Hornets

I should be writing lots of blogs at the moment. It's important to ridicule the ridiculous and there is a lot of material around right now. I sit down to write but the ability to be funny has left me. This is quite a worry, not least because when I looked at my list of concert preparation jobs my wonderfully organised youth orchestra committee member had given me it said, "sandwiches, wave arms, be funny."

I know the problem. 

I am furious.

The words are buzzing in my mouth like a swarm of hornets and I'm terrified of opening my mouth just in case they kill. 

The problem is that I've shut my mouth so firmly against the striped assassins nothing is coming out.

So I will have to let them out. This could be a long ranty blog. Be warned.

It started with the news that a school in Saffron Walden in Essex is going to stop providing music lessons for year seven and eight. The hornets multiplied as I read article after article on why arts were important or not important. The debates about access and elitism in music caused a fresh sting in my mouth each time and finally when a friend asked, "What are you going to do when they cut music?" I went into total anaphylaxis. 

This is what I think about the whole debate. I'm just going to leave it here and hopefully the hornets will leave without the need to call the exterminators in.

1. Music is a basic human response.

        We move and we make music. These things make us human. Even if you think you don't make music you do. You use a sing-song voice to talk to babies. You tap or clap rhythmically when you are distracted and you move to music, responding to the pulse without even noticing. When things are bad we turn to music. Concerts and charity singles are organised for disasters. Think about the singing that happened in the Second World War as people huddled in the underground while bombs fell overhead. 

2. Music is therefore available and accessible to everyone.

         This might be a controversial statement, as we have gone so far down the road of pretending it's an elite activity that we've forgotten that we all do it. Music could learn so much from sport. The 

great Sport for All campaign should be adopted for music. No one would consider cutting sport from the curriculum now. There would be an outcry, "Think of the health of our children." Sport for All managed to turn around public opinion. When I was at school I remember a teacher tilting her head to one side and saying, "Not everyone can run, you should stick to music dear." The idea that I shouldn't  try to run because it was only something that the fastest should bother with stuck in my brain. The truth is that everyone can run and most people get some pleasure from it. Very few of the park runners will ever win the Olympics but they are out there enjoying the experience. Why can't it be like that for music?

3. Music is important for mental health.

           Sport takes care of our physical health. Music is a workout for the brain. There are many studies that show how music is the only activity that uses both sides of the brain at the same time.
Neuroscientists are beginning to map how the brain responds to music and the results are amazing.  Listening to music is good for the brain, playing it (even badly) is better.  MRIs of people who play a lot of music show that their brains are more symmetrical, areas of the brain responsible for auditory processing, motor and spatial  control are larger, and the corpus collosum (the band of fibres that connects the two hemispheres of the brain) is larger. Just listening to music reduces the amount of cortisol, is more successful than prescription drugs in controlling anxiety and thrilling music causes the release of dopamine. We need to look after everyone's mental health.

4. Music should be taught.
            Again, this seems to be a controversial statement. You hear people talking about musicians as if their skills have been magically dropped on them at night while they are sleeping. This is never true. The verb to practise is a favourite of the musician.  Musicians know how to work hard at something.  Just as some children come to school being able to read, some come being able to sing in pitch or clap the pulse.  This is because they have been around music. Children of musicians can do these things not because they have the genes for it but because they've experienced it.  If a child came to school being able to read and his parents could read you wouldn't assume that it was a 'God given' or genetically based talent.  You would rightly think that it is because they've seen books, words and shared stories.  Imagine the outrage if we said, "Oh well, some children just love reading and others don't so we'll do nothing because those who love it will be good at it and those who don't never will." Can we afford to let down those who have not seen a book or experienced music before?

5. Any kind of music could be taught.
            There is an awful lot of snobbery in the music world. I'm guilty too. I spent years thinking less of guitarists because they didn't read music but they could look down on me because as a flautist I couldn't read TAB and my knowledge of chords was purely theoretical. The content of a country's school curriculum is political.  Politician's decide what children 'should' know. Mr Gove decided that Bach Motets were very important: "an understanding of  the tradition of classical music is what a rounded education is about," he said.  People think there is a kind of hierarchy of music that makes it more important the older it is. I know musicians with fantastic degrees from Oxford who are certain that music by Thomas Tallis is more musical than song by Adele.  This isn't true.  They might prefer Tallis just as you might prefer Adele but they both use musical skills. At primary school children need to learn how to sing in tune, keep a pulse, understand rhythm, dynamic, expression, tempo. They need to experiment with sounds. These are the basic skills that a musician will use if they become prinicpal violinist of the LSO, the next Stormzy, a composer of film music or something new and experimental.  The books on the set curriculum list are what the government wants everyone to know but everyone knows that they are just a way of developing skills.  Good readers will read more. Writers will read everything.  It's true for musicians.

