GERMINATION
Germination: Growing our community of musical play
Our mission through this project is to sow the seeds that can grow into a community of musical play. Through sharing knowledge, ideas and experience between artists, musicians and educators. Through creative approaches and with the intention of nurturing and caring for creative practitioners, we aimed to support learning which would thrive and flourish through improvisation and playfulness.
Germination is an experimental model for professional development for early childhood educators, emerging artists and musicians to develop their musical play practice with very young children. Through playful workshops, work based experiences and with the support of a mentor, we have been learning about how we can support and nurture creative practitioners to develop their own sensitivities and experience in musical play.
Funded by Youth Music we recruited 13 fabulous artists, musicians, dancers, performers and early childhood educators to participate in this experimental training offer which included play days, and visits to nurseries and Baby SoundGarden sessions.
You can read about the some of the mentees experiences here
"Tapping into my innate spontaneity, imagination, creativity and playfulness... was liberating!"
Structured around the play days we gathered as a group of mentors and mentees three times over a term. The play days were all about tapping into our own sense of playfulness, connecting with others through play and exploring feelings of uncertainty and awkwardness that are often present when we enter into improvisational modes.
In-between the play days the mentees visited nursery settings and family music groups to experiment with offering musical play opportunities in different contexts.
This intentionally open-ended approach meant each participating artist could shape their own learning with their mentor based on their context, creative interests and starting point.
"I found myself throwing a large pink button across the bare floors ...in a pure state of listening and exploration. This moment alone was transformational."