UCan Play is a not for profit sales and consultancy organisation supporting music education throughout the United Kingdom. We sell musical instruments and technologies. We work with the music industry to help them understand the education market. We are here to support you and your work in any way that we can.
This week is highly important for Restore the Music UK. We are delighted to be included in the Big Give fundraiser. Every £ that we raise this week will be match-funded by the Big Give. If you can, please alert those within your network about this opportunity. It is a...
Young musicians supported by UK charity Restore the Music UK will showcase their talents outside Westminster Abbey on 6 December 2024 ahead of Together at Christmas, a carol service hosted by the Princess of Wales. The event, supported by The Royal Foundation, will be...
I am writing to invite any customers, students, bands or musicians that have worked with UCan Play or used the UCan Studios over the last year to the UCan Play Christmas Party! This will be held between 4.30 – 10pm at the UCan Studios. There are three main activities...
MusicFX DJ is an extension of Google Music FX, a generative AI tool. In DJ Mode, you can create constantly evolving and generative soundscapes by entering prompts such as ‘gamelan’ and ‘harpsichord arepeggio’. Each layer can be adjusted by way of volume, EQ, density...
For students studying music or music technology at BTec of A level, Focusrite’s new guide to immersive audio is worth a read. Once the sign up process is completed, you’ll get a 16 page PDF full of interesting information about immersive audio. Written by Joseph...
UCan Play is delighted to be an authorised supplier for the DfE and ACE Capital Grant Programme during 2024 - 2026. We have been authorised to supply equipment to the Hub Lead Organisations under all three lots. Our full inventory of items is available now on request...
UCan Play manages the Roland Champion School network. This network of schools receive preferential pricing on Roland equipment and work collaboratively with ourselves to explore its use within the curriculum. UCan Play also manages the Roland Student Ambassador initiative. Student ambassadors are normally aged 16 or above and studying in further or higher education. They receive a preferential prices on any equipment. UCan Play has also designed four bespoke packages of Roland equipment for use in schools and colleges. Click here to find out more about our piano/keyboard laboratory, looping, live streaming and DJ packages. If you want to purchase any Roland equipment, do get in touch for a preferential educational price!
UCan Play has worked collaboratively with NYMAZ for the last three years. NYMAZ’s Connect:Resound project explores the potential of live streaming technologies for the teaching of musical instruments to children in remote parts of the country. Built around Roland’s innovative VR3-EX, we designed a system using CCTV cameras rather than traditional video cameras. We also trained music service and school based staff in its use. This has proved to be a robust and affordable approach. Throughout the whole duration of the project, and working with staff from the North Yorkshire Music Service and six local primary schools spread across the county, we have only had one technical issue to deal with. More recently, this work has extended to work in numerous other parts of the country. In 2015 NYMAZ and UCan Play secured Arts Council funding to conduct similar work in Cornwall, Northumberland, the Isles of Scilly, Cumbria and the East Riding of Yorkshire.
UCan Play is the authorised retail partner for Musical Futures. Working collaboratively with this leading music education charity, we advise their teachers and schools about a range of musical instruments and other technologies that can be used to underpin a Musical Futures approach to teaching and learning. UCan Play and Musical Futures have produced a number of packages of instruments for specific programmes, such as Just Play, which schools can purchase at highly preferential rates.
Musical Futures ambassadors are also invited to field test new technologies from the range of brands that UCan Play is associated with. This process ensures that all the products we offer have been suitably tested in educational environments.
Working with staff from the Love Music Trust, in 2014 UCan Play wrote an entire primary music curriculum for the Early Years and Key Stages 1 and 2. This curriculum is accessible via a bespoke online environment. The curriculum was given free of charge to every primary school in Cheshire East and is available by subscription to other schools. Through the project, we managed a team of writers drawing on expert teachers we knew from outstanding primary schools. As with all our work, the project was delivered to budget and within the time scale set by the Love Music Trust. UCan Play is also the proud sponsor of the Love Music Trust’s percussion ensemble. UCan Play’s Managing Director volunteers as the Chair of Trustees for the Love Music Trust.
We have supported this important music education charity with specific consultancy and advice in relation to bids for funding that they have received from schools across the UK. We have also procured and supplied full sets of musical instruments for schools that have received funding from this charity. As part of our follow up work with each school, we work collaboratively with the Heads of Music to ensure that maximum educational benefit is achieved through the Restore the Music grant.
Funded by Youth Music, UCan Play has worked as the technical partner for Jazz UK to help live stream is Dissolve JazzLab jazz workshops from Coventry and Bournemouth. Working with Coventry Performing Arts Service and SoundStorm in Bournemouth, we helped them utilise the Roland VR3-EX to ensure that high quality video and audio was accessed by staff and young people in remote locations. The participants showcased their new compositions at Belgrade Theatre in Coventry as part of JazzUK’s new community-inspired #4Jazz Festival.
I Like Music is the most complete Commercial Music catalogue in the world, containing every UK Top 40 single since the charts began in 1952 and many more tracks from all genres. All tracks are in streaming in broadcast quality (44.1 kHz, stereo, uncompressed, no encryption). Over 8,000 new releases and catalogue tracks are added each month to this amazing archive.
UCan Play and I Like Music have become partners to offer this comprehensive archive of music to our educational partners at a preferential price. Click here for further details.
UCanPlay are very happy to be supporting the work of CLIC Sargent. This kind of charity partnership is at the heart of what we do. UCan Play contributed to the charity’s successful Youth Music grant application. Activities have been planned for the next three years with 150 young musicians with cancer. Recently, we attended a planning meeting with twenty musicians and workshop leaders at their centre in Wiltshire and discussed the provision of a streaming service using either the Roland VR-3EX to cover the workshops, performance opportunities and festivals that are going to take place. This will enable the young musicians who can’t attend to engage along with parents and friends of those who can. We also brought along a user friendly entry level recording package/interface that we recommend, the PreSonus iTwo AudioBox. This is a competitively priced all-in-one solution for students with free StudioOne software, iPad integration, wireless transfer of recorded files, and tutorial videos.
ThinkSpace Education and UCan Play have formed a new partnership to make packages of musical equipment available to students studying for their online course. These packages have been designed by ThinkSpace Education staff in consultation with UCan Play. We are happy to make our preferential educational pricing available to staff and students at ThinkSpace Education and are happy to support the next generation of talent in musical composition and sound design.