Project Plan
Critical Evaluation – Community Music Project: Heydays
For our Community Music placement, we were allocated to run a 10-week programme for over 55s at the Leeds Playhouse. The project will be run as part of Heydays, the largest and longest running arts programme for older people in UK theatre (Leeds Playhouse, 2026).
We decided to run our programme as a songwriting project under the name The Lyric Lounge, teaching participants the fundamental skills to write and perform original music by the end of the programme. We used the name The Lyric Lounge as it gives the impression of a laid back, welcoming creative space rather than a traditional music or choir class.
Aims
The goal for The Lyric Lounge is to use the songwriting process to teach the fundamentals of music making, foster creativity, and encourage social bonding,
Heydays, as an organisation, is set up to strengthen the communities around our older generation, and contributes to combatting the loneliness epidemic which affects 1 in 10 older people. (WHO Commission of Social Connection, 2025.)
Aligning with Heydays, The Lyric Lounge will be focused on collaborative achievement rather than individual. Operating within the Heydays programme means that our work will be contributing to the network of creative activities for older people already in place, and hopefully strengthen pre-existing connections participants have within the community.
The tangible goal by the end of the project is to perform the original song written by the participants at the Leeds Playhouse. We will also consider bringing a small amount of equipment to the later sessions in order to record their song.
Songwriting
We chose to use songwriting as the focus of the programme, as all three members of our group have experience with writing songs or music. Songwriting is known to be an effective tool for improving wellbeing in older people, and we’ve designed our project to maximise the positive effects brought on by certain techniques.
As there are many different facets of songwriting, like rhythm, melody, lyrics, there are many avenues for participants to get involved. This gives participants opportunity to showcase their individual strengths within music should they want to.
We’re taking a flexible approach to our programme, as we won’t know the musical or motor capabilities of our participants until the introductory session. We’ve kept our session plans open to revision as the programme progresses – we will ensure that participants aren’t feeling pressured to have a certain level of musicality, but also that they can express their ability if they have prior musical skills.
Lyrics
We will be dedicating two weeks of our programme to lyric writing. Lyric writing is arguably the most accessible and intuitive part of the songwriting process, and we anticipate the participants to be enthusiastic about this element as lots of poetry writing exercises take place across Heydays.
Focusing on lyric writing, and especially the sentimental and emotional aspects of the process, will give the participants the opportunity to reflect on their personal lives and bond socially with the others in the group
Rhythm
It’s important for us to dedicate a session to rhythm, as although age doesn’t have a large impact on perception of musical rhythm, older people’s brains do respond less strongly to overall beat patterns than younger brains (Sauvé, Bolt, Nozaradan, Zendel, 2022). This deficit can be amplified by common side effects of aging, such as hearing loss and memory problems.
Our rhythm session will strengthen beat pattern recognition skills, through partaking in call and response practice such as our ‘Here’s my Rhythm’ activity. Activities like this promote a cohesive group morale, while the turn-taking element encourages creativity and individualism.
Harmony
We will also be utilising digital music making services throughout our project, and particularly in our harmony session. We will give the participants a choice of instruments through which to explore ideas of chords and melody, such as guitar, ukulele, keyboard or digital applications.
Applications such as ThumbJam are simple to use and an effective way to introducing ideas about harmony and melody. Digital music making services have proven to be equally as effective as physical instruments – “The difference in impact we’ve seen is in the way music is taught, regardless of whether it’s a real or virtual instrument.” (MacRitchie, 2025)
Learning the basics of piano, guitar and ukulele helps to improve fine motor skills, as “pressing piano keys or plucking guitar strings demands dexterity, strength, and control” (Figueiredo, 2024). This will be beneficial for our participants due to finger dexterity naturally declining in older people, and diseases such as arthritis are common.
Memory and Wellbeing
Music therapy is known to be beneficial for those who suffer from memory loss, as many over 55s do. It has been found to ‘preserve their sense of personal identity’ and can ‘stimulate social bonding’ (Matziorinis, Koelsch, 2022).
Repetition will be key throughout The Lyric Lounge, in order to strengthen melodic, rhythmic and lyrical memory. Lyric, chord and activity sheets will be given out each session as a means for retaining and recalling information.
