Learning Outcome 3

On completion of this unit a learner should:

-Be able to plan and participate in a community music-making project for a specific community group and/or venue.

Planning: eg setting aims and objectives, time constraints/management, project design, effective use of
resources (physical and human), follow up and sustainability, cross-arts projects, theme-based projects,
issue-based projects, collaboration, CRB clearance, public liability insurance
Community groups: concept of the ‘client group’ eg the young, the elderly, disadvantaged groups, schools
and colleges, the unemployed, youth groups, prisons, hospitals, enthusiasts, considerations for working
with particular client groups
Community venues: eg street performance, schools and colleges, community and arts centres, shopping
centres, pubs and clubs, theatre/dance/music festivals, outdoor events, parks, fund-raising events,
concerts

Organizing a gig in Magoo's- Henley 

I have taken part in a community project in Henley, our class in college organised a gig night in a local bar called Magoo's. It took a lot of organizing and took up a lot of our own time, as we had to meet up and rehearse a lot, not just in lesson. This event was to give us all a taster of what performing feels like (if you haven't had a lot of experience in it) but still to give you more experience and knowledge on how to organise an event as well as being apart of it,  this took a lot of control and we had to be serious about it in order for it to be a successful night. 

My role in this event.

My role in organising this event was that I had to go round the class and find out what songs everyone was doing for the performance, although it doesn't sound like it could be a difficult job this wasn't the easiest of things to do, due to people changing their song choice so many times. I also had to write down what instruments people would be using, for example, drums, guitars, so we could then write our list of what we needed to bring on the actual night. I had to find out what genre of song people were planning on doing this then made it easier for Zac who was in charge of ordering the line up so he could look at the genre's and make the line up of a mixed variety. I had to go round the class a few times a week just to keep my self updated of any changes and to write this down to then pass on to Zac. Communication is key when you're organizing an event. I found this project really interesting, it gave me a taster of everything. I also noticed that it takes a lot more effort than you would imagine, it's not as easy as it sounds and the small details you need to put in really do make a big difference.

We did have different groups for each thing that needed to be sorted out. This made everything feel much more organised and scheduled properly, as everyone had their own roles, including everyone. 

We had to think of a lot of little things that you wouldn't necessarily have thought, these kind of things did big impact on the whole night.

Organizing included:

•  Ordering the line up 
• Finding a place to actually do the performance, this involved having to ask around at venues, luckily the one that we finally chose said we can use it when ever we want, which is a really great thing because it will help us with experience
• The technical side to everything, sound etc
• Making sure we had all the instruments needed (and know a way of getting them back the next day, or that night), and also knowing how to get it down there- we had to find transport, people in our class drive so this made it much easier to get stuff down to the venue, we did write a list of everything that we needed, this made things in better order
• Making sure we had microphone stands, wires etc
• Everyone needed to know how to use the sound mixer, this was quite easy and only took a few minutes to teach each person
• Rehearsing, we had to do this in our own time and we had the opportunity to do it during class time as well
• Letting people know about it, we done this by putting it online, on Facebook, Twitter, sending out broadcasts, and just speaking to people to get them to spread the word

Doing this project brought people together in a positive way, bringing families together from different areas to come and support and watch us.

Here is the link to my performances:

http://m.youtube.com/watch?hl=en-GB&client=mv-rim&gl=GB&v=lhB0GioA3F8 - youth 

http://m.youtube.com/watch?gl=GB&hl=en-GB&client=mv-rim&v=uR2VNjuelfw - candles

Rebecca Poole Concert 

Another community project I am involved in is the Rebecca Poole concert which is being held in the Kenton theatre in Henley. On terms of organizing during this event, we didn't have any specific roles but sorting out what songs you wanted to chose, finding time and a place to rehearse involved a lot of organizing and commitment. Below is a picture of what the Kenton looks like from inside.

Rebecca was once a student in Henley college but now she is becoming a known singer. In this project I am going to be performing one or two songs during the first half. For this performance it requires a lot of rehearsing, and considering we only have just under 2 weeks to get them completed it's something that I'm going to need to be practicing a lot. I'm really excited to do this performance because I think it will give me more experience. 

Due to there being a lot of people that wanted to be in this show auditions were held and my group, Daisy, Charlie, Archie and I performed together, we sang Pompeii by Bears Den. We performed this song for one of our assessment pieces so we had a lot of practice for this (see musical ensemble unit for evidence of rehearsal). We sang these in front of 2 of our teachers (David and Alison) and of course Rebecca Poole, and they then chose the ones that they felt would really fit for the night and ones they enjoyed listening to. I was really pleased that we  got picked to do it. Below is a picture of us performing.

The dress code for this night was 1930's, so we decided as a group that the boys would wear shirts and Daisy and I wore dress/skirt with shirt. We wanted to look smart, and be wearing similar clothing so we look more of a group rather than wearing something completely different to each other, we felt this would look better.
Overall it was a really successful night, there has been some great stories about it in the newspapers around here online and everyone seemed to be really impressed. Below is a review of the night which is in the  Wokingham Times, and will also be featuring on the GetWokingham and GetReading sites and probably in the Reading Post which is really great and I'm pleased with how successful the night went.

Here is some footage of us performing- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mIuhdyGJuig

Headway 

Our college is linked with a charity called Headway. We held an event in the meetings room where we performed to the people that are supported by Headway charity. It was a really lovely event as it encouraged Headway to perform and make music be a big part in their life. We got to exchange performances which was good because we got to see performances from both us and the people who are involved in Headway. One young man who has a disability he performed a solo which was really touching for us all to watch and it actually inspired me and I feel as though I got a lot out of it. I work with a company called Style Acre outside of college so I have already experienced settings like this and been in these types of situation, but doing this has made me more aware.

The song that we performed for this was an ensemble, the group was Daisy, Archie, Charlie and I. We have performed this song because (Bears den- Pompeii) and I think it was perfect for an event like this. We had a couple of rehearsals before but we felt really confident with it anyway as we have already performed it a lot of times.

Footage of us performing- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAysmRjwM7k

Headway solo performer

 Guest performer

 Mohan 

 Our ensemble

 James

The man above with the guitar was a guest performer and he was really good. He not only performed himself he did some performances which got us involved. He did this by teaching us hand movements, sign language to a song, and we slowly broke it down by eventually going through the entire song replacing the words for these hand movements. I think that was a really nice touch and good for this type of situation as it made everyone aware that no matter your ability you can be involved in music and it really showed that music brings people together. 

As the event came to the end we finished it off by singing a song altogether called, Bring Me Sunshine. Doing this was a really good idea as it made us all come together at the end and was a nice ending to a really great time. I feel as though I got a lot out of this and it's definitely something I'd love to do again.

There was a lot of positive feedback from this, the new town mayor came along to see it and he said he was incredibly pleased with the level of talent from the performances that he watched.