Making Music Mobile

The Pitch

Problem statement

The motivation behind Polyrhythm is the community behind the project. This is seen in the youth that led and give direction, the users who loan the items and the everyday benefit we see in the wellbeing of all involved. PolyRhythm was set up during the first Covid lockdown and in response to youth mental health and how we could help in this difficult time. Their answer was through music, to provide music instrument access when schools are closed. 1 year on and we have 78 active users of the library and we see an average of 14 items per week on loan. We are open to all ages and abilities and have seen fantastic skills exchange between the ages going both ways.

Solution

Now we find that PolyRhythm needs to be more mobile to work with more communities. We have requests from rural community groups to see if we can visit and run workshops, lessons and the library in their community. To do this we need more instruments, a few more volunteers and a little funding to make it happen. We have found that the rural areas have problems with isolation, poverty and access to the arts. Polyrhythm would enable those things to happen with breaking down barriers to inclusion. The funding would help more people get access and connect with others to help with the situation that rural isolation brings whilst giving more opportunities to the youth involved with delivery.

Why are we best placed to deliver?

We are best placed to deliver this project because we understand community needs. We ask and react to what they say and what they need. We have trust and that often enables us to work in hard to reach areas with the people that are often most in need. We have been working in the community for over 6 years, our team live, work and play here and some actually still go to school here. We are a small team made up of different age ranges and musical abilities, however we all share the same passion for making music accessible to all.

Focus Areas

Delivery plan

Budget breakdown

Beneficiaries

200 people

Expected impact

We would expect the project to have a long-lasting impact on our communities. The instruments would be used in the library and for lessons / workshops for many years to come. The regular servicing will help teach those involved how to service, repair and set up various instruments. The library would be able to offer more instruments, attract more users and offer wider services to the community. The effects this would have on rural communities, where normally these things don’t happen, will be long lasting and have a deep impact. The requests we have to visit them will be able to take place and this really will help bring communities together. We all know the joy of music and this is how it starts. It starts with our youth, our shared experiences and it starts with belief. We believe this will make a massive difference in creating a positive future for so many.

Track record

Over the last few months we had chance to run a couple of workshops to see how they would work. What was great to see was our team of youth leading the workshops, giving lessons that were easy to understand and to really engage with other people of all ages. The sessions we held were really engaging and they found real fun to do. Playing songs that they knew and liked, inspired participants to rent instruments for the weeks in-between our visits and to learn more, whilst the lessons and workshops ran well as it was something they actually could connect with. One sessional workshop saw 8 instruments loaned out in that time and a request to come back again soon. Another workshop saw 22 people joined in with the music and for us, this was a great success. For our youth leading the way, it was their first event but the way they taught, interacted and inspired was better than what we all expected. They were the motivation of starting PolyRhythm and the reason why it needs to continue.

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