Welcome to our second newsletter in lock down and I hope you and your families are all well.
As I write, things seem to be calming down a bit with lots more shops to open soon - no restaurants yet though. What a strange time we are all living through.
As to our music classes I imagine that you, like us, are no longer running live sessions, but we love hearing about the events you are running online, and are excited for the opportunity to share some of them below.
All the very best
Denise Barber
Head of Southwark Music Service
At Southwark Music Service our amazing tutors have been putting together online resources that can be accessed from home or school. We have a YouTube playlist that includes everything from action songs to scales, ukulele videos to tongue twisters, and rhythm games to Egyptian Reggae chord charts. And it can all be found on our website by clicking here.
On the same page you can also find an interactive online music document. We've created this so you can see the wealth of online musical activities out there. There are listening activites from the BBC, musical worksheets for home-learning, and many, many more websites, apps and videos to keep you and your children musically active during this time.
Since the COVID-19 crisis began to unfold Sound Connections has spent time listening to what you need during this very challenging and unprecedented time. We have repurposed some of our funding so we can directly support individuals and organisations in a way that responds to the situation. Through the activities outlined below we aim to provide some solidarity, financial support, and connection to a professional network. We know this won’t replace the work many of you have lost but we hope it will go a small way to making things a little easier.
Mentoring
We have offered free one-to-one peer mentoring for anyone working with young people through music.
Professional development bursaries
We have offered a number of bursaries of £250 available to support your professional development needs during this challenging time. The bursaries are intended to give you time and space to develop an area of your practice, and where appropriate to share this practice with others in the Sound Connections network.
Online professional development sessions
Music and the Youth Sector
Date: Wednesday 3 June 2020
Time: 10:00am - 1:00pm
This online session aims to bring together youth professionals and music educators to share how we can support young people through music in youth work settings. This session is for London Youth members; music practitioners, instrumental/vocal tutors, community musicians working in or interested in working in a youth work setting.
Delivering music activities with children and young people online: what is working?
Date: Wednesday 17 June 2020
Time: 2:00pm - 4:00pm
During the COVID-19 pandemic we have seen a dramatic increase in organisations repurposing their music activities for children and young people online. Whether this is through delivering online music tuition, running virtual choirs and ensembles, providing creative challenges and activities to keep young people engaged, it has challenged us as music educators to rethink the way we work.
Building your resilience and keeping well through music
Date: Friday 3 July 2020
Time: 10:00am - 12:00pm
How are you doing? We know that many musicians, music educators, workshop leaders, freelancers, facilitators in our network have been dealing with a range of stresses during the COVID-19 pandemic. Whether it is loss of income, feeling a lack of purpose, anxiety, bereavement, pressures of having children at home, or a range of other issues we recognise that these are incredibly challenging times.
This June, Animate Orchestra is moving online, to encourage young musicians across the country to explore your creativity and make music together. There are two projects you could be part of:
Self-Isolate | Create | Animate
Sign-up to receive a weekly creative musical task, beginning 7 Jun 2020, delivered on video by one of Trinity Laban’s Animate music leaders. You will be challenged to create and send in your own musical response to each task, which could then be showcased on Trinity Laban's website and social media channels.
Register to participate in Self-Isolate | Create | Animate here
Animate Artists Online
Connect up with other young musicians online over 4 weekly intensive sessions – taking place on 7, 14, 21 & 28 June – to create new music together which you will perform and record at the end of the project. Under the guidance of an expert Trinity Laban tutor team, led by Sarah Freestone, you will put forward your creative ideas, collaborate and experiment to create music made from inside your homes and broadcast to the world. The final piece will be edited into a film and shared on Trinity Laban’s website and social media platforms. Suitable for young musicians aged 13+
Apply to take part in Animate Artists Online by Fri 22 May at the latest, application form here
Introducing the Voices Foundation Virtual Singing Assembly: a LIVE daily 10-15 minute sing for children, parents and teachers!
