The All Voices Project:
The community project I would like to present is the All Voices Project. The All Voices Project focuses on providing a space where at risk teenagers, who otherwise never would be able to, can access recording, writing, and foster a love for music. We aim to operate closely with schools in the West Yorkshire area and offer two-hour sessions once a week after school where students collaborate on songs. We want to provide facilities to the youth and offer an outlet that could change a life. The reason I have chosen this avenue for the All Voices Project is that I was personally a youth engaging in anti-social behaviour and also the darker side that anti-social behaviour can become, however, one person teacher showed me what was possible with music. Thankfully, this was at a school with a well-funded music department with complete access to instruments and recording facilities; I can say that with that teacher and with the access to music I found what I feel I was meant to do and achieved far more than I ever would have. This is the very opportunity I want to be able to provide to anyone the All Voices Project works with.
The Aims of the All Voices Project:
The main aim of the All Voices project is to provide as many children aged thirteen to seventeen with the facilities to harbour a love for music and develop their skills and knowledge as songwriters. We want to give children a creative outlet and a safe space where they can grow as people and musicians and have the chance to record their own music. We think these children deserve to have a space and outlet, as children who do not have access to places where they can express themselves were fourteen per cent more likely to commit a crime, the most popular offences being: theft, drugs and violent crimes. We aim to give a direction or a passion to these children and stop them from falling into these ways of life, through safeguarding and also with the spaces we create. It also came to our attention that forty-two per cent of state-funded schools were not entering any students into GCSE music. The All Voices Project is trying to combat both these failings at once, and with this obvious gap in both music not being accessible for children as well as these children not having spaces for self-expression, it was clear to me that the All Voices Project is needed. As the All Voices Project develops, we hope to be able to not only provide multiple schools with our project but also to have a space dedicated to the All Voices Project and help rebuild spaces for teenagers that are so vital in their development. The ultimate outcome of the All Voices Project is to have spaces across the country that provide access to instruments, studio equipment, education in songwriting, and act as venues for the teenagers at the All Voices Project. We also feel that having two students collaborate on a song together will bring children together, inspire them and then when the All Voices Project must leave, the children are not empty handed. They will have their own song; they will always have evidence of the All Voices Project and the effect it had on them.
Who is the All Voices Project for?
The All Voices Project is directed at at-risk teenagers from the ages of thirteen to seventeen who lack access to development as songwriters, recording facilities and instruments. As said before, we want to work closely with secondary schools around West Yorkshire that cannot facilitate music education. The reason we want to work specifically at secondary schools is that it is the ages of children that engage the most in antisocial behaviour, violent and unfortunately, the ages where you are most likely to be pulled into gang behaviour. The other biggest thought behind the All Voices Project was the rise of mental health disorders in children at secondary school, with anxiety being the leading one behind depression and eating problems. This, unfortunately, is not unexpected; there are less and less outlets for these teenagers, and with increased use of social media, it has become very easy for teenagers to feel isolated and to isolate themselves. The All Voices Project want to work with the children deemed at risk or currently involved in this behaviour and offer a space of safety, education and self-expression, which is crucial for these teenagers. These gangs mentioned before use calculated ways to manipulate young people to think that being in a gang is a way to make money, raise social status, feel important and make the child feel as if it’s their only option, especially if local. The All Voices Project aims to provide another option, a place where you can find a voice, where you can learn about songwriting and music, learn about what different careers music offers, and a place for these children to be safe.
What will the All Voices Project do?
