Youth Music - BongoClub.org.uk

Musical Spirals

Nathan Portlock trained on the MusicLeader Essentials course in the West Midlands. Soon after, he was presented with the opportunity to run the Musical Spirals project for Sound Futures. The project was a year-long programme based in a multi-sensory environment. Here Nathan talks to Bongo Club about steep learning curves, and the satisfaction of working with such an inquisitive age group.

How did you get involved with Musical Spirals?
When I got back from university I trained on a MusicLeader essentials course. Then I got a slot at Sound Futures - they needed someone to do a project and they gave me a shot. It was a bit daunting as they threw me in at the deep end, but I think that's probably the best way to learn. It was a good place to start in community music, because you have very little to be afraid of with 4 and 5 year olds. It's much harder going in to work with groups of 3 or 4 19 year-old prisoners for instance. I learnt on the job and I think that's the only way to do it really.

What was the aim of Musical Spirals?
The main mandate of the project was to produce musical opportunities for the under 5's, in areas that wouldn't normally have them. They were all primary schools with nurseries attached to them [that were involved], and I spent one term in each school. All the ones that I worked in had very little music going on if any. The idea was to give them an opportunity to play some instruments and discover some instruments, to sing, learn songs, develop language skills and build confidence.

How were the sessions multi-sensory?
In the first centre we worked at they had a spiral centre, which was a hall that had been adapted to accommodate several different zones. There was a beach, a house, a space zone and a jungle zone! I tried to tie in as much of the music making with the different areas as possible. So we'd go exploring in the jungle and find some instruments. We'd look under leaves and go about finding snakes. It was quite fun!

Would you have changed anything about the way you worked?
More planning. I did plan, but I don't think you can plan too much. I would like to have incorporated more sound stories. So, going on journeys through the zones with characters and bringing in more props that were specific to the zones. The other two schools that I worked at were different [to the first centre] as they had a real restriction on space. I was working in quite small rooms sometimes. I'd be working with up to 15 children at one time, which is quite a lot. I did five sessions a day for 40 minutes at a time, and the children were generally the same in each session. Some of them were a bit unsure of me initially, but a group of fifteen four year-olds is quite daunting in a way! There were a few tears when they saw my beard and they realised I wasn't a woman! They got used to me by the end of sessions though!

After the first term I had a template that I'd created myself. That made the other terms slightly easier because I knew which games, activities and songs were going to work. The formula came into existence at the end of the first term and then after that it was transferable. With regards to practice, I realised quite early on that the best thing to do was not just sit in a space and have the children come to you, because it's so much about trust. Any group activity is about trust and removing fear, so I decided to go in a bit earlier and just play with them for half an hour - just so they could get use to me. That worked better because then they weren't so shocked to see this strange bearded man sitting there when they came in!

Space was an issue, but I think it's always an issue in lots of schools, so I just had to get used to it. It meant that you couldn't do quite so many running around games, but I realised after a while that I was getting the kids fired up doing crazy games and they'd go to their next lesson being completely wild. I realised that there needed to be some kind of calming activity! I would start whispering at the end of the session, and then we'd do things like pass a tambourine around the class really slowly and quietly.

What was the reaction of the children and their parents to the music sessions?
With the little ones, good feedback came in the shape of them leaving with a smile on their face and running up to me in the next session. Parents would often say that their child wouldn't stop talking about the sessions at home, or that they didn't realise how much their child loved music.

Did the parents ever get involved in the music session?
That was very difficult - that was a kind of over arching goal, but it only really worked at one school where we did a little concert. It was actually quite difficult because I'd been practising with the children all morning and then by the time it came around to the concert, they were worn out. The parents got involved a little bit, but it was quite hard in that project because it was in school time. I think independent nurseries have a little bit more freedom as to when they can bring parents in.

Did you have to evaluate the project at the end?
After the first term, I realised that reflection is the best way to improve your practice and I had been keeping a journal. I made a point of talking to the staff and asking them for advice, as I'd never worked with that age group before and they were obviously specialists in that area. I'd ask them about classroom management and also what they thought of the sessions. That all went into the diary along with my personal impressions of the sessions. At the end there was a written report of around 1500 words and some video evidence.

What did you gain from running the Musical Spirals sessions?I realised that I really liked working with that age group, possibly more than some other age groups. They're keen, enthusiastic and they're experiencing things for the first time, which is always enchanting to watch. Also they laughed at my sense of humour - anyone over six doesn't tend to! At that age, half of it is about the music and the other half is about children's entertainment. Of course you keep the workshops dynamic, but if they're having fun and learning, they don't realise they're learning and that's the best way. Running the sessions has led me to other things and the experience was brilliant.

Funding for music activities

If you're a practitioner looking for funding for music activities, your project could be eligible for funding from Youth Music's First Steps programme.

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