One of the things that just about everyone I meet says to me is “they play ukuleles in schools these days don’t they?”. To which I always reply, “apparently”. Leaving aside that thrilling insight into my conversational skills it did get me thinking about the role of music in schools and how ukuleles can help. Having played musical instruments for most of my life I’ve probably become quite immune to the extra little benefits playing music gives you. Leaving aside the general accomplishment of learning a new skill there is also the very real social benefit of not only getting to meet new people but also getting to create something with people.
It’s only since been actively involved with our ukulele group that I’ve been able to sit and watch the pleasure people can get from achieving something they thought impossible. The ukulele adds, I think, two benefits to this. Learning to play an instrument but also letting people take part in communal singing without the fear of judgement.
These two benefits are clearly very transferable into schools. Though schools obviously know this because everyone I meet tells me that they play ukuleles in schools these days.
We’d like to get involved. We know that we have ukuleles that are very good to start learning with, we meet people every day that tell us this. We’d like to see how we can work with schools to not only give them access to our ukuleles but also to give them songs that their kids want to play. We have a fairly vast song list now and we’ve been trying to make it as contemporary as possible. We also have the skills to work out songs that we might not have.
So we’re looking for a school or even schools that would be willing to invest in a box of our Soprano Ukuleles (10 per box) which we’d discount to £600 plus delivery. These would come with the gig bags as I think in a school environment they might get knocked about. This would normally retail for £750.
We also want to work with the individual school to put together a book of 10 songs that their kids want to play but also vary in difficulty, like a lesson.
This is just an idea at the moment so I’d be keen to talk to any schools that might be interested in seeing how we can make this work.
If you work in a school, or know someone that does, then let’s have a chat daz.wright@moselele.co.uk.
