Bye!

We've come to the end of our project! It's been brilliant to be a part of this project for the past 2 years. We've made so much music in loads of different styles. I've met some really great music leaders and some talented young musicians. Hopefully we have inspired some young people to keep on playing music. There have been some who I think will become really great musicians, who have shown a real talent for it. It's been really amazing to see our participants help each other out - more experienced musicians teaching the younger ones. I think we've set up a music programme in Hodge Hill that can continue due to the generosity and enthusiasm of our partners, participants, music leaders and supporters.

Thanks for reading. Pip pip.

Stina

Hodge Hill Rocks!

Our final music showcase took place at Naseby Centre and featured the young musicians who have taken part in the last sessions of our Music for Hodge Hill project. It was a really varied and exciting performance, including some young people who had never performed before and had only started to play or sing a few weeks beforehand. Here's a video featuring highlights from the show.

Thanks to Daz for his music tuition, Esther for organising the event and providing snacks, Naseby Centre for hosting, our young people who set up the hall for us, the musicians, and everybody who came along to support.

HODGE HILL ROCKS!

Drummer boy

Daz has also been visiting Naseby Centre. Here there are a group of older lads who are really wonderful and help to teach the younger ones. Ali has been diligently teaching Farzaan how to play the drums, and in a matter of weeks, he has gone from being a total beginner to a total pro. Well done both of you for being brilliant.

Daz at Norton Hall

Let's gloss over the fact that I haven't posted for a while. Things are a little crazy as we come to the end of our Youth Music project. We're planning a final performance, details of which will be dripped out over a period of several days like when they announced the new Justin Timberlake album.

Our music leader Daz has been delivering sessions at Norton Hall on guitar. He's been teaching chords and exercises to help develop our young musicians into rocking lead and rhythms guitarists. We've also been learning TV themes, playing musical games and talking about what it means to be a musician.

Here are some pictures from the sessions at Norton.
 

Guitar club Christmas performance

The Norton Hall guitar club Christmas performance took place in Heartlands Hospital on Tuesday 18th December and I know that lots of patients and hospital staff were cheered up by seeing and hearing the Guitar Club's lovely performance. All that practising paid off! Thanks to Daniel Sweeney from Birmingham Music Service and well done Umme, Wisaal, Michael, Ra'marn and Stephanie.

Our first session with Daz!

The other week we started our new set of sessions, with Daz, a super cool multi-instrumentalist and performer from Birmingham. He's going to be coming in to teach us about instrumental techniques on guitar and bass and other useful things about being a musician, like stage presence, rehearsing as a band, mic technique, and anything else to encourage our young musicians to go on to a glittering career in music!

Our first sessions at Norton and Naseby were off to a good start, with Daz demonstrating his experience as a musician and sharing some of his stories as a techie for various rock groups. He's really relatable as he is into so many different styles of music. He has made a list of requests from the young people of the songs they would like to learn. Our aim for these sessions is to create a band with a varied repertoire that could than go on to perform together.

Unfortunately our sessions this week had to be cancelled due to massive amounts of snow, so we'll resume on Monday!

Quantize: The EP

May I introduce our debut EP, "QUANTIZE."

All tracks recorded at The Pump, Kitts Green
Tracks engineered & mixed by James "Vice" Kennaby for Street Soul Productions
Thanks to Curtis Clacey, Ben "Alto" Smith and Eudina Jarrett for session support
Graphic design by Vice
Photography by Imke Daugs

Music4HH features in Bordesley Green newsletter

Esther, our project manager sent this article to the Bordesley Green Detached Project newsletter about our project.

Quantize Live at the Vibe!

 On 17th December we were welcomed to the Vibe to launch our CD and perform some of the tracks live. We were joined by Ben the amazing sax player and some talented young musicians from the Vibe. Even though there were some technical hitches and some problems with timings, we had a great evening of music, from hip hop to rock, indie, jazz and metal. It was great to see so much support from the local community, family, council workers and young people coming to cheer on our music-makers.

The young people that we have been working with over the past few months put a lot into this performance - it was the first time a lot of them had performed in public. This whole project has been about learning new skills and working together with new people to create some music - and this performance was a celebration of that. I can't believe the change I've seen in some of our young men - going from hardly knowing anything about music to writing and confidently performing in just a few months; it's an amazing achievement!