The All Voices Project will first identify and reach out to a school with either no or very little offer of musical and songwriting education. From here, we would work with the school to identify any specific students who would benefit from the All Voices Project and target the most at-risk. for a situation where no specific children are identified by the school, but the school still lacks musical facilities, the All Voices Project would still work within that school. The All Voices Project takes the accessibility of music just as seriously as the safeguarding and direction it offers to at risk teenagers. The All Voices Project start first with a PowerPoint in an assembly, which is not counted in the six weeks at the school, across the chosen secondary school to give information about the many different things you can do as a career within music. I feel that this is important for children to understand that the music industry is a place for so many people who have a passion for music, as well as demonstrating many different gateways in music. After the introduction of the All Voices Matter Project, we will host two hours once a week after school for six weeks. Across the six weeks, we want to first understand who the children are, where their passions lie and where their songwriting skills are, and then finally write and record them. This is aimed to be established in the first session, where the first hour of the session would be an introduction on who we are and what the All Voices Project is going to be doing with them, as well as icebreakers between both the children and the staff of the All Voices Project. The All Voices Project will have four songwriting tutors and will be helping two students each, making the classes up of eight teenagers. The reason for this split is that if we divided the attention of the staff to more students at once, it could lead to children feeling left out and not receiving the experience they deserve and ultimately reinforcing any existing struggles. The reason, however, for each tutor not having any more than two children at a time is to be able to maximise the reach of children at each school, and by having two children work with each other, it enables the chance of musical conversation, further collaboration and friendship. The icebreakers chosen for the first hour promote learning about each other, for example task the children and staff and summarise their music taste with four songs and explain their choices. this is helpful for not only the staff as it helps us understand what sort of influences the children have and gives a direction to the songwriting tutors, but it also will help us in deciding who will collaborate with whom. The second hour of the second hour of the first session would be focused on who the children want to collaborate with and the start of the tutors’ gauging where their two children are with songwriting. Weeks two to four of the All Voices Project are the weeks where the first hour will be guests from the local music scene, of which the All Voices Project is well-connected. These first hours of each session will be the guests having the option of performing up to three songs of theirs, telling their stories of who they are and how they got to where they are now, as well as any advice for songwriting or advice in general. We use these guests not only to keep the children motivated to keep partaking, but hopefully we can show these children that music is very close and accessible, in the sense that musicians are playing everywhere, and these children can experience that even if seeing their favourite artist is not financially possible. The second hour of weeks two to four is when the tutors and children are working on the collaboration. It will begin with understanding things like song structure, rhyming schemes, and using melody and rhythm. These will be done in stages of learning what these things are, why they are useful and then using them with our tutors. We aim to slowly build parts of their collaboration over these weeks and by week four, we then go into recording the children’s collaborations using a mobile recording unit. During the recording process we find it crucial for the children to gain hands on experience with things such as DAW’s, where songwriters most commonly put their ideas and are an integral part of creating music. For these recording sessions we will have the necessary musicians and instruments present so that they can feel and understand what it is like to record. The musicians we will have will be a core band of a guitarist/bassist, a drummer and a keys player. These musicians are only there if there are no children who want to play these instruments for the recording, and if these children simply do not have the confidence to record themselves. By the end of the six weeks the children will have not only learnt about the many different avenues that a career in music can go, how to improve their songwriting, working with musicians, collaborating with a person (both on a personal and musical level), but they are also finishing the All Voices Project with four songs by themselves and by their peers. this final fact really proves crucial, the All Voices Project gives you your own song to hold onto, to prove that these children are talented and they have something physical to prove that.
Costings:
Four staff members: twelve hours of work at a rate of eighteen pounds an hour: £864
Musicians: paid for two two-hour sessions (With Own Equipment): £400
Mobile Recording unit:
Table On Wheels: £20
Scarlett 18i16: £300
5 XLRs: £50
Mac Mini: £170
Monitor: £70
Logic Pro X: £199.99
Microphones:
2x SM58: £150
2x SM57: £150
Squier Precision Bass: £100
VISIONKEY-50 Portable Digital Keyboard: £70
Digital Drums 520 Electronic Drum Kit: £250
Squier Stratocaster: £100
Overall, the All Voices Project would cost two thousand eight hundred and ninety-three pounds and ninety-nine pence. These costs are what it would take for so many important voices to be heard and the opportunity to change countless lives. There are multiple ways of obtaining funding for projects like this. For example, online sites such as Crowdfunder or GoFundMe to ask the public for their own financial support. the only problem with these ways is that there is no guarantee at all about funding, it is just relying on having your page on these sights seen by chance by people who could help. The other way is to apply for a grant which for a project like this makes most sense. The grants will come from either trusts or councils/governments. The two places where the All Voices Project would apply for fund is Art Council England and Youth Music. These two options are very suitable towards the All Voices Project as both have grants for the equalisation of accessibility of music. More specifically the Youth Music Trailblazer Fund, where you can apply for two to thirty grand to help equalise access to music. This is perfect for the All Voices Project as our very goal is to bring music to as many children as possible and it is very well suited to our cause.
Bibliography:
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