Developing opportunities for inclusive music making with young people in Lancashire
Developing opportunities for inclusive music making with young people in Lancashire
In 2018 our company, No Label Arts, worked in partnership with Drake Music, More Music in Morecambe, the Dukes Theatre and the charities Caritas Care and Leonard Cheshire to develop inclusive music making opportunities and peer mentoring development for young people with and without disabilities. The settings were all very different from each other although one commonality was that taking part in our project was one of the first opportunities that young people with very different abilities came together to make music and learned new mentoring skills. At More Music in Morecambe, a combination of young people from the ‘Young Leaders’ initiative created and performed new music with disabled young people in a variety of ensemble settings including jazz, rock and DJ/MC’ing. Within their ‘rock school’ setting, several young people with disabilities who had previously only performed solo, overcame severe social anxieties and learned to perform with others, to write new songs and play new instruments. Quite organically, a few of the young leaders began to support their peers and a very positive outcome from the project was a host of live performances by groups created over the course of the project during More Music’s ‘Breaking the Mould’ Arts week in July 2018. An unexpected outcome of this project was that several of the disabled young people from the project have now joined the ‘Young Leaders’ project at More Music.
At the Dukes Theatre in Lancaster, young people from its ‘young ambassadors’ programme collaborated with young disabled participants from the existing ‘Shattering Images’ theatre group. A music leader led sessions in music technology using keyboards, sampling with young people performing samples triggered by a popular games console joystick. Young people recorded their voices and sounds, then learned how to trigger the sounds and construct a soundscape. In June 2019, young people will take part in a theatre performance produced with samples and soundscapes created in the project.
In Preston, young service users from Caritas Care took part in sessions led by Drake Music, developing singing skills, learning how to play new instruments including keyboards and African drums – the young people were supported by learning disabled volunteers with a love for music.
In addition to providing inclusive spaces for young people to make music, professional and sector development was an important aspect of our project – we offered mentoring training by the CIC ‘Think Forward’ during More Music’s Arts week which was well attended by young leaders, music organisation staff, volunteers and music leaders.
In addition, the music organisation Attitude is Everything delivered training in disability awareness and an introduction to their access Charter for music festivals and venues and was attended by a wide range of Lancashire based live venues and music organisations. This was also a great opportunity for young leaders who now have an awareness of how to make music performances accessible for disabled people - including disabled musicians. In addition to creating music making spaces that are truly inclusive for young people of all abilities, this project resulted in our partner organisations having a greater awareness the many beneficial outcomes for young people in making their music initiatives more inclusive in the future.
