'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.

Integration, inclusion - powerful music

What a brilliant session today in Bridgwater - with students from the Jean Rees Centre and Chilton Trinity school coming together to improvise, co-create, and listen.

We can say this was an 'inclusive' session because there was a role for everyone, with open permission to play, listen and be creative. The atmosphere was respectful, playful, and trusting. No one was excluded.

We can also say it was an 'integrated' session because everyone there was bringing different skills to the room. J from Jean Rees taught the Chilton Trinity students some Makaton which they then incorporated in to some conducting. Everyone worked together to craft and perform small pieces of new music.

Some leadership skills emerging

We are running these sessions to explore what happens when you bring peer groups together from different settings, and to see how communication develops with music as the medium.

Well! today certainly had a big warm glow, and the room was full of life affirming sound.

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.

THE GIANT JAM

 We are so pleased and excited to be launching The Giant Jam - a one-day festival celebrating musical creativity within the local learning disability community.

All our team are delighted to have been awarded funding from the Big Lottery Fund to celebrate the achievement of our young musicians , trainees, volunteers and wider community that have been drawn together by the AllStars project.

The party planners

The Giant Jam will host an amazing variety of musical performances, jamming and workshops, dancing and discos, rest and relaxation and of course plenty of tasty food.

This party will be taking place at the Ammerdown Centre, near Radstock on Sunday 2nd July 2017 from 12pm to 8pm.

Tickets are FREE, and are available at The Giant Jam Eventbrite page.


Keep an eye on the blog for more news, and follow our facebook page

Music leaders' development day - an opportunity

The AllStars team are running a FREE music leader's development day in Wells on March 18th.

This is for anyone with an interest in music leading and community music - come and learn some new ideas in a fun environment, and try some stuff out. The activities will be led by Russ Stanley, Alex Lupo and Jane Harwood.

We'll be sharing tips and ideas for good music leading, especially with groups with additional needs.You can do some leading, take notes, film, or just join in and play.


Bring a packed lunch and an instrument or your voice.

Venue : the Denning Room, Union St, Wells BA5 2PU
Date; March 18th
Time : 10.30 - 2.00

You'll need to book a place : email info@heartbeats.org.uk

searching and reflecting - a team day

Alex, Jane, Russ and Ben were off over the border to Earlswood in Monmouthshire last week for a team skill share and reflection day. Before we did any speaking we made time for some music - tuning up and tuning in.

Professional development is important to the way we work together. This was a chance to try out some new things and really concentrate on how we play together as well.

Cold enough for woolly hats..

We had lots of fun which must be a good sign!

It was an opportunity to eat cake and discuss the future  - we have lots of ideas for ways to take our work forward, so it all feels positive.

nice sunset!

One idea is to spend more time together reflecting on good practice and inspiration in music leading.... a day didn't feel long enough.

We discussed creating a resource that would help others work in the way that we do.

the music of how we're feeling

At the Listening Lounge, we were thinking about how other people might be feeling..... how those people made us feel ...and even, just how we were feeling ourselves.

 Then we had a think about what kind of music would describe those feelings, and had a go at playing some of those feelings.

Playing 'calm' made us relaxed.... even if we weren't that calm at first.

Playing 'angry' was noisy but fun.

'Jealousy' was the most surprising : we all ended up laughing, sneaking a go on each others' instruments, and being playful.

What we discovered was that, as a group, playing music could change our mood. It wasn't just that we could represent a feeling through sound - it was more complex than that.
Because we were listening, and responding, and initiating,  together we could build pieces of music that could make us happier, calmer, or surprised.

Playing 'angry' didn't make us angry though. Actually - we felt better afterwards!

Later, Josh started to play the piano. Here's how it sounded. How would you describe this?

Music tonight!

Hello - if you are in the Heart Beats crew - come along to Cedars Hall tonight to get our exciting programme for 2017 going with some real live music....

 

Everyone can expect a warm welcome, new faces and old : and we have some exciting news for you too.

AllStars in 2017 : heading West

This is the final year of our AllStars project, which will end with a HUGE celebration this summer.
We've got plenty of great stuff to look forward to in the next few months.

This January we start a new mini-project that we're calling AllStars West.
The Jean Rees post-16 centre in Bridgwater is hosting a series of weekly music sessions where we will be playing live, interactive music with 11 students.
These sessions will build listening and social skills, as well as being fun, interactive and age appropriate.
We'll work with staff to help students move towards their Thrive targets.

Because AllStars brings mixed ability groups together to communicate through music, we will invite students from Chilton Trinity school, which shares a location with Jean Rees, to join the sessions too.

We expect to help build self esteem, confidence, listening skills, and social and emotional learning....because music is a great way to do this!

 

Festivities

Music is fun, as it should be. And seasonal fun is even better. Here's a film of Geoff, volunteer music leader at Count Me In, sharing his festive joy last night... so Merry Christmas to all our amazing group, and supporters, and music leaders - and everyone!