by Author Jacqui Haigh

Published on

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I want to be in your band!

Whether we like it or not a large part of the funding for music education requires organisations and individuals working in partnership.

Take the new Music Education Hubs and Youth Music’s Musical Inclusion funding module, both require evidence to show that the delivery will actively involve a wide range of partners.

Now, as an old hippy and a musician who has been in a band since before the young people you may be working with were born, let me tell you about our band:

  • We all contribute to the songs and music we create
  • We all have an essential part to play that makes up our sound
  • We have had members who came into the band but left when they could no longer commit to being involved or through artist differences!
  • Some of our songs are wonderful and we love playing them
  • Some, despite long hours of practice just don’t work
  • There have been times when we have thought about giving up
  • After gigs we still go over what went right and what went wrong
  • Sometimes we have realised we are performing to the wrong audience!
  • Sometimes we discover an audience we didn’t even know about!
  • There have been times when every one of us has really needed the support of the others through difficult times.
  • We trust each other so that we can try things out and make mistakes
  • We still get a massive buzz from a great performance together and the music we play together is an important part of our lives.

To me that doesn’t sound a million miles away from partnership working!

It’s going to take time for us to build relationships and most importantly trust. We will have our differences and will need to work through them. We also need to be able to take some risks and be creative and make mistakes. But if we can do this the result could be some innovative and exciting work.

As musicians surely we must understand the idea of working together – in bands, choirs, ensembles, orchestras. We work with people with other skills to enable our work to happen – technicians, engineers, organisers, venues.

Perhaps we can use some of these skills to help us. Just a thought!