Jason Kubelius writes:
“The report Everyday Creativity was released early June 2016. It was a response to the earlier Warwick report revealing that only 8% of the UK population regularly attend funded culture.
How can we make participation in culture more democratic?
Overwhelmingly we have heard that language, attitudes and the prevailing ‘excellence’ narrative in the arts can be seen as divisive in terms of engaging a broader audience in arts and culture.
The way we separate creative people and non-creative people and see some art as Great Art – requiring much funding, support and recognition – is something the report argues is a part of the problem in putting up barriers to participation. The support by ACE of professional artists and trying to increase audiences for Great Art again replicates an unhealthy division further alienating people from cultural activity.
The report also noted:
“Many also mentioned that arts subjects themselves were becoming more regulated in their teaching – with children being made to create identical pictures or structured forms of writing, rather than being encouraged to play or use their imagination.
In adult working life self-expression and creativity are often discouraged and a culture of being a ‘professional’ version of yourself, rather than expressing your own ideas and opinions, is often the norm. “
I can relate to a greater regulation of accepted teaching methods over the last 10 years. (The developments of QA processes are well documented) There is currently enormous pressure to conform to a school wide pedagogy; this is often perceived to be a way to gaining consistency in teaching standards – the ultimate Holy Grail. I can also relate to a great deal of self –regulation – a desire to conform to professional standards. The internalization of standards is an important part of modern teaching – I feel constantly the desire to be professional – though this professionalism comes with a cost.
Anna Bull in her paper on El Sistema asks, “why classical music in the UK, which is consumed and practiced by the middle and upper classes, is being used as a social action program for working- class children.”
She points out that the Sistema inspired programs fit middle class values: through middle-class dispositions of accumulating value, a morality of hard work, and a “respectable” femininity.
It would seem that as well intentioned these programs are they replicate a message that working class children should change their values – classical music is used as a way of civilising the working class. Ultimately it reinforces the idea that the working class are inadequate and subtly reinforces ideas that the working class are poor because of their culture and values – rather than because of structural inequality.
In an earlier blog Anna Bull discusses the difference between pedagogy of correction and one of non-interference:
”This is about letting the child or young person develop as a musician in their own direction, making their own decisions as to what sounds good or bad, without constant correction from an adult authority figure…but in my experience so much classical music pedagogy is about correction rather than about exploration.”
Lucy Green in responding to some criticisms of her book on informal music notes:
“This approach was different from the usual instructional role, partly because it was based on the diagnosis of and response to learner-perceived, immediate need, rather than on pre-established teacher-set aims or objectives with long- term trajectories in mind. It involved teaching in a responsive, rather than directive way; metaphorically taking the learner by the hand, getting inside their head and asking ‘What do they want to achieve now, this minute, and what is the main thing they need to achieve it?’. In this way, the teacher sits alongside the learner and is to a large extent a learner themselves. “
Many of my own favourite tracks of 2015 are groove based and show little in the way of harmonic/structural complexity that seems an obsession in GCSE and A-level syllabuses and indeed in the wider discourse around what matters in music.
For example (My ten pieces of 2015)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KO_3Qgib6RQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rfkKIH6ggcA
https://open.spotify.com/track/0mRxPVluGvxD6TitLPcbYt
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=REEPJp_GvAQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bR9-2As-XMk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dsGODTySH0E
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1NVOawOXxSAhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iuQQIawCqBA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0knjy5l62hk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-oib0a2_itA
Drones, distortion, repetition, riffs, grooves, harshness, cyclic harmony, improvisation, lyrics, call and response, rhythmic complexity, timbral interest, personal, emotional, particular – textural development, reality, rhetoric, quotation, copying, retelling, recycling, renaming, borrowing, inflection, body and dance, materiality of the signifier, intertextuality, appropriation, emotional authenticity, anger, rage, screams, pain, anxiety, noise, confrontational, grounded, embodies social relationships and values that are central to the society that creates and assimilates it, intentional development, the body, profanity, emphasis on sound, speech as performance, as a game, a blurring of performer and audience, performance as process.