In moody black&white because the camera's busted and made everything purple. Also it looks cool.

As well as the young musicians, a lot of people have worked really hard to make this project happen. Our music leader James has been a brilliant creative producer, working round the clock at times to make this CD and performance happen. Esther is a dedicated project leader who can bring out the best in anyone. Thanks also to our youth workers: John, Zainab, Tanvir and AG. The staff and young people at the Vibe were supportive and welcoming to us, and thanks to them for hosting the performance. Finally thanks to our guest musicians and workers who've helped over the course of the project. Now it sounds like I'm accepting an Oscar. Enjoy the video of a few highlights of the performance!

Live at the Vibe!

We're celebrating the launch of a CD of original music written and recorded by young people of Hodge Hill with a live performance on Monday 17th December at the Vibe in Birmingham. We're so excited to see the result of months of hard work from the guys and our music producer James Kennaby. Please come along to support!

PHOTOSHOOT!

Guys, this is so exciting. Our photos have arrived from professional photographer Imke Daugs. They are amazing. View more at our facebook page: facebook.com/music4hh

 

More behind-the-scenes footage

Here's a video showing an insight into our glamorous lives as music producers. Our fantastic photographer Imke has sent over the finished pictures so look out for them here soon.

Fun sessions at the Pump!

A little video showing the hi-jinks we get up to at the Pump. It's a bit misleading, we actually spend most time in the studio rather than playing ukulele. But only film the ukulele bits apparently.

New logo!

Younus has designed another great logo to mark the start of our new set of sessions in the recording studio. Thanks Younus!

Quantize!

We started a new set of sessions last week! This mini-project is called QUANTIZE and it's a bit different from what we've been doing so far! Some of the young people from Naseby and Hutton have joined with some new recruits to write, record and produce a CD of their own music. This is taking place at The Pump, which has a professional recording studio and lots of useful specialised spaces for these workshops. It's a much better environment for these sessions really, as the youth centres were often busy and provided lots of distractions.

We're working with MC Vice (James) from Street Soul Productions plus some special guests to create this exciting project! I think it's really great that by the end of it, the young people will have learnt so many new skills (writing, studio recording, CD production) and will have a brilliant end product that they can keep.

Our first session last week focussed on working together and producing a concept for the songs, and writing some first lyrics. We also had a little introduction to the recording studio, and ate lots of biscuits.

As always, if you are under 18 and live in the Hodge Hill area (or know anyone who'd be interested) get in touch by leaving us a comment, message us on twitter @Music4HH or via facebook.com/music4hh, email music4hh@gmail.com.

Rapping!

We've come to the end of our sessions on rapping, beatboxing and lyric writing. Here are some of the tracks that our young people have created with James!

These two are from the youth clubs, so James had more time to work with them on lyrics and got their input about what the backing should sound like. He also sampled some of their beatboxing and included that too.
Naseby crew - Drastic by Music4HH
Arceus - character rap - norton hall session 2 by Music4HH

And these are from the sessions at the hospital:
Mckenzie - character rap - heartlands hospital session 3 by Music4HH
Haider AND Baabar - The Adventure by Music4HH

James's music class! - Filmed by Nafees (thank you!)

Beatboxing!

We have also had some beatboxing sessions recently, from the Beatbox Twins. This part of the project is really exciting, there are so many different things going on!

Here are some videos from early sessions. They mainly consist of making really stupid noises. Beatboxing takes lots of practice. This is something I've learnt from these sessions. Also, you often get very lightheaded and need to drink a lot of water otherwise you feel like you're going to pass out. I don't know how they do it!

Here's a demonstration of what the Beatbox twins can do:

And here's some of our participants! Farzan at Naseby:

Younus and Forid at Hutton:

Curtis at our youth centres

Curtis also led some sessions at Hutton Hall and Naseby Centre, focussing on what the young people wanted to talk about. The young people wrote their own lyrics, a minimum of 8 lines was set as a target. Here are some examples of their work!

Curtis with Forid and Mahfuz, last week's official best rappers!