6. Any kind of music is valuable.
              Sport doesn't fall into this trap. It seems ridiculous that runners would suggest that cycling is a lesser sport because it hasn't been around as long. Sport understands that  some people will suit one type of sport over an other.  People who do park runs don't look down on me because I prefer to do lengths of the swimming pool but I have seen choir members who sing early choral music look down on those that sing in a rock choir. I know orchestral players who think that people who play in a brass band are lesser musicians.

7. Privilege is responsible for this hierarchy.
               Oxford scholars like early church music and because they are Oxford scholars it is considered valuable. Classical orchestral instruments are considered higher than brass instruments because it costs a lot to access these instruments and the training needed to be any good at them.  Brass bands used borrowed instruments and players learnt by sitting next to someone who had learnt by sitting next to someone.
"'Just press 1 and 3 and play Ds all the time."
"Like this?"
"Yep, well done, lad."
"'Ey John that one looks different. It sounds wrong."
"Well spotted. It's an E - press 1 and 2."
People wanting to be in a brass band had to pay a small amount of subs and would get a cup of tea and some biscuits in the break.
Folk music is further down the pecking order but higher than pop.(Folk music is older) Anyone who can borrow a guitar and teach themselves a few chords can do pop (providing they have the basic music skills). However, many successful pop musicians have had training of the classical orchestral variety because that is still (in this country) the best way to gain those basic musical skills.

8. Throwing more money at the already privileged won't make more musicians.
                Like the campaign to provide more grammar schools it worries me that any money that is around for education it is being spent on the kids who are going to do well anyway. The music hubs provide orchestras and choirs for those who are already proficient. My daughter had grade 5 violin before she could join and I, as a flautist could have only hoped to join at grade 8. It was out of reach for me because of the cost and my daughter's fees certainly made a large dent in our family budget. They hire instruments at a reasonable rate (£15-£60 a term depending upon instrument) and provide teachers to schools, which parents must pay for (£14 for a half hour lesson).  I think my music hub gets it.  They are attempting brilliant things.  They have instrument zoos and professional musicians who can go into schools and play.  They have invested in good ICT music schemes that they provide free to schools.  They organise conferences for teachers and exciting events like a world record breaking Stomp routine. They are trying.

9.  It is going to take more than a few individuals with good ideas.
              Government needs to take action. We need campaign groups, like Music for All and for people to campaign against the EBac but this all starts with individuals. It starts with people who care that all children have access to music lessons.

10. Each person who cares about music is important.
                  Together we can turn ourselves from an annoying sting to an impossible to ignore hornet colony.

         

I love my job

I suspect I'm not the only teacher that had forgotten. There are others like me who might have cried a few times this week; a few who are drowning in paperwork on a Saturday morning; several that promised themselves that, "it wasn't going to be like that this year." But we are week humans and in six weeks we have forgotten the pace we need to work at to keep up. 

I was going to be so organised this year and nothing was going to bother me. Stress: what's that? I don't even have it that bad. If I taught a subject that the government cared about it would be a lot worse but teaching can be never ending. 

Over the summer, when I had a bit more energy I was full of bright ideas. Things that would excite and challenge the children. Thinking was the fun part but now it's time to implement these ideas I'm wondering how I'm going 

to fit it all in.

I always worry that I've forgotten how to teach and spend my first week in a blind panic, worrying that I'm not doing it properly. The second week is better. Children walk into class singing the song we did the previous week or talking about their listening diary or asking if they can carry on with their composition. "Phew," you think, "I wasn't talking to myself."

But with the second week comes the feeling that to do all the things you'd like to do you would have to go so fast that you'd break the space time continuum and meet yourself coming backwards. 

Of course, by the second week, it's not just your ideas. You have colleagues, headteachers, pupils and parents all making suggestions at you. 

"Miss, when is recorder karate going to start again? You need to start soon because I'm going to get my black belt this year."

