On 11 April, Linda Yates, Margaret Smith and Heather Strohschein presented The wheelchair is invisible – a conversation about accessibility and inclusivity in the time of Covid  at MACSEM 2021, a conference organised by the Mid-Atlantic Chapter for the Society for Ethnomusicology.

• Margaret – a community musician who facilitates Good Vibrations’ Resonate project, which provides inclusive musical workshops
• Linda – an amateur musician, participant advisor for Good Vibrations and representative of people with additional support needs
• Heather – an ethnomusicologist whose works centres on gamelan outside of Indonesia, and community music-making

The video paper explored inclusivity, consent, ethnomusicology, academic language and accessibility. It was crafted from hours of conversations between Scotland and the USA. In it, Linda defined an inclusive session as one where, “All of it involves everybody. Nobody says, ‘You’re disabled, you can’t play that’. You learn at your own pace. Each person has got a different level of ability and they learn in their own time.” And, Heather, said the pandemic enabled her to do things she would never have been able to do before, like go to Resonate sessions (online) – “I can’t pop down to Resonate in Glasgow from Bowling Green, Ohio, usually!”

The approach they took and the resulting film was notably different, at an academic ethnomusicology conference. Katherine Metz, Assistant Professor of Ethnomusicology at Oberlin College, who was chairing the panel, was visibly moved. Delegates were “In awe of the presentation”. They “Loved this approach in that it’s focused on how it feels to engage with this process”. They remarked, “We so often lose the laughter in the translation to the academic realm”, and felt that “This presentation and format speaks to so many issues”.

Linda, Margaret and Heather want their conversation about accessibility and inclusivity to become a conversation with you. They invite you to watch it, share it and use it to start a conversation. Please feedback your thoughts by emailing Heather on  hastrohs@hawaii.edu

Date: 25 June, 2021

Author: Katy Haigh, Executive Director, Good Vibrations

Author: Good Vibrations

This beautiful comic was created by Studio Lindsay (@Studio.Lindsay) for The New Issue magazine in 2020. It was based on a Big Issue North article by Deborah Mulhearn about her visit to a Good Vibrations family gamelan project at Liverpool Prison. It depicts how Good Vibrations is working to use gamelan to help men, women and young people in prisons and young offender institutions to develop better relationships with their family members. Positive family relationships are a crucial factor in reducing the chances of people re-offending when they have served their sentence and been released.

We do this work in partnership with the secure institutions and education providers working within them, such as Novus. The projects are supported by wonderful funders such as the National Lottery Fund, Arts Council England, National Foundation for Youth Music and more.

You can click on the images to enlarge them, and we’ve even made a short film of this comic with a gamelan soundtrack on our You Tube page.

One of Good Vibrations’ patrons, talented musician and comedian, Bill Bailey, gave members of our Glasgow Resonate group an exclusive interview earlier this year. The experience gave them an insight into how he handles nerves when performing, why he likes gamelan so much, and who inspired him early on in his musical career.

This interview took place as part of Exploring Performance, a project that the group came up with themselves as a way of developing their skills and knowledge as musicians and performers.

You can watch the short film of the interview here.

We’re delighted to launch a short film about Exploring Performance – a fantastic idea conceived by our Glasgow Resonate group. You can watch it here.

On this project, group members interviewed and improvised with famous world music artists, Bill Bailey and Bapak Prasadiyanto, and went to a Gamelan Naga Mas concert at The Royal Conservatoire of Scotland. The video thanks all the wonderful supporters who made this project possible. We are looking for to growing this work in the future.

Loophole Music is a communal music making project at the Bethlem Royal Hospital in South London supporting patients’ wellbeing and recovery. The Maudsley Charity are generously supporting this project over three years, with funding coming from The National Foundation for Youth Music too.

The Maudsley Charity has written this great article about Loophole Music and the difference their funding is making to patients at the hospital through the project.

“Each Loophole session we do shows us the empowerment that comes from music making. The secret ingredient behind this confidence building exercise is that it is enveloped in fun.”

Kieran Plunkett, facilitator

On 16 December 2019, Big Issue North ran an article on our work with men at HMP Liverpool and their families. Deborah Mulhearn’s article brilliantly evokes the sounds and emotions of these projects:

“The prison chapel at HM Prison Liverpool is a large and lofty room at the top of the old Walton Gaol. It’s a space that must hold some heartbreaking stories within its grim Victorian walls. But charity Good Vibrations has brought it to life with an unusual music project that fills it with the joyful sound of the gamelan, an Indonesian percussion orchestra …”

We are running family gamelan projects across England over the next five years, with funding from organisations such as The National Lottery, Arts Council England, The National Foundation for Youth Music, Evan Cornish Foundation and The Bromley Trust. These projects aim to support people in prison with their desistance journeys by helping them improve relationships with their families.

