Music For Families: Outdoors

As part of my work as a consultant for the musical instrument company Sound Children (Drums For Schools), in 2012 I was asked to run some sessions for some families in order to continue research into Sound Children instruments for very young children and to obtain film footage and images of people exploring music.

This was a one-off session on a sunny afternoon in a garden in a local village.

Several families came and explored and investigated the instruments ranging from babies up to 8 year olds. We made music for about 2 hours with no break – children spent lots of time exploring the instruments not only by making sounds but using them to build, moving them around and exploring the textures of the instruments.

After a while we started to play together and made a band. We played some songs we knew but mostly we made up our own songs and music. Families enjoyed music-making with these instruments which are designed for early years children but are accessible to everyone really…