Leeds, where I lead the music hub, has a glorious diversity of languages. Recent data (2014) shows that Leeds is the most diverse city in the UK outside London, and that there are over 170 languages spoken in Leeds schools. That’s a lot of languages. How do these children communicate with each other in the Babel?

Well it’s simple. (Nearly) everyone speaks English. All schools use English as the principal language of tuition and communication. Extra help is given to students who struggle to speak English well. So that’s fine, isn’t it? We all speak the same language and do everything in the same way. This must also apply to music as well – what an efficient world we inhabit where one size fits all.

I can only sympathise with those who have to negotiate life in Leeds without good skills in English. It’s a complicated world, and it’s not always possible to navigate the complexities of life in languages other than English. Yet every coin has two sides, and the benefits of being truly bilingual (or better, multilingual) are significant. There are health benefits and benefits in learning other subjects. And there are benefits when it comes to understanding each other. These are personal to the speaker of languages, and also spread across the society which functions mutilingually.

But this blog is supposed to about music, isn’t it? Not language. Fine. But music is a ‘universal language’, apparently! Only up to a point. Music has languages, dialects and accents. I can identify that the jazz played by Stéphane Grappelli is in a different style from that played by Miles Davis, and my experience of listening to jazz tells me that Grappelli’s jazz sounds, in a way very difficult to put into words, ‘French’. I would struggle to explain how. Similarly, Aly Bain sounds very ‘Shetland’ to me as a fiddler. And Rodrigo’s Guitar Concerto sounds tremendously Spanish. These distinctions are based on subtle things indeed: the way a harmony is inflected, or a melody articulated, or ornamentation applied.

However, I speak all these languages musically. I’ve played, listened to, studied and taught in all of these genres and styles. (By the way, I am not getting into the minefield that is the subtle distinction between style and genre, and will be using the words interchangeably). With familiarity comes a degree of understanding. While I could argue that nobody could ever fully ‘understand’ a piece of music – there’s far too much meaning in music to unpack fully – I have no doubt that we all have a degree of comfort with some musical styles, and much less so with others. I greatly admire and enjoy South Asian classical music, for instance, and have some knowledge about it, but it still feels to be outside my world of understanding.

Many people, in many countries and cultures, are genuinely bilingual or multilingual. Switching languages is as easy as changing shoes. Many people in Canada switch with extraordinary ease from English to French and back. How many musicians are equally comfortable in more than one style? Do you know anyone? I’m not – or not really. I’m classical by training, and was taught in a very traditional classical way. A teenage experience of youth orchestras and choirs was followed by university degrees (which was very classical in content). I love orchestral and chamber playing, and have played all my adult life – occasionally for money, and always for love.

A lot of people know me as a folkie. I took up the accordion in middle age. I love it. I play a lot, and have a chance to explore the traditional Welsh tunes of my childhood, and to learn tunes from many other cultures. I get to play for dancing, and in pub sessions: things I would never get to do as a classical player. It’s not my first language, though. I’m not quite fluent. I can get by, but sometimes it fails me. Just like when I try to speak French.

However, playing folk has revolutionised my classical playing. I play horn, and the melodic nature of much horn repertoire is so much like the melodic nature of folk music. The freedom of expression, the exploration of colour and the freshness of approach has been liberating to me after years of strict ‘the right notes in the right order’ playing. I still think that I play most of the right notes, and mostly in the right order, but I’ve allowed myself the mental freedom to imagine them differently. I firmly believe that I am a better musician for it. (Audiences, however, are entitled to form their own opinion.)

Classical music is capable of enormous depths of expression. It can, and does, stir the deepest of emotions in me. But classical musicians often feel that they are the servants of the music, or of long dead composers.  Folk musicians don’t (often) think like this. They are the servants of the audience. They are on stage to entertain. And they can also play and sing in a way that moves an audience deeply. I find this change of focus inspiring.

And I can bring things to the folk style, too. I am fluent at using music notation (which many, but not all, not all folk specialists are). I know about the theory of harmony.

