MMC

 There’s a new abbreviation in town. The MMC. I’m not talking about the Maldon Moaning Club, even though I could probably be a founding member but the Model Music Curriculum. 

There has been a lot of discussion of this document on social media. Musicians have had a bit of a laugh about the actual rhythm of fish and chips (three crotchets or dotted crotchet, quaver,  crotchet or two quavers and a crotchet.) They’ve also got cross about the term decrescendo, when we all know it’s diminuendo. Then the general public have focussed more on the suggested listening and singing repertoire. For many it’s the first time they’ve heard of the genre art-pop and certainly had no idea that Kate Bush is it’s queen. 

I’ve read and digested it now and my thoughts, for what it’s worth, are, as usual, somewhere in the middle.

It is just a model. It’s not compulsory. It’s to help people who don’t know what to do. Any good music teacher has been doing these things. Any non-specialist in Essex who has been following the Charanga music programme provided by the local hub has been doing these things. Very few schools will have had an hour of music a week (even ours has had that ideal scuppered by a pandemic and a need to teach in bubbles). 

Why is it that music is the only subject to need a draft curriculum?

You don’t get a bunch of artists sitting round, led by Grayson Perry, Damien Hurst and Tracey Emin suggesting a consultation because 5 year olds aren’t being taught that they must not draw their legs coming straight out of their heads. You don’t have Wayne Sleep and Darcy Bussell insisting that the polka is taught in year 3 and not before. Even Seb Coe refrains from meddling in the sport that’s taught in school and Seb Coe likes to meddle (he always liked to medal too). 

I think there are a few reasons.

1. Music is a subject that lots of teachers don’t feel comfortable teaching at primary level and so in a busy week it’s the first subject to get dropped. This means that there are less children to take it at senior level, which means it’s the first subject schools with limited budgets remove from the option choices. 

2. Music in schools has a weird funding system where much of the money goes to the music hubs. This model makes their funding dependent on helping schools deliver a music curriculum, rather than just using the money to provide extra curricular opportunities for children already involved in music. This is probably a good thing but still schools that don’t actively seek out the support of the hub will lose out on that funding.

3. We are at a crisis point.

Musicians have done this to themselves. They’ve made their subject an elite sport and forgotten that to get the elite you first need sport for all.

I worry that this model curriculum has just fanned that fire. 

The suggested listening genres are at least broader than they have ever been before but there are still people insisting that it’s not ‘proper music’ if you’re not going into orgasmic raptures over the Bach Motets. Government ministers who grew up with opera on the radio in the background tell stories about how listening to the Mozart Horn Concerto in assembly changed their life and then extrapolate that all children need the same experience. There is an assumption that Mozart is good and grime is bad. 

We all have music in us.

I left that sentence in a paragraph on its own because it’s so important. Music is important to humans. We all sing, tap, speak rhythmically. We all make music. We all listen to music and experience it in our own unique way. Many of our popular musicians come out of art school because that it’s the only place that teaches people to find what is in them.

I have made music popular in the school I work in by acknowledging that all music is good. It doesn’t matter if you sing out of tune at first. You’ll get better. It doesn’t matter if you only listen to Take That out of choice because if I keep showing you other bits of music then you might find something else you like and if you show me things you like I might find something new as well. We can’t know every piece ever composed or played. It doesn’t matter if you compose a piece of music by tapping a triangle, squeaking on a recorder or playing a violin like Itzak Perlman. Keep doing it and your experience will grow. I have encouraged children and adults to share their music at whatever level it’s at. 

Most of all, music has to be fun. You have to teach it as if it is a joy. Once children want to do it then you can start adding things that will make them better at it. If a teacher who only ever listens to  rock music is forced to only teach sea shanties then it won’t be a joy for anyone. 

I realise that my little effort isn’t enough to stop the crisis but I would like to encourage you if you are a primary school teacher to share the joy you get from music with your pupils. It doesn’t matter if you’ve changed Happy Birthday from a piece with 3 beats in a bar to one with 4 by adding some claps (although I was very pleased that the children I teach noticed that had happened). It doesn’t matter if you sing out of tune. It doesn’t matter if you only like punk (although you might want to scan it for swear words before you share it). It doesn’t matter if you tap out the rhythm of dance monkey on the desk or use a full drum kit. Something is better than nothing. I think that’s the place we need to start from right now and once we’ve got the kids hooked then we can try to make it better. I worry that this model curriculum is like talking about improving children’s writing by explaining fronted adverbials before they’ve even read a book or been given a pencil and piece of paper.