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Supporting Music in Schools
the SCHOOLS MUSIC ASSOCIATION part of the Incorporated Society of Musicians AUTUMN 2015 No. 189
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ULLETIN
Hon. editor: Carole Lindsay-Douglas carole@lindsaymusic.co.uk tel: 01767-260815
Ocarina World Record Legacy … Ocarina Workshop – CPD, Festivals and more… Christa Liggins reports The concentration and delight on the faces of the year 2 to year 6 children, and the sound of their confident, musical playing bore evidence of the success of the Ocarina Programme in Central Bedfordshire Hub. Last October, thanks to SMA, class teachers from 12 schools were introduced to the Ocarina and trained to lead their own class music lessons effectively. Each school was provided with an Ocarina World Record Legacy Class Set of ocarinas with accompanying teaching resources and the teachers enthusiastically set about teaching their classes to play the ocarina using Play your Ocarina – Book 1 ‘Starting off ’. Inspiring Music, the Music Hub for Central Bedfordshire, chose to stage the final celebratory Ocarina Festival as a ‘twilight’ after-school session on April 28 this year. Parents
brought their children and were a ready-made and responsive audience. As the children arrived and settled they watched the 8-minute Ocarina Festival video which showcases ocarinas and vessel-flutes of different shapes and sizes being played by children and professionals in concert halls and TV performances around the world, and even by African bushmen communicating with the birds. David Liggins then gave a brief but compelling ‘Science of Sound’ demonstration with gourds, pan-pipes, tuning fork, tubular flutes and multiple ocarinas, including a visual and audial display of the acoustic properties of stopped pipes – and, of course, the largest and smallest ocarinas in the world! Just a handful of the children had not previously played the ocarina and some of the parents also joined in, acknowledging they were playing a musical instrument for the first time. Starting a note at a time, listening to each other to blend together and make a good sound, then gradually building up to playing a full octave of notes reading from Oc-pix™ led to the first euphoria moment, and this, after just a few minutes of playing. continued overleaf/…
Each of the twelve tunes that the children played together were introduced in a different way. Everyone played ‘Twinkle Twinkle’ reading from Oc-pix™ then we sang ‘Come and play your Oc’® (to the tune of ‘Kumbaya’) and mimed the finger positions before playing the full tune together; ‘Old MacDonald’ and ‘Jingle Bells’ introduced the importance of separating notes with crisp tonguing and another two-tune medley ‘Little Bird’ and ‘Au Clair de la Lune’ were introduced through clapping rhythms from the staff notation and following Oc-box™ to locate the notes; The next two Songs, from 1-2-3 Ocarina and new to everyone, focused on playing the notes straight from the staff notation, having named them and internalised them. That’s eight substantial tunes played so far – and four more to play from the Ocarina CDRom Software as a celebration of the instantly accessible music and musicianship possible when playing the ocarina: Daisy, Skye Boat Song, Twinkle and Jingle Bells – and all in 75 minutes. Even the adults were delighted at their personal achievement and musical progression: “Thank you so much for coming to Central Beds yesterday afternoon and delivering your workshop session to the schools that attended. The progression from the start to the finish was amazing – my own included! It was lovely to see how the children had been getting on with their ocarinas – it was a very mixed bag but they all gained so much from the experience! Both of you have such enthusiasm which is so contagious and it was lovely hearing the children ‘tooting-off ’ after their very memorable performance!” The children, all flushed with success, had gained so much. On a personal note, David and Christa Liggins would like to thank the SMA Steering Group for enabling 1000’s of children to have their first experience of playing a musical instrument successfully and with great enjoyment. Three cheers for the Schools Music Association.! And three cheers for all who have given so much through the SMA over so many years! Ocarinas are ideal instruments for curriculum music. If you are interested in hosting your own Ocarina CPD, Beginners’ Workshop or Ocarina Festival, please contact Christa Liggins to discuss possibilities. email: christa@ocarina.co.uk phone: 01536 485963 www.ocarina.co.uk
Photos all taken at Samuel Whitbread Academy, Clifton, Bedfordshire. Top shows David Liggins accompanying the ocarinas; below just two of the school groups who attended this final Ocarina Festival
International Guild of Adjudicators and Workshop Presenters
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We are delighted to announce that the new representative for the Guild on the ISM-SMA Steering Group is Andrew Cleary. Andrew is a widely experienced musician, former Organ Scholar at Norwich Cathedral and Assistant organist at St Martin-in-the-Fileds (Trafalgar Square). He has also held teaching posts at a number of Independent schools. He founded and was Musical Director of
the Portsmouth Cathedral Girls’ Choir. He was nominated for a South Bank Sky Arts Award , with composer Tansy Davies, for the performance of her work: As with voices and with tears. Andrew has been an examiner for the Edexcel, AQA and OCR examination boards and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, an ISI Schools Inspector and a School Governor. He is currently Director of Music at Christ’s Hospital, he manages a department of nine full-time and 36 visiting music staff. We have received notification that Miss Doreen Mary O’Gorman sadly passed away in June. She was an ISM-SMA Life Associate Member. We offer sincerest condolences to her family.
