In 2018-19, Measuring Humanity worked with Behind The Noise, a real-world music and business education programme that works with around 100 young people in Glasgow and Renfrewshire. The project aims to inspire, encourage and support young people with a keen interest in music and the various career opportunities that exist within the industry.
The project consists of nine workshops, three rehearsals, two open days, a recording session and two live shows that take participants through the process of forming a band, writing and recording an original track, rehearsing and promoting a show. The project culminates in a live performance in front of 500 people at the Classic Grand music venue in Glasgow.
Since it’s inception eight years ago, the project has received huge amounts of praise from parents, schools, the Industry, and the further and higher education sector, as well as winning a silver COSLA award. It has seen many former participants go on to take creative industries courses, start their own music projects and find employment in the industry. Talking to former participants, they cite BTN as having a huge impact on their lives.
Despite this, year on year, the project has to apply for funding, which is by no means guaranteed. To support their application, the team collect evidence of success through surveys, workshop reports and collating the work that the participants have created.
This is all fine and well, but does not necessarily demonstrate the lived experience of the participants – the moment when the song they have written starts to come together in rehearsals, hearing their track in the studio sounding incredible, walking on stage in front of 500 people. These are electrifying, life changing moments in a young persons formative years that can give them confidence, make them feel more socially connected, increase their optimism and show them that they can affect change in their own lives. If you are in a rehearsal room, in the studio or at the show, you can feel these moments taking place and actively experience it with them. How do you validate these ‘feels’ for funders?
We’re back to surveys.
No surprisingly, when we looked at the survey data, we found that the responses some young people provided actively contradicted the experience we know they had!
In the first video above, we find out about Behind The Noise and the process of applying the Asset-Based Indicator Framework. In the second video below, Marisa talks to Behind The Noise director Rico Capuano about evidence, surveys and some of the unexpected findings we came across.
