Newham World Generations Week 3

Just a brief update this week, because it was basically as good, if not better, than the previous two.
My old course-mate from the Goldsmiths Music Workshop Skills, Liv McKellen, volunteered and made both the big group session and the Indian group all the better for her presence. We were able to sing a simple canon today with Liv’s help. We hope that she can return with her cello over the next few weeks.

Everybody seems to be getting more familiar with each other and the venue, and therefore more able to focus on the music. The sun was shining for the first time so Ramesh led the talas and ragas out in the lovely Resource Centre garden. The manager of the Resource Centre was pleased with the look of the sessions and made suggestions about the future such as involving more service users, using these sessions as a means to bring the service users together a bit.

So on a practical level, no worries and I’ve even been offered financial assistance following the failed Newham Go For It Grant Application. All that I am primarily concerned with now is that we do arrive at some kind of decent ‘programme’ for a short (eg fifteen minute) performance in Week 6 (the end of academic year). Ramesh seems encouragingly confident with his group but so far my group only have one song, working title “Where’s Donat?” half written. It was an insightful discussion about Newham’s history, I thought. Hopefully next week’s session will see two songs completed and we will begin the process of ascertaining which students will be attending in the summer.

Newham World Generations week two

The warm ups were a call and response based on vowel sounds which is simple , fun and apparently ideal known to be as “Ay Katanga!” . Then I tried a less successful “Belly Mama”. Actually it was interesting that the 4 service users picked it up better than any student even though it was new to them. I set up a microphone and it came in handy for quieter students. One student C seemed unusually confident.

We divided into two groups. Ramesh showed us later the spoken and tabla rhythms covered in 4s and 6s. I revisited some of last week’s songs as requested by students (“Swing Low”). The loose plan I had actually worked better than I feared. We located all out homes on a map of Newham and then re-seated everybody into our towns. This neatly broke up the division between Service Users and students. We used the town names to inspire rhythms and I added some random chords. I’m aware that we haven’t really written a song as yet and so next week song-writing will be foremost on my agenda.
The atmosphere was great again this week and when the proceedings concluded at 12 o’clock I was heartened by the positive feedback from Service Users. The journeying to and from the college was apparently all good .The time tables of the students and the elders fit together perfectly. The main feedback actually came from the new comers: student (MM), SU (V) and volunteer (J), again all good and they’ll look forward to next weeks session. One college tutor said MM was “jumping up and down” when he got to back to a college, in a good way.
We continued to gather evidence in photo and video form. I suspect the map activity looked good but I think the actual music may be more fun to participate in than watch at this stage at least. Ramesh’s session was apparently great. Students (eg M) and SUs (MrD) found Ramesh’ tuition uniquely beneficial.
In other news, Newham Council have finally given come to s decision about the Go For It Grant. Ten weeks after my application, I received an email declining the project any cash. Hence I’ve rejigged the budget so that the other staff can at least be paid and I’m choosing not to think about money any more. What matters is that we continue to have a fun, safe and musically productive rest of the project.

Newham World Generations part 7 week one

Hi folks
 
Here’s a quick reflection on this morning, the first session in the Newham World Generations project at Chargeable Lane Resource Centre.
 
Overall I thought it was a real success. The 13 students that travelled over from the college were brilliant in terms of enthusiasm and behaviour. There were about 8 elders from Cumberland, Samuel Boyce  and even local residential home Greengate Lodge. The 6 support workers made their bus journey to and from the Resource Centre go without a hitch and it’s just a shame people got rained on on the way home. The session itself went well too and the rooms were big enough to hold everybody. As a big group we had a nice introductory session and then we arranged cards spelling out “INTERGENERATIONAL”. WE might do this again next week cause it’s anice photo opportunity. I postponed plans to draw a plce the participants on a map of Newham with names and ages because I felt we needed to actually sing at least one song together which we did.
 
 
Once again the support workers played a big part in making helping the sessions to flow nicely. It was very handy to have the second room for Ramesh to give his Indian class in but unfortunately this cannot be guaranteed to be available every week.
 
In my group I was really pleased about the balance of input from young and old even though we ended up singing mainly elder’s songs. I am confident that next week we can start to write a song together. Ramesh’s group was the real success of the day though. He skilfully concentrated on rhythm (tabla) rather than tunes (harmonium). This was most accessible  for all involved in this initial session. All the support workers and students loved his introduction to Indian rhythm. He communicated with Asian members of the group in a way that I’ve never managed. Back at the college we watched a video with the students the whole group chanting a rhythm and speeding up. Students even got excited about watching the video. The video and subsequent diary that is no being compiled in  the afternoon at the college will create a potentially fabulous document of the project.
 
So if ain’t broke I guess there’s nothing much to fix, or rather next week we’ll do much the same thing again next week. We’ll take the same students but given that there was sufficient room (just) this time, and that the sessions will take place mainly split into 2 rooms hopefully, we should be able to have a few more students. Kanvil (ALN tutor) and I considered inviting 2 more students from the college while there are plenty more elders who could come. we will probably carry on with Ramesh working with a predominantly Asian group. Ramesh suggested that he begins by also not mixing up the ages but to work with just students or just elders but not both so as to arrive at some repertoire. Ramesh , having had more experience of intergenerational projects than me, said tha this strategy of leaving the bringing together of ages and cultures until later on had worked in a similar project in Brent that he’d worked on. Meanwhile, at the back of my mind is the question of which students attend in the summer holidays, and if they’re different to the current group, how to make that transition as easy as possible. Soon I will try and contact the parents and carers to see which students will able and willing to attend in the summer holidays when we have the equally exciting prospect of African drumming tuition from Miriam.
 

Finally we debated the difficult issue of publishing photos and vidoe of the proceedings. Getting permission from parents for this means letters being returned, signed , from their homes and this has previously simply not happened (as in Olympic Sound). So this time I will try again with a letter home but until these participants all give get permission form thse resopnsible the recordings of the sessions will be limited to the use within the college and day centre.
So at this positive start to the proceedings I want to reiterate my thanks to the Resource Centre staff (Dave, Kim, Eileen), the college support staff (Naz, Alomgir, Hetal, Raxa, Pat, Kijir and Mick), tutors (Kanvil and Ramesh) and the amazing participants young and old.

Newham World generations Part Six

I’ve been predictably making more last minute preparations. The first session takes place in six days time. Sometimes it feels as if I am on my own but when I explain what I’m doing people are generally into the idea. I’ve spent quite a lot of time trying to speak in person to all the staff that will involved on the day so that they know what to expect form me and can advise me how to make it work better. I’m still finding staff at the venue who have managed to forget or have stayed out of the communication loop to apparently know nothing of my plans. In the meantime I’m planning an actual lesson plan for Session 1. It will obviously involve icebreakers but also some small group creativity based on a simple survey when and where participants were born to the tune of a song that combines repertoire familiar to the young and old. I’m not sure what that will be just yet though!