Don't Stop the Music - Channel 4

[Hornspieler]

The whole issue of learning curves seems never to be addressed IMV
After 6 months learning the clarinet people are able to make a predictable sound and play together successfully
after 6 months learning the violin ?

I know this is heresy to some but IMV the recorder is a terrible instrument for children to start on. It requires far too much accurate breath control (my usual technique is to do a live electronics thing, take them down a couple of octaves and add a huge reverb !).... Much better to play the penny whistle or ocarina. In Irish primary schools everyone learns the whistle and because it's part of what people do outside school it seems to be more valued.

But I guess that's not good TV ?

I agree with what you say, GG, but also for what I think is a more important reason:

Children in a "first" school recorder class associate learning a musical instrument with blowing something.
So when they they move on to Junior School and wish to learn more, they opt for the flute, oboe or clarinet or, if their hands are large enough, the bassoon. In senior school, there will probably be the tradition of a school orchestra, so some already quite competent instrumentalist will be attracted to learning the violin or violoncello. Any violin pupil with longer than normal arms will have the fiddle wrenched away from them and be presented with the school's one viola!
This general pattern of music teaching within the state education system is not only my experience but also that of my second wife, who was a school music teacher for thirty years.

Okay, that's a general summary and not always true. Other factors come into consideration:

The parents may themselves be trained musicians and would be expecting their children to follow in their footsteps, the quality of music teaching varies in different schools; but the general pattern across the country is that there is a dearth of competent string players heading towards further musical education compared with brass players and woodwind players (who have already reached a degree of semi-professional competence on their chosen instruments).

The average symphony orchestra will have on contract:

3 Flutes (1 doubling piccolo), 2 Oboes, 1 Cor anglais' 3 Clarinets (1 doubling bass clt and/or E flat clt), 3 Bassoons (1 doubling contra bassoon)
3 Trumpets, 5 Horns, 2 Tenor trombones, 1 Bass trombone. 1 Tuba, 3 Percussionists, 1 Timpanist and 1 Harpist - a total of 29 players

26 Violins, 10 violas, 8 cellos, 6 double basses - a total of 50 players.

When I was at the Royal Academy of Music, there were 18 studying clarinet, and similar numbers studying the other wind instruments
Add in those from the other Colleges of Music throughout the country and you can see the problem - enough qualified wind players to fill those woodwind chairs 60 times over if all the incumbants left at the same time. So they turn to becoming peripatetic teachers and turn out even more competent wind players.

Plenty of room for good string players though, in the 20 or more professional orchestras in Great Britain. Over a thousand chairs to be filled, so who needs to earn a living teaching kids to play the violin?

It is a problem which is getting worse every day. Check the list of players in your local orchestra or the BBC list of their personnel. How many of those string players have what are recognisable British surnames?

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

A good summary, HS.

I remember once going to an interview for a school music job in Cornwall. I suggested a push on strings, and gave my reasons. Let's say it didn't go down too well. They thought they knew best, despite all the evidence I had amassed through doing the same in a Derbyshire school.

Now I've compounded the problem by becoming a peripatetic woodwind teacher.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

A good summary, HS.

Yes, it is - but the purpose of giving kids instrumental lessons in school isn't (just) to ensure the future personnel of professional Symphony Orchestras, any more than Art lessons have the primary intention of producing professional painters, sculptors, installationists, or Games lessons professional footballers. There are other, wider educational issues involved which aren't addressed by steering someone who really wants to learn Saxophone or Trumpet or Percussion into instead taking up the school's only Viola.

There are other factors to Music Education than learning an instrument, too - but that's probably off-topic.

[MrGongGong]

I think the last couple of comments also highlight what to me seems a bit odd where the "classical" orchestra is used as a model.
You only need 3 flutes etc
But save us from endless wind bands !

The music conservertoires (as they are now called) have, at last, abandoned the idea that they are there to supply players to professional orchestras. There aren't many jobs anyway so most young players end up doing all sorts of things including starting their own or doing more varied and diverse things.

Save us from the Dettol "recorder bucket" (actually I really love the recorder when played well but overblown squeaks without live electronics )

[MrGongGong]

There are other factors to Music Education than learning an instrument, too - but that's probably off-topic.

COMPOSITION ?

