Workshops

Education, in the form of music and theatre workshops is key to the continued success of Nu Century encouraging young actors, musicians and singers to attend jam sessions, rehearsals and developing a new creative pool within Birmingham. Music workshops, using in particular jazz music at its core have proved successful in both bringing young people together, and developing fresh individual talents.

Throughout the summers of 2004 and 2005, Live Box ran ten-week programs of workshops at South Birmingham College in Digbeth. This involved detailed work with up to 20 musicians and vocalists, aged between 14 and 25. Involving young people from variety of abilities and background the workshops involved:

• Music theory – analyzing melody and harmony, basic notation for jazz ensembles, and composition approaches.
• ‘Standards’ – learning an established classic jazz repertoire,analyzing their lyrics and harmony, and memorising them.
• Overviews – reviewing Jazz and Blues History, and expanding the musical vocabulary of the musician and singer.
• Collective Improvisation – playing as an ensemble, the skills of accompaniment, developing jazz ‘language’, developing a mature approach to soloing

Many of the attendees have gone on to lead performances at The Live Box or to further study at music colleges, for example Shabaka Hutchings (a student at the Guildhall School of Music, London).

The workshops stressed the importance of developing a signature approach and style. Rather than excluding their own musical tastes, many of the students found that it embellished their appreciation of modern R&B, Hip Hop and Garage. Additionally, it equipped them with valuable tools for finding work leading their own combos, and networking.

Again, The Live Box has stood out from other education workshops in its approach. Youth Education/Music groups have occasionally struggled to attract urban youth, often ending in patronising attempts to reel them in using turntables and M.C’ing courses. The Live Box, however has successfully seen rappers attend the jazz courses and further their appreciation of how ‘composition’, ‘dynamics’ and ‘improvisation’ further their own chosen genres.

The Live Box has taken an uncompromising approach to music notation and arranging skills, yet at the same time demands that the participants bring their own tastes, personalities and ‘ears’ into the music.

This approach, sets out to contribute positively to generations of new musicians with a completely different take on ‘Urban Music’, containing all the relevance of ‘the street’, along with the nuances and complexities of ‘high art.’

Equally, theatre workshops makes identical demands and dares to introduce participants to the classics from Africa, Asia, the Caribbean and UK and confronts that yawning gap that distinguishes the actor from the performer.