Dr Martin Shaw OBE FRCM (1875 –1958)
The grand daughter of this prolific composer reports that his music is still available and appropriate for today’s young singers In his reminiscences Up to Now, Martin tShaw writes that in 1923 a great event took place: he became the proud possessor of a daughter, Mary Elizabeth. His daughter grew up to be my mother Elizabeth Montgomery Campbell. The event of her birth led him to write a number of songs for children, although he had been doing so since 1915 with the publication of Songtime. The birth of his two sons, in 1917 and 1920, does not seem to have influenced him to the same extent, but then there is always a special relationship between a father and a daughter. From their marriage in 1916 up to 1934 the Shaws lived companionably with a number of other artists, actors and painters in Hampstead, among them the poet Eleanor Farjeon. The following extract from Up to Now indicates their relationship, and by inference the creation of Morning has Broken, now Shaw’s most popular hymn, overtaking that other classic of his, All Things Bright and Beautiful. Shaw writes … Eleanor is always bright, cheerful, and gay –allegro vivace. Pessimism changes to optimism as she comes in at the door. She is just like her verse, bubbling over with a sense of life’s jollity, yet she can touch a deeper note when she likes... She has... a quality somewhat rare in makers of verse... She can, when a reversal of the usual proceedings is inevitable, make verses which will really fit [when] given music. In both hymn-book and the carol book (Songs of Praise and the Oxford Book of Carols) which I have lately been editing with Percy Dearmer and Vaughan Williams, it has been necessary to provide verse for a number of old tunes. In most cases the poets have had to be provided with nonsense verses because of their inability to apprehend the rhythm of the music, and even then they have sometimes gone wrong. But with Eleanor Farjeon, all you have to do is to send her a tune and she turns out a set of verses of faultless fit. Morning has Broken was created by the pair for the 1931 edition of Songs of Praise; it filled the gap for a hymn to celebrate the creation of each day.
Shaw had sent Farjeon the old Gaelic tune Bunessan which he had set aside from his researches for the Oxford Book of Carols. The original words, such as Monarchs have tender, delicate children did not suit the ideals of the time at all, so it had not made it into the OBC. But the tune was good. To it, Eleanor adapted her poem - already published - Morning has Broken. Shaw and Farjeon created a number of songs for children together, one of which, listed under ‘Massed Voices’ in the catalogues, must have been the first anti-litter campaign. It is interesting social history to think that it was not until the mid-1920s that society was affluent enough, and mobile enough (with the coming of the motor car), to leave litter at all. By 1926 things had got so bad that King, George V, made (in the words of the time) an appeal to his people ‘to preserve the amenities of the countryside by being tidy. ‘ Shaw, ever the campaigner, took up the challenge with gusto and together with Farjeon created the unison song Gather up your Litter. It still speaks to us today as we care for our planet, and of course, primary school children will enjoy singing … and when the paper’s greasy and ham sandwich-y and chees-y... or … when you have made merry with your Fry and your Cad-bur-y... and glory in the final phrase: do gather up your litter from the grass. After Songs of Praise the pair went on to write history songs about the Greeks and Romans, some unison and some two-part canons, deemed as suitable for Juniors. For dog lovers there is Argus [who] was a puppy.. Ulysses was his master. The Battle of Thermopylae is covered in Leonidas (combing his hair, King of Persia beware!). And thinking of the current plight of Mediterranean Africans today, we can remember that we have a shared history in the Roman Empire with the two-part canon Queen Dido ...Æneas will help her/to raise high turrets on Carthage, which incidentally is also an early introduction to Martin’s beloved Purcell. Other songs are Romulus and Remus, a two-part canon, and two more unison songs: Cæsar and Hannibal. Fortunately most of Shaw’s school music is still in print. Details of all Shaw’s songs are available on his website www.martinshawmusic. com under Music Lists. For his school music select Schools from the side bar. Plenty of other information is there, including articles about his life and times. Isobel Montgomery Campbell
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Douglas Coombes offers some advice for those thinking of submitting works to publishers If it is a choral piece make sure that it is practical, so ask yourself the following questions: i)Is the range and tessitura right for all voices and do they encourage good vocal practise? ii)Does the music capture the spirit and mood of the words? iii)Does the accompaniment (if there is one) really support the singers? iv)Is the accompaniment practical? v)Will the performers and the conductor find it interesting? vi)Is the piece right for the intended age group? If the music is for young and developing voices, are the text and music appropriate? vii) In vocal music is the text set metrically correctly with natural syllabic stresses?