Heydays is set up to strengthen the communities around our older generation, and contributes to combatting the loneliness epidemic which affects 1 in 10 older people. (WHO Commission of Social Connection, 2025.)
Performance
The 10-week programme will cumulate in a live performance of the participants’ original music at Leeds Playhouse. This tangible end goal of a performance will provide motivation for the participants, and feel rewarding at end of the programme. A laid-back, ‘sharing’ style performance will be the aim, as we want to focus more strongly on the positive benefits of the writing process rather than the result.
They will be helped prepare for this experience during our ‘Performance Skills’ session, and a ‘Performance Rehearsal’ session. In the Performance Skills session, we will be teaching about stage fright and breathing techniques, and practice some simple ‘dance moves’ to help take the pressure off of vocal presentation.
The participants will also have the option to perform a spoken word style performance of lyrics/poetry they’ve written if they’d prefer to engage with that rather than a musical performance.
The sense of achievement given by a conclusive performance will hopefully encourage participants to extend their practice of songwriting further than the project, turning writing into a hobby or passion for them.
Accessibility
As our participants will be aged 55 plus, and with a range of musical abilities, ensuring the programme is accessible will be a focus throughout the 10 weeks. All activities will have seated and standing options, and we will ensure that we use terms that are clear for all ranges of musical knowledge. The venue within the Leeds Playhouse that the Lyric Lounge will take place in is wheelchair accessible, with lifts and disabled toilets nearby.
Obstacles
We have researched and acknowledged multiple potential obstacles that could impede our ability to carry out our project, and are equipped to manage them should they arise. As there is the potential we will be working with participants with age related cognitive disorders, obstacles could arise regarding emotional regulation. Although, as non-professionals, we aren’t trained to handle these situations, we will seek assistance from our mentor Lily Craig should we need to.
We could encounter an obstacle in the form of varying levels of attendance from week to week – we will tackle this by adjusting internal group sizes and ensuring all participants are feeling involved and productive. We are also aware of how to carry out all fire and Health & Safety precautions.
This project has a strong potential for longevity, with the possibility of having a permanent yearly residency as part of the Heydays programme. We will be regularly reviewing and self-evaluating how well the sessions are going, requesting feedback from our mentor Lily Craig to consider any improvements, ensuring the programme session plans remain flexible and proactive.
Conclusion
Our programme The Lyric Lounge is designed to be a relaxed, accessible introduction to songwriting for over 55s.
We see a niche for our programme in the local community music scene, with very few songwriting projects being for specifically for older people, one of the few other organisations doing something similar being The Swan Project ran by Arts Together Leeds.
Our project will benefit older people’s sense of community, creative expression, fine motor skills and musical knowledge.
Bibliography
Barton, S. (2025) Learning to play music can improve older people’s brain function, study suggests. The University of Sheffield. https://sheffield.ac.uk/news/learning-play-music-can-improve-older-peoples-brain-function-study-suggests [Accessed 21 Jan 2026].
Figueiredo, J. (2024) The Development of Hand-Eye Coordination and Fine Motor Skills Through Music. Music Lab, 21 March. https://www.musiclabschool.co.uk/post/the-development-of-hand-eye-coordination-and-fine-motor-skills-through-music [Accessed 21 Jan 2026].
Matziorinis, A.M. & Koelsch, S. (2022) Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences CONCISE REVIEW Open Access The promise of music therapy for Alzheimer’s disease: A review. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1516(1), 11–17. Available online: https://doi.org/10.1111/nyas.14864.
Reducing social isolation and loneliness among older people (no date) Who.Int. https://www.who.int/activities/reducing-social-isolation-and-loneliness-among-older-people [Accessed 21 Jan 2026].
Sauvé, S.A., Bolt, E., Nozaradan, S. & Zendel, B. (2022) Aging effects on neural processing of rhythm and meter. Center for Open Science. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/qku6e [Accessed 20 Jan 2026].
The Swan Song Project (no date) Arts Together. https://artstogetherleeds.co.uk/partner/the-swan-song-arts-project/ [Accessed 21 Jan 2026].
