Text Box: MUSIC AND THE DEAF 5 Text Box: Let It Rock! took place throughout September, October and November on Monday evenings at Kirklees Music School. The project was led by Steven McMahon from MatD (Rock Drums and Electric Guitar) Laura Taylor (Vocals and Keyboards) and James O’Hara.(Guitars) – both members of the team at KMS. Six participants joined us for all sessions. The young people were first introduced to how a rock band is formed and how to play together using the rock instruments, including electric guitar, bass guitar, keyboards, rock drums and vocals. They then chose an instrument of preference and were taught various rhythms, chords and structures on their instruments. The group then focused on songwriting and creating their own lyrics. The skills they had learnt on their instruments combined with the lyrics they had created then provided the foundation for the first song “Life is a Holiday”. The participants then were taught to work together as a band, appraise their work and make necessary changes collaboratively. The remaining sessions focused on advancing their skills on their instruments and collaborating together to write the second song “Kiss It Better”. Let It Rock was designed to be participant led and tutor guided as opposed to learning a pre-composed song and following playing instructions from the tutors involved. One particular quality of this project is that the participants are encouraged to be creative and express their musical ideas to one another in order to successfully play as a band. This quality encouraged the participants to develop their confident, self-esteem and creative skills. Improvements that we would like to make for future Let it Rock! projects include providing instruments for the young people to take away with them to practice during the week. There were some occasions where time was lost in ‘warm-up’ exercises as the young people re-accustomed themselves to their instruments. The young people attended all sessions on time and have expressed a genuine interest in continuing with Let It Rock’s first ever rock band “Crimson Regret”. The band is interested in performing in different areas and competing with other bands of a similar age. They would also be interested in working on some well-known published songs which they like. We need to secure funding of £700 for a further ten week programme of Let it Rock! sessions here in Kirklees. A generous donation of £300 from St Cuthbert’s Church, Birkby will enable us to start the project. Thereafter we hope that the young participants will have the skills and experience to come together independently as Crimson Regret. We also have plans to run a Let it Rock! project with the hearing-impaired young people from Crompton House School and Hathershaw College in Oldham. Text Box: LET IT ROCK!