It’s not just the classical/folk transition which enhances each other by cross-fertilisation. Jazz, popular music, you name it: everything supports and encourages everything else. I love the way that the folk tradition in the UK has expanded. You can still hear Cerdd Dant at eisteddfodau, and watch morris dancing in English towns and villages. But now we hear folk with amplification; with instrumentation drawn from around the world (bouzouki, anyone?); basslines shared with pop; chord sequences with jazz. This is really positive, and produces exciting results as the traditions collide. The same is true in other traditions too.

The next time you walk on a pavement, along a busy or quiet road, look down. The paving stones are solid, regularly shaped and permanent. Nothing much to see. But in between, in the small cracks, we see life. Plants and minibeasts make this their home. This is where the big pavement slabs join. There’s often a lot of vitality in the big, established musical traditions too, but there’s a special profusion of life at the margins and at the intersections.

And as educators: what are we going to teach children? Which style? How many styles? How many doors can we open? How many of these fascinating collisions of culture and knowledge can we create?

And how can we develop our workforce in the musical multilingualism? What is our capacity to encourage this degree of open-mindedness, receptiveness and musical inclusivity? Increasingly, younger staff were brought up in this multi-stranded world and bring this to their teaching. More experienced staff can take their part in this too, of course. If I, as a crusty old teacher, can have made this journey, there’s hope for us all.

Familiarity means I don’t often notice this, despite its impressive size – it covers most of a large wall. But the motto has set me thinking: since it says this on my office building, how should this be affecting the way I work, and the service my team delivers?

Music education should be ‘just’. Of course it should. I work for a democratic public body – a local authority – and social justice is a key part of our mission. Nowadays, the terminology has evolved, and we talk of ‘treating people fairly’, but the sentiment is the same.

Music education should be ‘fearless?’ Really? What does this mean?

There is a lot of talk nowadays about social mobility. This is always presented as a good thing. It is always assumed to work upwards. As music education hubs, we are given the task of lending our weight to this. But mobility implies leaving one place to move to another. I’m mobile when I commute from home to work, or when I go on holiday. But I know that when I am away my home is still there.

Is that the mobility that we want for music education? For children to depart from a starting point, be that a place of social, economic or cultural deprivation, but for the place of deprivation to remain? If we as music educators are to be fearless, then we must challenge this. We must talk about social mobility for all children and for all communities, not for some to escape from their communities.

Social and educational justice, and professional fearlessness, means that we need to identify the barriers and obstacles that stand in the way of children, and to tackle those barriers and remove them.

Maybe we should just provide music education to those children who want it. This was, in all seriousness, once suggested to me by a professional orchestral musician. How is this either just or effective? How does a child identify what is available and know what they want to learn? Have they the skills to get it? This would probably provide the next generation of orchestral musicians (or folk, jazz or whatever). But this isn’t our job in music education. Our job is to serve the needs of children.

Or maybe we should say that we operate in a strictly meritocratic system, and that only the best and most able should receive musical training. After all, we have scarce resources, and this would ensure that the brightest and best achieved to a high level. This was a model followed by many music services and schools over the years: those who were good at classroom activities were picked to play the trumpet or the cello. Or we used tests of ‘musicianship’ – remember those? A bit like only giving driving lessons to those who have demonstrated that they can already drive. We produced a generation of fine youth orchestras, certainly, but were we being just? I think not. We know that

In general, children living in poverty have lower educational outcomes compared to those from more affluent families[1]

And this applies to success in music as much as in other subject areas. So how just would a strict meritocracy be? If rewards go to the ‘best’, aren’t we proposing that we give more to those who already have, and less to those who don’t?

(Incidentally, this meritocracy seemed inextricably linked to the concept of cultural superiority. Classical music was the best, and was firmly linked to the concept of musical and social success. Orchestras and choirs ruled the roost. A music service might have included a brass band, if it was located in a ‘brass band area’, and maybe a jazz group if it really wanted to seem modern. But nothing closer to the average child’s experience. So how accessible did this feel to the majority of children? For some, including me, it brought me into the world of sonatas and opera, which I hadn’t been born into. I was very fortunate. The vast majority of my peers were not. This is not the blog where I take apart the class-specific signifiers surrounding classical music – the white ties and tailcoats, the gilded concert halls etc. But we must be aware how off-putting this world can be to many.)

