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Issue 3.1
Spring Term 2019
Inside this issue Nick Gibb MP The Minister of State for School Standards shares his thoughts on music education
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Model Music Curriculum Professor Martin Fautley gives his thoughts on this new government initiative.
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Focus on Composing A four-article special feature on different aspects of composing in primary schools
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Awards Shortlist Find out who’s made the cut in our first ever awards!
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Catherine Arlidge MBE The award-winning violinist and music educator shares her thoughts on music education
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Primary Music Magazine
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Letter from the Editor
There’s certainly a lot going on in UK music education at the moment! A new model curriculum for England, a new National Plan for Music Education, a campaign to keep instrumental tuition free in Scotland, and a new Irish junior cycle music specification, to name but a few developments! One might be forgiven for thinking that music education in schools is turning a corner towards a brighter future, however a recent report from the ISM suggests that in England at least, this is not necessarily the case.
Despite the ‘bigger picture’ concerns, we know that our readers are on the ground, doing the best they can for their pupils, and looking for resources, advice and guidance to support them. We hope that you will find this issue useful and inspiring. Please do keep letting us know what you would like to see in the magazine, we’re here to help!
Dr Liz Stafford
• Music Improvement • INSET • Courses • Qualifications • CPD Programmes • Consultancy 2
For a full list of our UK-wide music education consultancy services visit www.musiceducationsolutions.co.uk
Email: liz@musiceducationsolutions.co.uk Telephone: 07570455887 Twitter: @musicedsolution Facebook: MusicEducationSolutionsLtd
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Contents
4. Nick Gibb 8. Curriculum Planning 34. Awards Shortlist 41. Student Perspective 44. pBuzz 46. Lauren Haley 48. Qualifying to Teach 50. Catherine Arlidge
Travis, age 8, says “I like playing the saxophone because it is in the piece of music called ‘Night Train’ by Marvin Berry and the Starlighters. I’d like to be able to pay as well as him.
21. Composing Special Feature • • • •
Composing & the National Curriculum Words as a starting point for composing Composing Stereotypes and myths Introducing music technology 3
Our front cover stars are Year 4 from Acre Heads Primary School.
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Interview: The Rt Hon Nick Gibb MP Q. What is your first musical memory? We had a pianola at home. This is a piano in which you insert rolls of perforated paper that when you pump the pedals, plays the piano for you. One of these tunes I remember was Ivor Novello’s “And Her Mother Came Too.” I also remember singing “Hands together, softly so” at the end of every school day at Langtons Infant School in Hornchurch in Essex. Despite being more than 50 years ago, I’ve remembered the words and melody ever since. “Hands together, softly so, Little eyes shut tight; Father, just before we go, Hear our prayer tonight. “We are all thy children here, This is what we pray, Keep us when the dark is near, And through every day.” Q. What was your first experience of ‘formal’ music education? On the way home from school age 5, on a Friday afternoon I would have piano lessons. I enjoyed them but was relieved that the lessons finished in time for Crackerjack!, which as you know started at 5 minutes to 5. 4
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Q. What were your favourite musical activities when you were at primary school? Obviously I enjoyed the piano, but due to emigrating to Canada when I was 6 my piano lessons came to an end. Returning to England at the age of 8 the recorder became the class instrument for music. We sounded appalling but it helped me to continue to learn to read music. Singing in Bedford Modern Junior School Choir from the age of 9 was a delight and introduced me to challenging pieces such as “Papagena, Papageno” from Mozart’s ‘The Magic Flute’ which we sang with a full orchestra at the Corn Exchange in Bedford. Q. Do you feel that music has benefitted your own life and career and if so, how? When we moved to Roundhay in Leeds I joined the St Edmund’s Parish Church choir, which was a serious full choir approaching cathedral choir standards. We had choir practice two evenings a week and sang in two services every Sunday. It provided me with friends and an excellent music education; introducing me to anthems from Parry’s ‘I was glad’ to Handel’s ‘Zadok the Priest’. Music hasn’t had any influence on my career but it has certainly enhanced my life, as today an element of Michael’s and my social life revolves around concert-going from Wigmore Hall, to the Barbican Centre, to the eccentric Glyndebourne experience.
