Beat This really hopes you are all safe and sound!
Now that lockdown is easing and the British summer is here! We are getting excited about our projects and re-opening Chime recording studio (the perfect place for a spot of socially distanced music creation).
Our ever brilliant and adaptable director Benny has been exploring remote online music production and sound engineering over the past month. He is fast becoming an expert! He will be training our freelance practitioners in all the virtual faders and twiddly bits, so they can support more people with their musical ideas and journeys.
"Learning about and actually being able to deliver a 1-2-1 session completely online with Zoom and all the other great free software has been eye-opening and extremely fulfilling! I have been able to keep working with a few people that have been in desperate need of contact and creativity, and we have not let the lockdown stop us from composing, mixing and releasing music as we used to before" - Benny Turner
The directors have been working from home writing funding bids, zooming big names in hip hop, organising future workshops, working out want to do with postponed projects, digging a drive, making bread, and growing vegetables!
Most of this work has born fruit – we have been successful with the funding bids more details to follow... Plus I can now park the car and the tomatoes are coming along nicely…
We are happy to receive £500 from Tesco to help those most in need of support, companionship, and creativity, and who are already facing isolation by offering free 1-2-1 music sessions using Zoom and other new and innovative digital delivery platforms.
Larger grants from Youth Music and the Arts Council England totalling nearly 26K! have really boosted our mission to deliver music and creative sessions in Peterborough. The funding will enable the organisation to adapt to the current situation and learn new ways of working with online/digital platforms for collaborating, creating, exhibiting, and promoting works.
Supported by Youth Music and using
public funding by the National Lottery through Arts Council England.
CO - LAB: CREATIVE ONLINE COLLABORATION
What to do with all that time spent at home during the 'lockdown'? Well; we have been able to focus on researching and developing new ways to deliver music based-mentoring and workshops, put together a future strategy for creative collaboration, and get our heads down to apply for funding.
We are very pleased and excited to announce
the launch of a new project and platform for aspiring musicians and creative practitioners, that we have entitled CO - Lab: Creative Online Collaboration.
The funding that we have received from Youth Music, Arts Council England, Cambridgeshire Community Foundation, and Tesco: Bags Of Help is enabling this large-scale project platform to run for the next 6 months. To work with youth musicians and children, makers, creative practitioners, poets and songwriters, hackers, and just people who what to make stuff.
The CO - Lab project aims to deliver 3 outcomes to align with the Arts Council England's 'Let's Create' strategy, they are:
1. Developing personal creativity, though online workshops and meet-ups
2. Connecting people and communities through music and creativity using online and offline platforms to encourage collaboration and showcase work
3. Creating a new culture of musical and creative artists by nurturing and promoting there works and devising their platform for exposure to national and international levels.
1-2-1 distance focus sessions and Zoom Lyric Writing workshops have already begun.
We are already working with Youth Inspired Peterborough and plan to work with other young people charities, 3rd Sector organisations, and SEN schools during the course over the next 6 months.
For creative practitioners in the city, we plan to hold some collaborative gatherings both online, to begin with, and eventually offline too. So we can be in a room, making, playing, researching and developing ideas, and just hanging out!
Keep your eyes peeled and ears to the ground for more info and activities for CO - Lab.
P.S If you have an idea or can see this project working with your ideas please contact us - it's about the collaboration after all.
PLEASE TAKE THE TIME TO TAKE OUR SHORT SURVEY ABOUT ONLINE MUSIC BASED INTERACTION. IT WILL HELP US TO IDENTIFY CREATORS FOR THE CO-LAB PROJECT. THANKS.
REMOTE 1-2-1 AND
'DISTANCE' RECORDING
During the past 3 months, aside from looking after 2 very energetic young children and a cat on heat, a good deal of my time has been invested in finding the perfect way to deliver a 1-2-1 music production session remotely, online...
Did I find a way?
I found several ways actually and it's been bally good fun doing it!
Luckily there are smarter people out there that have already done the research so I got stuck into some great articles like this:
Software like Zoom, Messenger, and Audio Movers' excellent plugin 'ListenTo' has enabled me to work with a few of my clients in a scarily fluid and almost completely normal way; the only difference being that they are not in the room with me.
Now that things are easing up a bit we are prepping Chime Creation Centre for re-opening. It will be the same amazing creative and cool space. However, a few changes have been made to enable us to adapt and evolve to a different way of working.
1. A separate Zoom production station has been set up in the office/training suite.
2. We now have video links into the different rooms within the studio so that we can record with artists safely.
3. We have upgraded some of the gear to make doing what we do even more enjoyable.
I love this technology, it amazes me every day. But I love working with all of you amazing folk even more... You bring the energy!
Benny
REACHING OUT TO YOUNG PEOPLE
Youth Inspired is a project supporting young people in Peterborough to have a voice and create the activities, events and clubs that they want and need.
Since the health crisis began the amazing team at Youth Inspired have been on it! reaching out to young people across the city with essential creative supplies in 'lockdown' packs, online wellbeing sessions, creative workshops and activities to keep young minds active, creative and connected.
We are so thrilled to be linking up with them during this time. Thanks to the young people and the team for allowing us to jump on board with some lyric writing and music workshops for their programme of Zoom sessions.
Youth Inspired are always up to no end of good! Check out their Facebook Page for more up to date happenings, and see the poster below for the up to date programme of Zoom sessions.
TAKE THE EARLY CAREERS SURVEY
Metal is looking to develop a programme of support specifically for Early Career Artists. This might refer to those who leave school and do not enter higher education (but maintain a regular art practice), those in the first 3 years of developing a practice since graduation and those who have entered the arts later in life after pursing a different occupation, or return to their practice after an extended break.
This programme will offer opportunities to early career artists from across the UK, open to all creative disciplines. Metal are particularly interested in supporting artists from diverse backgrounds, with unique personal perspectives to offer.
So please help Metal help you by filling in the survey linked HERE
We are accepting donations for investing in research into and purchase of 'adaptive'
music technology equipment and software to aide us in the provision of music-based
mentoring and community music workshops. We really appreciate your support!
