Karen Blades

Rhythm and Groove

Based in Cumbernauld, just outside of Glasgow, and working across Central Scotland, Rhythm and Groove aim to promote music to all generations - we offer lessons in musical instruments to all ages and abilities, to encourage a love and passion of music.We believe that music should be fun and that it brings people together and our goal is to impart some of our own passion into the world around us and in some way to touch the lives of those that we come into contact with every day, whether it be through teaching or just playing a musical piece. Rhythm and Groove was started in 2010 by Karen Blades as she started to see how using music in an educational environment can really help the development and growth of children. As she looked into this further, Karen found that although there has been studies that backed her own findings, there is a great lack of resources when it comes to using music in this way. According to a study performed by Northwestern University in Illinois, musical training during childhood could be more important than learning phonics for developing communication skills - this is highlighted by the fact that musicians tend to have more highly developed language-learning skills. At Rhythm and Groove we use a variety of techniques to introduce children to musical instruments and to get them involved in a fun, creative way of learning. You can find details of some of these techniques under our Workshop pages. Finally we aim to help people with our music. It has been found that music can greatly help people with additional needs grow in their ability to communicate and interact with the world around them. Through our additional needs classes we aim to see many people thrive in a safe, friendly environment and to see them grow with the help of our music therapy.