Jim & Jimmy
Music for Schools

National  Curriculum: Music: Key Stages 1 and 2

Our SCHOOLS PROGRAMME offers a musical experience for your pupils in the form of a display and demonstration of several acoustic instruments -as well as singing in chorus and harmony.

Both Jimmy Powells and Jim Newman are  CRB certified guitar, mandolin and banjo tutors.

The session  broadens pupils’ view of different music genres and covers Key Stage 1 section 5 (d) of the curriculum for Programme of Music Study. It also features other sections of the curriculum.

We  bring around ten musical instruments with us and spend a couple of minutes on each, giving a brief explanation of how they all fit into different styles of music -then a few minutes demonstration with a song or a tune on each instrument. Amplification isn't necessary but we can provide  if required.

Instruments we bring include:

Steel string acoustic guitar to show—Strumming, Fingerpicking and Flatpicking.

Nylon string classical/folk guitar to cover Strumming and Arpeggio style fingerpicking for song accompaniment plus touching on classical and flamenco style instrumental music.

Traditional bowl shaped mandolin to demonstrate playing of melodic Italian style music and British folk music.

American Bluegrass style mandolin to cover melodies and back up rhythm on Bluegrass and Country music. We also bring a mandola.

5 String American style banjo to demonstrate Picking melodies with fingerpicks and back-up rhythm for Country and Bluegrass music.

4 String Irish style tenor banjo to cover traditional Irish music playing fast and slow melodies with a plectrum.

Double Bass to cover basic song/tune accompaniment.

Ukelele (or Ukulele) to cover Strumming basic accompaniment to song and playing melodies.

Harmonica to cover playing melodies and accompanying a song.

Concertina to demonstrate its use in folk music.

Irish Bodhran drum to cover rhythm on Folk music.

“A range of live and recorded music from different times and cultures”.

Up to 40 pupils in any one session is an ideal group.

Each session is followed by a ten minute “question and answer” period.  There is also the opportunity for the children to look closely and touch the instruments (which they all enjoy doing).