Music project helps teens get creative
Although there is no live music on the stage, there is music happening.
It is good to see Brick Lane Studios is open for rehearsals and the Diane Mitchell School of Music is open for music lessons. My own organisation, Loud n Proud, is busy delivering a music project called ‘On The Beat’. It is funded by Creative Scotland.
On The Beat provides disadvantaged young people from across Renfrewshire with the opportunity to engage in creative and participatory activities with qualified and experienced creative practitioners.
The project offers young people aged 13 to 19 their first experience of creative engagement and will encourage them to explore their own creativity via numerous disciplines, including guitar, bass, drums, keyboards, vocals and music tech.
On The Beat is designed to support young people in gaining confidence in their creative abilities and encourage them to export their thoughts through music.
The aim is to ensure that young people finishing the training programme will leave motivated, determined, confident and future focused. They will have a life changing experience.
The experience will not only change their perception of their world, but, more importantly, their perception of themselves.
The experience will give them the skills and the understanding to work with each other in a team, the people skills to talk to and negotiate with people in the music industry outside a school environment and something real and tangible to put on their CV.
This type of project promotes expression through music and will encourages the development of transferable skills for learning, life and work including confidence, selfdiscipline, and teamwork.
Many of the intended target group generally have chaotic lifestyles outside school, mental health issues and difficulty communicating.
The project concentrates on building positive relationships with pupils through music and does not set a prescribed programme of activity. It goes at each student’s pace and there are no exams to be sat.
On The Beat offers workshops in instrumental music, recording music, writing music, music video and social media and is a mix of group and one to one presentations.
The young people who are going along to the weekly sessions are a mix of beginners and intermediate level.
All the participants so far have gained the confidence to take part in something like this again.
It is designed so that young people can attend as often as they like and are free to play independently, as a group, and with or without support from the tutor and music volunteers.
The project needs singers and a bass player in their mid-teens.
If you, or you know someone that is interested in going along, get in touch by emailing info@loudnproud.org