These things have little place in an official curriculum that seeks to develop students in their appreciation of structure, harmony and melody. Drones are always inferior to complex harmonic movement, structural integrity more important than timbral inflections.
Music that grooves, that is in some sense a reflectional and articulation of everyday experience has no place in the GCSE and A- Level syllabus that prefers music to be in imitation of an aesthetic ideal that has long lost its vitality.
No wonder we find it hard to embrace everyday creativity.
Questions:
- What are your ten pieces? And what do you know about your students’ ten pieces?
- Should we embrace everyday creativity or is this letting go of our role as teachers of creativity?
- How far is our role to induct into a tradition and when might we disrupt with subversion?
- Is getting inside the heads of our students important or should we first make sure they have something to say first?
- Is a language of excellence enabling or disabling?
- What might pedagogy of exploration rather than correction look like in schools?
- What would happen if we assessed students on whether they had fun and enjoyment rather than our notions of progression and development?
- Is GCSE fit for purpose? (If by purpose we mean encouraging musicking in its widest sense?)
- Why is the groove so hard to teach?
- Do hubs develop music making or protect a musical heritage?
- Do El Sistema based interventions in schools promote middle-class dispositions of accumulating value, a morality of hard work, and a “respectable” femininity in primarily working class cultures or do they empower young people to be musical and broaden horizons?
- Is it time to reimagine peripatetic support of music in schools?
Jason Kubelius
teachtalkmusic 
Daring , provocative and important
Sent from my iPhone
>
LikeLike
Posted by Emma Coulthard | July 3, 2016, 7:47 pmThank you for sharing the Everyday Creativity report, Jason. It was very interesting reading and I’m sure i’ll return to it regularly. Thanks also for such probing questions. They’ve made me think about my own varied relationships with encounters with creativity. Here are some initial responses to just a few of them.
Yes, we should embrace everyday creativity, and for all people. Many people keep looking for new creative opportunities, both to develop expertise but also to explore new formats, expressions and aspects of themselves. Indeed, I’m not entirely sure whether we should describes ourselves as “teachers” of creativity. Can creativity be taught, or is our role best described as that of an “enabler” or “facilitator”?
This draws me to the question about pedagogy of exploration rather than correction. What a powerful term! I read “correction” and immediately though of prisons and punishment. It sounds very Victorian. And yet, when I stop to reflect on my own teaching, much of it involves correction. How much long-term benefit does this give my pupils? And how much long-term damage does it do to their creative confidence?
Which in turn leads me to the question about GCSE being fit for purpose. No, I don’t think GCSE encourages musicking in its widest sense. At the moment, the EBacc debate is requiring us to fight just to keep the creative subjects in the school curriculum, leaving little energy for critical reflection on how these subjects are approached when (if) their future is safe.
As for peripatetic support in schools, I think there is much to celebrate about what is currently available. But it would be wonderful to see a wider variety of musics being given the same recognition (and funding!) that western classical music often receives. Where other music continue to be seen as requiring less commitment and expert input (in peripatetic provision, hub offerings, exam board anthologies, etc), I fear that children will continue to feel that such musics have less value. i think there’s something to be said here about music’s wider place in society (where financial and social value are placed on a wider variety of musics), but I’m not sure exactly what I’m thinking yet… Looking forward to hearing from other people, which I’m sure will provide further enlightenment!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Posted by alisonbutlermusic | July 5, 2016, 9:47 amHow far is our role to induct into a tradition and when might we disrupt with subversion?
I don’t think that education whether a music one or some other can reject the role induction into something ie. the passing on of something, whether how to play a particular instrument (with a history) or a musical practice (with a musical history). To reject the induction role would mean a cultural revolution and would be an act of vandalism, iconoclastic (although a case could be made for this). On the other hand to uncritically defer to tradition(s) does a disservice to children and young people seeking to understand the world that they are inheriting. But which traditions, which musical practices and how to disrupt their assumed right to unquestioned legitimacy that GCSE perpetuates? Much fun could be had playing with the idea of the canon working with pupil’s playlists, deconstructing the ten pieces and creating a differentiated canon.
