Music and Community, Training Module

Concept

The Music and Community module aims to give a range of ideas of activities for different audiences and age groups, extending the benefits of music to various sectors of the population. Musical activities to develop with the community are a great way to bring generations together and break down barriers between people.

Benefits

  • Working with participants with different levels of knowledge, encouraging cooperation between all
  • Working with different instruments and materials.
  • Mixing and adapting different teaching methods to the needs of the participants, making music studying more varied and captivating.

Developed skills

  • Music skills – Basic knowledge, first contact with an instrument or music technic 
  • Respect
  • Diversity
  • Equality
  • Companionship and interaction
  • Teamwork
  • Responsibility
  • Collaboration
  • Proactivity
  • Problem solving
  • Organisation
  • Creativity
  • Communication

Units

This module is divided into three units. At the end of each unit you will find several materials to help you implement the training (namely support documents for trainers and worksheets for trainees). Find more at the training curricula section. 

 

  • Activities with experimental and improvised music
  • Basic recycled instruments
  • Music for change

Evaluation criteria

You can find specific evaluation criteria for each unit of this module. As a suggestion, if you wish to implement the whole module (including all its different units) and evaluate your students in the end, you can always check if evaluation outcomes of all units have been successfully achieved.

Related projects

Explore the following projects and try to get some inspiration from them for your own activities!

  • SAN SIMÓN FIDDLE
  • SPACE ENSEMBLE MUSIC FOR FILMS WORKSHOP
  • RECYCLED ORCHESTRA OF CATEURA
  • LA MÚSICA DEL RECICLAJE
7_San Simon Fiddle eosa vigo

Pontevedra, Spain.

 

San Simón Fiddle is a one-week summer course for string instruments in traditional music, organized by Galicia Fiddle since 2012. It takes place in San Simon Island, in Pontevedra (Galicia, Spain). It’s designed for children and youngsters between seven and eighteen years old, with violin and cello formation. The course purpose is to promote the use of strings in traditional music and to encourage students to have fun while learning and improvise, regardless of their technical level. Exploring the participants’ capacity to improvise to the maximum is one of the main goals pursued, which will make them discover a new and fantastic musical world unknown to them until then. At this summer course the music is transmitted orally, dispensing music scores in order to sharpen the participants’s capacity for musical retention, who, in a few days on the island, will be able to learn a melody in just a few minutes.

P1023492

The workshop “Music for films” by Space Ensemble is a short musical residency to work with students from different music schools and backgrounds, in order to show them how to create and play music for silent films. The workshop covers topics such as free improvisation, directed improvisation, creating music for films and, above all, it aims to stimulate the students’ creativity, making them think about how they can give new meanings to a film through different sounds. The workshop’s educational approach aims to stimulate participants to be creative, confident of their abilities as musicians, and to work as a team, paying special attention to the development of the listening skills of the group as a whole. The work plan for the workshop “Music for films” foresees working with short films with the theme ecology / biodiversity / fables made by several international directors. At the end of the workshop, there is a small cine-concert, bringing together teachers and students on stage.Ideally, the workshop can have 10 to 12 students participants (a mix of percussion, strings and woodwind instruments). 

The National Arts and Culture

“The world sends us garbage. We send music back.”

Favio Chávez, Recycled Orchestra of Cateura Director

An orchestra from Assunción (Paraguay) entirely made with recycled instruments. It was created in 2012 by the musician and environmental technician Favio Chávez, who had the idea to recycle materials from the Cateura landfill to create instruments for children who live in vulnerable and social exclusion conditions, that otherwise probably wouldn’t have the possibility of learning music and playing in an orchestra.  The success of this orchestra is huge, having played in several countries around the world, with artists like Stevie Wonder, Metallica and Megadeth.

Official website: www.recycledorchestracateura.com

Ecoembes

“You give a second chance to a can, a piece of wood or something that is discarded, but you are also giving a second, third or fourth chance to many people who are abandoned by the system.”

 

Victor Gil Serafini, Artistic Director of La Música del Reciclaje

La Música del Reciclaje is a social project by ECOEMBES that adapts the ideas followed by the Recycled Orchestra of Cateura from Paraguay to the reality of Madrid.  It welcomes young people at risk of social exclusion, teaching them music using recycled instruments. They work with 6 centers in Madrid, which results in the inclusion of approximately 100 young people.

Official Website: www.lamusicadelreciclaje.com