Our workshop was at a teenage lgbtq+ youth support group. We decided to do a songwriting workshop for the attendees. We split the participants into two groups, Sonny was teaching them how to write lyrics and melodies for a song, and I was teaching them how to incorporate different rhythms into a composition. I had my participants sat around in a circle and let them choose a percussion instrument of their choice. I then proceeded to show them different rhythms that they could use within a song and ways to incorporate rhythm to make it sound interesting on a single percussion instrument. I achieved this by getting them to act as a metronome and keep a steady pulse whilst I improvised over the top of them using different rhythms such as triplets, syncopation, swing rhythms and more. The main aspect of our workshop was to teach the participants how to write a song using a blues structure. Because of this I then proceeded to base my workshop around swing rhythms, as this is very common within blues music. We then ended with some games before swapping the groups around. Unfortunately, we started half an hour later than we had planned so I had to leave half an hour before the end of the session, missing out on the end of my session and the second group.
Strengths:
Our communication with the participants was very good. We clearly explained why we were there and what we needed them to do to participate. there was rarely any confusion with the tasks and activities because they were simple and easy to understand.
The games we had organised to play at the start of each session were successful as well. The participants were a bit awkward to start with which is expected but as soon as we finished playing the games, everyone involved was a lot more comfortable and ready to get involved. The games we played were a clapping version of wink murder. One person was the ‘detective’ whilst everyone else clapped a rhythm the ‘murderer’ came up with. the objective was for the ‘murderer’ to change the rhythm and have everyone else follow it without the ‘detective’ being able to know who it was.
Weaknesses:
Our organisation could have been greatly improved. There were quite a few times where due to a lack of planning and preparation, I had to improvise what I was going to teach the participants and how I was going to do it. This lead to me seeming unprofessional and as though we had not put much effort into this. If I was to do this workshop again, I would make sure that I had every aspect of my session mapped out so that I knew down to the finest detail how I was going to direct my session.
Another weakness was time management. During my session, I had exhausted everything that I had planned and therefore had to make things up on the fly. This is because I wasn’t expecting the session to last as long as it was going to. Because of this, in future, I will always have backup activities planned in case the participants complete the tasks faster than I had prepared for.
There was another weakness involved in time management. I had to leave the workshop early because we had started half an hour later than planned. Because of this, Cain had to step in and lead the session for the second group and the ending of the first group. This was very unprofessional and if I were to do this project again, I would make sure that I have no engagements on the same day so that I ould stay for the entire thing and even longer if needs be.
Because of all of these aspects, it was a tough workshop to make happen, there are definitely things that could’ve been improved and mistakes that could’ve been avoided. But the participants seemed to enjoy the workshops and they learned something about music that they had not learned before. This was a rewarding experience and something that I would be interested in possibly pursuing further.