Somewhen about the time of the establishment of GCSE in 1998 there were rumblings within university music departments and the birth of critical musicology. The upheaval there is yet to reach music education. Jason hastens the day.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Posted by jfin107 | July 5, 2016, 7:44 pmI’ve now finished listening to Jason’s “Ten Pieces” and thoroughly enjoyed the experience. Yes, most are contemporary groove based songs, but nevertheless there is a sense of a long musical tradition behind some of them and I’m sure the various artists on the playlist would cite a range of eclectic influences that have helped shape their music.
So our students, like these artists, need to be made aware of elements of this tradition, so that they too can understand the tools and develop the craft in their own music making. Students come along to school with a reasonable expectation of learning things they don’t know already and are generally not averse to broadening horizons. This is true whatever the subject area.
Is groove hard to teach? Probably not, but I agree with Jason – most teachers probably shy away from it or ignore it altogether. Why? Perhaps because they weren’t taught it when they were at school. And so the tradition perpetuates. I suspect, a lot of the time, some of us tend to teach what we were taught – in the way that we were taught.
So to break this pattern I suggest we need some good resources or guidance on how to teach ‘groove’. What is it? Why is it important? Who are/were the main players? In what styles of music does groove play a major part? How far back does this tradition go? What are some of the seminal groove pieces? What skills/resources will help students best to create their own grooves?
LikeLike
Posted by davidashworth | July 6, 2016, 9:12 amSome might argue that GCSE music has never been fit for purpose since it was first introduced in 1988 (just to correct John’s date typo). Not that its predecessors O-level and CSE were necessarily any better. Some would even say the same of the National Curriculum for music. Distilling all “music” (and its doing) into a three-component structure of performing, composing and appraising was seen by some as an attempt to legitimise the place of the subject in the curriculum and examination offer of schools by bestowing it with relative “rigour” and “academic prowess” was always going to perpetuate a custom and practice amongst many, despite attempts by successive exam boards to “integrate” the three components in their specifications. But in the hands of brilliant teachers, music can provide young people with both an induction into a musical heritage and a space, place and time to explore, be creative and yes, even subversive. It’s not an either/or. Nor should it be.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Posted by nigelmtaylor | July 6, 2016, 9:22 amthanks for this great piece.
I don’t have anything to add, I love finding that Lucy Green already has words to describe how my practice works
I suppose my question is, where do we go from here? Is there a vision for disseminating these more sophisticated senses of what a music education ought to be? One where a passion for classical music training assumes its rightful non dominant place? Do we get behind musical futures as our last best hope and perhaps increase its formal links with academia and continue to strengthen its ability to include classical music in its discourse and methods? If not, what do we do?
LikeLike
Posted by LJ Radick | July 7, 2016, 10:09 amMusic is the organisation of sound – get over it!
That is not a direct attack on Jason, or anyone else, but why do we need to imbue music with so many connotations that it doesn’t need to have? Why on earth does classical music have to be the preserve of the middle and upper classes? What does it have to do with respectable femininity? What happened to the idea of style agnosticism in music education? Can we not strive for a music education that sees no attachment of a style to types of people?
There is no point in reinventing the wheel – there are things from tradition, from centuries of musicking, that are worthwhile to learn because it means you don’t have to work them out for yourself. (This may involve someone correcting you – this is not necessarily a bad thing if it saves you time and enables you to do something you couldn’t before.) Then you can do what you like with that knowledge and the skills you have acquired. That’s what I’m trying to do in my teaching (and no, I don’t teach in remotely the same way I was taught myself!). If you want to subvert you need to know what it is you are subverting.