"Can you teach the play leaders some singing games?"

"You'd like to come on the school trip, wouldn't you? It's on the day you don't work, so that will be fine."

"Oh, I'm glad I've caught you. I've decided that being in the band would be good for Billy this year. He's just started bagpipe lessons. When will you be able to have music ready for him?"

"Miss, can I be Jesus at the Royal Albert Hall?"

"Will you make us a rehearsal CD?"

"We are expecting Ofsted this term."

You'd forgotten just how long it takes to mark a set of books, plan a differentiated lesson that is entertaining and informative, sharpen your pencils, put up a display, arrange music, type up song words, make resources. You had started to believe the hype that you only worked between 9 and 3.  But you'd also forgotten just how wonderful and funny children can be. You'd forgotten that feeling when you realise that you've taught someone something. You'd forgotten 'end of day staffroom hysteria'

One of the jobs we were asked to do (let's show ofsted a broad range) was put up an advocacy board for our subject.  We were asked to have a child generated wordall. Teachers panicked. It can be tricky to be creative when you are struggling to remember between 30 and 300 names. I worried that I might not be up to it. I worried that the children would come up with unprintable words. I asked them to write 5 words about music or music lessons. Some wrote 'fun' five times and although I despaired for their lack of creativity it was better than if they'd written 'boring' (thankfully, no one did).  Even 'crazy' was a compliment and then there were loads of brilliant musical words. Finally, there is the pleasure of seeing something that you have created come together.

There can't be many jobs with this much variety and I really do love my job. Just remind me of that next time I'm exhausted and tearful.

Happy Birthday

"Six, seven, eight, nine.......and ten. I'd just like to warn you that I've had three hours sleep," I said to a male colleague who had made a only very slightly sexist comment.

"I don't know how you do it. I'd be so tired I wouldn't be able to function," he said.

Sleep is an odd thing. In phases of lots of sleep I can be more tired than when I have normal sleep but in these very restless nights there's a manic element to my waking day. I seem to fit so much more in. I get up at 3am, write, read, bake a cake and walk the dog and I have weird ideas and grand plans. It's on days like these I seriously consider entering the choir for the Songs of Praise Choir of the Year. 

Today, someone put on Twitter that it is sixty years since the registration of the trademark Velcro (both a blessing and a curse to any teacher). What teacher isn't grateful for not having to tie and re-tie thirty sets of shoe laces? But we have all been driven mad by the sound of ripping Velcro or had a child who is stuck to the carpet or another child by their shoe.

In my manic sleep deprived state I have come up with a lesson plan. A performance of Happy Birthday just using shoe and book bag velcro. It would be a brilliant post-SATs year 6 lesson. We could film it and send the performance to the Cheif Executive of Velcro Industries and to Nicky Morgan to prove that we are just carrying on with normal lessons rather than putting 'pressure on children' by letting them have any fun when the tests are over.

Where do you keep your horn?

I love my job.

I know I've told you before but children are amazing.  They are funny, even when they don't know that they are being so.  Towards the end of a lesson today a child farted, it was loud and everyone laughed.  The child from whom the wind escaped said, "Oooh, I'm sorry about that.  This lesson is really good and I just got excited."

We all had to agree.  It had been a fun lesson.  We are looking at the first Disney Alice in Wonderland film, listening to the soundtrack and learning the songs.  We've reached the part where we meet Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum and we had our very own Caucus Race, where the only rule was that you had to move in time to music I played on the piano and then at a musical cue sang. "How do you do and shake hands,"

The children had really enjoyed listening for the musical cues in the film that signal danger, funny moments and creeping movements.  They were particularly amused by the noises that Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum made when they bumped into each other.

"Why do they make that noise when they bump their bottoms?"

I love their questions

"Why do you think?" I asked, hoping for someone to say that it makes you laugh.

"Because the composer decided to put an instrument sound in there."

"Well, yes, I suppose so. What instrument did he choose and why?"

"It was a horn."

I couldn't fault their listening skills, so I got out the French Horn and played a few notes. "Did it sound like this?"

"No, it's the horn you squeeze," they all agreed.

"Like this?"

They jumped.

"Why do they have a horn in their pants?" one boy asked innocently (really! He is only in year 3!)

I am a professional and so, of course I didn't laugh.