If we want to be just, we must be aware of the need to be affordable. Music education can be very expensive, as instruments (including computers and technology) and tuition don’t come cheap. What is the mechanism for assistance with this? Are there grants and bursaries available? How easy are they to apply for, and is there any stigma of poverty attached to claiming?

Linked to cost is location. How fair is it to expect children to travel long distances and spend cash and time getting to the place where music happens? And how just is it that the child of parents with a car will find this so much easier than those who rely on the bus? Do we understand how fearless a child has to be to go to an unfamiliar location to take part in an event? An unfamiliar building, new adults and children, a location away from the familiar streets of childhood: these are a challenge to many children. (And also to many adults).

There is a wide, and growing, range of technology available which assist children who find it difficult to use conventional musical instruments. Sounds can be triggered by sound beams, tracked eye movements and many other ingenious mechanisms. It is a mark of a just system that these should be available where and when they are needed: no child’s disability should prevent musical engagement and participation. But they are sometimes expensive, so how do we afford this?

How should we deliver our services and how should we allocate our resources? As music educators we have some funding to play with, which comes through to music education hubs, in England at least. There is further funding in schools (if schools choose to invest in music), which is actually a lot more than the hubs have. And specific schemes are funded directly – In Harmony, Centres for Advanced Training and some national ensembles. How effective is this investment? Is it best to provide generous funding for a comparatively small number of children, In Harmony-style? Or to fund programmes to assist a specific demographic group wherever it may be across the city? Or to provide a universal service – the most expensive but most inclusive of all. The reality is that all have their advantages and pitfalls. We need to retain our sense of justice at all times: this must inform all decisions we take.

Music education can, and does, change lives. But music education cannot undo all the wrongs of society. We live in a city, and in a country, where children are living in poverty and deprivation. Our education system has very different outcomes for children from different backgrounds, in music and across all the ways we can measure outcomes. Children are being left behind. Leeds has the aspiration to be a Child Friendly City. We must address this in all that we do. Music educators cannot hope to solve all the problems that stand in the way of young people. If we could, we would. But we must change what we can.

There are obstacles to children engaging with music learning. There are obstacles to music services, hubs and schools to helping these children. These obstacles won’t shift themselves, and we may need to change how we work and what we do to have an impact on these obstacles. Changing outcomes may involve changing what we do and how we do it, and this might be the real call to ‘fear not’: change is often daunting, but we have pressing need to challenge ourselves.

Musicians are able to ‘play’ music. Life offers few other opportunities for ‘play’ in so many ways. We play when we practise and we play when we perform. We play as children, as amateurs and professionals. We listen to others play. We play alone, and we play as part of teams.

We need fair play.

Stephen Wild, July 2019.

[1] White J. Children’s social circumstances and educational outcomes. Edinburgh: NHS Health Scotland; 2018

There are many scholarly papers on both the neurology and the psychology of the effect of music on the mind. There are measurably and quantifiable effects on the growing minds of children, and these are positive, long lasting and life changing. I am not qualified to comment on these, other than to celebrate the fact that they confirm what I’ve observed myself: music is good for the minds of children and of adults. I’m a music teacher by trade, and have spent many years observing the behaviour and development of young musicians, and I can make a few observations based on my personal and professional experiences.

There is, rightly, a growing awareness of the stresses and pressures of life on all of us nowadays, and the mental health and wellbeing of young people is a cause for concern. As well as being the collective responsibility of society, this is absolutely within music educators’ remit: we have an influence, and we have a responsibility to use that influence to help children and young people in all areas of life through music. If the wellbeing of our pupils is enhanced by good quality music education, then we need to make the very best use of this tool.

