Working as a Music Champion has been a transformative chapter in my creative journey as a musician. Before this project, I had dipped into early years work but hadn’t fully understood the depth, complexity, and potential it held. I expected to bring music into children’s lives. What I didn’t expect was how profoundly they would change my approach to music itself.

From the beginning, the focus on child-led exploration reshaped how I thought about planning and delivery. I learned to step back, observe, and listen more deeply. I started to notice the small gestures, the quiet moments, and the spontaneous rhythms and stories that children create when given time and space. I began designing sessions not around fixed outcomes, but around relationships, curiosity, and play.
When I first began this journey at Eyres Monsell Children, Young People and Family Centre, I found it challenging to figure out the best way to work with both children and families. But over time, I came to understand the importance of repetition, of keeping sessions consistent yet open-ended, and of creating carefully crafted invitations to play that let the children lead the way.

I began experimenting by introducing or removing different instruments each week and by varying group sizes, observing how these changes influenced interaction between the children and their parents. Working in small groups proved especially powerful and helped me build strong musical relationships. This intimacy gave children the confidence to take creative risks, express themselves freely, and take ownership of the music we made together. Eventually, these moments evolved into co-created soundscapes filled with jungle sounds, whispers, shakers, silence, and joy. Silence, I learned, could be just as powerful as sound.

One of the most profound lessons was realising how much musicality already exists in young children. My role wasn’t to teach music, but to make space for it. I aimed to scaffold, provoke, and respond to their ideas. Technology became an extension of this approach. Microphones, loop stations, and ambient sound beds helped us create magical sound worlds.

Working in early years has not only developed my facilitation skills, it has also shaped my identity as an artist. It has made my work more responsive, more playful, and more human. I now carry this approach into other areas of my practice, where I continue to prioritise process over performance and exploration over instruction.

To anyone stepping into early years work for the first time: be ready to let go. Let go of control, let go of outcomes, and allow yourself to be surprised. The children will always show you where the music is. You just have to follow!