Q. Why do you think music education in primary schools is important? Music is part of our culture and our heritage and all children should be introduced to it from an early age. It was listening to classical music while filing into assemblies that kindled my love of classical music. I think music education is also an important part of a broad and balanced curriculum in both primary and secondary school. It is important in its own right but I also believe that if you start music education from an early age it can support the development of a wide range of skills including listening, language and reasoning as well as some personal and
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social skills which help to enhance academic attainment. Music can also encourage children to build their imagination and develop a positive attitude to life. Q. If we had an unlimited supply of money, time, and talent, what kind of musical opportunities would you like to see given to all children in the UK? I would want all children to have the opportunity to learn a musical instrument, play in an ensemble, sing and perform in a choir, and be able to progress to the next level. Our national network of music education hubs is helping schools to ensure that that vision is a reality. In addition to the money spent by schools from their budgets, we are spending almost £500 million on music and arts programmes between 2016 and 2020. Q. Do you have a message for colleagues delivering music lessons in primary schools? “I’d like to express my thanks to all the teachers who deliver music lessons in primary schools and I would encourage them to continue to keep up the valuable work that they do in this important area.” I’d also like to let them know that there will soon be a model music curriculum, created by experts, which will help them to plan lessons that deliver a world class music education and help to reduce their workload. Nick Gibb was elected Conservative MP for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton in 1997. He served as Shadow Minister for Schools from 2005 until 2010, and as Minister of State for Schools from 2010 until 2012, and appointed Minister of State at the Department for Education in July 2014. 6
Picture: Recorder players from Mosborough Primary School.
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Curriculum Planning and Classroom Music
Professor Martin Fautley shares his thoughts on how to construct a great music curriculum. The announcement that there is to be a working party looking into music teaching and learning in schools in England is very much to be welcomed. The announcement from the minister, Nick Gibb that he has asked “…a panel of musicians and educationalists to draw up a new model curriculum which will give a detailed year-by- year template for study” (Gibb, 2019) can only be for the good. I notice, however, that very few of the panel are school curriculum theorists, and so in this piece I would like to very politely, I hope, draw their attention to some matters of curriculum theory for classroom music teaching and learning which I hope will prove helpful; this is the spirit in which I am writing this piece, anyway! One of the first things I would like to say is that in my own curriculum research thinking I have found the words of Rudyard Kipling quite helpful (Now I know Kipling is hardly the most politically correct of authors, so apologies!). These are: I keep six honest serving-men (They taught me all I knew); Their names are What and Why and When And How and Where and Who. (Rudyard Kipling, The Elephant’s Child)
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In particular I think that it is all too easy to start a curriculum planning group with the wrong one of Kipling’s ‘serving-men’, namely what. In fact this is so easy that we can often see whole KS2 and KS3 music curricula founded solely on the what of lesson planning, in other words on what the children and young people will do. Much harder, but much more profitable in the long term, is to start with why. This is especially important when the curriculum committee will be thinking about classroom music in schools. This may be an obvious thing to say, but I’ll say it anyway: Curriculum music at KS2 and KS3 is NOT only a pathway to instrumental music learning outside the classroom, it is a thing in itself, or Ding an sich, in the words of Kant. This does need stating at the outset, as one of the issues that can be problematic is to try and apply instrumental teaching and learning techniques to the classroom, this is a different thing. So start elsewhere! Alongside why will be running the what question. The rookie error is to launch straight into what without considering the why, but also the where and who. One of the things we have known for many years in classroom music education is that a ‘one-size-fits-all’ actually doesn’t! It is here, in the overlapping of these questions that any music curriculum will run up against a highly problematic and contentious issue in classroom music education, namely hegemony. We have known for some year (e.g. Shepherd et al., 1977) that whose music matters to children and young people in our schools. In childhood and emerging adolescence music is often closely bound up with personal identity, and we need to think about that too. There is an existing literature on identities in music education, (Hargreaves & Marshall, 2003; Hargreaves et al., 2005a; Hargreaves et al., 2005b; MacDonald et al., 2002), and this may well be worth perusing. It would be a category error to assume in classroom music a linearity of approach by all the children and young people in the class at the same time. One of the reasons that graded music exams such as those offered by Trinity College London, and the ABRSM work well is that they are predicated on a linearity of progression, but that this progression is individuated, in other words kids and adults take grade 3 when they are
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ready. Another aspect of the category error is to mistake syllabus for curriculum. An exam syllabus in instrumental music has considerable assessment backwash on the curriculum, but it is not itself the curriculum. (I’ll say more about assessment later!) Again, who, and where matter for this. Another music curriculum issue that should arise is the difference between planning for doing and planning for learning. The former is really easy in music, for example, “they are going to sing a song”; yes ok, but what are they learning? “They’re learning to sing the song”; yes, but that’s a poor answer, what in particular are they learning in this song? We have a particular view of understanding in music, where children and young people learn to do something by doing it (seems obvious, eh?) and show they understand it by being able to do it. This gives a cycle of activity as shown in this figure:
To explain, we wouldn’t book an oboe player for a gig on the basis of them being able to write a good essay on the history of the oboe, and likewise this is similar for classroom music – think about what it is that the children should learn, and then how you will know they have learned it – this is key to good assessment in music education (again, more on this later!). Writing about something is not a substitute for doing it.
