Practice

After three years of construction, The Carpenter’s Road Lock in The Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park is opening and the Canal and River Trust will be celebrating with the East London Waterways Festival on Monday 28 August (Bank Holiday).   Newham Music is looking to recruit 200 young singers aged 7-18 to work with local Choral Director, Luke Speirsm to rehearse and perform three songs throughout the day-long festival, while also enjoying this celebration of East London culture and heritage. This is an excellent chance for young people to develop their singing skills, to experience a unique performance opportunity at a large-scale event and to make new friends within their local community.   There is no cost to participate and no experience necessary, just the willingness to learn and love for singing! For more information and to register, email info@newham-music.org.uk by July 31st or go to the Newham Music website.   Have a look at the attached e-flyer for more information.

During a particularly productive Music session the aim was to continue collaborative work on a track which started a couple of weeks before. To get things going at the start we decided what direction to take the loops we had, so divided up the roles into song writing, loop editing and sound finding (from outdoor recordings). Its worth noting that the participants all had little or no experience with recording or production of music, but they all love music in their own way across all sorts of styles.

To help us learn more about the impact of music making in hospitals on our team of musicians, the healthcare professionals they work with and the children and families they support we commissioned an evaluation from Dr Anneli Haake. Dr Haake carried out a thematic analysis of the reports that the Musicians write up as part of their reflective practice as Musicians in Healthcare.

Oxfordshire County Music Service have been leading 'Musical Pathways', an Early Years music project, in 6 nursery / school / children's centre settings, over two years. Here Early Years specialist teacher Danielle Ballantine-Drake gives a breakdown of the approach taken to ensure that staff in the settings were upskilled and empowered to deliver more music in their own teaching, through a range of targeted CPD approaches.

As part of Daisi’s MusicStart project, funded by Youth Music, we produced resources in the form of a series of 18 short film clips: vimeopro.com/user29675546/daisi-cpd

This piece is written by Sound Connections Programme Manager Julia Roderick

In February, Schools Minister Nick Gibb gave a welcome call to action about SEN/D music provision. He states that ‘It is important that all pupils have the opportunity to participate in the arts. That funding should support all pupils, whatever their background, whatever their family’s income, and whatever particular special needs or disabilities they may have. No child should be excluded from music because they have physical disabilities or other special needs.’ In this speech he also talks about the excellent work the One-Handed Musical Instrument Trust is doing to remove the barriers to music faced by physically disabled people.

We’re thrilled to announce this year’s round of Early Years Apprentices. We had a huge number of applications this year, a testament to the need for more spaces catering to supporting those working in the early years music sector.

We’re delighted to be welcoming five exceptional apprentices, all of whom bring with them a wealth of skills, knowledge and understanding about early years music practice. We look forward to working with them over the next year.

A group of young cancer survivors have released a touching music video as a ‘virtual choir’. The 23 singers, all of whom have been affected by cancer, all sang pop superstar Sia’s The Greatest at various times throughout the year. The performance release launches the charity’s new month-long #Nofilter4cancer campaign, which aims to raise awareness of the hidden emotional and mental costs of cancer for young patients.

We really wanted to share some emerging findings from a piece of research that is underway by Dr Jennie Henley from the Royal College of Music.

5 songs that I have used with young bands when they have just started working together.

Music Treehouse has come to the end of its first year at the HMDT Music Saturday Programme (SP). Supported by Youth Music and using public funding by the National Lottery through Arts Council England, Music Treehouse is a much needed SEN/D extension of our Saturday Programme which offers students a range of conditions the opportunity to participate in the programme, enabling us to broaden our inclusion to students who are often isolated and overlooked outside of the school environment. A sense of community and working together to create music is integral to the SP, which is hugely sociable for both parents and students and Music Treehouse (MT) students have now joined the community.

“Music Treehouse has been an amazing experience for my son. The musicians are wonderful and very patient which helps every time. Thank you for everything. (parent of Music Treehouse participant)