"Building Bridges with Music": more on the work of Coventry Music

Following my interview with Coventry Music Lead Mark Steele (which in turn was prompted by my enthusiasm for that organisation's "Live On Stage" project), I was interested in learning more about how they encouraged young people who might not have considered participating in music (through factors such as lack of opportunity, lack of family experience in music etc) to do so.

To that end, my thanks to Mark for facilitating time with Arjun Jethwa and to Arjun for generously talking with me just as preparations for the new education year were taking off.

Arjun is an Engagement Officer (one of several) within the service but specifically he has the remit of Connector (which is a great term for such a role) and his work is funded by Young Sounds UK who have worked for the last quarter of a century to build ways to bring youngsters from lower income families into music.

A lot of our conversation kept on reverting back to a central idea of young people's voices: empowering them to express themselves & their experiences in their own way through music, lyrics and through writing about music. We spent a lot of time discussing how, for example, some might use this magazine as a platform and although the outcome was highly positive and optimistic on both sides, it's such early days yet that we'd probably best not jinx anything by saying too much until the foundations have been laid.

Going back to my talks with Mark, Michelle, Mason, Nina, Project Overload, Loophole etc, Arjun made it equally clear how encouraging musicians to be themselves was the key objective: not trying to force them into boxes of adults' making. A flautist of classical background himself (and his hands-on work with Coventry Music is very much woodwind focused), he feels that he can adapt the role of his instrument to any genre or style that he is aware of & so would pass that sense of open-mindedness & flexibility onto all those he works with.

Working with Young Sounds UK therefore requires a lot of work keeping himself aware of all possible projects, grants & opportunities out there so that he can signpost individuals towards ones which best meet their needs & aspirations.

As the overall aim is the maximise the number of young people who engage in musical activity, he and his colleagues have to be aware of areas in Coventry where participation rates are lower ("the cold areas") & which therefore are priorities for fostering engagement. With a background in widening participation myself, I explored with Arjun whether he found working through "gatekeepers" helped him encourage potential learners: I was most interested in how confident he was in terms of connecting directly with young people to persuade them. He spent a lot of time prior to coming to Coventry in freelancing around the country, building enthusiasm for playing & composition & clearly brings so much in this respect to his current role. I was also intrigued by his revelation that in general he found it relatively easier to convince the children to try music than it was to persuade the adult enablers around them whose support would be needed: such as schools and parents.

One major route is that Arjun visits schools & puts on practical & hopefully inspirational demonstrations in assemblies or to year groups or even separate classes. This direct approach must take far more time than promotion via say social media but pays off and allows dialogue with the target group.

Almost inevitably this tactic encompasses a range of schools from those where music is part of the culture & pupil expectation, with a dedicated and experienced member of staff promoting it to ones where neither culture nor post holder is necessarily currently in place and where therefore part of his role might involve facilitating the infrastructure for music to become more part of the learners' experiences.

Returning to the idea of youth voices, this coming year will see Arjun involved in project work around what music young people are actually listening to & what they want to be involved in. That said, having made it clear that connecting with young musicians in terms of their own preferences helps their training massively, due to his confidence that you can fit any instrument into any genre, he believes strongly that the key is simply to learn the instrument & then apply it to one's own favoured music.

He expanded on this by talking passionately about his belief that music can build bridges between cultures and in that context, having a skill which enables someone to engage in playing music from a range of traditions, certainly constitutes a bridging tool for them.

As part of his scrupulous & methodical approach to getting things right,  has a questionnaire which he has devised to take into meetings with new people & thus structure his exploration of their aspirations, enthusiasms, experience, existing skills etc but also what they feel they have to offer: and Arjun applied that part to me in our discussion which helped move it towards the ideas outlined briefly above regarding "Hot Music Live".

I'll leave the penultimate words to him:

"Music is a really small world.. everybody knows each other. We need to be better about speaking about the opportunities we can give people & we need to be better at upskilling the next generation in what they can do in this industry: whether that's being a musician or for example going into music journalism….so that people see music as a viable option for a career because I feel many people don't."

I think that what is emerging from my investigations is an incredibly promising hint of what the local music scene may look like in a few years' time when a great many of the young people affected by these initiatives start to dominate it. Preconceptions, prejudices & rigid orthodoxies are becoming things of the past. I'd already noticed (and it was a point of pride for Mark) how so many of the bands coming through Live On Stage were diverse in membership: in gender,  ethnicity and age. You can certainly also add to that a sense of diversity of sources & inspirations: the idea that genre is defining to a sound is being eliminated by what Arjun and his colleagues are working at. Thus  liberated from any sense of needing to fit in with what's gone before, the musicians are free to play as they feel & write about what they want to say.