Feeling blessed working with real musical talent

Feeling blessed working with some real musical talent

Today was the first day we spent working with other local musicians in Athens to share some great musical content, techniques and to ultimately formulate a programme for the workshop on Monday.

The workshop on Monday will have 20 children from the camps and sheltered accommodation. We want to make it as interactive and memorable as possible for the children, and have been devising a varied programme of world music - as well as well known simple songs. There is always a surprise that comes along: everyone loved 'Heads, shoulders, knees and toes' - particularly when I sang during a silent bit 😄

The workshop day included some improvisational work with rhythm riffs; conducting and creating a samba band! All very noisy but we know the children will love these activities.

Kayra does a lot of art therapy (I will be featuring her work at a later blog); and she asked if we could incorporate some art activities into the programme. So to vary the day even more we are going to schedule some drawing activities whilst some music is being performed.

Above is one of the songs we learnt as a group today. It is simple with actions. One of the challenges is that the children often can't understand English (or other languages). So simple melodies and lyrics PLUS lots of actions make it easier for them to feel they are involved - and we want them to be fully engaged and have fun.

We are creating a library resource of music recorded today and are sharing it in a new Facebook groups for volunteers to learn and then start using in the camps. Tomorrow we are going to have volunteers attending so that they are familiarising themselves with new songs.

We all felt rather sad today because two of the musicians have not been granted residency. These people are hugely talented; warm; generous human beings who are already doing a lot in the creative and musical community in Greece. Life is hard for many people.