Is music ‘fun’? My colleagues sometimes uses that word to promote learning opportunities, and I always wonder about it. I love making music. Occasionally, I have ‘fun’ making music. Sometimes, my intellectual faculties are stimulated by music: music is ‘interesting’. Sometimes I’m intrigued and fascinated by music: music can be ‘puzzling’. Often, I’m moved, even to tears, by music: music can be ‘upsetting’. I sometimes find myself on the edge of the seat, gripped by the narrative of a piece of music: music can be ‘terrifying’. And, just occasionally, I can be soothed, and even lulled to sleep, by familiar and calm sounds: music can be ‘soporific’. I doubt that my team would ever promote a musical experience as ‘interesting, puzzling, upsetting, terrifying, soporific’. But music has these effects on my mind, and many other effects too.

These effects are all potentially beneficial. It seems counter-intuitive to talk about the positive benefits of sad music, but that is a product of the instant gratification demanded by contemporary society.  The ancient concept of catharsis – releasing powerful emotions through art – remains as true now as it was for the ancient Greek tragedians.

We learn about ourselves through the experience of music. Emotional intelligence, and emotional literacy, goes far beyond what we can put into words. It goes much deeper. We learn about others by listening to their music. This may be the music of people who live far away and whom we will never physically meet: the attraction of world music opens so many new windows. We enter the minds of those who are long dead: the music of Bach still moves us nearly 300 years after his death, as does that of Hendrix and Miles Davis. This is a form of non-verbal empathy. Empathetically, we can see (and hear) through the emotional perspective of those with whom we do not share a common language.

As well as this communication through shared experience, there is a deeply private and individual aspect to a musical experience. We all perceive music through our own ears, and process it through our own minds. We expand our knowledge, our perception and our wisdom through the music we hear.

‘The function of music is to release us from the tyranny of conscious thought’.

This remark was made by the conductor Thomas Beecham. A colleague replied

‘But what about those who respond to music through maths?’

What indeed? Many people respond, first and foremost, to the patterns music makes. Others respond, initially, to the emotional impact. Still others to the narrative drive, or the surface timbres, or some other aspect. Does this matter? No. We all go on a journey in sound from our own starting place, and our own starting point is unique to us.

Does this help our neurological development as children? Undoubtedly.

Can I explain to you how this happens? No I can’t. (I have sciences to O level only, I’m afraid).

Does this help young people to respond more intelligently, maturely and empathetically than they would if starved of musical experiences? Emphatically, yes.

Our response to music may be to smile. Or it may be to cry. Or to dance. Or to sit and reflect. Whatever it is, it is deeply personal, and profoundly enriching to the human spirit. As educationalists, we have a duty of care to our pupils. As adults, we have a shared duty of care to all children. Part of this duty is to do all we can to ensure that music is part of every young life, and informs every growing mind. At a time when the future of music education in schools in England is a hot topic, this duty must encourage us all to advocate for our subject with all the persuasive force at our disposal.

Stephen Wild
June 2019

But not so! Surely we need only follow the National Curriculum for music, the new model curriculum, a school’s own curriculum, the National Plan for Music, Ofsted guidance and our own scheme of work. We should remember to always start with a warm up and end with a plenary. And not forget to include all the latest methodology from whatever is currently catching the world’s attention. And not forget to get the pupils entered into all the exams going, and end up with top grades throughout.  Fill up the children’s stock of knowledge. Short, medium and long term planning, ensuring a broad and balanced curriculum in an inclusive classroom. We just need to tick all these boxes – what room (or need) is there for ‘art’?

Or should we become freeform ‘enablers’ of children’s musical happenings? Technique, notation, traditions – these all get in the way of the wonderful capacity for self-expression lurking in the mind of every child. All we need do is to unleash the inner genius. No amount of methodical preparation will enable this to happen: we need to respond freely to the creative urges of a child’s spirit: this is all about intuition and empathy, and is most definitely ‘art’.

Or is it all about charisma? Should we be motivating our pupils by our wit and repartee, and by our dazzling skills as a musical virtuoso? Is our classroom manner as ebullient as a circus ringmaster? Every lesson a performance? Is turning our timetable into a series of theatrical events what we mean by ‘art’?

I’ll come clean and reveal that I am not currently a teacher. At least, it doesn’t say I’m a teacher on my job description. And I haven’t been a practising teacher for a long time. Yet I am, in my soul, a teacher. If you cut me in half it would say ‘teacher’ through me, like it says ‘Blackpool’ through a stick of rock. I’ve met and worked with some extraordinarily good teachers over the years. A privilege. I’ve met plenty of perfectly decent ones. And some who might be described as ‘working towards…’. All different. All with a range of skills. Some full of the enthusiasm of youth, and some filled with the wisdom of experience. Hardly ever have I met one who doesn’t care deeply about teaching as an occupation, or about their pupils as individuals. In music education, at least, nobody comes to work to deliberately do a bad job.

What do all music teachers, tutors and instructors have in common? Not background, age, life experiences – no. None of these. What they have is that they are all human beings. They share a common humanity with each other, and with their pupils. They bring many, many different skills and experiences with them into the classroom (or rehearsal space, band room, or practice room). Then comes the hard part: they have to choose what and how to teach.

OK – there are fixed point in our educational worlds. External examinations, imposed curricula, the demands of meeting Ofsted criteria etc. Navigating a route through these fixed points is the choice of the teacher. How do we prioritise? How do we cut up our content into manageable chunks? What’s our ‘style’ – are we one of those teachers who never smiles before Christmas?

We have a huge palette of resources available to us. External resources: instruments, software etc. And internal resources: knowledge, experience, judgment and skills. How do we manipulate this material? How do we play with the ideas that we have, to work most effectively and to have the greatest impact on the mind and spirit of every pupil? What creative choices are we making in presenting learning to pupils?

Music lessons are musical events (or should be). If we are really making music in our lessons, then how are we interacting through music (rather than talking about music)?

To be done well, all art requires techniques, skills and knowledge. How to play an instrument, construct a haiku, control perspective in a painting – all of these require careful thought, learning, preparation and practice. As does teaching: there are techniques which a teacher really can’t do without. It isn’t possible to play music to a high level without mastery of technique, and it isn’t possible to teach to the highest level without mastery of classroom skills, knowledge of subject and curriculum, and thorough preparation. These are all essential. They enable teaching to take flight. And if teaching is exciting, inspiring and wonderful, so will be the learning.

A definition to finish with: this is from Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary.

‘Art: something that is created with imagination and skill and that is beautiful or that expresses important ideas or feelings’

If I come across a music lesson that fits these criteria, that would be a pretty good lesson.

Stephen Wild
May 2019

No? I’ve forgotten the number of mine, too, and have for every hotel room I’ve stayed in. But I knew them when I needed them. I learned them shallowly. They were extremely important (at the time), but my brain has cleared them out and discarded the information. (It has done the same for much that I learnt at school, where I parked my car last Thursday, and for so much else – ephemeral, but vital, information).

I studied music at A level, and to degree level, and beyond. Much musical information also fits into this category: I needed to know the difference between a French, a Neapolitan and German 6^th chord at one point – but please don’t ask me now!

Some things I will never forget for as long as my brain functions, however. In music, there are a lot of ‘facts’ about music theory which have been so well learnt that they seem to have become part of the hardware of my brain. This is deep learning. I literally cannot imagine not being able to read music notation, to know the standard fingering on a brass instrument for any given pitch, or not know the layout of a piano keyboard. There’s a level of deep learning which works in purely musical terms, too: how many of us can ever forget the tunes of the nursery rhymes sung to us as a small child? Or the pop songs we grew up with? Those of us lucky enough to have been performing musicians have a vast repertoire of music in our head. Not only tunes, but also instrumental and vocal timbres, harmonies, rhythms and more. And we can build on this learning, imagining sounds never actually heard. Beethoven never physically heard his late quartets and sonatas, but he certainly knew how they sounded.

This is ‘mastery’ of learning in action: there’s depth of application and understanding, application of learning, and the application of understanding creatively. For those designing school curricula, this is really important: this approach to learning applies across the whole curriculum. If a learner can think like this about music, then this deep learning and understanding can be carried across the breadth of learning. The recent Musicians’ Union report (The State of Play: 2019) quotes an unnamed headteacher:

‘Music is a hobby, it is not a career. It will not be supported by the school.’

With access to mastery, deep learning and transferable skills, what head wouldn’t want all pupils to study music?

We are all aware that music’s place in some schools is threatened. There are reports telling us so all the time, and we know from our own local experience that this is true. Yet thousands of children in schools up and down the land are still learning music, despite the headlines prematurely announcing the subject’s demise. Classes are singing and playing instruments together. Children are receiving tuition on a wide range of instruments. Ensembles and groups are getting themselves together in garages and bedrooms, being organised by schools or put together by hub organisations. Music is being made, and the lives of children are being changed for the good. Not all these children will want to pursue a career in music (and even if they did, there might not be space in the profession for them). Some will play and sing as adults, alongside their ‘real’ jobs: amateur music making is a wonderful thing. Some will start, continue or restart music learning as adults. Many will be enthusiastic audience members. Those who become parents may well encourage a new generation to take up music.

Making music a lifelong passion depends on yet deeper learning: a whole change in the way that we understand the world. We can come to understand the world through music. It is inconceivable to me that my life could be lived to the full without music. I could not understand my own culture and that of others without music. The social richness of shared music making is so important. In most of our lives, the most significant moments are marked through music. Solace, when needed, is sought in music. This is a profound understanding of what music is for, and what music does.

But what, exactly, has this pupil forgotten? Her musical and cultural knowledge, built up since birth through nursery rhymes and songs, music on the radio and TV, songs sung in school and in the home (and perhaps place of worship), chants joined in with at the football? Or maybe she has forgotten her technical skills, and can no longer remember how to sound a note on her trumpet, how to hold her violin bow, or how to strum an A minor chord on her ukulele? Or has she forgotten how to respond physically to rhythm, or emotionally to melody, or to appreciate the beauty and joy of harmony?

Or has she forgotten a piece of paper with some lines and dots on?

Many years ago, I tried to persuade my father that, despite never having participated in music as a performer, he should take up music as a new hobby. He’d long loved listening music – mostly light classics – and was hugely supportive of my musical learning as I was growing up. ‘I couldn’t do any music. I don’t understand music: I can’t even read music’ was his response.

How many people make music? Million. Probably billions. A recent report suggests that the majority of young people in England are active music makers, and that more young people are making music than in the past.[1] Does this depend on knowing that Every Good Boy Deserves Favour? Given the diversity of musical genres, and the growth of many and varied ways of accessing music, it doesn’t seem so.

Ofsted asks that we music educators should:

‘promote teachers’ use of musical sound as the dominant language of musical teaching’

and observes that:

‘Too much music teaching continued to be dominated by the spoken or written word, rather than by musical sounds.’[2]

Is musical notation covered by this? Are we, as adults and music educators, thinking about what music really is? Are perpetuating a model of notation-led learning for good reasons (if that is, in fact, what we are doing)?

Music is an aural medium. It is about sound. It is made of sound. Notation is extremely useful, as it reminds us what sounds to make. It can enable us to imagine sounds in our heads, and to give instructions to other musicians to make certain sounds in certain ways. It is a very useful part of any musician’s resource pack, and I would always make music notation part of a child’s learning. But notation is not music. Music is something else. Music enables a meeting of minds that profoundly transcends the limitations of language. If we could describe in words what music says to us, then we wouldn’t need the music. But we do. Profoundly.

As music educators, we need to hang on this knowledge to inform our teaching. We are teachers of music. We may also teach about music, but this is not the same thing.

The German poet Heinrich Heine wrote:

“Where words leave off, music begins.”

My German is poor, so I have to use this translation. But I don’t need to translate German music, or my own music into German when making music to a German audience, or with German musicians.

[1] The Sound of the Next generation; Youth Music

[2] Music in schools: wider still, and wider