I had a wonderful session working with year 5 students and OAPs from Chivenor House. Our sound bites moved from melodic fragments to a chorus. We just need to tweak the lyrics now. The boys were really into singing – apparently they are not meant to be! Dave – Artistic director of the project has [...]
November, 2008
Big Ambition ’08
I went along to Microsoft’s offices in Reading for an e-skills event called Big Ambition. It aimed to promote careers in IT to young women aged between 13 and 15. I had a blast, I really enjoyed working with some really inspiring, creative, divergent thinkers from Chiltern Edge Community School. I facilitated a workshop where [...]
Pics from Down Your Way last Saturday
Here are some pics from last Saturday’s session. We had some Global Xchange volunteers from Morocco participate and it was quite contrasting to the smaller numbers we’ve had in the past. Chris led the session, and recorded sound bites about childhood memories – short phrases were the stimuli for music making and composition. We wrote [...]
Taking the lead: Working with & directing ensembles
Today I went along to the first of two MusicLeader London training sessions “Taking the lead – working with and directing ensembles”. It was lead by internationally renown community musician Phil Mullen. I had a really good time meeting new people and learning how to better focus my delivery skills in this area. Phil’s delivery [...]
Gigbeth Conference 2
This is what I wrote for the Gigbeth conference blog (it will be up soon): On Thursday Gigbeth kicked off with its conference; a meeting place for music industry bods, musicians and music educators to discuss and reflect on the sector, I quote: “bringing education and industry specialists together, the conference is designed for those [...]
Welcome to the blogging world…
MM! My lovely friend. He is in year 10, mad into politics, public speaking and drama. Say hello and leave a comment if you please! He basically picked up the whole shebang in 30 mins. He is a super brain and knows more about US politics than a lot of my adult friends!!
Gigbeth Conference
Tomorrow I shall be attending the Gigbeth conference held at quite a posh hotel. I am really looking forward to the music education part, speakers include: Fyfe Dangerfield (Guillemots), Janice Long (BBC Radio), Sheryl Garratt (Elle and Red), Rich Castillo (Shalit Global), Marc Jaffery (Music Manifesto), – never heard this chap speak before, (I heard [...]
Half-term
Over the last couple of weeks I have been networking and pondering the community music world. I have also been in receipt of some excellent advice and guidance from some very generous people including Sara from Music in Prisons and Catherine Pestano from CRISP. Although I had a fair idea of what community music was [...]