GCSE has its limitations – it is bound to, because in order to make a syllabus you need to define the boundaries of what it is that is being examined. With a subject as broad and deep as music this is extremely difficult. I’m sure it could be a lot better, but it does a job in assessing the narrow slice of music that it encompasses. To give them their due, exam boards have made an effort to try and embrace a broader range of musical activities including music tech, rapping, turntablism and so on.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Posted by Jane Werry | July 7, 2016, 8:18 pmJane, what if music is ‘humanely organised sound’ rather than ‘the organisation of sound’? And what if music was not so much a thing at all but more like Christopher Small’s ‘musicking’ and therefore a practice, a way of making meaning. Would this change anything?
LikeLike
Posted by jfin107 | July 8, 2016, 7:38 am“Music is the organisation of sound “
I think this statement is the beginning of a debate rather than the end of one. Reducing our understanding of music to purely the organisation of sound potentially limits the study of music . Susan McClary noted that there are two different standpoints to approaching music. One view (which she argues can be traced by to Pythagoras and the discovery of the relationship between harmony and maths) tries to describe music in non—social, metaphysical terms and the other regards music as a human social grounded construct.
I feel more is gained by viewing music as a human social construct. I think it is important to be aware that viewing music as somehow beyond society (just the way things are – the natural order of things etc – I’m thinking here say of the sort of thing Nick Gibb might say about the classical 100) can lead to a conservative protection of the status quo and the silencing of other voices and traditions. I think in grounding music as a cultural practice we start to open up wider versions of what it means to be musical. We hear music differently and might begin to see in what ways classical music historically has been connected with constructions of respectable femininity.
These connotations aren’t forced onto music they are a vital part of it. The point is which traditions and whose values do we permit in the classroom? Green’s discussion of the dual aspect of musical meaning reminds us that there are inherent/inter-sonic meanings and delineated meanings. Those who promote one aspect of music meaning at the expense of the other she argues fetishise music.
It is fine for exam boards to have limitations but my feeling is that GCSE music makes it difficult for many students to explore their musicality in a productive way – it is too narrowly conceived. Other music is given its place at the boundaries and edges of the syllabus and the centre is an unacknowledged classical aesthetic – because thats how its always been.
I think its fine to tell students things and fine students to explore – though I don’t think that education is just about giving students the quickest route to the best learning/knowledge. I think there is something productive about the exploration/correction approaches to pedagogy that needs further discussion.
LikeLiked by 3 people
Posted by jkubilius | July 10, 2016, 10:36 pmmusic is where physics meets emotion? or if we prefer where inter sonic meets delineated.
I am aware that Jane’s practice is widely admired and suspect that she has absorbed all the “society” stuff and therefore doesn’t need to articulate it. Which is 100 times better than being able to articulate the debate without being a great teacher!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Posted by LJ Radick | July 11, 2016, 8:30 amI have my usual spin of thoughts having read this wonderful piece and it is hard to know where to start. My gut reaction is that us teachers sometimes spend too long worrying about the GCSE and not enough time worrying about the experience. We feel the need to get straight down to work on the course and maybe need to think more about those taking the course. Which is why a fresh start in September is exciting what with the new GCSE. I want to allow space in my lessons and trust my own teaching experience that I will get the coursework in. I think the thing is we need to let the students guide us a bit and we need to guide them also. We want them to discover, but we sometimes have to point them in the right direction. The thing is that it doesn’t matter whether it is classical music, folk music or rock music. We want them to discover music for themselves and also know where to go when they need ideas for their own work. We can get so bogged down in things that we forget that lessons can be there to create space to discover and create. We can give students small starting points and less constraints and see what they come up with.
My other thought is that we need to all pursue this 10 pieces thing. We should be pushing students to decide on their 10. We should give them chance and space to choose them and then use this to inform our own planning. What do the students in front of us love and how can we use that. I am going to do that in lesson one, across the board – what 10 pieces do you love…if you don’t know then you have 2 weeks to decide and then say why. That would be so powerful, fun and exciting and a great way to get to know the students.
