I’m really excited about launching DM Education this week. Four year’s work on what was the ‘Curriculum Development Initiative’ is finally coming to fruition!
Check out the new DM Education web-pages where you can find, post and discuss info on Resources and Courses that make formal music education accessible to disabled people, as well as the Experiences of disabled people in formal music education. We’re also launching our accessibleIntroduction to Music course accredited by apt awards (formerly OCNSWR) on which Jonathan Westrup has been working incredibly hard for a very long time. There are quite a few schools and colleges interested in running this course already and hopefully many more to come once we begin marketing it. If you’re interested in the course or know of anyone else who might be then please email me.
If you take part in the DM Education on-line consultation by 2nd November 2011 you’ll be entered into a prize-draw to win a limited edition black Skoog! (See the DM Education webpages for details). The consultation is designed to identify ‘disabling barriers to formal music education’. We’ll use the findings to to draw up a short list of ‘benchmark procedures’ to make formal music education more accessible, which will then be shared with schools, colleges, exam boards and others throughout music education. We hope to pubish these findings by the end of the year.
I’m extremely grateful to Skoog Music for donating a limited edition Black Skoog for our consultation prize-draw as they usually retail for about £500! The Skoog is a new musical instrument that’s also pretty accessible. In my opinion the Skoog is best played with hands/arms, though it doesn’t require anything like the same fine motor control needed to play a piano keyboard for example. I really rate it for it’s expressive playability – there’s a much more intimate connection between the way it’s played and the sounds it can produce that there is with a lot of other digital musical instruments. We bought one for our work at Drake Music South West a few months ago. So please take part in the online consultation and you might win one! The black Skoog It’s so new and limited there aren’t even any pics of it yet, but here’s a white one:
DM Education will also be featured in a bunch of publications over the next few months includingCreative Teaching & Learning, Disability Magazine, Education for Everybody and the new NAME (National Association of Music Educators) Musical Pathways book.
Oh, and we’ve also been involved in the Government consultations on the forthcoming National Plan for Music education (NPM), trying to ensure that disabled people are well served by this pronouncement. Whatever your views might be on the NPM it’s significant that Drake Music have been invited to contribute and that the interests of disabled people are on the agenda.
Now, pleeeeeease go to the new DM Education web-pages to get involved and start sharing. Thanks!
Posted by dougbott