On the way out i'm afraid

Listening ?

hummmm

Some folks seem to want a return to musicology 'O' level like wot I did (rubbish and uninspiring)

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Yes, it is - but the purpose of giving kids instrumental lessons in school isn't (just) to ensure the future personnel of professional Symphony Orchestras, any more than Art lessons have the primary intention of producing professional painters, sculptors, installationists, or Games lessons professional footballers. There are other, wider educational issues involved which aren't addressed by steering someone who really wants to learn Saxophone or Trumpet or Percussion into instead taking up the school's only Viola.

There are other factors to Music Education than learning an instrument, too - but that's probably off-topic.

Too true. From the individual's point of view, you shouldn't attempt to put square plugs in round holes. But Wider Opportunities does precisely that, except when a whole "orchestra" is distributed to a class. But then the level of learning is limited still further.

[MrGongGong]

Too true. From the individual's point of view, you shouldn't attempt to put square plugs in round holes. But Wider Opportunities does precisely that, except when a whole "orchestra" is distributed to a class. But then the level of learning is limited still further.

I think, and you have illustrated this many times, that there is such a "political" pressure to make the Wider Opportunities thing be seen to be a success that it's impossible to criticise it (See ABRSM report) a bit like the "Sistema" projects which use a very similar methodology. Successive governments have failed to tackle things like class sizes and will seize on any research that supports their view.
It's really worth reading Jon Savage's blog comments on these things IMV

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

But Wider Opportunities does precisely that, except when a whole "orchestra" is distributed to a class. But then the level of learning is limited still further.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

COMPOSITION ?

On the way out i'm afraid

The problem here is that John Paynter's potentially great project was hijacked by fanatics who thought it was OK for competing groups of children to be playing xylophones all around the classroom. It just gave children (and teachers) a headache, so the alternative was electronic keyboards with headphones. So composing became playing a few notes to accompany an auto-accompaniment.

Listening ?

hummmm

All the fun was taken out of this by calling it Listening and Appraising. I might appraise music myself, but being told to is quite a different matter.

Some folks seem to want a return to musicology 'O' level like wot I did (rubbish and uninspiring)

It didn't have to be rubbish, though I agree it often was.

[MrGongGong]

The problem here is that John Paynter's potentially great project was hijacked by fanatics who thought it was OK for competing groups of children to be playing xylophones all around the classroom. It just gave children (and teachers) a headache, so the alternative was electronic keyboards with headphones. So composing became playing a few notes to accompany an auto-accompaniment.

Why are we (and the CH4 prog illustrates this) expected to teach MUSIC , which MAKES A NOISE, in environments where it's not possible to make sounds and be heard ?
Let's teach people rugby in a stock cupboard

This (again ?) is worth looking at

http://www.soundandmusic.org/projects/listen-imagine-compose

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Why are we (and the CH4 prog illustrates this) expected to teach MUSIC , which MAKES A NOISE, in environments where it's not possible to make sounds and be heard ?
Let's teach people rugby in a stock cupboard

I wonder whether the children in the programme would have been quite so well behaved if the TV cameras hadn't been there.

John Culshaw remarked about how well the VPO behaved when The Golden Ring documentary was being filmed.

[french frank]

Listening ?

hummmm

Some folks seem to want a return to musicology 'O' level like wot I did (rubbish and uninspiring)

But listening is what most children will end up doing, and they will still listen whether they compose or perform. Listening can be for enjoyment, for (critical) appreciation and for musicology. I don't know what you did for 'musicology O level', but I can't believe it has to be 'rubbish and uninspiring', any more than learning French has to be 'boring'.

Children will have musical propensities of varying kinds (I don't think many have no interest at all, but some don't). Education means developing those individual propensities, doesn't it?

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I found O-level music very inspiring. Difficult, but inspiring. We had three set works, but this doubled to six soon after I started teaching, and it did become a bit heavy going for those concerned. We also learnt harmony, and this was the first music I did at school that I found difficult; but it opened a whole new world of understanding and was later to become a huge advantage in my part-time work as an orchestrator. Now harmony is something you might do at A-level, so music departments at universities have to teach basic harmony - a skill that was once assumed.

[Serial_Apologist]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't Musicology to do with the art form's provenance? I read somewhere that Bartok's tracing of the origins and travellings of East European folk musics made him one of the first Musicologists.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't Musicology to do with the art form's provenance? I read somewhere that Bartok's tracing of the origins and travellings of East European folk musics made him one of the first Musicologists.

That is quite correct. O-level was never about musicology - just the nuts and bolts needed for an in-depth understanding of music.