Not sure if I am answering anything, but I am excited by the 10 thing and also it has made me think about giving students space not constraints and to create rather than compose….
I will keep thinking though!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Posted by jamesmanwaring | July 7, 2016, 8:56 pmThanks for sharing your ten pieces Jason – I am enjoying working my way through them! And also for mentioning my work. I would start my ten pieces with Benjamin Clementine, anything from his album (actually was this last year??) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6RJMhYtYKMQ
I have also been writing/thinking about the ‘everyday creativity’ report. I don’t think ACE are going to do anything differently as a result of this report – their blog responding to it names the Creative People and Places programme as their flagship contribution to everyday creativity. http://www.artscouncil.org.uk/blog/value-everyday-creativity
This is a programme which puts money into areas of low arts participation – which tend to be low income/working class areas. This makes me worry that ‘everyday creativity’ is for those who don’t usually participate in the arts, and that leaves the structures of the arts untouched and unchanged. Not surprising as once the inherited institutions have been funded, it only leaves smaller amounts of money for other projects, which tend to go to whatever is fashionable at the time. But still, the idea of everyday creativity is potentially a powerful one – maybe it will be the new millenium’s ‘cultural democracy’?
LikeLiked by 1 person
Posted by annalbull | July 8, 2016, 11:12 amI’m really motivated by the discussions above, which present some really juicy ideas. I agree with much of James’ post, which got me thinking about GCSE and classroom teaching generally: how would our GCSE/BTEC students respond to Jason’s initial list of questions? And how would those students who do not continue with music after KS3 respond?
Anna’s description of “the structure of the arts untouched and unchanged” has also resonated: is it ok for any discipline be unchanging? In times of considerable change on a national level, should we be looking to change the structure of the arts? And is school, particularly the GCSE course, the place to do that?
Another thought, stemming from Jane’s post. If music is indeed humanely organised sound, does that make it like a language? Do language teachers have discussions such as these, and could we learn anything from their approaches? Writing that, I’ve realised that I don’t have any linguists amongst my “teacher friends” to ask, so I’d be interested to know if others have explored this theme already.
LikeLike
Posted by alisonbutlermusic | July 17, 2016, 1:55 pmI should say that ‘humanly organised sound’ (my ”humanely” organised sound was an interesting slip) came from John Blacking’s ‘How Musical is Man’ (1977) written after his studies of the Venda people of Southern Africa and their music making. The first chapter is titled ‘Humanly Organised Sound’, the second ‘Music in Society and Culture’, the third ‘Culture and Society in Music’ and finally ‘Soundly Organised Humanity’. So what if GCSE were predicated on Culture and Society in Music? This would make music as a language problematic. However, Chris Philpott’s recent work on how music as language could be thought about is worth considering (See Debates in Music Teaching) and this would lead to rethinking GCSE music too. Jason has indeed given us some ‘juicy ideas’ and I hope they will be engaged with for more than the month of July.
LikeLike
Posted by jfin107 | July 17, 2016, 2:24 pmWhat an interesting discussion. I think we can make participation in culture more democratic by paying attention and by creating mini-cultures in our music departments in which students know that they will be listened to, that their interests will be responded to, and catered for but that they will also be challenged. They will be expected to go on journeys. They will be expected to think about the music that they are already familiar with and the music that they are not familiar with.
Ruth Wright has suggested ways in which sociologist Bernstein’s democratic rights might be thought about inside a music education:
The chance to see one’s own cultural image reflected as valued in the school mirror, and to perceive one’s voice as heard in the school acoustic.
The right not to feel excluded, and to be able to take part in musicking without experiencing disadvantage or alienation.
The right to remain musically and culturally autonomous – not to be absorbed or have to conform to the dominant culture.
and
The chance to acquire the faculty of critical reflection upon the musical and cultural givens in one’s life. The right to perceive musical participation as possible in the future.
