On December 8th and 15th 2024, 3 empowering guitar sessions were held for the children and their families in Richmond.
Being a new resident, with the help of my friends, who assisted in locating a venue, designing posters, printing and posting them on social media and taking care of the enrolment process, it would have been difficult for me to attract participants to join the 3 one-hour sessions. The venue we chose was perfect for a small and cosy group atmosphere. We had a total of 4 children ranging from age 2 to 12 joining each session with their parents.
Adults and children arrived eager to try the specially designed Bunne guitar and experience the Bunne method of conducting. Some of the children have special needs. Since the Bunne guitar and the Bunne conducting method is for inclusivity, all children and adults do not need to have any previous musical instrument training, and all can learn together to accompany one another singing. Parents paired up with their young children to play the guitar and gradually, children automatically copied their parents and took control of the guitar all by themselves. We played at least 12 different songs during each 1-hour session. It was touching for me and my friends seeing people with different abilities learning together, supporting one another to make music. One of my volunteers is a young person with special needs and he played the keyboard for all 3 sessions making all 3 sessions truly inclusive. Parents of children with special needs had brief chats after the sessions with my volunteer’s family encouraging one another.
One of the challenges of running such one-off inclusive activities is that we do not know the actual abilities and interests of the participants and whether the learning materials and environment were suitable for them. Luckily we know the ages of the children during enrolment and chose songs that were suitable for both children and adults. Teaching style and venue set up were adjusted accordingly. In one session, children offered to be the instructor and in another, a 2-year-old sibling wanted to join. We all learned to be adaptable and empower one another.
To evaluate our project outcome, all children and adults were asked to compare their feelings before and after the session by circling their feeling on a feeling 5-pt scale. 25 people completed the scale. 21/25 people felt one or 2 points happier and 4/25 felt the same before and after the session. Results showed that the Bunne guitar is so easy-to-learn that both adults and children had the feeling of “I CAN” after the 1-hour session experience of making music and accompanying one another’s singing.
We are grateful to Neighbourhood Small Grant funding these empowering guitar sessions. The success of the project has given me, my friends, and my volunteer team confidence in holding more sessions in future. It is our wish to let more people in our neighbourhood experience these amazing empowering Bunne guitars.
