day.
This Saturday, we'll be taking a load of ideas and showing how we turn them into MUSIC - why we do this - and why it's such a joy.

Drake Music : top ten needs for Music Hubs and SEN/D music provision

A few weeks ago, Drake Music published a document listing the 'top ten needs' they've identified for music hubs and SEN/D music provision.

This list sums up previous research and leads into their new Think2020 project, which aims to increase musical opportunities for disabled children and young people through strategic and sustainable partnership work in the music education sector.

It's good list, and the reason we're blogging about it is because we feel strongly about the importance of  partnership working, skillshare and information exchange - especially in our area where it's rural, provision is patchy, and sometimes it is possible to feel isolated.

Here are some recommendations from the list:

- Practitioners working in SEN/D and music (or planning to) need to work towards, or maintain, a ‘hybrid’ set of skills in order to best meet the diverse range of musical and access needs

- Communities of Practice/ teacher networks are vital in order to ‘help teachers to help each other’ get better in their practice and to share ideas and resources. 

- Music Hub activities around learning an instrument – Peripatetic teaching and whole class instrumental sessions – need re-thinking and adapting in order to present an appropriate offer to SEN/ disabled young people. Priorities may well include: flexibility, creativity and performing using appropriate music technology.

We have some training coming up that focuses on exploring good practice for inclusive music. Our team have a wide-ranging experience of working in SEN/D settings and we're really keen to share this experience.

If you think our training can help you to increase musical opportunities for children and young people with additional needs, please book a place!
info@heartbeats.org.uk for more information.