"Why has one of them got a bigger horn than the other?" asked another genuinely curious child.

"What makes you ask that?"

I know this sounds like a risky question but I wanted to know.

"Well one of them makes a higher sound than the other and you told us that big instruments make low noises and small instruments make high noises, so they must have different sized horns."

Yes! They listen to me.

The only thing is that now they've mentioned it I've looked at those odd twins and I think they both have very tiny horns if they are keeping them in their pants.

Mission Impossible: the need for music education

I promised the Long Suffering Husband that I would go and watch the new Mission Impossible film with him. It's not the kind of film I normally enjoy but it's the school holidays and I've got spare energy of an evening.

I have a problem with these kind of action films, in that I am the only person in the cinema laughing. Why doesn't everyone find it as funny as I do? I think they are meant to be funny. The film is packed with musical jokes and cues. Tom Cruise, 53, leaps from tall buildings, jumps through plate glass windows, rolls the car nine times down steps and emerges without a scratch. Meanwhile, the LSH, 50, seizes up in the cinema seat and thinks he might have broken a tooth on some popcorn. "Can I get a motorbike?" he asks at the end of the film. "Of course," I reply, "As soon as you can jump through a window without getting cut."

While watching the film I was thinking about some things I'd read about music Education earlier in the day. I'm always seeing things that say teaching music is good because it helps with literacy or numeracy but earlier I had read a blog that cautioned against such rationalisation. He pointed out that music is all around us, it's rare to go an hour without hearing music and that is why we should want to know more about it. We shouldn't just want to study music because it helps with other things.

If we heard spoken English every day and just shrugged and thought that there was no point learning how it worked because that was only for a select few that would be bonkers. That's what we do with music, though. 

Mission Impossible is a masterpiece of a film musically. It has a very clever musical score, where Mission Impossible themes are interwoven with other music. The LSH recognised several bits of classical music and often barked, "Music?" at me, during the film, to enable him to fill in his missing knowledge. 

Benji plays Halo to the Marriage of Figgaro. I thought it should have been another Mozart Opera, the Magic Flute, which could have been a musical reference to the whole point of the film. 

The baddie needs money (don't they always?) and he is so desperate for it that he is prepared to kill anyone he needs to and I know why he needs money. 

It's all to do with the scene at the Vienna Opera, where we watch some beautiful Turandot in a bit of a random order minus the last scene (because Puccinni died before he could write it). The lady in high heels and a dress that you can see her lady garden in, slides down the back of the set without tripping or getting her heel caught in the hem of her dress and checks her score. We know something is going to happen on the high A of Nessun Dorma, although they do start shooting on the B before it, which is a more natural climax (shoot at the point of tension not the resolution) If you weren't able to read music it is helpfully circled in red and followed by the word 'affrettando', which tells us things are about to kick off and everyone is going to hurry and rush around.

 She does all this while Simon Pegg (always makes me laugh), as Benji watches on a flickering monitor. He helpfully arrived at the opera to Beethoven's Eroica, just to let you know that he is a hero, even if he doesn't look like one. He might be an IT expert but I can tell that even his Poxy Server keeps going down. While Benji is watching and thumping things Tom Cruise (I have no idea what his character name is) leaps around not getting a scratch. There are two other shooters and one has a weapon that just made me gasp. 

A gun made from a Bass Flute. No wonder the baddie needs money. You are not going to find a Bass Flute covered in cobwebs at the back of someone's loft. If you don't have a spare five grand, you might be able to pick up a second hand one for four and a half. There's not a flautist alive that hasn't fantasised about a dual purpose gun/instrument. For me, the highlight of these imaginings came when a conductor told me that I wasn't allowed to breathe during Schubert's Unfinished. "If you breathe. I'll kill you, so you might as well risk it and not take a breath," he said as I turned my imaginary flute gun round, cocked to reload, placing a bullet square in the middle of his forehead. Not one of us, however, would dream of using it as a strangling weapon (silly Tom Cruise). We would also leave it at home if we were playing Turandot because there is no Bass Flute on the score.

If, like me, you get to the end wondering why the baddie needs money now, even though he has been doing the things he needs money for already then you just have to think about the Bass Flute. And if you were thinking that Tom Cruise might be too old for all this then the composer reminds us, with a small reference to James Bond that spies are old.

Isn't it sad that most people will have missed all these musical because learning the language never seemed important?