About Soundabout
Soundabout is an award-winning, UK-based charity that believes that everyone should be able to access, experience, and enjoy music. For 30-years, the charity has been using the universal language of music, sound, and silence, to create meaningful opportunities for Learning Disabled people of all ages, particularly those with complex support needs*, to communicate, connect, and thrive.
Established in 1997, each year Soundabout supports around 2,250 Learning Disabled people alongside their families and supporters, as well as around 360 professionals, through delivering around 1,250 online and in-person sound and music-based sessions across the UK.
These sessions include Soundabout Choirs, as well as Sounds Together community-based music sessions, Sounds Wild nature-based sound-making in inspiring outdoor spaces, immersive Sounds Sensory multi-sensory installations, and a whole host of weekly Sounds Virtual sessions.
Equally importantly, Soundabout supports around 41 Learning Disabled young people in becoming the next generation of creative professionals through its pioneering Emerging Leaders Programme, and Graduate Emerging Leaders Programme.
The charity also provides training for around 600 family members, carers and support professionals, educators, music practitioners, and partner organisations, in using music and sound in the daily lives of the people they support. In September 2026, Soundabout will launch the inaugural Sound Practice training, a year-long programme in facilitating accessible, interactive, and creative music-making opportunities alongside Learning Disabled people with complex support needs.
Across the charity’s work, Soundabout’s approach is person-centred, inclusive, creative, and tailored to the specific needs and interests of each individual that they work with. This allows individuals to communicate and express themselves, build friendships, connections, and have fun, and experience an improved sense of wellbeing through interacting with the world around them through music.
*Soundabout uses music and sound alongside Learning Disabled children and adults with complex support needs. This is the language that Soundabout families have asked us to use. Other sectors such as health and education sectors may use ‘Profound and Multiple Learning Disabilities’ and / or ‘Severe Learning Disabilities’.
Our Approach
Soundabout’s approach is person centred, so it focuses on every individual’s abilities, ambitions, passion, and interests.
Our inclusive approach to facilitation uses sound and silence (our definition of music) in a simple way that focuses on what each person can do.
Soundabout Practitioners learn how each participant best communicates, picking up on facial expressions, eye movements, individual gestures, and vocalisations. Practitioners use simple activities and techniques that are replicable for parents / carers and ensure plenty of time for sensory processing.
Soundabout’s approach combines the use of multiple communication techniques such as intensive interaction with the powerful effects of music in its simplest form.