Music Village is delighted to announce that it has been chosen by Roland as the preferred education supplier to provide equipment to Musical Futures schools. Launched in 2004 Musical Futures promotes a new and exciting way to teach music in secondary schools. It brings both non-formal teaching and informal learning together in a classroom context, encouraging a practical and personalised approach to studying music. A recent report by the Institute of Education shows that more than 600 teachers around the country are already implementing Musical Futures and are typically seeing improvements in student attainment, confi dence, motivation and behaviour, along with an increase in independent learning skills. This has led to a rise in the number of students opting for GCSE Music courses and has also impacted positively on the take-up of extra-curricular activities.

Roland has partnered with Musical Futures to launch a national network of Champion Schools. Each Champion School is responsible for delivering a programme of training (two events per year) ranging from a basic introduction to Musical Futures to more advanced sessions sharing good practice and ideas. Courses are free of charge and are available to anyone involved in education – from classroom and peripatetic teachers, to Music Service / Local Authority staff, community musicians, students, other arts and education professionals. For further information, please visit www.musicalfutures.org.uk/training or contact Abigail D’Amore, Musical Futures National Coordinator, telephone 07837 631492, email Abigail.damore@googlemail.com

David Ashworth, music technology consultant, takes a close look at Alcester High School and sees first hand high quality equipment supporting and enhancing creative learning.

In the music department at Alcester High School, classes at Key Stage 3 follow the Musical Futures informal learning model. Musical Futures is a new way of thinking about music making in schools. It brings non-formal teaching and informal learning approaches into the more formal context of school. Musical Futures has partnered with Roland UK to establish a national network of Champion Schools (including Alcester High School). These schools all adopt or adapt Musical Futures in their music departments, and have been identified as demonstrating good practice. Each school has a range of Roland equipment including V-drums, Handsonics, Juno-Ds, various amps and the ever flexible CD2e. Using high quality, professional equipment plays a key part in raising the quality of the work produced and the commitment to learning. The students are given signifcant access to this equipment and are trusted to work appropriately and independently with it. This, in turn, has a positive effect on motivation and standards. Much of the work is related to real life musical tasks and strong connections are made with the young people’s music making outside of school. This work at Key Stage 3 serves as valuable preparation for those who continue at Key Stage 4 with GCSE or Rockschool Courses. This is exemplified in the discussion that follows:

Adam (vocalist/ Access to Music course): The Roland equipment has definitely helped me in terms of improving my composition and performance work. The quality of the equipment is very good. I really like using the Roland KC 150 for vocal work. It has a much wider range of bass and treble control compared with amplifiers we were using before.

Jon (guitar and vocalist/ Rockschool course): The amps and the GT10s have been great for us. We now have access to sounds and effects we didn’t have before. The wide variety of sounds we now have is fantastic for our songwriting. We can set up the pedals to play all the sounds we need for our songs in advance and having a built-in tuner is really useful for when we play live. It also helps that we now have the freedom within lessons to take the equipment into a practise room and work on the sounds we need for our compositions. Musical Futures has been a great preparation for our Rockschool course because we are now used to working pretty much on our own and asking for help when we need it.

Adam: Our band plays gigs outside of school as well. These gigs connect to the work we do in Rockschool and count towards our final grade at the end. It links them both together really. This progression makes me feel that I want to carry on much further with music. It is really exciting.

Jon: And because we now have access to such good equipment, we can take music much more seriously in school. There is so much more you can do - you can focus on getting the exact sounds you want ...

Alcester’s extensive Roland inventory includes:

• CD2e digital recorder
• Micro BR digital recorder
• BR600 digital recorder
• Edirol (by Roland) R-09 digital recorder
• Juno D synthesiser
• TD-9K V-drums
• HPD10 Handsonic
• SPDS Sampling Pad
• RC50 Loop Station
• GR20 guitar synthesiser
• GT10 guitar effects processor
• Cube-30x guitar amps
• Cube-30 bass amps
• KC150 keyboard amps
• PM10 V-drums monitor
• Assortment of Boss Compact Effects pedals

Giving young people the freedom to creatively explore working with music on their own terms is crucial. Another student discusses the importance of using a guitar synthesiser (the Roland/Boss GR20) to allow her to explore a much broader musical landscape...

Claire: (using guitar synths for piano sounds/ Rockschool course): I use a lot of the built in effects in the Cube 30s and 60s in my playing. We use the guitar synth for the keyboard sound which we need for a particular song. We don’t have a keyboard player in our band and I don’t play the piano, but the synthesiser allows me to mess with the piano sound and incorporate those sounds into our performances. I’m looking forward to working with a whole range of sounds (from techno sounds to flutes) that I can access with this pedal.

Lauren (vocalist GCSE music): for my composition task, I have chosen to write a jazz style song because I have a jazzy voice. I used Sonar (computer sequencer programme) for writing the backing - working with piano sounds, a jazz drum kit and an acoustic bass. Once the backing is all finished I plug a Boss Micro BR into the computer using the line out to record the backing to one of the tracks. I then select a different track on the Micro BR to record vocals on top using the built-in microphone. This is very helpful because I am able to try out recording and improving the vocal part in a relaxed environment rather than with people around me watching!

Emma Francis (director of music/classroom teacher): The key thing about the micro BR is that it gives the students the chance to take ownership of their work and also take some responsibility for the progress they are making, in terms of recording their work and modifying it. Lauren puts her backing onto the Micro BR and she can take it into whatever environment she wants. She can take it into a practice room by herself, she can sit with a teacher to help her if she wants. She records her melody line over the top. She can then add harmonies and edit and refine her work if she feels she needs to. So it’s not just a tool for recording, but it enables her to improve and refine her work at any stage.

Laura (Vocalist/Access to Music course): I wish I had had the Roland CD-2e recorder when I did my Rockschool exam. I could then have recorded the scales and the pieces that I found quite diffi cult in the singing lessons – taken them home with me and practised them. Because I am not in a band, I work on my own, I need something to listen to so I can literally record what I do in my lesson and take it away to listen to. The Rockschool qualification actually requires me to talk about my strengths and areas for improvement so it allows me to catalogue my ideas as I go along. Often, in a rehearsal, I want to spend time concentrating on my vocals not writing down all my ideas so by being able to record my ideas verbally onto the recorder it saves me time. It helps me decide what bits to rehearse. I can hear the bits I really need to work on so I am not wasting time going over things I am already good at. Also, if I am learning a new song, my singing teacher can sing it directly into the recorder and I can take it home and start working on it straight away. I don’t need to wait for next week’s lesson to hear how it should really sound.

Emma Francis: I think that when you go into a project like Musical Futures, it is important to use quality equipment, in order to convince staff, pupils and senior management that you are serious about it. The students respect what we are doing, they respect the equipment and we have had high quality outcomes from that!

Alcester High and the other Champion Schools are running free training and CPD sessions for others interested in finding out more about Musical Futures, or in sharing and developing good practice with others.