Hope Creative Project - Filwood, Bristol. Session 9 - June 2017

Session 9 - June 2017

This week we had a great turnout and the young people seemed excited and happy to be there. From the get go, two of the young people got straight back in to projects from the previous couple of weeks and it was great to see such enthusiasm. Child A was working on a piano piece and Child B was practicing a performance that incorporated both sound and movement, and the detail of both was incredible. I was already looking forward to the end of session showcase!

I began the session by speaking to Child C who had been practicing her songwriting at home, and I was keen to hear what ideas she had brought to the session. She had been using her personal journal which was great to see as it clearly provided her with a safe outlet to express her creativity and you could see that she felt confident in using it and bringing it to the session. We discussed what lyrics she would like to practice and I thought it was the perfect opportunity to suggest creating a backing track, as in previous sessions, I had noticed that she chose to use existing instrumentals from well-known artists. She was happy with this suggestion and was excited at the thought of creating her own track, with all elements designed by her. We began by creating a drum track on Garageband, which enabled her to follow a rhythm and practice through the whole song due to the on-going drum loop. I immediately noticed that her time-keeping was excellent and there was clear progression from earlier sessions, which was lovely to see as it pushed her confidence up to a new level. After several run-throughs, I decided to start playing some guitar chords whilst she was singing, and although I thought it might interfere or distract her, she embraced the new element and before we knew it, she was a fully-fledged singer on stage!

After a quick tea break, I helped Child B with some of her music performance as she needed some support with chord progressions. We sat down and used a chord generator to create a series of chords that would play whilst she performed the dance element of her performance. This was great to see as she had a clear focus on what she wanted and was methodical and precise with her chord choices. Once the chords had been chosen, we were nearing the end of the session so the whole group finished their final run-throughs and discussed the order of performance. It was lovely to see the group take little things like this so seriously and show consideration for who may want to go first or last. 

The parents and carers arrived and all of the performances were performed with excitement, fun and professionalism.