Music as Therapy: John Chilton School ‘Ghostbusters’ Project (Ealing 2024)
Young Artists Patrick Keefe (baritone) and Josh Allen (tuba) joined pupils at John Chilton School for a spooky Ghostbusters-inspired music-making project. Delivered as part of our Music as Therapy partnership, the school is one of 12 receiving music provision funded by The Musicians’ Company Future of Music Fund, The Musicians’ Company, and private donors. Patrick tells us more.
“Performing as Figaro in The Barber of Seville for the ENO this year has been incredible, and an entirely different experience to working with children with diverse needs. However, having helped on a few Music as Therapy projects, and performed at Merton Dementia Hub, I jumped at this chance to deliver a 9-session school project. Helping those with special education needs benefit from music is a personal passion of mine.
The theme for this project ‘Ghostbusters’ had already been chosen by the class. It was our task as musicians to bring the theme alive. Working with the class teacher, Nicola Cressey, along with Company volunteers, Josh and I set about creating fun sessions that would foster the students’ musicality. Our goal was to create Ghostbuster-inspired songs, storylines and characters tailored to the pupils’ abilities, interests and energy levels.
For the first few weeks we worked with the pupils on coming up with different sounds. Josh dedicated a whole session just to instruments and making sounds on his tuba, and I did a whole session of singing work with them. At the end of each session, we worked on coming up with different ghost characters, considering what they might sound like and look like by exploring the link between feelings and sound.
This activity led us to create four different ghosts – Thiro, a silly, quick ghost hero; Lily, a super scary vampire witch ghost who was so scary she sometimes scared herself; Ricky, a funny sort of court jester ghost figure; and Elizabeth, an ancient ghost poisoned by an evil warlord called Sato hundreds of years ago. In addition to creating music around these ghosts, the pupils made costumes and drew pictures to bring the ghosts to life.
To create the ghostly sounds, we used different techniques. For Thiro, we started by making some sounds, then crafted a ghost together. With Lily we created a ghost, then produced the sounds in groups using iPads. Elizabeth’s ghostly effect came from using only instruments, while Ricky’s was made solely with the voice. A pupil wrote most of the storyline for the ghosts, while I threaded it together, embellishing it in parts. Ricky, for instance, was short for Richard of Ruislip who was jester to the court of John Chilton which used to be a hall not a school! This helped to set the scene for the final performance.
During the final performance in front of parents and teachers, the ghosts appeared one by one and were sent on their way with the sounds and songs directed by Josh and performed by the pupils using their voices, drums and tambourines. Even Elizabeth, cursed to be trapped on earth, was freed when everyone in the room sang the song loudly enough to banish Sato, the evil warlord (aka Josh!) and set Elizabeth free. In true fairytale style, everyone got to live happily ever after.
This amazing project left me with an almost Disney-esque sense of warmth and wholesomeness at the end of each session. The pupils’ complete lack of self-interest and pure joy in making music with their friends was a powerful reminder of how music brings people together. I can’t wait to do something like this again.”
Interview by Suzy Willmott
Suzy is freelance copywriter who works with the Musicians’ Company