Molly’s story

All pictures are for illustrative purposes only as these stories have been anonymised.

Molly, (F), age 7

Case study written by Simon Robinson, lead musician for Count Me In residency

“Molly is in Oaks class, who I have been working with throughout the entirety of the project. In the initial meeting on Teams with the class teachers, they mentioned there was a student who was likely to be out of the room during the sessions, as she was scared of music – this was Molly.

When I arrived in the first week, Molly was nervous around me, and spent the whole session outside in the garden. She was watching what was going on from the safety of the other side of the window, but as the weeks went by, she started to spend more time in the room, running out when things got too much. I could tell she was interested in the instruments and the sounds, so I took things slowly, encouraging her to familiarise herself with the different instruments I have, leaving easy access instruments like shakers, tambourines etc by the door, and she eventually started to interact. It became quickly apparent that she was super smart.

The class were doing a “Creepy Crawly” theme for the half term, so I devised a number of songs and activities based around this theme, including some more well-known such as Wiggly Woo, and some lesser-known songs from the folk tradition, such as the “Little Ladybird” song we have ended up using as our main Count Me In song, which is my rewrite of a traditional American folk song “Little Birdie”.

After the first few weeks of nervousness in the sessions Molly took an interest in the guitar and ukulele, counting the strings and conducting me to strum. There was evidence of following the pulse and she started to do some tentative exploring of the instruments, figuring out how the sounds are made, progressing to her using toys to interact with the instrument herself. She can still be a little wary, sometimes covering her ears a bit, but the growth is amazing! She has enjoyed the songs we have sung.

I then introduced the microphone into the sessions, and after a couple of weeks of seeing her peers using it, Molly started to try to interact with it herself. She shouted towards the microphone from a safe distance, but was enjoying hearing her voice through the speaker with reverb, laughing and smiling. Again, with repetition, Molly has started to move closer to the microphone, interacting more confidently and sharing the moment with her peers. She also has started to sing along with my Hello Song, when leaving spaces for her fill in, she will sing the right words in tune.

It has been wonderful watching Molly grow in confidence throughout the residency, the staff are really pleased with how she has developed and hope that it can have a positive impact on other aspects of her life. Apparently, her Mum is a lovely singer, but hasn’t been able to sing at home because of Molly’s aversion to music. She can name my instruments and can recall how many strings all they all have. She has brilliant rhythm which she has demonstrated in different contexts, some instruments and also tapping on the table with toys!! She now acknowledges the music sessions, with a happy “Music!”, and has vocalised and sang along with the songs with the help of repetition, demonstrating nice pitch matching skills.”