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The Music Projects - Music Everywhere...Taking it Higher

Another great success for Music Everywhere, this timeTaking it Higher!

Over 150 children and young people have developed their talent in singing, drums, guitar, piano, songwriting and music technology and have showcased their talents in 11 performances over the term of the project.

This is a great service for young people in Wigan, where there is still relatively little available in the borough in terms of music and so being able to offer the range of activities that we have has enabled a high number of children and young people to participate in music that would not have otherwise had these opportunities.

As part of the project we were fortunate enough to have some very keen new music leaders on board to work with the more experienced music leaders. We had four new leaders, two of whom had previously been on our first project of Music Everywhere, one performer and one technical. All four new leaders were trained and then mentored through their work on the project and we now have four very capable music leaders who have value work experience to put on theirCVs and who are an asset to TMP Studios and will continue to work with us.

All planned sessions were marketed, with some more popular than others. Get Your Band Together was undoubtedly the most popular and a long term commitment for many of the young people, followed by Ready to Rock where young people were prepared for performing, this was very effective in improving confidence through learning stage presence and stage management. As a run up to Get Your Band Together we ran the following short workshops over 4-6 weeks to give some young people the change to learn or improve their instrument before or alongside joining one of the bands:

  • Drums and Percussion
  • Guitar and Bass Guitar
  • Vocals
  • Piano and Keyboard
  • Music and Lyrics (songwriting and composition)

All of the above workshops went well, with guitar, vocals and drums being the most popular.  Studio Experience worked very well this year with an experienced music leader and a new junior music leader who worked well together on a successful recording project.

 

Mix it Up and Music as Therapy were successful and many of the young people doing these programmes have severe physical and learning difficulties and their time with us each week was one of the happiest and most productive times of their week which they looked forward to, enjoyed and were able to perform to an audience after 10 weeks with overwhelming feedback from the audience.

 

We ran specific groups for youths in the Platt Bridge area of Wigan where crime rates are high and the local community police are trying to work on crime prevention. We worked with the police to provide music clubs aimed at engaging young people in meaningful activities that they would enjoy whilst also preventing anti-social behaviour.

 

We have sharing good practice with Blackburn Youth Zone and have mentored their staff on their provision. We have shared good practice amongst the specialist schools and though this have developed links with other schools who want to replicate what we have done with the other schools and community groups.