This is why, I think, music teachers allow their facilities to be used outside of lessons for student-led activities. This is why teachers pay attention to what is going on at the informal edges and find ways to include and encourage… Can you run a rap workshop for me? Do you want to do GCSE? Can you perform in our concert? Can I record that and put it on the website?… You’ve given me an idea for a concert devoted to… can you help?
It’s why we think hard about how we might introduce pieces and activities to students… Here’s a recording – have a go at working this out by ear… I need to tell you a story about this piece… What questions have you got about…? This is a free composition – make me a short piece – you can hand it in any way you like (sing it to me, record it on your phone, write down the chords…) …I’ve written this out in tab… have a listen to this kit drum piece…
It’s why we work very hard to find ways in which our examination students can write and play the kind of music that they want to. It’s why we research styles of music unfamiliar to ourselves so that we can understand what a student wants to get at, and can help them get there. It’s why we encourage healthy debate and welcome skepticism in our classes about curriculum whilst demonstrating how to negotiate the ‘rules of the game.’ It’s why we work out how we might apply language like ‘development’ in non-classical contexts, in contexts that we are not familiar with. It’s also why we don’t limit our repertoire or pre-judge what our students are capable of exploring and getting value from the experience.
It’s why we encourage our classical pianists to join jazz band, why we encourage all-comers into choir, it’s why we ask year 10 to spot the similarities and differences between the way that Lady Gaga and Mahler use a similar riff/motif, why we discuss values inherent in the music we study and the music we spend the most time with, it’s why we think about and plan for ways to enable students to feel good about and interested in making music. It’s why we take care over what we put before our students and find ways to do justice to the people who make that kind of music. It’s why we listen carefully to students’ ideas and analyse what may be helpful now. It’s why we play them all kinds of music created by students in the year above – people who have created something they wanted to create – something honest, thoughtful and cared-about.
These actions (and many more) are not solutions to problems inherent in the official structures that surround music education – but they are the day to day actions of teachers who insist that music be a way of being in the world rather than being a thing to know stuff about.
LikeLiked by 3 people
Posted by Jennie Francis | July 19, 2016, 10:53 pmThis is a very good article and a fantastic debate. Thank you Mr Kubelius! (Only two letters away from great composer / notation software fame too!)
And such a hot potato in the Arts who are feeling so embattled in the face of an education system that seems to be quashing creativity and replacing that with regurgitation of memorised facts.
I have been taking some time to think as I read so many statements from colleagues and some interesting points of view being expressed, many of which got typed before I could write down identical ideas; it’s very affirming when someone says something much better than you could put it yourself! I wanted to wait until I had formulated what I really wanted to say.
I was finally spurred into action by reading a Guardian article about the absence of Great Composers on the British Music scene today. It’s rather thought provoking and I felt it raised similar ideas to this article. Read it on:
http://www.theguardian.com/music/musicblog/2016/jul/20/where-have-the-great-composers-gone
My immediate response on Facebook was:
I think our current education system has stifled the chance to be truly creative. We gave to teach “techniques” of composition to the eventuality of an examination syllabus that limits what can be defined as good or bad. To step out from our performance related teaching is to be daring, dangerous and in conflict with managers who want better percentage rates at GCSE, EBacc and A level. And the current climate still reeks of the Govian drive back to the 1950’s, limiting creativity even further, herding parents and teachers toward the physically non-existent EBacc award (now the primary measure of success or otherwise at GCSE for school league tables). If you look at the mentors of the Tippets, Brittens, Birtwhistles and Maxwell-Davies’s, one inevitably finds a maverick who is willing to foster the young composers’ creativity and development in self belief and confidence, no matter what the system around them was doing or saying.
