Ukuleles are some of the tiniest instruments on the planet. They are small, portable and easy to hold. With only four strings, the ukulele’s limited range makes it approachable and easy for students to adapt songs to. Songs with chords that are challenging to play on other instruments can be paired down and simplified for students on the ukulele. Starting with string instruments is a great way to start and playing ukulele is a great option. The uke is operated in a similar way to most other stringed instruments. When students press one of the uke’s strings down and they’ll get a note. When they press down and strum multiple notes at the same time they’ll get a chord. Most stringed instruments work in the same exact way, except that the uke can be played much easier for beginners than other instruments.

The physical and mental benefits of playing music have long been recognized. The piano, in particular, has been an unparalleled outlet for those seeking escape, creative expression, and simply fun and joy. Recent years have only seen more evidence of the benefits of piano come to light, linking music making to a healthy body, a healthy mind, and a healthy life.

Even though you’re sitting down, playing the piano is a workout all its own, and offers different physical and physiological advantages to players of all ages. For instance, regular piano playing sharpens fine motor skills and improves hand-eye coordination in the young and developing. Bringing music into your life is also proven to reduce anxiety, heart and respiratory rates, cardiac complications, and to lower blood pressure and increase immune response.

Piano practice also boosts cognitive and intellectual abilities, which is to say it makes you smarter and activates similar parts of the brain used in spatial reasoning and math. Studying piano has also been shown to amazingly improve memory — particularly verbal memory — and build good habits like focus and perseverance, diligence and creativity. Children who had a few years of piano study under their belts could remember twenty percent more vocabulary words than their peers. And childhood musicians are better equipped later in life to retain information from speeches and lectures. Playing piano has been shown to increase spatial-temporal ability, which figures heavily in math, science and engineering. Regular music practice at an early age can even make structural changes to the brain that stay with you for the rest of your life, making your brain more efficient both while playing and in extra-musical endeavors.

Various drums, such as Djembes that promote core strength and Congas that require students stand while playing, drums help with gross and fine motor skills, as well as hand-eye coordination. The action of drumming itself, either with the hands, sticks or mallets and the physical demands for holding and steadying drums, increases the ability of children to physically move and function on par with peers. Drumming also provides a tactile hobby that eliminates dependence on television, video games and computers for external stimulation.

One of the greatest benefits of drumming and music is the emotional expression it allows. Music and drumming give the player the ability to interpret joy into upbeat rhythms or anger into the heavy and rapid pounding of the drums. This can be especially beneficial for students facing depression, emotional crisis or trauma, providing a healthy and effective means to process difficult emotional responses that can otherwise erupt in destructive behaviors.

Students will learn beginner ensemble skills, some of the most fundamental and necessary for their future studies, in their first year with small hand percussion instruments and rhythm games. They work on stick technique on drum pads and Orff instruments. During the year, various students in the percussion ensemble will prepare music to play with the string ensembles as needed. In particular, percussion has a unique designation within the musical sections as, very often, a child who struggles with fine motor skills issues, behavioral issues, or other learning impediments, is placed in percussion. There are several reasons for this placement: the size of the group is generally smaller, which allows for a smaller teacher-to-student ratio; the fine motor dexterity is less of a factor than it is on other fingered instruments, like violin; and the playing of a percussion instrument is often more physically demanding, which often helps students with ADHD or similar behavioral issues to focus. Development and learning in music (and indeed in all disciplines) is the result of inter-domain growth. A student’s competency is a function of complex relationships between many skills from several related paths.

Rose Conservatory choirs are choral ensembles focus on the development of comprehensive choral musicianship through the performance experience. Members will be exposed to a breadth of music literature with an emphasis on high quality performance, cultural awareness and thorough understanding. The opportunity to meaningfully incorporate music into a young scholar’s life is invaluable. There are many different benefits that arise from engaging in singing activities. With appropriately nurturing experiences, singing competency will develop. Almost without exception, everyone can sing competently and enjoy singing across the lifespan.

Socially – Successful singing ability is strongly correlated with a positive sense of social inclusion, of a feeling of belonging to our community. Singing with others enhances the possibilities of empathic relationships with those around us. Collective singing, such as in a choir or small group, generates a positive group identity.

Psychologically – Confident and healthy voice use links to a positive self-concept and an ability to communicate. Successful singing promotes self esteem, general confidence and also self-efficacy. The voice is a key component of who we are; its use reflects our mood and general psychological well being, communicated to ourselves as well as to others. 

Musically – Singing activity fosters our intellectual engagement with music. This includes an understanding of musical structure, phrasing, the development of musical memory (including repetition and variation) and tone coloring, as well as other musical building blocks (such as pitch, rhythm, loudness).

Culturally – This aspect is achieved through our organization’s accepting environment and the repertoire selected. We celebrate equality and will hold festive events within the community and more, while singing music to recognize different cultures. Music functions as a bridge between cultures, scholars will move out of their comfort zones and experience music in a completely new way. We encourage scholars to fully appreciate music’s emotional depth and cultural richness.

Community is a fundamental aspect of our experience of music—it tends to unite people, forming bonds that might not exist otherwise. It connects different cultures, promoting diversity and growth. Music encourages creative thinking, discipline, leadership, and problem solving. And it’s a medium for individual and group expression. This is particularly valuable in today’s often alienating world, where many of our social interactions are conducted remotely via Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.

Our mission at Rose Conservatory is to provide a choral experience to anyone who loves to sing. We seek to reflect the diversity of Brockton by involving singers from a variety of ethnic backgrounds. Our repertoire will span the widest possible variety of choral music: from gospel to hip hop, from cantata to oratorio, from jazz to pop. Our choral literature will include works of the great composers from the fifteenth century to the present. The Rose Conservatory Community Choir for Adults seeks to be a leader in choral music education for ALL people who love to sing.

Singing improves our sense of happiness and wellbeing and provides an inclusive and cost-effective means of combating the disintegration of communities that is becoming endemic in many societies today. Everyone should have a chance to cultivate their creative side, and singing with The Rose Conservatory Community Choir for adults is a great way to express yourself artistically. Sharing this interest with likeminded people is also really fun, and will truly motivate you to challenge yourself.

Lift Every Voice And Sing!

A community drum circle is a noisy and fun, family friendly event, where people come together in order to share their spirit by entraining rhythmically as a percussion ensemble. They empower each other in the act of celebrating community and life through rhythm and music. People of all levels of musical expertise come together and share their rhythmical spirit with whatever drums and percussion they bring to the event. Everyone who comes and participates has something to offer the circle, and any one is welcome.

Co-operation and collaboration is the basic glue to a community. A community drum circle is a collaboratively self-organized musical event created, “in the moment,” by all the people who participate. When we, as a community, drum together, sharing our spirit in the form of rhythm, it changes our relationships for the positive. To make beautiful music together, with rhythm instruments, all we have to do is bring to the circle whatever rhythmical expertise we have to offer, along with the excitement of sharing it with other people.

The quality of the music produced in an event like this is not based on the rhythmical expertise of the players, but on the quality of their relationship with the other people in the circle. The result is those magical musical moments where one powerful voice is created out of the many. In those moments, the players stop worrying about keeping time because time, as they know it, has stopped. In its place is a living breathing entity, expressing timeless joy and passion through the power of rhythm.

That is the beauty of a community drum circle.