Join us every weekday at 1:00 PM (BST) from wherever you are for some fun, uplifting singing led by our VF practitioners.
Music brings us all together, so please share #VFVirtualSing with friends and family and let's get everybody singing!
Subscribe to our YouTube channel to ensure you don't miss out on this daily content: [bit.ly/2SbhQlN]bit.ly/2SbhQlN
Tomorrow's Warriors have moved the vast majority of our learning sessions online. We are using a combination of Zoom and OneDrive to keep our community thriving online in every way we can. We continue to engage with approximately 75 participants over 9 weekly sessions and are learning as we go along!
We have also engaged with those outside of our participants with some #TWChallenges. Our first one which is still ongoing is to learn Charlie Parker's 'Bird of Paradise' solo, which TW co-founder Gary Crosby claims is his favourite solos. Our second #TWChallenge was for International Jazz Day (30 April), where we were asking people to improvise together virtually by responding to Gary Crosby's blues improvisation. We had 16 musicians take up the challenge, and you can see the results on Tomorrow's Warriors instagram saved stories (follow @tom_warriors on Instagram).
Multi-Story Orchestra
Introducing our new digital projects and our first 'lockdown story' from viola player Jenny Coombes
It is so important to all of us at Multi-Story that we continue to support our local communities, young people and our freelance musicians during this time. Since our usual activity is not currently possible, we are delivering digital projects for the first time and working in a completely new way. This has been a challenge, but one we've been happy to rise to!
Our work with young people is more important now than ever before, and the current situation is perpetuating inequalities in access to music education. We have devised two new projects in order to help rectify this imbalance, and develop our strong links with schools in Peckham and Gloucester. Our projects will reach both young people attending school and those working from home:
Digital schools tour: these sessions will be led by Multi-Story musicians, who will introduce their instruments and a new piece of orchestral music. Participants with access to the internet will take part through live interactive sessions, tailored specially for varying age groups and levels of experience. We will reach young people who do not have access to the internet by sending DVDs with pre-recorded videos.
The World Awakens: young people with access to a recording device or mobile will have the opportunity to take part in a participatory musical project with us! We will teach participants a new piece of music by Kate Whitley through both interactive and pre-recorded sessions. We will then mix audio tracks together to produce one final ‘virtual performance’ with our Orchestra, which we look forward to sharing
Lockdown stories
We are doing all we can to support our freelance musician during this time. They make Multi-Story what it is and we are indebted to them for making so many amazing experiences possible over the years.
Over the coming weeks, we will be sharing stories written by our musicians about their experiences during lockdown, and are so grateful to viola player Jenny Coombes for writing our first one!
Jenny Coombes' Lockdown Story
"Thursday evenings are such a lovely evening on our street. We start with a few minutes of clapping, then Mike and I get out our instruments and play a song.
Dotted all down the street are some elderly people who do not have the chance to see many people anymore. It is lovely when everyone emerges onto their doorsteps and claps, shouts, dances and just generally feels a community spirit that I have never felt since moving to London twelve years ago. This period of our lives is in so many ways simply awful, but if a lasting collective community spirit comes out of it then that will be a definite silver lining."
English Touring Opera online content - Singing lessons - SEND workshops
Singing lessons for Kids, and Adults!
We are also producing two series of singing lessons: one for adults, and one for kids. They're free, and all delivered by artists who would have been singing on this spring tour. There are a number of each series available online already and more to come.
They're a fab, fun, friendly resource designed to be watched as a full series, but also suitable for re-watching if one lesson really inspires or was the most fun to do.
Bradley Travis is delivering free online music workshops for children with SEND at 11am on Wednesdays via a YouTube Live stream. The past workshops are also available to watch.
Managers from the music industry can take part in this event and present their organization to network and start collaboration projects with partners worldwide. Expected guests from Canada, New York, Brazil, France. LINK for booking the conference and the Workshops:
