JDCMB is 15 TODAY

They certainly didn't tell me I'd be doing this for 15 years when I signed up to Blogger on 2 March 2004.

Here's a little glimpse into the State of the Art, involving one of those "you couldn't make it up" moments that happened to me the other day when I

David Dolan coaches YMS cellists
on structure in Bach

went down to the Yehudi Menuhin School to look around, talk to the head, watch some teaching and hear a lunchtime concert by some of the students.

To a visiting journo, the school seems a haven of peace. It has impressive facilities: a magnificent wood-lined concert hall, a Fazioli grand, a range of super studios. And here you can meet the absolute values of musicianship at the highest, specialised level, matters communicated exceptionally effectively in the lesson on Bach I listened to, given by pianist, analyst and classical improvisation guru David Dolan.

This place - one of sadly few specialist music schools in this country - has been subjected to some serious misrepresentation in the press, in particular ridiculous charges of that pernicious concept "elitism", which leaves you wondering how, if a young person has a talent and vocation, he or she would ever to be permitted to develop it with the necessary hard work. The vast majority of the children - around 90 per cent of them, according to the head teacher, Kate Clanchy - are on close-to-full scholarships, as talent does not correlate to a parent's economic situation, unless it correlates by landing upon those who can't afford to fork out for instruments and lessons. And it's a struggle to provide the scholarships, because the support from the government's Music and Dance Scheme does not increase at even half the same speed as the spiralling costs of running the place. These schools, including (but not limited to) YMS, Purcell, Chets and some of the cathedral schools, are the engine-room of musical life. Remove them and you cut off the nurture at the source, a future that many young musicians need in order to grow and flourish.

There's no doubt that boarding schools are not for everyone at the best of times; and some exciting young musicians simply attended their local comprehensive (the Kanneh-Masons) or ended up being home schooled from about 14 (Benjamin Grosvenor). I know one exceptionally successful musician, now in her sixties, who ran away from music school. But in the meantime the Menuhin School can count among its alumni such figures as Tasmin Little, Alina Ibragimova, Melvyn Tan, Nicola Benedetti and many, many more, figures without whom musical life in the UK would not be all it is today (which is, seriously, among the world's finest. Enjoy it before Brexit rips out its heart.)

Yehudi Menuhin's grave, in the school grounds. The inscription reads:
"He who makes music in this life makes music in the next".

Then came the "you couldn't make it up" incident. I was just waiting for my lift back to the station when my phone rang. There's a journalist on the line from BBC Radio Essex. They have a story on their patch, he said, and were looking for a comment. There's a primary school in Basildon at which the pupils are asked to listen to ten minutes of classical music every day over lunch. What did I think about music being used to discipline kids? I explained that I don't really feel qualified to talk about that, as it's not something of which I have direct experience. Well, then, he said, what about "why should we give classical music the time of day in any case?"

I looked around at the young people off to their next lessons, and Menuhin's grave (pictured above) just in front of me. And I cracked. I gave him a bit of an earful about how I was speaking to him from a specialist music school that's chock-full of some of the most talented kids in the country, youngsters who simply live and breathe music, and hearing them play, hearing the joy oozing out of their music-making, is so inspiring - it's simply incomprehensible that anyone could think that playing and listening to music is, in principle, not a wonderful thing.

It highlighted the extreme divides in opportunity that our kids face in the rather haphazard lottery of the UK's educational life. But it also highlighted something possibly even worse: a divide in attitude based on misinformation, misunderstanding and prejudice. The school in Basildon has sparked "controversy" in some tabloids. Apparently getting children to listen to music for ten minutes a day is controversial. (Funny, it used to be called "music lessons"...) Trumpeting this as controversial is the triumph of the type of playground bullies we've all met.

I think the programme used a snip of my interview very early yesterday morning (here), but the most interesting thing I heard listening back was an interview with the primary school's head, explaining that the children were not being asked to listen in silence, only to "use quiet voices"; that no parent has removed a child from the school because of this; that a few parents shouting about not liking the idea are not speaking for everyone; and that basically the whole thing has been badly distorted in a way that doesn't reflect its reality. Their lunchtime sessions introduce a "composer of the week", with pictures and information: they've just had Vivaldi and she says the kids absolutely loved it.

It still seems incomprehensible that anyone would think kids shouldn't have the chance to encounter music. Without any opportunity to be introduced to it, you risk missing out on one of the most wonderful experiences available to us.

And then I came home to the news that André Previn had died. We will never forget such a musician. Where are today's communicators on a comparable level? I know of no total, top-level  all-rounders of that calibre: composer, conductor, broadcaster, jazz pianist and equally magnificent in every one of them.

"Something must be done," says Jess, but what? How to keep the communication of the marvel of music alive? Diversifying the imagery certainly helps to get the word out, but it's only the beginning; it won't solve  everything. International Women's Day next week has sparked a celebration of women in music that gets bigger every year, and seems - to me - to be taking root in our culture at long last. It certainly didn't exist 15 years ago. The arrival of Chineke! and Sheku Kanneh-Mason and his family are helping, too, and the communicative joys expounded by orchestras like the format-pioneering Aurora and Manchester Camerata, and the repertoire-busting Southbank Sinfonia, are making waves as well. None of this was happening 15 years ago. Next I think some of the things we need to tackle are the issue of concert start times, the availability of food and drink at venues - affordable, with choice and quality, and not too much queuing, please. And call a meeting with the Department of Transport (once they get rid of their current minister...). But above all, music education. Of quality. For all. We can dream...

So there is hope. One might argue that the playground bullies have always been with us and always will be, and it's up to us to be tough enough to hang on in there. Still, it's not getting any easier.

And yet, and yet...let's finish with the thought of a little Menuhin School pianist, 11 years old, performing in the lunchtime concert the other day: she played the Schumann Abegg Variations and part of Mozart's K414 with gorgeous tone and absolute identification with the idiom, which seemed remarkable. She's Anglo-Chinese and her name is Claire Wang. I keep thinking she's called Clara.

As easy as do-re-me...

An article in The Guardian yesterday appears to have declared that music education is elitist because the notation is unintelligible unless you're privately educated, and therefore notation ought to be dropped. Oh dear.

At least, that's how it has been interpreted. Actually, there's a bit more to it than that.

Let's start at the very beginning. There's nothing elitist about reading music and if you learn it early on, it's easy as pie. A number of friends have responded that they managed to learn music notation in a day or two at their state primary schools. I vaguely remember learning it aged about 5, when my mum gave me some piano basics from this book (yes, I am that old...):

You know, of course, that kids learn anything and everything much faster than adults, especially if they are brought up with it from the start. My littler nephews, half Italian, were bilingual from the beginning, because if you're taught two languages as something normal, it just is normal to you. (That's also why kids can fix your computer problems...) Music is a language of sorts, and suggesting that notation shouldn't be taught is like saying that learning a language can be accomplished without knowing any vocabulary. If all children were to be taught to read music as young as possible, preferably before they are 7, they would have it as a skill and an asset for the rest of their lives.

What's so difficult about reading music anyway? It's incredibly straightforward and logical. The pitches go up and down, so you show them going up or down on the stave. There are only 12 notes, so when you finish the 12th you just start over again. The different clefs indicate which note is where, and they're designed to make it easier for you according to the pitch of your voice or the instrument you play. You can modify the notes with sharps or flats (OK, sometimes double sharps or double flats if you're Fauré trying to do something very clever, but never mind that for the moment).

You show the duration of the notes with clear, basic symbols. They're not so hard to remember, according to our teacher at school, when we were 11. She'd draw one bar of music on the blackboard with white chalk. One big round plain note was a semibreve and it went TAAAA. Two smaller ones taking up the same amount of time were minims and went TAA TAA. Four crotchets to the semibreve, going TA TA TA TA. Then you could fit two quavers with their funny black tails into each crotchet, going TA-TE-TA-TE-TA-TE-TA-TE. And then semiquavers, worth half a quaver each, going TAFFA-TEFFY-TAFFA-TEFFY.... (I'm not sure what we'd do with demisemiquavers, but maybe TAFFA-TEFFY-TIFFY-TOFFY?) OK, now you have the basics.

There are other teaching systems aplenty. My cello-playing nephew used to go to a very good Saturday morning music school and learned another way altogether. Creative teachers who really connect with youngsters can and do come up with all manner of interesting methods.

Still, one vital point in the original article is really worth a second look. It's the art of playing by ear. It would be enormously, immeasurably, phenomenally valuable if more of us learned to play by ear as early as possible. The solfège system is a great mystery to UK kids being put through the grade-exam mill and has never been part of our music education system (such as it is). In France and various other places it is absolutely standard. It is, in basic concept, as simple as The Sound of Music tells us, and once learned it helps you to know, as second nature, the relation of one note to another. That doesn't mean you won't find it a headache en route from time to time, but, like learning notation, it's an investment for your future. Over to Maria and the Von Trapp children:



While there is nothing inherently academic about notation, any more than there is something inherently academic about learning to read and write, we often remain too tied to the page. Playing by ear can free you up in all manner of ways. This is because it's not essentially the notes that hamstring us: it's authority.

It's your dad saying: "Stop mucking about and practise properly". It's your teacher saying: "No, you can't just make it up as you go along". It's the examiner at the desk following the score to make sure you're observing the right kind of crescendo in the right place, and you won't get a distinction if you don't (and then your grandmother will be terribly upset, because she's convinced you're the next Martha Argerich even though you're 10 years old and doing Grade 3, so you have to feel guilty too).

I would love to be able to play by ear, but was actively discouraged from trying. As a kid I used to seek hours of harmless fun by working out how to play tunes from my favourite records, then sticking basic accompaniments onto them. This probably caused cacophony at home; I was ordered to stop mucking about and practise properly. That was the end of it. Incidentally, I'm a useless sight-reader to this day.

Sight-reading ability, contrary to the Guardian piece, doesn't go only with being able to read. It goes with having the courage to try. To trust yourself to attempt something you haven't first taken to bits and worked out very, very slowly.

The few times I've found myself able to sight-read have been the occasions on which I've known by ear how the piece goes (this is assuming we're talking about something technically straightforward, not the Franck Violin Sonata). You look at the page, you hear it in your head and you know what to do with it. If you can't hear it in your inner ear first, it will be much harder to play. That's one reason the sight-reading tests in grade exams used to be so difficult, because they were designed, I used to feel, to catch you out, almost as if to make sure you probably couldn't hear it in your head first. They weren't actual pieces of music. Talk about putting kids off. I think, though, that this has now been tackled and reformed.

The signal that somewhere along the line British musical education really is too academic comes into focus with the divide between music college and university. I sincerely hope it's changed since my day. I graduated 30 years ago this summer, after three years of beating my head against every brick wall in town looking for somewhere to practise. The performance element in that course counted for an optional one-seventh of the third year, so during the first two years you weren't really allowed to practise because it wasn't part of your course until the third year, and then you didn't have to do it and if you didn't feel confident after having not been allowed to practise for two years you could choose a different option instead and stop worrying. The fact that most music students do play music and need to practise consistently tended to pass the colleges by - the college academics, most of them not musical at all, had no clue that becoming a musician requires regular, daily training as much as becoming an Olympic rower does. In the official view, music was an admirable pastime for an amateur but a dreadful profession, one to be looked down upon, condemning you to use the tradesmen's entrance forever. Institutional arrogance can close minds, ears and eyes. I lost count of the number of times I heard the words: "We are not a conservatoire".

After that, I tried to go to a music college, only to be faced with aural tests of sub-O-level standard, and then the words "Well, we're not a bloody university, you know, you can't just pick and choose". Caught between snobbery and inverted snobbery, I left. This divide seemed bad at the time, but the extraordinary thing is that I still feel angry about it now and it happened three decades ago.

In better news, a lot of fine musicians came out of both institutions. At that university the early music specialists had masses of support; the singers found ample opportunity to test their wings in chapels and university opera; and good student orchestras were two a penny and would-be conductors could form them and learn their craft on the job. As for pianists, a few things to kick against can work wonders for your motivation. Learning resilience has a value all its own and is not included in any curriculum, anywhere, ever.

Since then, I think the situation has changed incrementally: for instance, there are now plenty of joint courses between universities and music colleges, and more practical aspects of music-making are wound into school options if and where they exist. These old divides, though, would not suddenly have kicked in at tertiary level, from nowhere. Such matters tend to be rooted deeply in societal attitudes that have persisted for decades, sometimes centuries, and can prove hard to eradicate. I believe that our finest universities and colleges have been working hard to make those changes and if they have succeeded, then that is wonderful. But it has to work from the bottom up. Therefore starter music education must not be "elitist" and divided into artificially incompatible academic and practical strands - and I hope that in most places it already is not.

And the only egalitarian way to ensure that music education is not "elitist" is to provide it free, with a grounding in an instrument, in singing and in notation, in every school, for every child, from the very beginning. So there you go.

Government backs more cuts to music education funding

While we ate chocolate, they were busy with the axe.

It has not been a happy Easter for anyone who cares about music education in the UK. And, you know, many of us do - not that you'd ever guess that from the actions of a government that first commissioned a report broadly welcomed for its positive recommendations on the topic - https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/music-education-in-england-a-review-by-darren-henley-for-the-department-for-education-and-the-department-for-culture-media-and-sport - yet now is apparently telling local authorities that they should have no money to fund music education.

This article from Arts Professional sets out the situation neatly: http://www.artsprofessional.co.uk/news/pressure-mounts-councils-cut-music-education-funding

Deborah Annetts, head of the Incorporated Society of Musicians, has pointed out the chaos instigated by mixed messages from government and lack of joined-up thinking from those wielding the purse-strings. She says:

‘Following the confusion caused by the EBacc and other mixed messages around the value the Government places on music education, we now need an unequivocal commitment from the Department for Education that it supports music education and is fully behind the National Plan for Music Education.

‘Last week we celebrated as music was included in the Government’s GCSE reforms, but this week, we find that the Government is backing additional cuts to the music education budget worth millions.

‘The National Plan for Music Education supported by the Department for Education, was a visionary strategy for music education in England. The demand that local authorities should stop funding music services risks derailing this flagship Government initiative.’

The ISM is stepping up its Protect Music Education campaign. Please sign up to it. 

UPDATE, 22 April: this piece by Jonathan Savage contains more detail - please read.

Meanwhile, this article from the Guardian raises the idea that dismantling our youngsters' creative abilities may be more sinister a move still: "Indeed, it may not be too cynical to suggest that it actually suits some if the creative noise is kept down in poor areas. Talented working-class youngsters who learn how to use the tools of their artistic trade are notoriously prone to asking awkward questions with them." 

Protecting music education: a vital message from the ISM

The ISM has emailed today with the following message. Please support their call!
Take action now to protect music education
Thank you for supporting the Protect Music Education campaign. We still don’t know for certain whether or not funding for music education hubs in England will continue after 2015. Whilst the schools budget has been protected from cuts, the Education Services Grant is to be cut by £200 million: that’s almost four times what the Government will be spending on music education by 2015! We have asked the Government to confirm their continued support for music education; whatever the reply, we need as many people as possible ready to fight to protect music education.   Here is what you can do to help today:   1. Tell us why music education matters to you With more than 30 music organisations now backing the campaign, from the Music Industries Association through to NMC recordings and Conservatoires UK we now want to hear what you have to say! Each organisation has contributed approximately 100 words on the importance of music education and we want you to do the same - all you need to do is tell us why music education matters to you by using the forum on our petition page. For some inspiration, our newest supporters, Yorkshire Music Education Service said: 'The inspirational work done by music educators across the country transforms the lives of young people every day. The effect of music on personal development is phenomenal - it promotes dedication and teamwork, and can provide a lifetime of enjoyment. It is essential that ring-fenced funding to support high quality music education is retained - without it, access will be diminished and our society will be poorer for it.' We now want to hear why music education matters to you!   2. Tell others about the campaign As well as telling us about the importance of music education, you can also encourage others to sign up. Ask your pupils, parents, friends, family and colleagues to sign up to the campaign today. And you can tweet about the campaign and tell people about it on Facebook using the #protectmusic campaign hash tag.   Thank you again for your support. Please spread the word about the campaign as wide as you can. Together we can make an impact on Government policy and ensure that music education is protected for the generations to come.

SHOUT OUT! MUSIC EDUCATION FOR ALL #1

Music education in the UK is facing a shaky future due to financial cutbacks. Despite an apparently positive response from central government to Darren Henley's recommendations in his official report, local authorities have already begun to slash their music services and budgets for music teaching. Some are putting fees for instrumental tuition up to levels way beyond the recommended MU rates, pricing the non-privileged out of the market. This discrepancy between apparent central intent and what's really happening "on the ground" needs to be recognised and spotlighted. And it needs noticing now. 

I, for one, don't want to see music-making in the UK barred to those who can't afford to pay for lessons. Yet while authors jumped forward with alacrity and tough words about the iniquities of closing libraries, and were instant fodder for headlines, even the most prominent musicians seem to lack suitable outlets to speak out. An entire musical country has therefore been feeling voiceless and hopeless. 

Enter JDCMB. I've asked some of the prominent British musicians I know to please consider voicing their concerns via my site and I'll be running their responses throughout the week ahead. Today we begin with no less a team than Tasmin Little, Barry Douglas and Julian Lloyd Webber. 

TASMIN LITTLE violinist

"My point is short and far from sweet.  If we do not keep music education high on our agenda, it is not just the current generation of children who will be deprived of profound experiences which can affect their whole lives, but future generations, who will wonder why they cannot understand emotions which lie deep within themselves.  

I have had so many experiences of the power of music on children of all ages, nationality and social background - from kids with communication disabilities in UK, to groups of Chinese children who have never heard a note of any live music, to young Zimbabwean children whose animated faces at their discovery of music will never leave my memory.  However, a teacher in Yorkshire emailed me recently and her words sum it all up for me:

“I also teach minority ethnic children English, and thought you would like to hear this story:  one of these children had selective mutism, and it was only when I took my guitar in to her English lesson and gave it to her to hold that she said her first sentence to me, which was 'I'd like to learn the violin'!  From that point she has begun speaking, and after I arranged violin lessons for her, it turns out that she has musical talent and is doing well.  This is the power of music!”

BARRY DOUGLAS pianist

"We like to define society by the expressiveness and achievement of its people. OK - fine.  But in this era of cutting mercilessly, it's not 'just about the economy, stupid!' The wealthy class always hold all the cards and the rest try 'their best'; and here is an amazing example of, potentially, a whole generation of young people being barred from the fulfilment and delight of music and the arts. When all other European countries except Ireland are freezing or increasing funding, the one-time hub of the music world is cutting and imploding.  How short-sighted and how cruel. Even when I was growing up during the conflict in Northern Ireland in the 1970s, the concerts, festivals and music education available helped sustain us. Think again, please, for the sake of your children and grand-children." 

JULIAN LLOYD WEBBER cellist

"It is extremely frustrating when the Coalition has given its support to the importance of music in schools – having recognised the huge social benefits music brings both to children and their communities - to then discover slash-happy local authorities lagging far behind in their thinking. It is so easy to make a knee-jerk ‘cut’ to provisions for music and so hard to reinstate it later.

"Music is a universal language which brings people together and which provenly enhances children’s skills in so many other ways. There is no better way to build a ‘Big Society’ than through music – one thing EVERYONE can share together."