General Goals
The Sounds of Music pilot program seeks to forge connections through music between elderly, homebound individuals in the NYC metropolitan area.
The Sounds of Music Accessibility Toolkit and Workshop are being constructed with the goal of facilitating the creation of music enrichment programs in schools, daycares, nursing homes, permanent care facilities, rehabilitation facilities, prisons, hospitals, and other public and private settings.*
* We do not claim in any way, shape, or form to be experts in the field of musicology, music therapy, music medicine, or cognitive behavioral therapy. We merely wish to provide a framework for the creation of music enrichment experiences for a wide variety of populations and audiences. We expect that institutional settings will implement their own best practices in the creation of any program they generate and organize for their patrons to enjoy.
Audiences
Our audience is two-fold. We hope to reach elderly, homebound, and handicapped populations with our pilot program. With our workshop and toolkit, we wish to reach out to different institutions in order to provide a method for anyone to create music enrichment programs for a wide variety of populations.
Our Values/Voice
Music connects people on a physical, emotional, and spiritual level. Music is deeply, fundamentally human. We believe that music has the ability to move people, both literally and metaphorically. Music connects us to our community and cultural roots, and empowers individuals who create it and listen to it. The bond formed between the musician and the listener is a vital component of what makes a live, synchronous music experience so compelling.
We believe that music can connect people in new, exciting ways. We wish to bring this form of connectivity to homebound, elderly populations in the NYC metropolitan area in an accessible, easy-to-navigate manner.
Our values are reflected both on our website and in our program. We believe in accessibility for all, and have created an accessible website that allows users to toggle between high-contrast, grey-scale, and large-font modes. We are investing time in researching how to make our pilot program accessible to those with visual, auditory, or motor-skill impairments.
Our values are self-evident in our workshop and toolkit, which provides accessibility resources for anyone creating a music enrichment program. We will also include troubleshooting and latency solutions.
Website and Logo
Social Media Strategies
We plan on creating a Facebook page for our project, where we will disseminate the information we find and the research we have done.
We plan to update our Facebook once a week for the duration of the project. Facebook will serve as a platform for building our audience, creating new content related to the Sounds of Music, and making important public announcements.
Communication Strategies
We wish to establish contact with community groups for the elderly, including but not limited to organizations that work with the elderly and the disabled, libraries, and nursing homes.
We will also keep in touch with and expand our audience through digital flyers and content that will be shared through social media.
We plan on creating a LinkTree to post to our website and social media platforms in order to direct potential audience members to our social media presence.
We also plan on disseminating materials about our project on LinkedIn. Additionally, we anticipate performing Search Engine Optimization (SEO) on our website and each post therein.
Community Initiatives
In addition to updating and maintaining our webpage and or Facebook profile, we plan to explore a word-of-mouth strategy. We plan to start that by exploring three potential links to organizations that work with elderly populations:
