by Author Christina H

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Youth Music, Music Leader, and Me.

I am the Project Trainee on a Youth Music-funded project called Music for Hodge Hill in Birmingham. Being part of this project has made me reflect on my practice, what community music means, and what I can contribute to this.

Since last October, I’ve been working as the Project Trainee on a Youth Music-funded project based at Birmingham Heartlands Hospital called Music For Hodge Hill. We work within the hospital and with youth groups in the local area to a) provide opportunities for regular music-making; b) try to alleviate boredom and pain for the children and young people on the Paediatric Wards; and c) to try and encourage the young people outside the hospital to contribute to music-making within the hospital.

My role in this is as apprentice/ administrative support/music leader/social media expert/videographer/tea-maker/jack-of-all-trades. I love that being part of this project provides such a variety of hats. I’ve always liked to have many different roles and different interests, juggling different projects and hobbies, so this works out well for me.

I arrived in this role almost by accident. I moved from Devon (where I went to university) to Birmingham (where I grew up) after a series of boring non-music-related jobs. After I left university, I stayed in the area as I was still making lots of lovely exciting music, and teaching an extra-curricular class in Latin American percussion. After the university closed, my opportunities for exciting music-making quickly evaporated, and I didn’t want to settle in Devon and try to find new opportunities, so I moved.

When I got back to Birmingham - alone, forlorn and jobless - I started volunteering with the Arts Department at Heartlands Hospital. I did lots of fun stuff, mainly escorting visiting musicians around the hospital, and learning to write grant applications. Apparently I excelled at these tasks, as the Music Co-ordinator for the hospital, Esther Jackson, proposed a grand idea. She wanted to apply for a grant through the Youth Music Open Programme, and wanted me to be the Project Trainee. I had been offloading my various woes on to Esther over the year, including bellyaching about my rubbish 9-5 (actually 7.30-4.30) job and my inability to get my act together and actually try to be a musical professional of some sort. I was incredibly grateful and excited about this project that Esther and I planned, and the opportunity to learn about project administration, music leading, and community work.

The project started in October 2011, with a series of African drumming sessions run by Sarah Westwood, who is a wonderful person and a talented drummer specialising West African music. From observing Sarah’s sessions, I am awe of the way that music leaders can constantly draw on their knowledge to create tailored sessions appropriate for the age and ability of the participants. In our project, this ability to adapt is especially important, as one of the sessions takes place in the hospital, where there are different young people each week. The participants could be a 1 year old with their parents and a teenager with a broken arm, and the music leader must find a way to make the session enjoyable for both.

It was so useful for me to see a music professional work in her own way. I have found music leading (or freelance teaching) quite a lonely experience: it is you, on your own, relying on your own abilities and experience. As I am not at all confident in my own abilities and experience, I have never really felt comfortable with this. I tend to think the worst of myself when left to my own devices, and working in what I see as quite an isolated setting makes me doubt myself. Observing Sarah not only gave me some important practical information about session structure, creating the right atmosphere etc., but allowed me to talk to Sarah about her practice. This seemed like a rare opportunity for me, until I started going along to Music Leader conferences at a later point. I learned a lot from Sarah. The main thing that I took away from observing these sessions, and trying my own, is that confidence comes from experience, but that confidence is not the key thing in music leading – it’s the way you present yourself, the way that you overcome your own issues, and give the best session catered to the needs of your participants that you can. It took me out of my introverted way of looking at things, and encouraged me to focus on the external factors which I can change (i.e. the substance of the music session) rather than the things that are perhaps more difficult to change (i.e. the way I perceive or criticise myself).

One amazing thing about this project is that my role enables me to think about what I want to do, and gives me the training to start achieving this. I have learnt a lot about project administration, planning, and evaluation, from doing it; and I have the freedom to think about my choices, my practice, and how I want to carry this forward. I am at a strange stage in my life, where things are not settled, different directions are open to me, and I’m not sure where I ultimately want to be. This project is helping me decide.

A large proportion of my self-evaluation comes from the CPD element of my job. I have been on several different courses about project management, budgets, and most recently social media. Music Leader West Midlands has had a really prominent role in the training I have undertaken, and I’m sad to see it go. Not only did it provide a wonderful array of training for music practitioners, but it allowed professionals from different areas in music education to come together to share stories, tips, experiences, phone numbers. As music leaders are often freelance and self-employed, creating a network of support is paramount in making you the best music worker you can be, and providing the best service you can. I hope the Youth Music network can help to fill the gap left by Music Leader. I saw Music Leader as a gateway, an enabler to help me connect with other musicians and more experienced professionals. I could always find a course specific to what I needed and usually in my area – and there I could find talented, hardworking, sometimes non-computer-literate music workers.

The most recent course I attended was the Social Media Surgery at the Midlands Arts Centre – the penultimate Music Leader West Midlands course. I attended because I am in charge of social media for Music for Hodge Hill. I use Twitter, Facebook and a blog to disseminate information, share photos, news and so on. I wanted to make sure I was using these platforms in the most effective way, and was delighted that Music Leader had this event organised exactly when I needed it! The evening was arranged wonderfully – I got some brilliant advice from a social media expert, who talked me through exactly what I needed to know. This kind of tailored, face-to-face advice is invaluable. I hope it will still be possible to attend these sorts of events after Music Leader West Midlands stops operating (as of this Friday). Some of the other musicians attending this workshop were not in the same position as me – they needed to know how to sign up for an account, how to create an email address. Will the Youth Music Network still reach these people if they are not used to using computers? How?

The most valuable Music Leader course that I’ve attended was a conference in the East Midlands about working with Children in Challenging Circumstances. The seminars and discussion groups were so varied and interesting. I met such an incredible variety of people, all of whom were passionate, self-reflective, and creative with regards to their work. This was where I first wondered whether I really fit in with the world of community music. The role of “community musician” seems to cover so much: social work, education, therapy, as well as music. I do wonder what the emphasis is on: music or community? Music can be used to bring people together, relieve pain and boredom, elevate people beyond their challenging circumstances. Certainly the best people to oversee this are people who are passionate about their community in the same way that they are passionate about music. I am passionate about the values of community music, certainly – but perhaps I am not the right person for the actual practice. Although this doesn’t seem to be the most positive viewpoint to be gained from a conference about community music, for me it is a key moment in working out who I am as a musician, what skills I have, what I can contribute to the world of music and music education.