Monday 15th August
Just over a month ago Simon and I had a meeting at ‘Navigation Care’ in Lincoln, a privately run day centre for adults with learning and mental handicaps with the aim to set up a number of workshops for the customers who use the centre. With a bit of diary jigging, e-mails and phone calls we set up our first music session and today was that day.
After a morning in the office I met up with Gary Hammond at the centre at one and we set about making some music. The session consisted of a show and play session, Gary’s hoard of instruments is now infamous around these parts and he brought just a small selection today to show the participants and let them explore the sounds they make. This format although very simple worked fantastically well and allowed the participants to have a musical experience whilst not having to worry about playing musical parts. Most of the instruments had an interesting visual or movement element bringing and extra level of stimulus to the experience, great for those who were hard of hearing or sensitive to loud noises. The sessions were very relaxed, consisting of around fifteen minutes of music making with a ten minute break then another fifteen minutes etc until three o’clock. Hopefully I’ll be going back solo to do some more work at Navigation, the staff and customers are great as well as the vibe of the place and I’d like to work with special needs in particular some more as it seems the music world passes these people by too often.
Tuesday 16th August
Another episode of ‘Bob the Builder’ was in the making today…yes! Another workshop day at Liam’s, the plan? To build some rain-sticks!
To start off we had a trip up town to buy the necessary ingredients; two poster tubes, nails and some yarn. The construction couldn’t have been easier, we first marked out a spiral of holes down the length of the poster-tube, secondly we pushed nails into these markers, and thirdly we put rice inside the tube and sealed it. Job done. Well, almost, tomorrow we shall take the yarn we bought and help the children at Binbrook wrap the tubes to make them look a bit more exciting than they currently are.
Wednesday 17th August
8 a.m. and possibly our earliest start here at the trust, today was a long day but a very rewarding one. We started our work in Wainfleet at 10 a.m. running a music making session for ‘Action for Young Carers’. Pete and I were particularly nervous about this session as the group consisted of teenagers, a demographic we’ve not yet worked with. All of this nervousness and apprehension however was not needed as the group were great to work with, there were of course points where we stumbled a little, we knew were going to have adjust on the fly to suit the ability and attitude of the group so this was fine. Creative, is the word that summed up this group, rather than dictating the patterns they played the group took a life of its own and came up with some really interesting stuff, the occasional bit of guidance helped steer the boat but all in all we worked with their ideas. The more creative groups although harder to keep control of are on the whole more fun to work with; we’re in the business of creativity so to do anything other than encourage it would be wholly counter-productive.
Our afternoon meant heading south to Sleaford where we had a meeting with staff at two day centres run by North Kesteven District Council (NKDC) for adults with learning and mental handicaps. The first centre we attended was located on North Road and catered for the higher end of the age spectrum; middle-age upwards. The attendees seemed to be in fine fettle, very polite and inquisitive…interested to know what these musical ragamuffins were going to get up to.
The second of the two centres was called the ‘Jubilee Centre’. Located off East Gate a stone’s throw from the famous Cogglesford Mill. This centre catered for the younger end of the spectrum mid-twenties to mid-forties with a couple of gentlemen slightly older than the rest of the group. Again the attendees were most welcoming, polite and inquisitive, Spencer in particular very chatty and friendly.
The meetings went extremely well and resultantly we’re booked in for the next four Thursdays to run music sessions at each of the centres, again the more relationships we can build with organisations the better.
Friday 19th August
Goodbye Wainfleet. Our last session for A.Y.C. was today and it proved to be one of, if not the best workshop we’ve run to date. The group again consisted of young teenagers, but was a complete contrast to the last group. Focus and timing are the two words that immediately spring to mind and made this the group that we’ve taken the furthest musically. We’ve been told not to go into workshops expecting too much in the way of getting to a developed musical piece, the idea is to facilitate and experience of music making. The result of today’s efforts was a two movement piece complete with break and outro; for the most part the attentiveness and timing of the group, as well as their ability to work as a team were key in allowing us to do this, very commendable indeed.
From a personal development stand-point it felt like all the pieces of puzzle came together today, all of the advice from Liam and Gary’s mentoring being used. Strong leadership, clear direction, steady development of themes and exercises and patience were all put into practice and this can only spell good things for future workshops and our development as community musicians.
The Firebird Trust
The Stables, Wellingore Hall
Wellingore
Lincoln
England
LN5 0HX
The Stables, Wellingore Hall
Wellingore
Lincoln
England
LN5 0HX
01522 811229
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