RESEARCH & CONTEXT
Community music is a way to help a community through music whether it is a form of therapy or to educate the young who won’t have a chance at learning about it due to the change of the budget at schools by the government, community music gives the chance for people to learn the arts.
“It’s not only music. It’s not only art. It’s a community. It’s a sense of having a place to belong.” (Jared leto) I think this quote sums up most of the ideology of community music, the diverse and different reasons for music and how it helps so many different people from people with disabilities to convicted criminals, music therapy is a form of community music aimed at helping and rehabilitating people.
Music has been used to help people remember things from their past, people with dementia have been tested on listening to their favourite songs music and have had cases that they remember key moments from their life’s and remember names and places.
CASE STUDIES: Streetwise Opera
There are many different community music programs, there’s Street Opera where homeless people have the chance to gain back their confidence and have something to look forward to. Street Opera gives the opportunity to help find companionship and entertainment to the most unfortunate people who struggle to find security and are constantly on edge.
Streetwise Opera was set up in 2000 by Matt Peacock an opera critic and support worker who volunteered at the passage which is a homeless shelter in London when a resident read a quote that read “The homeless are what you step over when you come out of the opera” (Streetwise Opera history page).
This made many of the residents question Matt, it was then when the residents and Matt came up with the idea of involving homeless people in opera to challenge people’s misconceptions on operas availability and who can enjoy it or perform in it.
Matt worked with the residents on their production of the little princess which premiered at the royal opera house and was an immense success and received great acclaim from the public.
CASE STUDIES: Nordoff Robbins
Another example for community music is Nordoff Robbins this company visits hospitals to assist doctors in helping disabled or sick children to be more vocal or helping them in other ways. Nordoff Robbins believe that their approach in helping people with disabilities is through music because that music possesses something that everyone can use to help them grow and develop.
Nordoff Robbins was started over 50 years ago by pianist Paul Nordoff and special educations teacher Clive Robbins to help those with special needs with music therapy
In 2018 they achieved 270+ organisations that had Nordoff Robbins on-site including and not limited to NHS Hospitals, Hospices, mental health services and many more. They have reached 11,954 vulnerable people and held 44,952 music sessions.
Nordoff Robbins is the largest musical therapy charity in the UK who don’t get direct funding from the government.
EXPECTATIONS
Community music is important to strengthen the unfortunate and help with morale for both communities.
In this project I am hoping to see if I have the drive to teach and to see if I can help other people through music production even if it to distract them from their troubles even for an hour I would leave know music is an effective use of medication or even somewhat of good destruction.
PLANNING & PRACTICAL
| Name | Order of presenting | music field |
| Abigail Swift | 1st | Rhythm |
| Ellis Hardy | 2nd | Melody/Chords |
| Thomas Taylor | 3rd | Harmony/Lyrics |
START
. Introduce ourselves and the workshop.
. Do warm-up games (Rhythm games)
WORKSHOP
DRUMS
. Give some genre drum beat examples first.
. Pick “Drum Machine”.
. Choose drum sounds.
. Make drum beat.
. Press record and record 4 bars (explain where to find four bars)
. Go to arrangement view and loop drum beat.
KEYS
. Choose smart keyboard.
. Pick a sound you like from the keyboard section.
. Do dice game:
. We put all chords in the C major scale on the board, each chord
has a number corresponding their order.
. Each student rolls a dice 4 times to determine their chord.
. Students can change rhythm and chord structure but can only
use each chord once (if they don’t have duplicates)
. Record in chords.
BASS
. Choose smart bass.
. Pick a sound you like from the bass selection.
. Pick notes that relate to the chords (e.g. if you used C major, use the
root note or the 5th note of that chord which will be)
. Find a general melody and rhythm.
. Record in their bassline.
GUITAR
. Choose smart guitar.
. Pick a sound from the Guitar selection.
. Pick notes that relate to chords.
. Figure out an interesting melody.
. record in guitar.
LYRICS
. Give out lyrics from a popular songs and ask to find:
. 3 Favourite phrases
. Repetition
. Rhyming
. Alliteration
. Tom explains how to write lyrics.
. Tom goes over writing lyrics (we give him and students a word.
to write about in 3 minutes, make it funny and relaxed.)
. Tom explains how he wrote the lyrics to that song.
. Go into writing lyrics, use title references:
. Summer
. Suspicious
. Video
. Lesson
. Expensive
. Forest
. Party
. Yellow
. Background
. Bee
. We go around helping students individually until they come up
with 6-8 lines.
. We help give lyrics, a melody and rhythm.
. Record in on iPad’s.
. If students don’t want to record they can add more melodies.
END
. Ask students if they want to share their work.
. Share the work from our group iPad.
. Do warm down game (Drawing music)
THROUGHOUT
. Make sure before recording they press the triangle and the line to bring.
the recorder back to the first beat.
. Make sure everything is quantized.
. Make sure everything is on C major key.
. Turn volume down on iPads when we are explaining the next step.
