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Call for original protest songs by youth music groups!

I'm Inclusive Too, hosted by NYMAZ and Accessible Arts & Media on 27 February in York, will be a day of ideas, inspiration and participation on the theme of music and social justice. In the lead up to the Conference and Showcase event we are calling for schools and young people’s music groups - from anywhere in the country - to write their own original Protest Songs about current social issues which concern them.

This could be raising awareness of a local or wider national/international issue, giving a voice to those who are marginalised or trying to change something that is perceived to be unfair.

Songs can be in any genre or style, and for any instrumentation. Songs can be of any length and should be the original work of your group rather than covers or writing new lyrics to existing songs. We ask that songs do not contain any expletives or abusive/derogatory content.

We will make a compilation album of the songs submitted, and make the tracks freely available for members of the public to listen to via Sound Cloud (https://soundcloud.com/nymaz-music) and on a USB flash drive distributed to Conference delegates – your group will get a copy too, of course, and we will also promote the songs online on the Youth Music Network. Your group will need to consent for their song to be shared freely in this way.

Guidance

Submit your group’s recorded song as an MP3 or WAV file to millie@nymaz.org.uk by Monday 1 February 2016, along with a copy of the lyrics and any notation you have made.

If the audio file of your song is large you may want to upload it using a free service like We Transfer: https://www.wetransfer.com or Hightail: https://www.hightail.com (formerly You Send It) so that we can download the file.

Your group don’t need to be based in Yorkshire to write and submit a song, and neither do you have to attend the final conference and showcase. However if your group would like to come to the event to participate in youth-led music workshops and perform their song, then great, please just get in touch!

There is no fee for submitting a song, and similarly NYMAZ and Accessible Arts and Media are not able to offer financial support for groups writing songs. Our aim is for this protest song brief to be an interesting addition incorporated into your group’s existing creative music activities.

If you are working in a school setting, this project could be easily linked in with Citizenship programmes of study as part of the National Curriculum for Key Stages 3 & 4, as well as to the Music curriculum.

Resources

You may want to get your group fired up by listening to some well-known protest songs or songs of dissent:

• Bob Dylan: A Hard Rain’s Gonna Fall • Joan Baez: We Shall Overcome • The Beatles: Revolution • John Lennon: Power to the People • J Cole: Be Free • Hozier: Take Me to Church • The Specials: Nelson Mandela • Green Day: 21st Century Breakdown • Marvin Gaye: What’s Going On • Edwin Starr: War • Tracy Chapman: Talkin’ ‘Bout a Revolution

I’m Inclusive Too is hosted by Accessible Arts & Media and NYMAZ, funded by the National Foundation for Youth Music.

Watch a video giving a flavour of 2014’s I’m Inclusive event at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pC9lLU5G920

If you’re interested in attending I’m Inclusive Too as a conference delegate (includes a morning of CPD training as well as youth-led participatory music workshops and showcase performance in the afternoon), tickets cost £15 for NYMAZ Network members; £20 Non-network members; £0 Students (limited number of tickets available) and can be booked via http://iminclusive2016.eventbrite.co.uk. For more information on the programme as it is announced, visit: www.nymaz.org.uk