The joys and challenges of music making

Rhythmix tutor Andrew Walker reflects on sessions at Palatine Primary School in West Sussex.  

My name is Andrew Walker. I‘ve been working here in Palatine school of the last year, going around lots different classes with my trolley of instruments doing different kinds of music stuff with different classes.

Starting in the playground

I go out and work in the playgrounds before I start the sessions. The kids out there have been initially quite nervous of the instruments so as the project has developed they’ve become very comfortable with me coming in, comfortable with the instruments being there. They’ve been playing, working out how the instruments work and been getting much more confident in having a go at something and being really keen to have a go.  

Younger Children

With the younger children we do lots of singing, nursery rhyme based songs and bringing in their topics into those songs. They get to do lots of different verses that they’ve made up themselves. They've written their owns songs and they can have great enjoyment of just singing those things that they’ve made up about the trip that they’re going on. That’s been very exciting for and rewarding for them.

The younger ones have been working on their pulse and tempo work. They clap along with the songs that we’re doing and i’ve been doing a lot of turn taking and sharing. Some of them are really picking up on the structure of songs and just how they can add to the sound and when to leave spaces and when to come in. Maybe listening to someone else and copying what they're doing or finding something that everyone is really enjoying and joining in with that, rather than playing whatever they want over the top. So it's all those core skills of listening and sharing and just working as a team.

Older Children

For the older students, who have done a lot more composition work, it was initially quite difficult to get ideas out of them. It was a lot of work  trying to encourage them but I’ve seen their confidence and skills in doing that, coming up with short lyrical pieces, coming up with different verse and chorus sections. I think their comprehension of how music and songs work has improved and also their tempo skills because they are putting them in in the right places without even thinking about it so that’s been great.

Conclusion

Creating music gives children and young people an opportunity to express themselves, learn musical skills, and develop their social skills. Over time we’ve seen the confidence and creativity of the young people at Palatine, and we hope that will continue into the future.

Thank you to Palatine Primary School and Youth Music for making this work possible.

About

‘Accessible Music Making’ is a Youth Music Fund B funded programme

It is a West Sussex wide programme of music making in every special school in the county delivered in partnership between West Sussex Music Trust and Rhythmix.

Palatine School is a primary school in Worthing, West Sussex for those with Special Educational Needs.