At the end of March, 39 students from our Manchester Furthering Talent Partner Hub met at “Band on the Wall,” the iconic live music venue and learning centre based in Manchester which celebrates music of excellence from around the world. The young musicians had the opportunity to explore looping and experience playing together as a huge band after only six months of learning a new instrument.
The morning started with some fun vocal and body percussion warm ups which were a great example of acoustic looping before hearing local electronic artist and music producer Caro C demonstrate looping using Abelton Live and a Push controller.
“When I found out about more instruments that I didn’t know about before I wanted to try them too” (Mia, 9)
“Listening to different instruments was amazing and meeting other musicians was fantastic. I even made some new friends from other schools.” (Macie-Mae, 11)
“I enjoyed listening to new instruments that I have not seen or heard before.” (Juliana, 10)
All Furthering Talent students have termly individual goals, which they set themselves with their music teacher, to help them exoand their musical knowledge. In Manchester, many children have set a goal to see and hear different musical instruments so the teaching team also played a live version of ‘Havana’ on violin, cello, guitar, clarinet and trombone.
They then split into sections to create melodic and percussive loops for Mark Ronson’s and Bruno Mars’ Uptown Funk. Caro C then recorded with a handheld zoom device to mix in half an hour.
“The loops were fun because all different types of music came together.” (Fajar, 11)
Whilst Caro C was busy mixing, the whole group came together for a live performance and recording of Oasis’ Songbird – Oasis did do a demo track at Band on the Wall but never a live gig!
“I think listebning to other children play is awesome because we get to know their talent. Playing with large groups was the best. I loved it.” (Elizabeth, 10)
“Playing in a big group was beautiful.” (Omotayo, 8)
The morning ended with a breath taking moment of Caro C doing a live looping performance using the recorded loops that the students created.
“The recording sounded great because our guitars were playing all the way through and I could hear other people’s voiceovers. It sounded lit.” (Shiloh, 10)
“Listening to recording was great and I could hear myself playing.” (Omotayo, 8)
The children had a fantastic musical morning and we’d like to thank all of the team and Band on the Wall for hosting the event and providing the most amazing stonebaked pizzas for lunch
“The pizza was very good but my favourite part was when we went upstairs to record the music.”, Shiloh, 10
“The venue looked really good and I liked the glowing red sign.” (Elizabeth, 10)
Thank you Lindsay Thomas for the write up of what sounds like a fantastic day!
