The Sing Up campaign was serious when it talked about getting all primary children involved in singing activity - even those with hearing impairment won't be missing out thanks to a new project initiated by the organisation Music and the Deaf.
As part of Sing Up's Hearts & Minds strand, the pioneering project will engage around 120 hearing-impaired primary school children, based in five centres across the country: Sunderland, Wolverhampton, Margate, Wakefield and St Albans.
The deaf-led projects will look at the songs already developed for Sing Up, but more significantly, the children will compose their owns songs, using signing as a starting point. It's an important and innovative way of working, because signing is usually an add-on to existing songs rather than the root of new music. Sign Up puts the children's own creativity and mode of expression at the fore.
The major composition project is taking place in St Albans, while other areas will be getting involved in their local musical traditions, which could mean writing sea shanties in Margate or working with a local history specialist in Sunderland. The initiative begins this week and runs until the end of March. Music and the Deaf will be recording a DVD of the process and results in order to disseminate their practice and inform future projects.
It has been a logistical feat for Music and the Deaf, but one they were more than happy to take on, driven by the charity's director, and the Music Manifesto's very first signatory, Dr Paul Whittaker OBE. "This is a first for Music and the Deaf," says administrator Sue Rosborough, "and it's a very exciting opportunity."
This News story was originally published by Music Manifesto, the campaign to improve music education 2004 – 2010.
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