Read more here.

If you are are interested in this work, please contact info@good-vibrations.org.uk to find out more.

In autumn 2017, we ran the 2017 Bill Bailey Fundraising Award competition. The aim was for entrants to come up with creative ways to raise money for Good Vibrations, and winners received lots of Bill Bailey goodies – tour tickets, signed photos etc. – plus the accolade of winning the award.

We are thrilled to announce that Daisy Beau was the winner of The 2017 Platinum Bill Bailey Fundraising Award. Daisy raise hundreds of pounds for Good Vibrations and the judges were highly impressed by her fun and innovative human juke box fundraiser, which generated a lot of new interest in our work and impact.

To hear some of the tracks she performed, visit:

https://www.facebook.com/DAISYBEAUMUSIC/videos/1767884946841638/ – For a Radiohead number

https://www.facebook.com/DAISYBEAUMUSIC/videos/1767115743585225/ – for Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen

Thanks Daisy for your fantastic achievements!

Good Vibrations is actively seeking to partner with more Jobcentre Plus branches, across the country, to support their long-term unemployed clients with disabilities and chronic health conditions to become more work-ready. Over the last two years, we have supported 36 men and women in this situation through projects run with Littlehampton, Bexhill, Hastings, Bognor Regis, and Worthing JCPs. We are an Approved Supplier on DWP’s Dynamic Purchasing System for Work-Focused Activities.

“The improvement in confidence is amazing. One guy never talked to anyone, except his wife before, and the way he spoke to the audience was incredible.” (A Work Coach)

Our approach is wonderfully innovative. It helps people: develop confidence; practice working as part of a team; and become more motivated. And the left-field medium we use – a tuned percussion orchestra from Indonesia – is accessible, levelling and playable by complete beginners.

”My new thing since gamelan is to say yes. I have fibromyalgia and myalgic encephalitis, which cause chronic pain and a host of other symptoms. I get anxious travelling further than my local town, experiencing new things and meeting new people. The gamelan course allowed me to overcome my fears. It helped me feel good about my abilities, instead of feeling useless. Since then I plan to do a Reiki course and have re-joined the local library, both of which are enormous steps for me.” (A participant)

But this isn’t really a music project; it’s about team-building and confidence-building. We use music as a way of connecting with people on a deep, meaningful level, and of supporting them to start seeing themselves with more positive self-identities. Then through creative activities, reflective conversations, and the putting on of a concert on the final day, we help participants to develop a range of transferable life and work skills.

“It was a very positive visit, with much evidence shown by participants of distance travelled towards the labour market.” (District Provision Manager)

Read more about some of our projects with long-term unemployed JCP customers here: Supplier Service Offer FactsheetV2.0. And why not get in touch with our Executive Director for a further discussion?

Looking for something completely different for your next work team-building day? Why not book Good Vibrations to run a gamelan workshop with your team? Watch this short film to get a taste of what it’s all about.

“I’ve learned so much about how to work with others,
how to communicate and co-operate.

It’s improved my leadership skills.

Stress release; bond with colleagues.

This has lifted my spirits and inspired me.”

These unique, rewarding, and fun workshops, seriously-boost team morale, and bring people together on a level playing field, breaking down cliques. Communicating and team-working are inherent to the experience, so participants form positive, and strong relationships.

We will tailor the workshop to suit your needs. Why not get in touch to find out more? We’ll ask you more about your requirements, answer any questions you might have, and will give you a quote.

In 2015, a UK sex offender treatment prison collaborated with Nottingham Trent University to investigated the influence of gamelan courses with convicted sexual offenders, to ascertain if there were changes in participants in relation to readiness to change or motivation to engage with psychological treatment, and whether Good Vibrations added any additional value to the standard treatment.

This was the first known study to have particularly investigated the possibility of offering a music-related group intervention to improve prisoners’ readiness for treatment groups. 56 men took part overall. The study combined qualitative and quantitative research methods, including a matched control group.

The quantitative research found that offenders, without learning disabilities, had an increased desire to change their offending behaviour and engage in offence-specific treatment. And the qualitative research found that as a result of the intervention:

• all participants felt more confident about working in a group, and improved their social skills and interpersonal relationships; and
• the gamelan course contributed to participants’ emotional regulation and release, and positively influenced their emotional states, ability to de-stress and feel more relaxed.

Find out more here.