Lime Grind

Lime Grind

Watch the video

My band, "michael's breakfast" are supporting Roy Ayers in Cardiff on the 11th July, and this is gonna be our opening number!

The meaning of your communication is the response you get

"The meaning of your communication is the response you get"

I found this quote on a site devoted to metaphor. I've been reading and talking to other trainers and coaches, some of whom use NLP about the use of metaphor as a training tool. Now this excites me like a free lunch or a gift horse whose mouth is open.

The quote at the top of this post allows me to really get responsible for the communications I deliver. And I feel there is just so many levels of understanding and application in that quote that it really blows my mind. In a way, music, and to some extent drama and visual art, are metaphors for our thoughts feelings and experiences. Developing this method of training could really engage people who use visual ways of learning.

Improvisation Vs Structure

I have recently started work at a prison, working with prisoners with mental health conditions and learning difficulties, in two seperate groups. As a foundation for the sessions, I am using African drums, and drumming within a teaching style, even though the context is very clearly therapeutic. Having a foundation such as the drumming provides a safe, masculine and creative basis for the work. I thought that prisoners could then develop their musical and verbal self expression away from the drumming, should they wish, and return it to as and when they choose.

The initial sessions have been amazing, and really exceeded my expectations, and my fears. We used the blues as a song structure after the drumming naturally developed into vocalising/chanting. The blues gives a really great strong and set structure, and also a free space for improvisation within the lyrics.

For example:

I woke up this morning (structure)
Got outta bed (structure)
I miss my baby (improvised)
can't get her outta my head (improvised)

I woke up this morning
Got outta bed
how my gonna keep going
without a place to rest my head

(these lyrics are mine, and not the prisoners own work, to protect confidentiality)

This technique was first introduced to me at the 2005 World Congress of Music Therapy in Brisbane by Joseph Moreno. Further info about it and him can be found through the following links

microblues

It seems in this work, and I wondered if in our lives and businesses too, keeping open a space that is free and available for improvisation within a firm structured foundation makes amazing things happen, or at least keeps open the possibility of them happening.

The Unknown at Work

"you know you're in trouble when you lose sight of the unknown"
Paul Shumann

Creativity at Work

This post is taken from the blog Creativity at Work

"How will the practice of creativity be a driving force in the future world of work? What role can we play to take advantage of the current uncertainty to leverage creative thinking? What are the links between strategic and creative thinking? How do you totally engage the brain in the creative process? Come and engage your brain in this thought provoking session that will stimulate your thinking!" Listen to Interview with AnnHerrmann-Nehdi.

Ann Herrmann-Nehdi is CEO of Herrmann International, publisher of the Herrmann Brain Dominance Instrument (HBDI) which is based on extensive research on thinking and the brain. Multiple applications of whole brain technology include creativity, strategic thinking, problem solving, management and leadership, teaching and learning, self-understanding, communication and team/staff development......continue reading...

Training Opportunity

If you're interested in finding out more about Arts Based Training, or you'd like to bring it into your workplace, you can attend an introduction seminar run by Arts & Business.

Instruments

I just got some more lovely new instruments from Choroi, a dutch firm, who hand make their instruments. The thing about handmade instruments is that they have so much life about the sound...it's really alive with harmonics and is rich and warm. The lovely hand-held harps and bourden lyres simple rock! Its true that you get what you pay for. I did some work for the Vale of Glamorgan County Council and after some initial anxiety about the instruments the participants were amazed at the music that they created, using these harps among others.

Have a look at the pictures...

Relax...and listen

There's this amazing book that I bought ages ago, but have recently "discovered" again. It's called "The Listening Book" by W.A. Mathieu. And no surprise....but it's all about listening, and discovering our own music. For example, have you ever really listened to the rhythm of your jeans brushing against themselves as you walk? Or hummed along to the drone of the Hoover when vacuuming?

A great tip for a 2 minute relaxation moment any where is to listen....close you eyes, shuffle around til you are sitting or standing comfortably and then really listen...listen rather than just hearing...listening is active whereas hearing is passive...so just listen to the world around you, listen to your body, your mind, your breath, the bumble bee, or the clock......and breath.

In less than 2 minutes you could be peaceful and relaxed simply through active listening...try it it's wonderful.

