Aberdeenshire Youth Music Initiative
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Aberdeenshire Council's Youth Music Initiative programmes are going full steam ahead for the 20,000 pupils in the 153 primary schools and four SEN schools. As a large, mainly rural, authority Aberdeenshire obviously have difficulties in providing equal delivery but most children between P3-6 and, very often, above and below this age group, have had access to several strands of music, funded through the Youth Music Initiative. |
These programmes, which are in addition to music already taught in schools, have been developed through a partnership between Aberdeenshire’s Arts Development Team, which includes the Creative Links Officer and Cultural Coordinators, and Instrumental Music Services (IMS).
Partnerships have been forged with local voluntary Informal sector organisations and national professional music and arts organisations. They have also been able to link in with local festivals. The Aberdeenshire Youth Music Forum with representatives from all levels of education, both general and music specialist, community groups and free-lance musicians, acts as an advisory body.
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Out of school opportunities include Music4Kidz, a traditional music based series of workshops. These are delivered at locations all over Aberdeenshire by local voluntary organisations, the Buchan Boorach and the Gaitherin while the Deveron Festival runs Soundzgood, a Kodàly based junior choir in Banff. |
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The strands that are being offered in school are:
- Kodàly Musicianship and Singing Programme
- Free year for instrumental starters, P3-5
- Rap/Hip Hop day workshops
- 'Learning by Lug'
- Scottish Traditional Boat Festival's Songwriting project
- Youth Music Initiative Roadshow, giving pupils the opportunity to enjoy presentations from musicians across the board and inclusive of genres, musical experience and future career paths.
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A particularly innovative in-school programme is Sonic Postcards, an exciting technical music recording and composition project which has run in approximately 30 schools, engaging upper primary children and staff alike. |
Sonic Postcards is an ideal vehicle for cross - curricular work and is very much in tune with the aspirations of a Curriculum For Excellence.
Sonic Postcards is delivered by Aberdeenshire Council's partners, Sonic Arts Network (SAN), a UK national organisation. SAN engage and train extremely skilled workshop leaders who are often professional composers in their own right. Aberdeenshire is one of their major areas of work and has helped inform the delivery of Sonic Postcards nationwide. Sonic Postcards has recently been awarded The New Statesman New Media Award 2006 for Education for making the most significant contribution to education through the use of new media technology.
The class embarks on three whole-day workshops. The children and teachers are encouraged, through games, to consider and listen to environmental sounds and silences, then trained in recording using iRivers, mics and headphones and shown how to catalogue their recordings. Exciting trips to areas of local interest follow where many, varied and often previously unnoticed sounds are collected. Unexpected thrills have included seeing (and hearing) a stockman chased by cattle at the local Mart!
| Back in the classroom the creative manipulation and composition with selected recorded sounds is undertaken using the school ICT equipment and Audacity. Short individual and class sonic ‘postcards’ are made and these can be emailed to other schools. |
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Artwork created during Sonic Postcards can also be exchanged. English schools are thrilled to get ‘postcards’ from Scotland and we are looking at international links for the future.
End of project presentations have included displays to fellow pupils, joint evening sessions with neighbouring participating schools and ‘co-starring’ with professional electro-acoustic composers at s.o.u.n.d, the north-east’s rapidly growing contemporary music festival.
On a festive note, Rap/Hiphop workshop leader, M.C. Ajet is helping pupils of Portsoy Primary to write and perform Rap numbers for the Christmas pantomime.
With the input from all these talented people, both local and from further afield, the Youth Music Initiative team continues to bring valuable and exciting dimensions to Aberdeenshire’s music provision.
| If you would like to find out more about music in Aberdeenshire please visit Aberdeenshire Council for more information. The above projects were funded through the Youth Music Initiative's Formula Fund, which distributes funds directly to all local authorities in Scotland. | |