New post on the Youth music network

Count Me In have just put up a new blogpost on the Youth music network.

It's some thoughts about 'participation' and how tricky that can be to get right sometimes... and how everyone comes to music for a different reason, and just maybe leaves with a different benefit too.

This piece was inspired by a paper by Francois Matarasso, you can read that here.
He says some great things about impact and involvement.

Thanks to Waitrose

The AllStars / Heart Beats team are sending out a big Thank You to Waitrose in Wells.... thanks to their Community Matters scheme we've been donated the grand sum of £276 pounds to spend on new instruments for our music sessions. Yay!

The AllStars Listening Lounge

AllStars is a cluster of projects running across Somerset for two years.

All of these projects explore different aspects of integrated musical inclusion - based on our key principle of improvisation and 'music education by encounter.'

Alex and Jane are running the Listening Lounge. This is a small closed group that meets monthly. The group is equal :  a mixture of mainstream and SEN young musicians who have varied experiences of formal / non formal music education - and most possibly have very different expectations of the role of music in their future lives.

Within these sessions, Alex and Jane are exploring new approaches to the questions 'what is music for?' and 'what does music do for us?'
The Listening Lounge is a combination of community music practices and music mentoring, informed by therapeutic methodologies, in regular closed sessions with a dedicated group.


The group play, talk, listen and explore personal relationships with music.
The process will be informed by the group's narrative as it forms its identity.

We're waiting to see what measurable outcomes will look like. We think that being part of this group will be useful for the leaders and the group - that we can build on our sense of self worth, interpersonal skills, and tools for self expression.

Yesterday evening we gathered together to talk, laugh, reflect, improvise two pieces of music, listen to favourite tracks, and do some quiet, focused drawing to music.
Outside it was dark, windy and wintry, but inside the session it felt warm, relaxed, and safe.
Here are the drawings ...the music has just melted away, into the November night.

Gathering ideas for our training day

On Saturday January 30th 2016, the AllStars Music team will be hosting an open-access CPD session for educators who use music and musicians who work in care and education.
The training will focus on developing a person-centered approach to music: unlocking creativity and confidence.
As a team, we have a wide range of SEN/D expertise, so the training will be useful for people who work in SEN/D, or the wider aspects of musical inclusion.

We'll be sharing some of the thinking and practice that informs our work, both in  our inclusive Heart Beats sessions, and also our wider work with schools, mentoring, and using music as a tool for therapy and communication.

As part of the package, we'll be offering linked opportunities for experiential learning through placements at the Heart Beats music group.

At the moment we're gathering ideas for the day, especially thinking about what 'musical inclusion' means and how to create a 'playful' environment.

There will be plenty of playing on the day, so if you want to come, bring an instrument.


Watch this blog for more details. The venue will be in Wells and the day will run from 10.00 - 3.30. Tickets will be available soon.

spreading the word... an opportunity for young disabled musicians

Our Youth Music funded colleagues Open Up Music are recruiting for the SW Open Youth Orchestra. For anyone that is interested, there's more details on Spaeda's website, here

Fairfield Farm College

Thanks to the Fairfield Farm College folks for hosting an AllStars extra session last Thursday. It looks very calm in the photos but there were 35 young people coming and going over the course of the evening, where we investigated an eclectic mix of mind-expanding looped vocals, funky jam sessions, and a musical chill out.

Starting the session at Fairfield

You can see more pictures on the College website here.

Stay Up Late

Just wanted to give a shout out to the Stay Up Late folk....

Stay Up Late is a charity started by members of the punk band, 'Heavy Load'. Frustrated at seeing people with learning disabilities leaving gigs at 9pm due to their support staff working inflexible shift patterns they decided to do something about it. Stay Up Late exists to promote full and active social lives for people with learning disabilities.
Stay Up Late is about having choice and freedom in your life to do what you want to do.
Fight for the right to party!
www.stayuplate.org
There's a facebook page too

We were thinking about Stay Up Late because it's such an important thing that people can have a life after tea time.

One young musician in our group is able to come along to the Heart Beats group because someone who works with him (well, actually his piano tutor) was inspired by the Stay Up Late campaign to just - get him in the car - and come and play some music. Simple, but powerful.

And we'd like to give a shout out to all the other drivers, parents, support staff, bus drivers and folk who go out of their way to bring people to our sessions. It's a rural area, and some journeys are long - that's why we'll always do our best to welcome everyone and make sure the kettle's on.

Funky Fairfield

They don't know it yet, but the students of Fairfield Farm College who come to our Heart Beats music session tonight are in for a bit of funk ... and they get to try out some brand new AllStars instruments that have just come out of the box....

This isn't our first visit to Fairfield, and we expect to be welcomed and make some great music.
We'll be back in the spring, because the college have invited us to run a music day for their arts week.

 

It's great for our team to get out and about and run some outreach sessions like this. Of course it's a challenge too, meeting new people and getting something good to happen in just two hours, but we have a whole host of ideas up our sleeves, and lots of different ways to include people.

AllStars heading West

Tomorrow we are running the first of our regular AllStars West Sessions - we're off to Bridgwater where we will be the guests of Robert Blake Science College and Elmwood School.
We're working with the students on using music as a means of connecting, making friends, and communicating.
In the sessions tomorrow we'll have a good mix of students from both schools.
This will be interesting ...... it's the first of four sessions this academic year, so we'll be doing some groundwork together and establishing a groove.

Keeping it seasonal

It's apple day coming up so apples give us our theme for tonight's music.
Crunchy.... sweet!