Our Projects – Making Music

August 17, 2020August 18, 2021

The Big Drum Adventure

Mat Clements, who delivers The Big Drum Adventure, has been working across the Borders with the YMI programme since 2010. He delivers a gateway music programme which takes a whole primary class on a musical journey with drums, percussion and voice.

The project introduces pupils to the exciting world of music making, building rhythm, playing and performance skills to give each pupil the confidence to progress to the next level.

Mat’s website has details of all his projects. www.wherestheone.co.uk

Mat has created some online versions of his fantastic Museum of Amazing Musical Instruments which you can see on our blog here.

The Museum of Amazing Musical Instruments

These are two recoding from one of the projects Mat has run

ig Drum Adventure at Knowepark PS , track 1.

Big Drum Adventure at Knowepark PS , track 2.

June 4, 2020June 4, 2020

Hawick Common Riding

A number of years ago the YMI team supported the production of a CD with

pupils from the five of the schools singing the well know songs. Working alongside musicians Alan Brydon and Darren Johnstone the pupils recorded some of the well know Common Riding songs. In addition to these recording of the pupils singing, song sheets, graphics and some videos where created during this summer project.

We have reproduced all the recordings, videos, songsheets and music made during the project.

We have added an animated videos recordings by Burnfoot Primary School below and you can find all the others on our YMI YouTube Channel.

Audio Tracks

Listen to some of the recordings that were made during the project.

The Bonnie BannerBlue – St. Margaret’s, Trinity, Burnfoot and Stirches with Alan Brydon

The boy wi’ the flag – Burnfoot Primary with Darren Johnstone

The Mosstrooper’s Song – Stirches Primary with Alan Brydon

Up wi’ the Banner – Trinity Primary

And We Ride – Wilton Primary

Songsheets

Below are three of the song sheets to download and you can access them all on our resource page.

Up wi’ Auld Hawick

The Border Queen

Boy wi’ the Flag

Addtional Resources

For teachers and school staff with access to Glow the files are all accessible in our YMI Making Music Team.

If you have any questions get in touch.

March 26, 2020May 29, 2020

Learn the Uke!

Introduction

The Youth Music Initiative team have created a project to support teachers deliver class Ukulele lessons The YMI tutors come to the school to start the lessons and deliver some CPD for the staff. After a few weeks the of co-delivery, the YMI tutors reduce their input and only come into the school every couple weeks, with the class teacher leading the class in the alternate weeks.

As the project is develops, and has now be changed by the lockdown, we are adding song sheets and videos that can be downloaded and used at home or in the school hubs If you have access GLOW you can see all of them on our YMI Making Music Teams Page.

Words

We have song and chord sheets that can be printed off for all of the songs videos.

To view the words online just click on the link. To download the files right click on the links and then select either:

Save Target As’ (PC)
‘Download Linked File’ (Mac

Budapest

La Cucaracha

You can download the words for all the songs in our posts on the following Learning Resource page.

Here is one of the videos we have made, with Mrs Borthwick leading La Cucaracha.

Links

This the link to the Ukulele Playlist so you can watch more at home.

You can subscribe to our YMI Borders YouTube Channel where we have other playlists and learning videos from the tutors.

For teachers and support staff you can access our GLOW Making Music resource pages. If you are not already member of the Team you can request access.

November 6, 2019December 6, 2019

Music Appreciation Assembly

Music Appreciation Assembly

Three of the YMI team recently performed songs at an assembly in Earlston Primary schools. The school was running a series of afternoon assemblies bringing in musicians , asking some of the pupils to play their own instruments or listening to music to increase the appreciation and enjoyment of music . the Depute head teacher, Kevin, asked if we could help and Kaela, Jon and Jenni went along in December to play sing and get the pupils up dancing.

It went down well and we hope to help the school invite some other musicians along to inspire the children.

November 1, 2019September 8, 2020

Kakatsitsi Drummers

In October we had a series of workshops led by a Ghanaian group of traditional drummers, dancers and singers from the Ga tribe of Southern Ghana . The came to the UK for a 2 months tour with the arts education charity Indigenous People , who specialise in tour and project management for traditional world music and dance groups, particularly from Africa.

The group visited seven of our schools across the region, delivering a whole school performance followed by class dance and drumming sessions. It was such a fun and high energy experience for the pupils, with an opportunity to experience music and dance from Ghana.

October 1, 2019November 1, 2019

Scottish Opera Tour

The Scottish Opera Primary School tour has been happening for 50 years . Each year, once we get our funding, we apply for 3 or 4 schools to take part across the region and there is always a high demand for spaces . This year’s workshop and performance, Warriors! The Emperor’s Incredible Army, is based upon the true story of Emperor Qin’s incredible 2,000 year old terracotta army.

This year we have managed to combine a number of smaller schools to work together on one show, that will be performed in the bigger school. The project will be delivered to 5 or 6 schools and will take place between April and May 2020.

The pupils learning the songs with their teacher in class, using the resources provided by Scottish Opera. There is a practice morning, led by a SO singing coach, two weeks before the workshop day. Then the performance day it is all pulled together by a team of SO staff, with a morning of practice, a dress rehearsal to the rest of the school, followed by a final performance to the parents. it is amazing what the pupils achieve in such a short space of time.

The story line for this years workhop is below.

ll hail Qin Shi Huang – the first Emperor of China, destined to rule his Empire forever. After all, didn’t he drink the Elixir of Life, a potion that promises immortality? Not such a great promise when that elixir turns out to be a deadly poison. Now the afterlife awaits, but even a dead Emperor needs an army. So, over many years, he’s gathered a vast hoard to watch over him after death – 8,000 soldiers, horses and chariots, all armoured and armed to the teeth. And every one of them moulded from clay…

Music: Alan Penman
Lyrics: Ross Stenhouse
Commissioned with the five Scottish Confucius Institutes

July 1, 2019May 29, 2020

The Borders YMI team

The Youth Music Initiative team in the Borders consists of four music tutors , working in our schools, who are supported by the Creative Learning Officer. We are part of the Education, within Children and Young People’s Services.

Each year we apply to the YMI Formula Fund for the staff team, resources and the external projects that we run.

We work in many of our Primary schools, all of the Support and Complex Needs units and some of the High schools. We compliment the work done by the peripatetic Curriculum Support Teachers (Music), who also deliver lessons in some our primary schools, and we ensure that we visiting each primary school in the region between the two teams.

The YMI tutors are highly accomplished musicians and have taught in schools for many years. Whilst they all have their own specialism they deliver whole class music making lessons, using a wide range of instruments including ukuleles, drums, tin whistles, keyboards and the accordion, as well as using singing and music technology.

Our funding enables us to deliver a number of regular projects provided by external partners, such as the primary school tour by Scottish Opera and Mat the Hat’s ‘ Big Drum Adventure’ as well as other one off projects by touring musician’s, such as the Ghanaian Kakatsitsi drummers.

For more details about what the work YMI team in the Borders is doing and some of our activities we are currently undertaking have a look at some of our Home Learning posts.