But it goes deeper and further than this, I believe. For example, there is no question as to the motive behind the BBC creating “10 Pieces” in the first place, no matter what each music teacher might choose. In my estimation, there is a realisation, perhaps even a bit of a panic, about the amount of “classical” music that children are exposed to, both in and out of education. Forget the idea of class divisions – the audiences for music certainly feel like they are falling, no matter what the numbers tell us. It feels as if no-one takes their kids to see live music, even if that just isn’t true. And at school the focus is on what is possible to achieve in school, almost inevitably leading to more contemporary “pop” than the old fashioned “School Orchestra” although there are many, many excellent examples of the top drawer in school based “classical” music across the UK. We have a rich cultural heritage, but it might not be quite so classically based as we used to have. There are more people with no religious faith than there are religious people in the UK today – so even Christmas, that stalwart of the SATB carol, is sort of under siege as it takes people into unfamiliar territories. You can see what I mean if you play “The Holly and the Ivy” and “All I want for Christmas is you” to an audience of 11 year olds and ask them what sounds the most Christmassy… (Lord knows why I’m thinking of this in a July heatwave…) But does the creation of an arbitrary or a specially selected list of pieces of music help to rebalance the situation? How widely have these pieces been used at key stage 2 and key stage 3? Were they just listened to, or did students get the chance to be creative as the programme directed?
I think that Mr K hit some very large nails and nerves when his questions began to address teaching methods, aims and objectives – the very pedagogy of a musician who teaches or a teacher possible facing an unfamiliar or uncomfortable subject area. And are we aiming in the right direction with the new GCSE and A levels coming on line in September? I shall address these tangentially: My favouritest of favourites in music teaching is music technology – and not using it for what might be considered “normal” uses. I mean, how many of us have taught Gamelan composition using a keyboard, electric guitar and Bass with additional material from a drum kit. Complete bonkers, I agree, but it gets those minds thinking differently about the ensemble and the very instruments that are being played. I have been concerned about how music teachers are trained to use technology in music for a long, long time. I can still see the herd instinct when all I hear about is “Garageband” and “We must get Macs” when, quite possibly, teachers have not used them in their own music making. Do training centres and training schools allow for experimentation and novel creativity in the way teachers THINK? Because, as much as I love what is being said and discussed, there is definitely a bit of a divide between “on the ground” teachers and those of us who do not face classes every day – when you’re in a university or training college, you get room to think and apply your full faculties to question and hone but when you have year 9 on a Friday at 2pm you just don’t have such luxury. We can produce more and more defined detail on what music actually is in discussions like this, but the teacher going into class can face a much more basic dilemma – what will be the most stimulating, progress identifiable, comfortable, catch-all, differentiated, assessable, reflective, evaluated by all music activity that I can run for the next hour with the kids in front of me? Using a computer to get a sense of instant musical gratification may be great for that time slot, but has it opened up any new horizons creatively for the student? Is the idea to create a musical product or to use an extremely powerful imagination realising machine?
It seems to me that formal exams (GCSE, A level, BTEC etc) simply can’t cope with the assessment of subjectivity of original thinking and creatively out-of-the-box music. Just because one person might think that an idea is good and another person thinks not so much, we are stuck with a system that tries to assess how you are using the tools at your disposal, not how “original” you are being. We use words like “with flair” or “creatively” in assessment descriptors without really nailing down where and what we are rewarding. In my 24 years in the classroom I have only encountered three or four students who really “got it” and were willing to risk lower marks to stick with their artistic integrity and create something completely original in their own musical voice. Because when it comes to any examination you are always forced to work to assessment criteria – there has to be an assessable piece of work that you can measure and judge because that’s what exams do. And as teachers, in this business-like economy of education, we are judged on exam results, progression targets, lesson observations, “Learning walks” and annual personal target reviews. And this can have a direct impact on your pay. The bottom line is a percentage, a set of numbers, whether there is more red than green or yellow on a spreadsheet. Perhaps