Unlike traditional music, experimental music emerges through new creative research and free creative processes and is mostly focused on discovering, examining, and synthesizing new sources of sound relationships and expressions. Our target group of participants are youth aged between 13 and 20 with economic obstacles that are interested in experimental music, but due to their fewer opportunities often do not go beyond the formal education that is financially accessible to them, and remain deprived of many skills and competencies that are still weakly represented in formal education. Given the societal challenges caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, the project will design creative and innovative solutions that will enable socialization in the digital environment and thus encourage the development of skills and competencies that strengthen creativity. The fact that traditional formal music education often does not follow the affinities of youth opens space for creating new methods of learning music tailored to the needs of young people, and gives importance to experimental musical directions, therefore this project is an ideal place to fill such space. The objectives of the project are: - to strengthen the capacities of all organizations involved by improving youth work skills, - to develop educational learning modules using experimental sound as a tool in 2 directions: 1. Learning with physical presence and 2. Learning in virtual environment, - to develop an Educational VR platform and software that will enable unlimited virtual creation, musical performances, learning and cooperation in the online environment, - to educate local youth workers to implement all developed modules of non-formal learning using the developed experimental sound methodology in their country, - to facilitate the exchange of good practice between partner organisations. The project is designed in 5 phases, each of which will produce a set of results. The result of the first phase is 6 developed modules of non-formal learning through the use of tools for creating experimental sound and music that will be the basis for the development of non-formal music education in further implementation and work with young people; strengthened organizational capacities; new skills and knowledge adopted by 30 young people who participated in the development of experimental sound and music modules ; empowerment and social inclusion of 30 young people through the process of co-creation; developed educational content for the Educational VR platform and software as the intellectual output of this project; familiarization of local communities with the activities of the project and its European component through public events. The result of phase 2: 9 youth workers educated for further work with young people through the use of tools for creating experimental sound and music; non-formal learning modules that use tools for creating experimental sound and music developed in the first phase are evaluated and tested. The result of the third phase is the designed Educational VR platform and software as a playful and safe space for sharing, experimentation and learning for youth according to their needs and requirements; all previous work and final versions of the developed 6 non-formal learning modules that use tools to create experimental sound and music are integrated; e-learning environment is enabled in order to provide learning in case of reduced opportunities for physical mobility and participation of young people from all over the world in the project, especially those facing economic obstacles. The fourth phase will result with a learning mobility for 15 young people who acquired knowledge and skills about all developed modules and the use of the Educational VR platform, and the content of the workshops will be integrated into the platform in the form of webinars. Participants built new acquaintances and received a Youthpass certificate. In the last phase of project implementation, multiplier events will be held in each of the participating countries for 20 local participants in order to present project activities, results, experiences of all participants and the final tool that will serve as a basis for various forms of non-formal education informing all local communities about the project. A major role in the dissemination will be the trainings that will be implemented with representatives of various organizations and institutions that will later implement new NFL methods in their organizations. The Internet and social networks are the main tools in the disseminating process, while partners are an info point for disseminating results at the national level. The intellectual output of this project will ensure the use of results long after the end of the project and serve as a starting point for the development of new ideas and projects in our and other organizations with similar or the same interests.
Through the project we wanted to create 6 educational modules that strive to offer youth a wider understanding of music and encourage creativity and experiment through group improvisation, instrument creation, live digital music, sound art, spatial sound, and field recording. As part of each module, a manual was developed and made available on the official website of the project (www.soundsweird.org), so that each module could easily be recreated in a group, a classroom or at home. The idea behind the project was to develop the modules through learning with physical presence in the form of workshops that lasted for a shorter or longer period of time (from several weekends to up to 6 months) but also to create a virtual environment for learning, that would offer materials and tools developed during the workshops that could be used by anyone interested in experimental sound methodology. The virtual learning environment was also created as a space for interaction and exchange of music creations, with an option to upload and share them with other users.
The project "Sound Experiments - New Approaches to Non-Formal Learning in Music" was based on the idea of developing new educational modules for non-formal learning through the use of tools for creating experimental sound and music for young people aged 13 to 20. Unlike traditional music schools whose program is based on traditional musical and pedagogical methods, starting with music scores and classical harmony, through this project we wanted to put an emphasis on listening, mutual sound research and co-creation among participants and their mentors. The project strived to offer a wider understanding of music and what music can be, and to educate youngsters in the field of group improvisation, music creation in the digital environment, instrument creation, sound art, spatiality of the sound as well as the intersection of auditive and visual arts. Among other important needs and goals, the project focused on encouraging creative and artistic liberty, establishing an alterative approach in music education, broadening youngster's auditive perception and encouraging their openness to other and different.