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 Naseby

We had a great session on Monday with loads of people (including some new guys) so thanks everybody for turning up to take part. Daz brought some of his guitars and there's actually quite a lot of kit at Naseby: more guitars, keyboards, drums, so there's a chance to try out loads of different instruments. As always if you are under 18, please come along to Naseby Centre on Mondays at 7pm to take part in the music!

Thanks to Daz for running these sessions and to all the older guys who lend their expertise to the younger ones!

Daz at Naseby - demonstrating Purple Rain

Just want to point out, Daz is not really a drummer :-) Tutorial video from last week!

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!

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!

Our first rap session!

Our next few months of sessions cover a few different styles and we have invited 3 young artists to lead workshops in beatboxing and rapping. Our first music leader, Curtis Clacey, helped our young people to write their own raps after wowing us all with his freestyle skills!

Here's a selection of some of our young people's work on a subject of their choice:

I got a favourite wrestler called AJ Styles 
He can run a mile but never has a trial
He never fears with no tears so he turn up his gears until he cheers
He calls his rival Mangi-Ray then whacks him with a tray
Until Mangi-Ray pays
They always fight when they have the highest height
before night they feel tight after they become bright but not white

Mans go gym to get hench get slim
Flexin muscles on the road with the fresh trim
Thanks to habus for the skin fade now I can rock the black shades
Rollin on Alum Rock Road keeping beef to myself like am told
Life isn't about the money or the fame being in the game without a big name

 There are mini cats
In school I learnt my maths
I just passed my SATs
I wanna work in a bank
Not to get fired and get a spank

Everyone always blame me
I go on flame I'll go on my game
I always lose on my shame and my game is so lame
and I'm always in pain on my game

And here's a video from Naseby - with a bonus demo from Curtis :-)

DJ showcase 28th May

We had an amazing time with DJ Moyma learning about DJing, dancing and graffiti. To celebrate the end of the sessions and show off what we learnt,  we put together two "performances" on Monday 28th May (one at Naseby Centre and one at Hutton Hall.) This was a chance for our young musicians to showcase their new skills and experience what it is like to DJ, MC and dance to a crowd.

Everyone did really well.

Naseby Centre dancers

Hutton Hall DJs

DJ Bash and DJ Biggie at Naseby Centre

DJ Biggie and DJ Bash demonstrating the baby scratch

DJ showcase!

Next Monday (21st May), our DJs will be showcasing their skills at Naseby Centre (5pm) and Hutton Hall (6.30pm). Come along to learn about hip hop culture, music and dance. Free entry!

Some more graffiti

Rory at Heartlands Hospital

Fazaan at Naseby Centre

Fazaan AKA DJ Biggy

DJ Bash at Naseby Centre

DJ Bash

DJ Techno

DJ Ishy

DJ Bullet Squash

DJ Techno, DJ Ishy and DJ Bullet Squash at Hutton Hall