a better question would be: can teachers afford to teach creativity? Something else would have to give way. You have to be very, very subversively clever to unlock minds in today’s system. It can be done, but it can be a parachute-jump-into-a-minefield-in-the-dark-with-a-wooden-leg kind of a feeling. A Govian education system clearly states that future employers do not want creative thinking. In the real world, we know this is completely the opposite. We need room to fail, room to take creative risk, room to try out stuff just for the hell of it. Exam syllabuses and timetable allocations often squeeze us into the “barely cover the syllabus” corner, leaving very little room for anything actually musical in lesson time. That makes extra-curricular time even more important… if the teacher has any energy left, of course… … …
And I guess that’s why “groove” can be hard to teach: you’ve got to undo some shackles. You can’t get hold of a musical groove if you’re constantly uptight and worried about what you are doing well and what would be even better if… You’ve got to let go, relax a bit, actually enjoy what you are doing. And if this is not modelled by the teacher, it ain’t gonna happen in the classroom! I’m not saying it doesn’t happen, but the fact that we are talking about it certainly says that is doesn’t happen as much as it should. I found it a little “oxymoronish” that we should raise “groove” when encountering more of a “classical” repertoire – I mean, no one really plays Bach with swing anymore, do they? But I would argue that there is “classical groove” as much as in contemporary music, but it plays itself out in phrasing and tempo and “feel” of the music in a more subtle and delicate way. Nevertheless, I have met and worked with teachers who have a quite limited musical education, often erring on the side of “classical” music, who would find a simple improvisation a gut churning experience, even if it was in the idiom they are most comfortable with. When we train teachers, are we giving them space to be the musician they are? During their working week, do music teachers get the time and energy they need to simply enjoy making music – even listening to music (I mean REALLY listening, to the point of absorption) can be a struggle!
So, should we reply on Hubs to generate this sense of culture? Should external projects bring these things into our schools so we don’t have the burden ourselves? Well, there’s plenty of evidence to show that they certainly can. My Hub, the Kingston Music Service, has been the access for many of my students to experience live music from all music idioms. One memorable year I had a year 7 student gawping in wonder at the orchestra playing below him – he couldn’t get his mind around the fact that there was nothing electronic making sound, that he was hearing the actual instruments and they weren’t plugged into anything! Another student playing alongside members of the National Youth Jazz Band, experiencing a level of music making way beyond anything possible in my school. We looked long and hard at El Sistema too – literally, as a group of ten of us went to Caracas and spent a week looking, listening, debating and thinking about how that idea might work for us. We concluded that we simply didn’t have the resources to imitate everything we saw, but the way El Sistema works has definitely impacted on the Wider Opportunities funding and execution, with very tangible benefits running up from Primary to Secondary music making. But it is not up to the Hub to protect the musical heritage of each school – it can support, help or even resource but it is the individual school (or academy, or chain, or ….) to keep that particular flame alive, or spark it into being. Nothing happens unless the “teacher in charge of music” (what we are calling “Heads of Music” who are paid less than they should be…) takes the school forward and supplies the energy and enthusiasm and opportunities needed for that to happen.
One final word about music and “class”. I do not believe that “classical” music is the preserve of the middle class and up. It just isn’t true. Throughout my life I have heard music described as “the Hamlet advert” or “Old Spice” or “The X Factor judges bit”. It is music that has been owned by a wider population than the people who might actually perform it or watch it live. Who can forget that first “Three Tenors” concert in Italy – given as part of the Football World Cup celebrations when Italy was host nation. Like it or loathe it, Pavarotti became a household name and “Nessun Dorma” a tune whistled by everyone from banker to bricklayer, plumber to postman. In my opinion I believe that music of any kind, but especially “classical” music of quality, has a unique ability to completely level out class and any other distinction we might care to draw up to divide groups in our society. To appreciate good music is to be inherently human – we all reverberate when we listen. There are possibly as many opinions about what is good music as there are people on the planet, but we all respond to the vibration of musical sound… … … (as to what that may be, precisely, light blue touch paper and retreat…)
LikeLiked by 1 person
Posted by matt001allen | July 20, 2016, 6:43 pm