BeBot conversation

Had some fun with apps last night at the Listening Lounge ... here's Alex and Josh having a little Bebot conversation.

 

Reflections on 'Joining In'

Thank you to our partners Spaeda, and Sound Foundation Somerset (the Somerset music hub), for putting our reflections on Joining In up on the Hub website - life affirming, indeed!

http://www.soundfoundationsomerset.org.uk/jane-harwood-reflects-on-life-affirming-training-for-inclusive-music-practitioners/

Hugh....

So excited to be spending tomorrow with the super brilliant AllStars team, and the AllStars ensemble, and fabulous Hugh Nankivell - oooh yeah.
Music will happen.

Trust and participation

Trust is such an enormous part of our music work. 

The young people who come to play music with us need to trust us.
We need to create a safe space that makes everyone who enters it feel they can trust us to provide support, encouragement and diverse creative opportunities.
The act of improvised, lived music making itself cannot happen with trust.
As an organisation, we need to trust in each other to share an agreement on what is good, a general perspective, and how to work with whatever arises.

Recently we discussed the tensions that go into making a successful, user-led, creative environment.
Trust underpins all of this:

• ownership / shared identity
• joy / challenge
• flexibility / familiarity
• risk / safety
• shared experienced / personalised experience
•  communication / inspiration
• suspense / reassurance
• stimulation / rest

Trust enables participation.
Lawrence Becko, former Sound Connections Programme Manager, writes about Youth Participation in the arts:
'sometimes we simply forget to listen to what young people are saying, believing 'adults know best'...Ultimately, the extent to which youth participation, voice and leadership can be encouraged will depend on the abilities, commitment, resources and 'buy in' of each organization, their staff, and the young people themselves.'

As Wired4Music say,

'By  taking ownership over their musical participation, young people can

voice their opinions freely, achieve more and get the most out  of  a  project  that has  been  designed  specifically  to  suit  their  needs.  In return,  organisations  can gain  new perspective  and  understanding  of  the  young  people they’re working with, save  money  and resources by  creating projects  that  will  be  successful for  their  participants and  support  young  people  to  create  new  opportunities  for themselves and progress within their own musical journeys.'

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.

The pot of gold at the end of the rainbow....

Yesterday at the Listening Lounge, after we had done some improvisation together, we talked about the colour of music.
Some people ('synesthetes') see music as colours. We agreed this could certainly enhance your enjoyment of improvisation!
One thing we couldn't quite agree on - was the music we'd made green or yellow?

Here's a video of the magnificent jazz drummer Elvin Jones describing his experience of synesthesia. He says 'not everybody can reach the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow....' but just watching this clip of him enables us to think about music as enrichment. Wonderful.

Click on this link to watch Elvin describe his colourful world of sound:

Elvin Jones and Synesthesia

Dates for 2016

Thanks to our generous 'fund B' support from Youth Music, we are sailing right through this year with lots of music workshops.

We have dates booked up the summer break.
Venues and dates after that will be confirmed later.

AllStars East.
Heart Beats at the Lawrence Centre :

1. January 21st
2. February 4th
3. February 25th
4. March 10th
5. March 24th
6. April 21st
7. May 5th
8. May 19th
9. June 9th
10. June 23rd
11. July 7th

Listening Lounge in the Lawn Room, Wells Cathedral School :

1. January 14th
2. February 11th
3. March 17th
4. April 28th
5. May 12th
6. June 16th 

Outreach:
Our next outreach session is at Avalon School, Street on February 12th.
After that, we're at Fairfield Farm arts week on May 13th.
More to come.

AllStars West.
Dates for the sessions in Bridgwater are being confirmed.

2016

Plotting, planning - there's even a bit of doing, reviewing, improving.... the AllStars team are meeting this evening to get a feel for the New Year.

What's happening?
AllStars is in full swing ....
We've got training coming up : 'Joining In' on January 30th, which is run by us and is for associates, partners and other professionals ; and a CPD day especially for our team, with the wonderful Hugh Nankivell.

AllStars East is emerging from a seasonal break....
The Listening Lounge starts again next week, on the 14th.
Heart Beats music sessions start on January 21st.

AllStars West will see us back in Bridgwater exploring music education by encounter in our mixed sound sessions at Elmwood and Robert Blake College.

We'll be offering outreach sessions too, starting at Avalon School on February 12th.

If you'd like an outreach session to come to you, email us info@heartbeats.org.uk

We'll continue to ponder on what surprises us about music, and publish blog posts here and on the Youth Music network.
You can follow us on twitter too:  @HeartBeatsNews

Our funding from Youth Music will take us all through 2016, and on into 2017, when we plan something special to round up the AllStars adventure.

So - Happy New Year - and here's to a year of surprising and energizing sound.