In the second of a series of articles about putting the (Multi-Sensory Impairments) MSI curriculum into action, Heather Murdoch and Rosie McMinn from the Victoria School MSI Unit describe the part played by music and rhythm.

Rhythm is fundamental to our awareness of the world, of patterns, of the passing of time. Learners with MSI often have problems understanding space (because most people use vision for this) and time (because most people use hearing - sounds start, then stop). Music and rhythm provide a basis for understanding and ordering the world.

Many children with MSI use repetitive, rhythmic movements such as rocking, and early music activities at phase 1 of the Victoria curriculum use the child’s natural rhythms, for example, a keyworker singing and moving in time to the child’s movements. Greater variety and turn-taking are gradually developed over time.

Our students who work at phase 2 have an understanding of their immediate world (provided they are supported well by adults they trust) and communicate intentionally through non-verbal means. Rhythm and routine are strongly linked, and at phase 2, when students are developing a sophisticated use of routines to access and order the wider world, music has a particular role.

Sing hello

The daily greetings session for students at phase 2, for example, begins with the same song each day. After this, greetings chants are sung. Each student has an individual chant, based on his or her name - Saima’s name-chant, for example, gradually gets louder and higher-pitched as her name is repeated; Waheed’s keeps the same pitch and volume, but gets faster, whilst Uzma’s begins loudly, then gradually fades away. The chants are sung in turn around the room - always in the same order, to help students recognise when a peer is absent.

After a year or so, when all the students are familiar with the name-chants used across the group, they can be ‘sabotaged’ - by singing Saima’s name in Waheed’s style, for example. If the sabotage is well-timed (when the students are secure in the group routine), it causes puzzlement, then laughter. It’s a real joke, based on incongruity as so many jokes are - and fully accessible to pre-symbolic students with MSI.

For students working at phase 3, names are still linked to rhythms, but are more likely to be embedded within songs, as students learn to discriminate and select from the information they receive. Different days have different greetings activities. For instance:

On Fridays, it’s Rhythm ’n’ Rap, with call-and-response drumming (you shout or change the rhythm, we’ll copy), the Students’ Rap (We’re the students / and we are cool / cos we do loads of stuff when we’re in school…), a storm of percussion instruments and Wes Magee’s Boneyard Rap on CD. And anything else the students might initiate….

On Wednesdays it’s Music Appreciation (Shahida, one of the students, loves long words!), when students choose from and enjoy rock, rap, opera, folk, world music, pop, brass bands, classical orchestral pieces and anything else you can name. Not everyone appreciates everything, of course – learning to communicate ‘don’t like’ is part of the plan.

Music isn’t confined to greetings sessions, of course, it’s used across the timetable and across the curriculum.

Individual music sessions often initially target turn-taking and choice-making, developing over time into full-fledged conversations between students and staff. The topics range around different instruments and music sources - which instrument, how to play it today, what tempo, for how long, together or alone? Staff act to support the student in leading the conversation - there is no ‘right’ endpoint or ground that needs to be covered; it’s about developing communication from areas of shared interest.

Feel the beat

We use more acoustic music than electronic, especially at earlier Phases, as the sound-source link is more accessible to students. Instruments, though, often aren’t necessary. We ‘play’ tables, wheelchairs, trays…. any surface that responds with sounds and vibrations and attracts the student. Saima loves to feel rhythms tapped out on the table or wheelchair tray, and to dance hand-to-hand with Rosie whenever music plays.

Some of our students have profound hearing losses; others find sudden or loud noises or specific pitches distressing. Group music sessions, especially, require careful planning in this respect. We use a range of strategies to help students with severe and profound losses to access music - access to the vibration from speakers, through hands or feet or faces; using resonance boards (supported vertically) as instruments; brass or percussion or highly visual instruments (one staff member plays the accordion!) – and, of course, staff: singing, dancing, signing, making music accessible to individual students in a myriad ways.

Many professional musicians and dancers visit Victoria School, which is a Specialist Arts College. Some run regular workshops, allowing students to anticipate the sessions. Often these performances and workshops combine lights, sounds, sights and actions, so that knowledgeable decisions on positioning enable each student to get the best possible access to the experience. Students at earlier Phases are usually individually supported at these performances, by staff whom they trust and find reassuring, and who know them well enough to predict and prevent sensory overload. Students at phase 4, in contrast, usually spend time beforehand learning what to expect at the performance, and then attend with less support.

Music is a great route to inclusion for some of our students. Shahida, for example, (working at phase 3-4) sings in the school choir and has made friends there. One of her friends, Rebecca, comes to the MSI Unit each week for a shared music session with Shahida – they choose songs and CD tracks, sing and play along, and chat in-between. Shahida used to find speaking to her peers hard, preferring to use an adult as a mediator, but her sessions with Rebecca are now her favourite part of the week and her communication with other less familiar people has also become far more confident.

Music is a fabulous resource for students with MSI. It provides shared experiences for students and staff to communicate about; it has a direct route to our emotions, evoking or moderating moods; it comes from many sources, which can be explored and manipulated; it motivates people to move and keep moving; it’s a great leisure activity. Above all, it has rhythm!

Interested in reading the first article about curriculum: dramatic dialogue.

If you would like a copy of the MSI curriculum that was developed by Heather Murdoch and colleagues from the MSI Unit at Victoria School, Birmingham, please contact Sense.