Study the publishers’ catalogues to see what their main interests are. Composers need to do their homework to see if their composition fits into a publisher’s output. But, and isn’t there always a but(!), you may send something to a publisher having done the necessary research, only to be told that that publisher has enough of the kind of material you have sent in. Of course that may only be an excuse, so you have to try elsewhere. If you have drawn a blank with a number of publishers, and are still really convinced of the value of your work, then try a company that does not normally publish the type of music you have on offer. You never know, that publisher may be thinking about starting a new category into which your composition may ‘fit.’
If the music uses a foreign text, it is a good idea to provide a translation – but again make sure that the translation is not copyright. It is also a good idea to provide a pronunciation guide. With a religious work, make sure that the theology is sound.
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I am often asked if one should send the same work to more than one publisher. I see no reason why not. If you go fishing it can be advantageous to have more than one line!
If you are submitting a choral piece/song etc., is the text free of copyright? Remember, to be in the public domain, the writer must have been dead 70 years. If not, then permission must have been sought for use of the words. If you use words that are out of copyright make sure that they have not been edited in such a way that the words are now the copyright of the editor. This applies particularly to medieval texts where words may have been altered and/or brought up to date. Also, if you intend to arrange a work, such as arranging an SATB work for TTBB or SSA, then if the work is still in copyright, you have to get permission to do so. First of all write to the publisher of the copyright work. Also do not be caught out when dealing with vocal music if the composer has been dead for over 70 years. The text may still be copyright. As an example, George Gershwin died in 1937 – 76 years ago, but his brother Ira, who provided the words of many of George’s songs, died in 1983 – only 30 years ago. You even have to be careful of World War One songs – you may be surprised just how many songs of that period are still in copyright!
It is no good sending in just ideas about a work. Publishers need to see the finished product. A number of times I have been sent a song to assess with just the melody with a comment: ’If you like the tune, I will add an accompaniment.’ Is your music literate? It is no good submitting a work that has notation errors. If the reader is not sure what has been written then the work will be rejected straight away. Make sure that the manuscript is neat, tidy and clear, especially if it is handwritten. First impressions are very important.
It is generally better to send in one score than a whole pile. Incidentally if you want your manuscripts returned then include a self-addressed envelope.
Make sure that all dynamic markings are clear so that conductors and performers know what is wanted– I know that still this can be open to a certain amount of interpretation, but it is no good sending in a work without any markings. Tempo indications should be given with any helpful instructions regarding interpretation and style. If your work is a seasonal one, such as a Christmas Carol, I suggest that you send it at least nine months to a year in advance of that season.
If you are sending in an arrangement of music that has been arranged many times, it is a waste of time sending it in unless there is something really unique and special about it. You will have to be really hard and honest with yourself in order to make a sound and realistic judgement, which is hard to do. I’m always telling my composition students to know the ‘power of the waste-paper basket.’ Publishers and their readers are often very busy. It can help if a good recording accompanies your submission which can be heard in the office, at home and in cars. Just have the music on the recording. It can be tiresome to have a speech about the music. Personally I do not mind a computer sound generated file, but some do dislike them. Sometimes in the accompanying letter composers say how well the work was received by the audience and how much the performers enjoyed the work. This does not impress the reader who will not be influenced at all by such comments. However, do not be shy or afraid to send your work in. Publishers ‘worth their salt’ are keen to discover new composers, but never lose sight that publishing houses are businesses and have to make profits. If a publisher is interested, you could well be asked to make some revisions, usually small ones. It is up to you whether or not you believe that such changes enhance your work. It is unwise just to agree with what is asked of you just to get your music published. You must retain your integrity
If you are asked to put money into the publication this is a ‘no-no.’No authentic and serious publisher will ask you for money. You will be offered a contract, usually one that has been agreed with the Performing Rights Society (PRS) and Mechanical Copyright Protection Society (MCPS). Then it is up to you to read it carefully and if you agree with and understand the terms, then sign.
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