Transformance Music

We are a group of teachers, musicians and technologists who specialise in composition, improvisation and performance using iPads. Ben Sellers and Travis Snyder began running music workshops with iPads in a Hackney community centre in 2011, developing an approach that combined outstanding musical outcomes with implicit development of musicianship and theory. They transferred this approach to both formal mainstream and SEND/ALN contexts, codifying their methods into what became the 2014 textbook ‘Teaching Music with Garageband for iPad’, and a popular teacher training scheme. In 2016, Travis returned to California to become the head of Assistive Technology for the San Francisco District School Board. 2017 saw the publication of several new resources, including a second edition of the Garageband textbook and an increased focus on training partnerships with Music Education Hubs. Since 2018 we have gained an increasingly strong reputation as SEND/ALN specialists, working with MEHs up and down the country to improve provision through co-delivery and bespoke training and resources, including a complete ‘SEN/D Curriculum’ with Leicester-Shire Music Service, and a set of projects for the Charanga education platform. We were nominated twice in the 2019 ‘Music Teacher Awards for Excellence’. Though our reputation has grown, we remain a small and focussed team, working hard to develop in young people the skill, desire and drive to use music to enhance their lives.