On Tuesday the 7th of December, my group and I delivered our music community workshop at Keighley Youth Centre to a mental health group called ‘Youth In Mind’. After planning the session extensively, we all felt prepared and confident that we would do well. We wanted to keep the workshop relaxed but informative so the group would feel comfortable and they would come out with a great final piece of work that they are proud of. Because of the shorter session time we were given, I felt like the session was a little rushed, even when we cut the warm up’s/down’s from the workshop, but overall I think the session went great and I really enjoyed teaching people as I am not used to doing this. When we got there, we had to wait around a bit for the clients to turn up, but we stayed positive and we were happy to wait. In the end, we only had two clients, but we made sure to work with them both throughout.
Strengths
As a group, we made sure to have the right balance of independent and teacher-led sections. This was to ensure the group were thinking of their own ideas and creating original material with little assistance from us, and this seemed to work very well. Obviously, we made sure to check up on the clients during their independent times when they were making their songs. If they were happy and weren’t lost or confused with the instructions, we simply let them carry on as they were. Making sure we didn’t interfere with their creative process too much was important as this can be a very personal thing and different people go about this in different ways. I think this functioned very nicely as the group learned to feel comfortable and calm around us quickly and we weren’t telling them too much information at once to make them feel overwhelmed.
Throughout the session, we had to deal with some challenging things as a group, but we got around them quickly and fluently to make sure the workshop flowed and nobody got distracted. Problem-solving is important in sessions like this as you don’t know what your class will do, and you have to be prepared for any questions or issues you or they might come across. Some of these issues consisted of other people in the area posing as small distractions, games being played (and the ping pong balls entering our teaching area), and someone wanting to use pre-existing lyrics instead of making their own. Tom encouraged the student to make original lyrics, which they helped the client create. Both people asked questions like how to change the instrument sound. We adapted and answered quickly as we had planned this question being asked prior, and a client asked what kind of sound they would need to achieve a house/trap sub-bass, in which we helped with.
As for my own strength, I think I led my drums and rhythm section with confidence. I helped both clients get onto the drum machine and gave them tips on how to make a good beat, but also gave space to allow them to make their own sequences. I also helped in other sections, for example, in Ellis’ bass section when the students wanted to experiment with different instrumentation and I helped them find this option on their iPads. Throughout the session, I became more comfortable and relaxed around the group and I was happy to answer questions and help if they got stuck at any point.
Improvements
Sometimes, throughout the session, I felt like both my group and I focussed on our own compositions too much at times. The tutor picked up on this too. For example, for the dice section, we each spent a fair bit of time rolling the die and coming up with something from our numbers. Also, we spent too long writing our own lyrics too. As we had to make sure we had our own compositions to show for inspiration and to give an understanding of songwriting, we had to make sure our songs were to a high standard. This meant spending a little time on them ourselves through the workshop, but I think we each spent a little too much on them. Instead of all three of us having our own iPads, we should have just used one, and given it to each group member when it was time for their section of the workshop. This would have meant that whilst one group member was working on the song, the other two people could go around helping the clients.
During the session, I feel like Tom and Ellis could have led a little better and engaged with the clients more. Especially at the start, they both tended to stand back and let me entirely lead the first section, which is fine as it was my section to lead, but I could have done with dome help at times, for example helping the clients and answering questions as I was explaining how to use the drum machine. I understand that it can be nerve-racking talking to new people, and they both became more confident and comfortable as the workshop went on. Them becoming more involved was a great help to us all as it allowed us to be more relaxed around the class and we could each go around helping the clients by ourselves.
An issue that arose after my drums section was that one of the clients had found themselves stuck on a screen on GarageBand that they couldn’t leave. This meant Ellis went over to help. To stop the session from dragging and the other client getting bored, I made the decision to start leading the next section (that Ellis was meant to lead). I think if I hadn’t have done this, the workshop would have broken down very quickly. However, this means that we didn’t fully stick to the plan and Ellis didn’t get to lead that part of the class. We could have stopped this from happening in the first place if we knew about this screen that the client managed to find and how to get off it quickly to minimise the time Ellis spent trying to troubleshoot.
Targets For The Next Workshop
-Put more focus into the students work instead of our own.
-Ensure all of us lead the group at some point, and carry on helping when someone else is teaching the group.
-Try and stick to the plan to ensure the workshop performs swiftly.