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Text Box: Now that Christmas is near, I cannot help thinking how amazing the after-school clubs have been this year. The young people have been so committed and have matured musically especially since many of them have begun their instrumental lessons. Musician Graham Maynard has been working with us in Wakefield this term. He has really impressed us with his experience of jazz, blues, gospel and calypso. The young people have enjoyed trying out these styles and even practiced at home! All the participants have been invited to join with groups from the Wakefield Music Service to perform at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park as part of their programme of Christmas entertainment. In Halifax and Leeds the young people have been learning about blues music and improvisation. They have learned how to play chords and accompany those participants who are taking the solo parts—this has been a great success! Blues is not an easy style to play because when the soloist improvises everyone needs to be aware of what he / she is playing. The young people were taught the order in which the chords were played and the conductor signed the chord names using finger spelling. This helped everyone to follow what was happening in their performance. We were invited to return to lead a club with the young hearing-impaired people from Crompton House School and Hathershaw technology College in Oldham. The young people have come on in leaps and bounds during this term and have learned some really complex rhythms. They worked in pairs in which one had to play the pulse (beat) and the other had to improvise a rhythm. After a number of repetitions they had to swap places without stopping! This was great fun and impressive when performed. We look forward to continuing to work with these young people in the summer term of 2007.

Text Box: What an exciting term it’s been! We are so grateful to the Arts Council England, Yorkshire for funding instrumental days for all the young people taking one to one lessons. It is vital for the young people to develop an awareness of playing as a group, looking at the conductor, timing and the way they present themselves to an audience. Two have taken place – in Bradford and in Huddersfield and both were a fantastic success! The participants have used body percussion and African drumming to learn about timing. They read graphic scores and performed them together. They even had a go at learning the parts of a Blues piece and came together to perform it which was very exciting! Danny remembers that despite being encouraged by his parents at the age of eight to play the cornet there were no opportunities like this. We look forward to the next instrument days in Leeds in February and in Wakefield in March. We have booked Leeds College of Music on 2nd July to host another celebratory concert and to premier the Deaf Youth Orchestra. The participants of the After School Clubs will be showcasing their compositions and the Music and the Deaf team will be performing too! We’ll be sending details of how to buy tickets in the next issue of the newsletter. It will be an exciting year ahead – we will keep you updated on how things go!