Finding a business partner...are you there?

I find myself in the exciting position of looking for a business partner. Normally I tend to be very independent, and go it alone, liking to be in control but rather lonely and through with constant self generation. And now I can see that isn't going to grow the business to continue to make the difference that it currently does, and which I want it to do in the future.

So if you or someone you know is inspired by what we do, and would like to join us - GET IN TOUCH!

For me the most important thing is that we share a vision for musicatwork, expanding, creating developing.

Areas which need developing are: marketing, marketing and marketing!

So if you're up for working and creating an inspiring business GET IN TOUCH!

music at work?

This is taken from an article in The Guardian newspaper.

"It's wrong not to be allowed to listen to music at work," says Professor Simon Majaro. Majaro specialises in creativity at Cranfield School of Management; but he also takes music into schools, as founder of the Cavatina Chamber Music Trust.
"There is a lot of evidence that one can improve creativity through the senses," he says. "If we could make people listen to Haydn, Beethoven, Schubert and Mozart, we could improve teamwork and productivity."

Indeed, people have written books on the subject: The Mozart Effect by Don Campbell is greatly praised. At the Industrial Society, a spokesperson says that maybe offices are missing a trick with music. Music therapy has acknowledged benefits and music is well known to have an effect on the brain - it can be used to stimulate or to relax people. So perhaps a bit more research would be a good idea.

What do you think? Does music help to focus your mind to the task in hand, or put you off and chill you past the point of caring?!

What use is a music degree if you don't make the concert platform?

There are hundreds of good musicians out there who after training either choose not to, or have circumstances dictate that they never perform on a grand scale to audiences around the world, despite all the training and practice. In an article I was reading in The Guardian newspaper, it seems that many of them are considering a career in music therapy.

I went into music therapy for just that reason. I knew that I didn't want to perform, and honestly didn't have the dedication or application to work myself to the level that was needed, but also really wanted to earn a living through using music. When travelling in the States in 1999 I heard about music therapy, and it put togther my two interests; music and personal development.

Since 2002, I have been working as a music therapist, working primarily with children, and now under the musicatwork brand, developing HR/personnel development training courses using techniques from music therapy, mixed with coaching, debriefing and other tools to facilitate training.

6 Steps From musicatwork - my network

There are so many great people out there, doing amazing things which really make a difference to people's lives over and over. On the sidebar towards to bottom of the page is a list of people like this who make up my network. They are all friends of mine, with whom I have built trust and love over time, and whose work I think is fantastic. So click the links and see if what they do could be useful to you

Arts Based Training

If you're in the UK, you can get lots more infomation about arts based training, either as a provider or a recepient from - Arts & Business they are a fantastic organisation promoting links between The Arts and businesses across a wide variety of methods, including personnel training.

technorati literate?

Technorati Profile

trying to get everything set up!!

musicatwork gets a blog presence

Having just been to a seminar about "social media", and having successful put a page up on Wiki, I thought that blogging would be the next step in raising the profile of musicatwork, but also in engaging in debate about Arts Based Training generally. What we do is this....

“musicatwork – the sound approach to training” was formed in 2005 and delivers music therapy sessions to children and adults in a wide range of settings including schools, hospitals, prisons and residential day centres.

musicatwork also creates and delivers staff personnel development training to organisations, using elements of Play/Music Therapy, cutting-edge coaching techniques and music/musical improvisation in a highly structured way to form a unique mix.

musicatwork works with statutory bodies, private organisations, charities and individuals throughout Wales making music therapy available for all.

If you've every been sent on a team building day, you may well have done an outwards bound course/ropes course or another activity where you have been asked to building a bridge across an imaginary river and get your team across; an activity which then gets debriefed and the training happens as people see how/why they did what they did etc. Well musicatwork is very similar EXCEPT that we use a musical task/activity with our participants, which we then debrief and train from.

Tasks might be stuff like create a short piece of rhythmic music using ten instruments; or create a poem about the sunrise and put it to music...different tasks suits different training sessions.

And it all comes under the heading of Arts Based Training; which is why I wanted to start blogging, so that this blog and its links etc become a beautiful useful resource for people in the training industry, companies who want to hire Arts Based Trainers, and maybe artists who want to share their knowledge. I dunno, I guess it will grow and develop as it will.