‘Be Scene and Heard’: Delivering an inclusive music project during Lockdown 3.0

‘Be Scene and Heard’ was a Youth Funded music project originally planned to be delivered in person during January 2021. As we were in another national lockdown the organisers from record label and music events organisation I’m Not From London decided to deliver the project virtually instead.

Will Robinson and his business partner Tricia Gardiner have identified that many deaf or hard of hearing people feel excluded from music and the gig/local music scene and this is something they aimed to address with the course.

Supported by a range of talented mentors, the aim of Be Scene and Heard was to enable young people of all ages and backgrounds, including those who are deaf or hard of hearing, to produce their own song and music video.

I spoke to Will to find out more.

Hi Will! What were your initial feelings when you realised the course couldn’t go ahead as planned? What changes were made?

Will: Initially, we were waiting to see what could be done and as we had planned for the course to take place at our own venue we already had Covid protective screens in place as well as PPE. We had even moved the date forward due to the first lockdown so once restrictions came in again Trish and I decided to crack on by moving it virtually as we figured people might need this project more than ever due to the isolation of lockdown.

This in the end turned out to be a real strength of the course and I think we all actually bonded quicker because of it.

What sort of demand did you have for the course – did lots of people sign up?

Will: We had ten people sign up but only seven people attended. I think for some they didn’t like the idea of learning online -it’s obviously not for everyone – but the people who attended took to it so quickly. Due to the pandemic a lot of places that we would have thought to advertise were closed or had a skeleton staff.

We had some great help promoting the course from yourselves (Limping Chicken), BBC East Midlands, Radio Nottingham, Notts TV, Derby Deaf, Music And The Deaf, Nottinghamshire Deaf Society and Leftlion.

Who were the mentors involved in delivering this project?

Will: Trish Gardiner was the mentor’s mentor and we would all have sessions with her on how best to deliver the sessions and work through new challenges we were experiencing. Fred Glenister was our videography mentor and he would work specifically on the video treatment for the videos the participants were working on with advice to editing, lighting and the realistic possibilities were of life in lockdown.

Owen Brindley was our sign language user who would interpret all the songs we had into sign and also support and use sign with those who required it. Joe Fletcher was our other resident mentor using sign language, a West End dancer, choreographer who worked specifically with performance and communication through performance and music.

We also had Molly-May Gardiner who is a West End dancer and vocal coach and a great source of support and a moral booster to all involved throughout! Ben Hellings was our vocal coach mentor and plays a mean guitar! Oscar Speed aka Rudi was our resident pop star giving advice on song writing, stage presence and provided synth and keyboard accompaniment whenever necessary.

What type of communication support was available to participants?

Will: Two of our mentors are West End dancers that could use sign with the participants.  One of them, Joe, is deaf. We also had our mentor and sign language user, Owen Brindley, on hand who was able to provide sign support whenever necessary. Most of the group were partially deaf and used hearing aids and everyone communicated very well with each other.

How did online rehearsals work? Did you work individually with each person or conduct group sessions all together?

Will: Some sessions like vocal teaching due to the self-conscious nature of it were done individually but and then we kitted some of the vocalists out with microphones send to their houses so they could record multiple takes.

For some of the writing groups we would start in groups of two or three then expand as other musicians and mentors got involved. We would have catch-up sessions as a big group and we would swap around mentors depending on what stage of the process we were at.  We also had a few WhatsApp groups to let everyone know when one session was finishing and I would schedule sessions with different mentors and participants at the end of each day.

Fred: The participants responded to the virtual working set up really keenly. In the beginning, there was a lot of uncertainty about whether working online would lead to good results, as no one had really tried doing things this way before, but it quickly became a very intuitive process.

In general, we would meet on Zoom and discuss ideas and themes for the videos, looking at the inspiration behind lyrics or musical ideas, and then translate them into visual ideas.

Can you tell us more about one of your participants, Daisy, who is also deaf?

