Oli’s work placement
Oli is a student at Middlesbrough College studying Music Performance. He completed his work placement at Musinc over 4 days, and wrote about his experience meeting the team, watching performances, and visiting the music groups at Middlesbrough Town Hall.
My Musinc Blog
Monday was the beginning of my work experience with Musinc. The day began with a tour of the building with Sammy, and an introduction to what I will be doing in the coming days. As it was my first time in the Town Hall, I was blown away by all the different areas, architecture and history the building has. From an old Courtroom to prison cells, it was an amazing place to be.
To introduce me to what Musinc is and what I will be doing, Sammy (Musinc Manager) showed me the timetable and talked about what each club/event is and who runs it. This allowed me to gain insight into what I will be learning and how I can take part. Then it was time for Upbeat.
Hayley and Andy are the tutors of Upbeat, a club where adults with learning difficulties or disabilities come together to learn and sing songs in preparation for their next concert. The energy there was infectious as everyone sung their songs together or solo with huge smiles on their faces. This was clearly a place for these people to come together and just have fun. It became a place where anyone could feel uplifted and happy just by being in the room.
After lunch I had the opportunity to talk to and learn about Sammy’s role. As a manager she does the budgeting, admin, coordinating and more. I was able to have a look into the behind the scenes of Musinc and all what goes into making everything have the budget to be there.
Tuesday came and I was so excited to see what new things I would be experiencing today and who I would meet.
The day started off with me being introduced to Ben and Namita and learning a little bit about their roles and what we will be doing. After greeting each other and doing a bit of work, Ben took me down to the music cupboard to help with organising and preparing for the later club Bandjam. Even if it was a small job, I still learnt so much from it. He taught me how to know which plugs work with different keyboards and then tasked me with making sure each keyboard worked and had the right plug. Although simple, it was still such a fun little task for me to do which would help out many future clubs as they will be able to get a keyboard without anything missing.
Once finishing my mini cupboard task, I went back upstairs to get ready for the Classical Café for primary school kids. As soon as I entered where it was being held, I was already blown away by what I saw. A huge classical harp and a cello were on stage ready for the coming performance. This was my first time seeing a harp in real life and I just couldn’t wait for it to start.
Throughout the performance, I was infatuated with how well the cellist and harpist played together and how they showed different emotions through each song. It was a great performance with tons of audience interaction as they focused their energy on the children in the audience. They asked interactive questions and kept the children involved throughout, showing classical music in a digestible way. It was a great thing to experience as it taught me how to cater my performances to a specific audience.
As the week went by, I couldn’t wait for Friday to arrive.
In the morning, I had a chat with Ben about his role and more about him. This talk was very insightful as he gave me a glimpse at what he does for work and what he does for Musinc. I learnt about how he organises the events and clubs within it and all that goes alongside that. As well as this we talked about potential opportunities for me going forward and he gave me great insight into what I can do after my work placement to get further knowledge and insight into what I want to do in the music industry.
After this we went down and sat in and watched Open Orchestra. This is a great group of young people, who are neurodivergent, that get together to compose and rehearse their own compositions for a coming performance that they have. As I sat and listened to them practice, I was enamoured by the pure talent that they all held and how well they worked together alongside their tutor Ben Hopkinson. As they played their music you could clearly see the message that they were trying to put across through it. This was truly a great experience that I had never had before.
Before I knew it, my last day came and all that surrounded me was this bittersweet feeling.
The morning started off with free time to do my blog and get caught up with any tasks that I had been assigned. It was a nice chill way to start the day and get me back into the swing of things after not being here for a week. After making my blog up-to-date, Sammy and I went over my past few days and looked over the work I had been doing and my experiences.
After lunch we headed down to Play On. This is the club that Sammy runs, where she teaches kids the clarinet and cello. During this session I stood and watched how Sammy taught the children and kept them engaged with the lesson. It was interesting to see how they all put in the effort to learn the songs no matter how hard some of them were. This session showed me how I can possibly use my skills to teach children and keep them engaged at the same time.
Finally, it was time for my last session with Musinc, which was Bandjam Juniors. This is a group of young people who learn different instruments and songs to come together and perform them. As I am a singer, I helped the young singers with remembering lyrics and timings in the song that they were learning. Everyone was clearly excited to be there and enjoyed what they were doing. It was a lovely environment to be in and I’m so happy that I had the opportunity to experience.
Overall Musinc was one of the best experiences I’ve had. I learnt so much every day and I went and met wonderful people along the way. I can’t thank Musinc enough for opening me up to all these new experiences and welcoming me in with open arms.
– Blog written by Oli
If you’re interested in joining us as an intern or work placement, find out more on our work with us page. Please note that as a small team, we have limited availability, dependent on staff capacity and schedules.