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Which takes us to another Kipling question, when. Rephrasing this when in music curriculum terms leads us to the words progress and progression. These have dual meanings in music education, to progress at something, and progression routes, e.g. school choir -> area choir -> borough choir. In the classroom progress needs thinking about carefully. What will be qualitatively different – we would hope better – at the end of a programme of study compared with the beginning? Simply more breadth is not enough, this has led to what I call the “Cook’s tour” of musical topics curriculum. Depth of learning is where strong engagement comes in curriculum music. Long term progress, over years, is difficult to plan for, but that is how KS2 and KS3 operate. They are not a six-week programme of whizz-bang music experiences, culminating in a great concert somewhere impressive, they are a slow-and-steady slog through developmental musical learning. What you do here (wherever here is) needs to build cumulatively so that it is in place for the future. This long term curriculum planning is hard, there are no two ways about it, and needs very careful thought. Which brings us to knowledge. There is a long-standing row on social media concerning knowledge vs skills in education, I would like to think that we in music education are aware that both are needed for effective learning to take place. But to really think about knowledge in classroom music we need to think about knowledge types. One simple way of thinking about knowledge is to divide things into ‘knowing how’ and ‘knowing that’ (Ryle, 1949). This links closely to the notions of ‘declarative knowledge’ and ‘procedural knowledge’. Declarative knowledge, which can be spoken, relates to ‘knowing that’. Procedural knowledge is connected with ‘knowing how’, as procedures are often of the ‘how to’ type. In music education both types are needed for a single outcome. A non-clarinettist can learn the fingering for a F#, knowing that a certain combination of keys need to pressed – declarative knowledge – but be utterly unable to get a sound out of the instrument, as knowing how to get a sound out of the instrument is procedural knowledge. Specific to music education, Swanwick and Taylor took the two types of
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knowledge under discussion, and added to them: • Know how: .. to spell a word...to manipulate a musical instrument • Knowing that:...2+7=9...Beethoven wrote nine symphonies • Knowing him/her/it:.. a painting...specific knowledge of a musical work • Knowing what’s what:...what we like...what we value. (Swanwick & Taylor, 1982 p.7) This gives us a lot of knowledge types! This all matters, as the curriculum committee will be needing to think about all of these things. Which brings us to another of Kipling’s serving-men, the one that doesn’t start with a w, the question of how. This provides yet another knowledge classification, and was described by Shulman, who differentiated between subject knowledge, and pedagogic content knowledge, or PCK. PCK relates specifically to teaching, and is
…most useful forms of representation of these ideas, the most powerful analogies, illustrations, examples, explanations, and demonstrations – in a word, the ways of representing and formulating the subject that make it comprehensible to others (Shulman, 1986 p.6). ‘ Pedagogical content knowledge also includes an understanding of what makes the learning of specific topics easy or difficult: the conceptions and preconceptions that students of different ages and backgrounds bring with them to the learning....’ (Shulman, 1993 p.85).
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This will be yet another key issue to think about, especially at KS2, where we know that some primary teachers are not confident in teaching aspects of music. The curriculum committee will need to help these teachers with not only the what of music subject content, but the how of the PCK that they may need assistance with. This cannot automatically be assumed.