. Walk around listening to students whilst they are working on iPads.
WHAT WE NEED
. Percussion
. Paper
. Dice
. iPads
. Pens
. Headphones (just in case)
During the presentation in front of youth and minds, we are planning on doing a production workshop, we plan on bringing Ipads with GarageBand on them to teach them production. We practised for an hour-and-a-half lesson but now we have been given an hours lesson so some things have to be cut short get rid of the warm-ups and cool-downs but the system we have with 20 minutes each gives us enough time to get some lesson in and teach them something about what we are showing them I will teach them melody with pianos or guitars, Abi will be working with them on rhythm and making a drum beat and Tom will be making the harmonies with them by writing lyrics but of they don’t want to sing then I will show them a way of using a lead instrument.
22/11/21 – Today in our group Tom, Abi and I had to perform a mock teaching session of what we will be doing on the 7th of December we had the idea to split up the talking points to our assigned part e.g. Abi – rhythm (drums), Ellis melodies and harmonies (piano/guitar), Tom – lyric writing (vocals).
2/12/21 – This Monday other groups had the chance to perform their community music teachings to the rest of the class and since we did it the week before we only spectated. This week it was the other two groups turn to teach an hour and a half lesson the first group did a production course while the last group did a vocal workshop, both groups showed interest and determination in what they were teaching, they knew how to get the attention of the class. They did have their quirks but it wasn’t something they can talk about and fix.
FEEDBACK
My opinion:
The mock presentation for I started off slow and quiet but later in when we started giving people tasks’s I helped people and did good teaching melody and harmony. It was an anxious experience and one where I can see my weaknesses and my strengths.
Lewis’ feedback
After the lesson was thought we were given feedback from our peers, a recurring one was to work more on demonstrating how to work some of the Garageband commands and another thing was to work on my writing which was too small to see which can be easily fixed with a heads up but I asked if the writing can be seen and everyone said they could see, so maybe I should ask them three more times because they could be lying and not want to see the chords but everyone knew what chords was on the board so they could see it fine.
Another thing that needs some attention on my mistakes is working with someone who was having trouble understanding the task, I don’t think this should be a point to improve I wasn’t in the wrong here if one person is in need of help it won’t be fair to exclude them from the lesson just because they didn’t listen or don’t understand. I don’t agree with what lewis put.
One more mistake I made was not getting the classes attention when it was time to move on, I need to be louder and raise my voice to get the classes attention to move on to the next task and not leave them lost in their conversation.
I think overall the presentation went well in terms of the lesson but I need to work on speaking out and getting my voice heard by the pupils but in the actual presentation I will be fine I’ve had some practice now and have been given the feedback I will improve and overcome my obstacles and give a good lesson.
FINAL EVALUATION
My opinion:
It was a fun experience, I went in with loads of confidence but when it came time for the helping I was a little timid but in one-on-one’s I did well on bringing my point across and helping people which was one thing I wanted to perfect but I think I needed to work on speaking to all the students and not shy away or speed up what I’m saying which is something I am still working on.
During the actual presentation at the youth centre I came in really confident even the day before I was ready while my peers who will be doing it with me was not so ready as I was, but we went and delivered what I thought was a really good workshop even if it was one person or ten we worked well in handling any situation that came to us as a team.
Lewis’ evaluation:
I chose to start the session instead of Abi doing it and I thought I did it well, I know that I was a little nervous talking in front of people, even if I walk in with confidence, I still have a problem speaking out but I am happy I did then.
Another thing was I helped the wrong person the person I sat down to help was already a musician so I thought she was learning as well but turns out she didn’t but I didn’t know she knew what she was doing so I wasted a lot of time on her before I realised she was a teacher but once I knew I went to help the person who we were teaching.
One more thing was that Abi continued from rhythm to melody which was my thing I only had harmony so when I was confused as to what I was doing it looked like I was doing nothing and made me look non-professional so we should have been told the change in plans.
REFERENCES:
Nordoff Robbins, 2022. About Us | UK’s Leading Music Therapy Charity | Nordoff Robbins. [online] Nordoff Robbins. Available at: <https://www.nordoff-robbins.org.uk/about-us/> [Accessed 1 January 2022].
Nordoff Robbins, 2013. [online] Youtube.com. Available at: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0QvLJ1vK5Qk> [Accessed 1 January 2022].
Streetwise opera, 2021. Our history — Streetwise Opera. [online] Streetwise Opera. Available at: <https://streetwiseopera.org/history/> [Accessed 1 January 2022].
Streetwise opera, 2016. [online] Youtube.com. Available at: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0nc-92Z_88> [Accessed 1 January 2022].
Special thanks to Isaac for allowing me to use your amazing work as a reference and guiding me to make this page
Community music introduction by Isaac Hill, 2021. Community Music – Isaac Hill. [online] Digitalspace.bradfordcollege.ac.uk. Available at: <https://digitalspace.bradfordcollege.ac.uk/10626277/community-music/> [Accessed 1 January 2022].