Changing Tack
Our Fund A project Corby Future Voices began what seems like an age ago back in the Autumn of 2019.
Working in partnership with Kingswood Youth Club on the Kingswood estate in Corby, the arrival of the first lockdown in March 2020 saw our project suspended. Further lockdowns, restrictions and furloughed staff meant that by the time the club reopened in June 2021 the situation we found ourselves in was very different to the one we left.
There had been a sharp rise in numbers attending the club driven in part by a rise in county lines and other drug related activity in the area alongside other pressures brought about by the pandemic. And, following discussions with the young people, the youth workers felt that that our original songwriting model was no longer the right approach.
We did some consultation and the young people expressed an interest in recording and music technology and wanting a music studio to produce their own music. Some saw music as a way into another life, “a way out” of the the situations they were finding themselves in. Others revealed interests in playing instruments and some wanted to experiment with creating and recording found sounds.
The youth workers were keen for us to restart activities as soon as we could and keep as many young people attending on a Thursday evening as possible. Recruiting the right person to facilitate this would take time but we needed to just get going so I began by taking in mics, laptop, mixer, speakers etc. asking the young people to help set it up and began to play around with it.
The club is split into two sessions one for 7-11yr olds and the other for 11+. The younger group are having great fun singing along to pop songs in a Karaoke style and playing around with microphones and equipment. There is lots of enthusiasm from both boys and girls for singing either solo or in the background. Some who are less interested in performing have taken responsibility for setting up the equipment and are learning the basics about mixers, microphones and what goes where and why. We have begun to take a keyboard in for them to explore. Again much fun is being had and some noticeable musical aptitude displayed from children who had “never played a piano before”.
The older group has been more challenging, being dominated mainly by a small cohort of boys getting on the mics to rap and sing along with their favourite Drill tracks. Whilst they demonstrated some vocal and performance skills the tracks they were using were not suitable for the youth club environment. We had talked with them about the attraction of Drill music and one comment was “it’s because they are talking about their own lives”. Whilst this chimed with our rationale of self-expression through songwriting, researching the artists they cited revealed content and culture that was incredibly challenging and felt impossible to support. However we have maintained a presence and whilst attendance and interest within this group can be sporadic they are continuing to engage and with the help of their friends are beginning to employ some self-censorship on the tracks they want to use and rap along to. We have also made some progress into creating their own lyrics.
The youth club environment can be busy, frenetic and at times chaotic, on more than one occasion our plans have had to go out of the window and we have not been able to do much “music”. It requires flexibility, patience and a quiet resolve, and being there consistently has allowed us to build trust and relationships with both the young people and the youth workers. It is also a joyful place to be and children who have never had the opportunity before have sung using a microphone, played a piano and worked a mixing desk. We are seeing young people supporting each other to sing and set up equipment, take the first steps to producing and performing their own songs, and importantly, look forward to “doing music” on a Thursday evening.