Musical Show – 2018

October 16, 2018 Yvonne Blog, Event, Music 0

Music Show Group — Click to see more photos

We held our second show on September 29th 2018, with our music group members that were able to take part. Putting on a wonderful performance and enjoyed themselves very much.

We had a variety of songs, chosen by themselves, over the weeks and put in a great deal of effort to everyone what they had achieved. Even though the show was not very well supported by the community, thanks go to all who attended.

The background display board art was done in our art group. It shows paintings that relate to songs being sung in the show, like Lion King, Islands In The Stream, Unchained Melody. A racing car that relates to our member who was using actions instead of sing The Boys Are Back In Town by Thin Lizzy, an umbrella for the song Singing In The Rain. The display board added colour to their performance. Members sang solos, which shows how they are growing in confidence.

Other members needed the encouragement of their support worker to stand up and sing with them. Also, our members have been working together to sing as a duet. We had several duets during the show, and the effort and enjoyment was clear to see.

They had the opportunity to demonstrate how they have been learning to play simple tunes on the keyboard. As was explained in the talk beforehand, some members were using coloured stickers and letters on the keys to help them. In our music group over the weeks/months they have had the opportunity to learn two tunes using this method. I was so pleased those members were confident enough to demonstrate their newly found skills during the show. We have a members who has now moved on from using the help of colours and letters on the keys, and is learning to play songs/chords from a beginners music book. We have two keyboards for our members to enable those to move on when they are ready.

Our member who is doing very well playing from a music book , demonstrated wonderfully the progress he is making. It was a concern at the start of the show whether he was going to do that. Due to his autism, and can have issues with changes to his routine, he wasn’t sure about where the keyboard was going to be or when? He was used to playing it during our normal music session. After reassuring him and seeing the other members play their tunes. He was then happy to get his keyboard, and played the songs of his choice extremely well. He was showing the use of both hands, for chords and notes. This was good progress as he was setting the keyboard by himself. He knew/remembered what he needed to do for each song, and performed wonderfully without any support. He enjoyed himself and felt a sense of achievement, as they all did.

A great deal of planning goes into doing a show to make sure everyone is happy , and being prepared for things to change at any moment, due to their different issues. The show went very well, and most of all it is showing the progress our members are making in their confidence/friendship skills, working as a team, co-operation and turn taking. All of these skills take time to develop, and that is what having the opportunity to do so is having. Uniquely Me and U is having positive outcomes for our members, and by being a small group, it is developing anyone who that joins us at their own pace. As has been shown in our musical show.

Click picture above to see more photos

From developing the music group, another area has been helping members, by expressing themselves through actions using hands/arms. We call it ‘Music Express’. We have been piloting it. It is another way to help members enjoy doing actions to their songs if they choose not to sing, but act/demonstrate their songs in this way.
Again, this builds their confidence as they are deciding what to do. We did see a member using a tiger mask during the show for one of his songs. He made the mask himself in our art group. You could see how much happy he was wearing it and singing. He also did the actions of driving a racing car instead of singing to the Thin Lizzy song, The Boys Are Back In Town.

Our members are helping to develop the group in ways that encourage them to express themselves through music in different ways.