Fred:  I loved working with Daisy and her Mum, Jackie. Daisy is so enthusiastic about performing and loves music, and you could tell she was having a ball throughout the whole thing. I think writing a song that was really from her heart and then seeing herself perform to it in the video was a special thing for her.

Like all of us, she’s been missing her friends and social life, so I think she got a lot out of being able just to spend time with people and chat and work on something close to her heart. Every time I logged in to a meeting she was there with a massive smile, and she really threw herself into the project 100%.

I also think she liked being in a group where communication wasn’t an issue – whether it was speaking or signing, we all managed to get our ideas and desires across no problem and help ourselves understand each other when the need arose.

Daisy’s Mum: Daisy and I both loved this. Daisy had such wonderful support from her two professional mentors who empowered her to create her own ideas for the routine. They encouraged her to use sign to support her speech. One of the mentors (Joseph Fletcher) is deaf so fully understood the issues that Daisy faced when listening to music and dancing.

I am certain that being involved in this way made Daisy more confident in her own ability as a dancer. It gave her the opportunity to be creative with other people who share her love for dance but also understood the complexities of doing this when deaf.

When I asked Daisy how she felt about the whole experience she described it as awesome! She said that the best thing was having her own song and learning a new dance with Molly and Joseph – her mentors. It was indeed awesome.

What sort of methods were used for the songwriting process?

Will: The methods were very organic and came from all of the mentor’s backgrounds and skills learned within the industry, if I had to put them into words I’d say Joe and Molly worked very well as a team finding out what exactly inspired the participants and what type of music they were in to. They would use these references to shape the song and direction of the lessons as well as providing performance experience and combining these skills with communication and songwriting.

Ben has his own vocal academy so a lot of this work was helping participants find their range, resting voice and confidence in singing. Oscar would help participants get over their ‘recording syndrome” which is where people may get nervous when recording their final takes. It’s a big problem when musicians are starting out. Owen would work closely with the songwriters and we’d also use sign language as a good bonding exercise.

Looking back, how do you feel the project went?

Oscar: Even better than expected! We had a really talented and passionate team but we didn’t know how incredibly enthusiastic and talented the participants would be, as well as making do with every session being over video call, but it came together brilliantly. The collaboration between pupils and their peers, mentors and the entire team was fantastic.

The project has also created a new community / friendship group with ongoing support for each other and further collaborations on the way. The participants have also gained media coverage on BBC Nottingham Radio and Notts TV so there is already a huge impact!

Fred: I think the project as a whole went amazingly well. I must confess to being a bit worried about how we were going to achieve what we wanted at the start, but within a day or two, it was clear that we had a really good bunch of people together who all just wanted to make things happen. I’m so impressed with the final results, I can’t believe all that music came out of three weeks of online meetings!

I’m really pleased with the social side of it too, it was lovely to see friendships blossom so quickly amongst the group. People have continued to keep up with each other and work together since it ended, so I think that’s the real measure of its success.

Will: I loved how quickly everything fell together. There was very little awkwardness between us all for a group of strangers. We soon became friends and found it so cathartic to be doing something so positive and creative throughout lockdown.

The project was there to get a group of people of varying levels of hearing together though, by the second day, deafness was barely mentioned we all became focused on making music, having fun and creating some awesome videos.

If you were to run this again, what would you do differently or how would you expand on it?

Will: This worked well online but I think I’d be really interested in seeing what we could do together with musical instruments and a studio to hand. I’d like to get more people involved and perhaps extend it to more groups that may feel excluded from making music.

I’d love to see what videos we could make when we’re allowed in the open and also perhaps create a legacy by maybe having some of the participants work on the mentor side. They were certainly good enough to! That’s if they’re not busy becoming tomorrow’s superstars 😉

You can find out more about Be Scene and Heard and watch the finished music videos made during the project here:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCOg8txOBQUI159F7YvK5Y9w

https://www.facebook.com/BeSceneAndHeard/videos/?ref=page_internal