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!

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.
 

Music on the Children's Unit

I'd like to share one of the other parts of the music programme at HEFT (Heart of England NHS Foundation Trust). Some talented young volunteers came in to the Children's Ward last week, accompanied by their mom Jackie, to perform some music. Their session on the Children's Ward at Heartlands Hospital made a real difference to the day - a hospital stay involves lots of boredom, anxiety and upset, and music is a really good way of helping to create a lovely atmosphere to try to alleviate these.

Parents and staff, as well as patients, sometimes have a difficult time in hospital and it's important for the welfare of all of them to create an environment that's as free of stress as possible. I think the music and arts programme at HEFT is a really important part of making this happen. Thanks so much to Jackie, Ciara and Niamh for coming in.

Here's what Niamh and Ciara said about their visit:

We were lucky enough to be invited in by Christina to visit the Children's Ward at Heartlands Hospital on 20th February 2013 and play some music. We were made very welcome by the staff, especially Sam the Nursery Nurse.

We were keen to be able to play for the children,  being in hospital can be a very stressful time for sick children and their families and we wanted to provide what we hoped was a  fun and interactive session for young hospital patients and their families.

We played different types of music on the guitar and tin whistle, and sang some  modern pop songs and played some traditional Irish Music. 

It was a really wonderful experience, to see the children joining in and smiling - whilst beating a rhythm with some percussion instruments!!  We do hope to come back again and will learn some more songs that may be familiar to the children to help them feel more 'at home' during their stay in hospital.

Thank you for letting us come and visit.

Ciara and Niamh McCorriston

If you are interested in becoming a music or art volunteer yourself, please get in touch on 0121 424 0113.

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!

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.

Behind the scenes at our photoshoot

We worked with a professional photographer from the Medical Illustration team at Heartlands last week - she was amazing and worked really well with our young people. We're so excited to see the results!

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.

Huma & Jonny sing Taylor Swift "Crazier"

We run music sessions at Heartlands Hospital alongside the Kids United session in the community. Here one patient who has not sung before, gains confidence in singing thanks to encouragement and help from the amazing Jonny Amos.
Thanks Jonny!

Huma says "thank you, it was amazing. The best experience I've had".

Some videos from our roving reporters

We asked some of the young people taking part in our project to video each other talking about music. They each came up with a set of questions and carried out some excellent interviews! Thanks guys: Bashir, Farzan, Younus and Forid.

We've now had 2 brilliant weeks of African drumming sessions with Sarah Westwood from Drumvoice. Our sessions are different every time with lots of new faces each week! We are learning some African rhythms and trying improvisation too! It's a lot of fun and the sessions go really quickly :)

First day of African drumming!

Last week we had a brilliant few sessions of African drumming, they were loads of fun! First we had a session at Heartlands Hospital, where we got a good group going - made up of patients, parents and NHS staff. Then we went on to Hutton Hall, where there was a very small but very select group - hopefully we'll have a couple more people this week! Then on to Naseby Centre where we had the biggest and LOUDEST group yet! What a fun day. African drumming is brilliant, I'm learning lots and Sarah's a great music leader! Photos to follow!

Talk to us!

Like us on facebook! www.facebook.com/Music4HH

Follow us on twitter! @Music4HH

Tell us what you think! Ask us things! Share your photos and comments! What music would you like to try out later in the project? Do you like African drumming? Why? What's happening on X Factor? What's your favourite band?

TELL US!

Music project starts today!

Our brilliant project starts TODAY with some African drumming at Heartlands Hospital, Hutton Hall and Naseby Centre - for young people only! Sarah Westwood from Drumvoice (www.drumvoice.co.uk) will be running the sessions.

Thundercats are go!

The Arts Department at the Heart of England NHS Foundation Trust was awarded a grant from Youth Music to carry out a huge music project with children and young people in Heartlands Hospital and the Hodge Hill community. The project will run from October 2011 - March 2013 and will include hundreds of young people from the area. We're excited to start! Next week workshops will begin at the James Brindley School and on the children's ward at Heartlands, and at youth groups in Hodge Hill. We have an amazing, energetic professional African drumming teacher who will carry out the first series of workshops. Coming up later in the project are DJing, songwriting and rapping workshops, performances, events at Heartlands Hospital and the chance for our young people to achieve an Arts Award. Hooray!