Whoever you are, it is likely that the prospect of Christmas makes you feel a little stressed. There are extra things to do and a deadline. If you are a bit anxious that extra stress will make you feel more anxious. If you are a musician then the ‘extra things’ can easily run to two extra A4 pages on your “let’s try to pretend to be a normal person without anxiety” list. If you are also an idiot you’ll keep adding things and make everyone join you on the ‘New Improved Christmas Sparkle Anxiety Train.’
I am an idiot.
As if the lead up to Christmas wasn’t busy enough, with normal music teacher/MD of a Youth Orchestra/member of a band stuff, I thought, “You know what would be fun? We should make a school Christmas CD.”
It will be fun. The children are already very excited. Every child in the school is involved with each class learning one song and what could be better than listening to the whole school singing Away in a Manger while you eat your Christmas Dinner? They have been given a chance to design the CD case cover and I hope I’ve created a buzz around the project.
Also, it should raise some much needed cash for the school. We have been surviving with an ever decreasing number of music stands that we haven’t got the money to replace. We even have one held together with sticky tape. Everyone’s budgets for music have been squeezed, so that things we used to get for free we now have to pay for. For example, Sing Up and Charanga are wonderful online resources that used to be free and now cost hundreds of pounds each a year. It’s true that if we had never had them then we would have to make do with books and talent but as each recorder book costs £7 (= class set £200 and it’s illeagal to photocopy), each school singing book with music in is over £10 and the cost of a pianist who can play well enough to accompany at concerts is phenomenal, these apps are still good value for a school that does music properly. Many schools opt not to do music properly and there are some people who think of it as a subject that should just be for a few. Music is such a fundamental human response to things that it would be great if we could teach all children how to do it well. Children singing in tune can heal a broken heart (trust me) and people not even being able to clap in time can break one.
I have found a company (My School CD) that will do the sound recording, engineering and production. All I have to do is find the music, rehearse, make a timetable for the day, send off the paperwork, write new words to a carol for a staff song, stay excited about the project and sell enough CDs so that we don’t lose any money. It’s not keeping me awake at night at all.
Woo Hoo. All aboard!
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