Music Education in England

[doversoul1]

Well, I thought James Rhodes on Music Matters was a breath of fresh air. He wasn't claiming to have a panacea for every ill or perceived ill, or to be the new messiah. He simply made a few spot-on observations very articulately and, I thought, with no edge of having an axe to grind.

I agree that anything that gives off a whiff of being "trendy" is not for you and is best avoided. But I hope I would always be grateful and interested to pay attention to a friend or acquaintance who I know to be genuine, knowledgeable and authentic in their enthusiasm when they personally recommend something they've heard and talk about it intelligently and critically. I think you do get that experience from the presenters of all the jazz programmes, and it would be great to have a weekly classical programme on the same lines.

You are lucky to have escaped all those talks and articles about classical music and young people etc, and I assume you have never listened to (or even heard of) Early Music Show or Through the Night. They do exactly the thing you describe without the presenters being personal.

E-A
Not on this Forum (being a lone voice). What despairs me is that children are being subjected to something that produces an instant result (they loved it!) instead of being offered the real thing that may take a long time to grow within them.

[MrGongGong]

Not on this Forum (being a lone voice). What despairs me is that children are being subjected to something that produces an instant result (they loved it!) instead of being offered the real thing that may take a long time to grow within them.

Absolutely
SO lets BAN G&S and make Beefheart compulsory
(or did you mean something else ?)

Most youngsters I meet have a well developed bullshit detector, the 'real thing' might be Drum and Bass rather than Andre Rieu, Gorgoroth instead of Einaudi

[french frank]

Most youngsters I meet have a well developed bullshit detector, the 'real thing' might be Drum and Bass rather than Andre Rieu, Gorgoroth instead of Einaudi

And we don't even talk about classical music (or did you mean something else?)

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

There are no "most children". The real influence is their environment, which is dominated more by their school life than by popular culture outside school. But when that popular culture is what is presented to them for their education, many see no alternative.

No the crassness of Simon Cowle wins the day.

[MrGongGong]

And we don't even talk about classical music (or did you mean something else?)

Apologies for repeating this anecdote but it was what made me think about the whole 'classical music' tag thing.

A number of years ago I was commissioned to write a piece of orchestral music for a very well known London Orchestra to help celebrate the reopening of an equally well known concert hall. I was asked to write this with 6 classes from primary schools in the same borough as the hall using a process of playing, devising, working with orchestral musicians and then orchestrating the ideas into sections of music which the full orchestra would play. As part of one of the sessions we were doing some work about beginnings. How does music start ? What effect do you want to try and create with the first sounds in the piece and so on. So, as part of this I did an exercise where I played the openings of various pieces of music and we drew images and talked about what was going on in the music. I used a very wide range of things, some orchestral music, some electroacoustic, bits of Jazz, Gamelan and so on. Working with one class we were discussing how our bit should start and trying to find some words to use to describe it. The children I was with said things like they wanted it to be "Jazzy, funky, fast, exciting" but definitely NOT "classical music" (unprompted I might add), "no, we don't want that, that's boring". So my response was more "humm". So then we listened to various openings of pieces , when I played the opening of Mahler 5 the same child who had told me how boring "classical music" was, lept up saying "Yes, that's it, like that, thats the one we want it to sound like".

In the 'words' (ok not quite what he really said) of the great Nigel Tufnel , "how much more classical can you get ? the answer's ,none more".

The problem is often with the words and what they have come to mean NOT what the music sounds like. This week I'm working in some schools for another orchestra, I know that if I use the C word then I will immediately trigger some folks to switch off. It's a shame that it is that way, BUT I know that the name of the thing isn't the thing itself. Like in the example above, people get enthused by listening and participating in music NOT by the labels it is given.

[MrGongGong]

There are no "most children". The real influence is their environment, which is dominated more by their school life than by popular culture outside school. But when that popular culture is what is presented to them for their education, many see no alternative.

No the crassness of Simon Cowle wins the day.

Of course one way to make something more attractive is to ban it.
Worked for me. "You will not play the blues on the school Steinway, it's not real music"

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Of course one way to make something more attractive is to ban it.
Worked for me. "You will not play the blues on the school Steinway, it's not real music"

By that logic, they must absolutely love classical music in.

But no, it isn't banned. It's just not there at all in many schools.

[french frank]

The children I was with said things like they wanted it to be "Jazzy, funky, fast, exciting" but definitely NOT "classical music" (unprompted I might add), "no, we don't want that, that's boring". So my response was more "humm". So then we listened to various openings of pieces , when I played the opening of Mahler 5 the same child who had told me how boring "classical music" was, lept up saying "Yes, that's it, like that, thats the one we want it to sound like".

So was the child told that that was exactly what many people would call 'classical music'; and pressed as to whether it sounded 'boring'?

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

One of the few words I have banned is "boring". Then they have to think before dismissing anything.

[Serial_Apologist]

One of the few words I have banned is "boring". Then they have to think before dismissing anything.

Regarding listening habits, one of the biggest mistakes I ever made was announcing, before playing to my father a recording of Keith Tippett's Mujician band, that what he was about to hear was, believe it or not, totally improvised, without any prior discussion among the musicians. Asked afterwards if he had enjoyed the music, he said no, because improvised music of whatever kind was by its very nature incapable of reaching reach similar levels of sophistication and depth as that which had been carefully written down and as faithfully as possible interpreted. Mentioning this to Keith some time later, Julie, Keith's wife said, "Why not try playing him another Mujician recording without saying in advance that is is totally improvised - just putting it on and seeing how he reacts?" And so, I did as she suggested. Afterwards, my father exclaimed "Marvellous - I haven't heard anything as good as that in the jazz field for a long time! Have you got anything else by that composer?"

[Honoured Guest]

Top story! May I ask how old you were at the time? The subsidiary question raised is why you were bothering to attempt to communicate with this parent at all.

[Serial_Apologist]

Top story! May I ask how old you were at the time? The subsidiary question raised is why you were bothering to attempt to communicate with this parent at all.

Our respective ages were pretty irrelevant really - we were both knocking on a bit by that time, and at 68 I am probably becoming as fixed in my tastes as Dad was back then, 20 years ago. I do at least have him to thank for introducing me to "modern music" - in the form of Bartok's third piano concerto - I would have been about ten at the time.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

...The subsidiary question raised is why you were bothering to attempt to communicate with this parent at all.

Parents matter.

[DracoM]

Top story! May I ask how old you were at the time? The subsidiary question raised is why you were bothering to attempt to communicate with this parent at all.

What an extraordinary thing to say!

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

What an extraordinary thing to say!

Indeed.