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But linked to this too is the notion of epistemic ascent. Epistemic ascent has been described as a developing mastery and expertise in stages through practical activity‌and as a means of structuring concepts from higher to lower complexity in ascending pedagogical framing‌ (Anderson, 2019) The reason for placing epistemic ascent here is that although it sounds as if it may be a complex academic thing, it is in fact really important, and especially so in music teaching and learning, although outside the field of curriculum theorists, tends to be very little talked about. For example, consider this extract: It has for some time been a commonplace of curriculum design that subject knowledge amounts to much more than the amassing of propositions. A straightforward inference from this by now uncontroversial thought is that expertise in a subject involves practical knowledge concerning the management of and exploration of propositional relations, acquaintance with key objects, events, states and processes and, not least, acquaintance with practical procedures for gaining and validating new knowledge. (Winch, 2013) This takes us back to an earlier point, that in order to be musical, children and young people have to make music, but do so in a logical sequence. A key problem in music education is actually a problem of epistemic ascent, and that is the issue of reading western musical staff notation. One of Nick Gibb’s key focuses for this review is this statement: I want every child to leave primary school able to read music, understanding sharps and flats, to have an understanding of the history of music, as well as having had the opportunity to sing and to play a musical instrument. (Gibb, 2019)
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This has caused a bit of a furore on social media, but let us stop and consider what it means. To do this, let me assume that like me, you can’t speak Russian (apologies to those that can!). There’s a piece by Rachmaninov I like whose title is its first line: Богородице Дево, радуйся Now, were I to be presented with that, I would have no idea how to say (or sing) that, let alone what it means. But you can find plenty of Russian Cyrillic character charts online, and you can spell out the letters. Doing so, you find this is Bogoroditse Dyevo, raduisya. Indeed, industrious children could learn the Cyrillic characters off by heart, and spell them out one letter at a time. But ask them to say the words out loud, or, even more importantly, tell you what the words mean, and they won’t have a clue! But learning the letters off by heart might mean they can ‘read’ Russian. But can they? After all, they can neither read the whole word nor say what it means. OK, now do the same with this:
As with the Russian above, children can learn the letter names off by heart, and repeat those back; indeed, worksheets with many varieties of the C-A-B-B-A-G-E notes above were common at one time. But there is a flaw in this way of working, which is if children are given this:
and can only tell the letter names, but not sing the song, or recognise “Twinkle twinkle” from the music, then can they be said to truly ‘read’ music? This is where the epistemic ascent issue comes in, in that we need to move from note naming to musical understanding. Now, a lot of people say “music is a universal language”, personally, I don’t agree. To be technical, music lacks lexical indexation, you can’t say “can I have a cheese sandwich” in music, for example. But the epistemic ascent notational dichotomy we have been looking at means that for some educators knowledge of music notation needs to be taught to
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precede musicking, whereas for others it should be taught alongside, or after. This is the ‘sound before symbol’ argument. I am not going to open this can of worms much further, but I implore expert musicians everywhere not to confuse reading music, with note-naming, with being musical. In many cases those of us who do read music learned to do so alongside learning to play an instrument. In my case it was infant school, and the red “school recorder book 1”. My infant classmates and I learned recorder notes and their notation alongside each other. So please, music experts, think about the multimodal nature of musical learning, and epistemic ascent, and don’t confuse the one with the other. Which brings me to my final point, that of assessment. This is, to bend Kipling a little, the question of how much. Now, in my assessment book (Fautley, 2010), I make a big deal out of the correct assessment question being not ‘what should I be assessing?’ but instead asking ‘who is the assessment for?’. And I will do that again now. I don’t want to be too politically controversial, but neoliberal thinking tends to want things to be ‘measurable’, and preferably simply (for which read ‘cheaply’) measured. And what is simpler and cheaper than a pencil-and-paper test? But caveat educator. Easy, and probably markable by a computer, would be the Russian letter names, or CABBAGE task from above. But is this musical? Does it tell us if the children and young people know what the music means? This aspect will need treating with great care by the expert panel, because any politician will want to be able to say “thanks to my initiative X% of children in school in school can now read music”. Beware of this, and remember Adrian Mole: Got full marks in the geography test today. Yes, I am proud to report that I got twenty out of twenty! ... There is nothing I don’t know about the Norwegian leather industry (Townsend, 1982) Does he really know everything there is to know on the Norwegian leather industry? In a similar vein does answering 10 questions on letter names and # and b signs mean a child can read music? Really?
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My final point for the curriculum committee to think about is what some call the “if I were you” fallacy. You’re not them. You’re an expert pianist, guitarist, singer, whatever. We know that for a number of primary class teachers the thought of singing solo in front of their class will send them into paroxysms of fear, hatred, and loathing. Yes, sure, there will be many for whom this is not the case (including all the readers of this magazine, obviously!) but remember the frightened few. If the new curriculum plan involves complex activities that require extensive CPD for generalist classroom teachers to be able to deliver, then in some schools it might simply be ignored. Yet the “if I were you” fallacy means sometimes planners don’t see why what is not a problem for them, is for other people. So, in conclusion, I wish the curriculum committee well, they have an enormous and very important task ahead of them, and being an academic maybe my final piece of advice (which is a bit “well he would say that wouldn’t he”), is please remember there is a huge history of classroom curriculum work, research, and publications in music teaching and learning over many, many years in England. Just because you may not know about it (why should you, it’s not in your daily remit) doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist. As the lawyers say ignorantia juris non excusat, (ignorance of the law is no excuse), well, ignorance of music education’s extensive history and philosophy is not an excuse either. Please don’t start by trying to re-invent the wheel, school teachers throughout the land have perfectly serviceable cars with good, well-formed, circular wheels on them already. Your job is to make those cars more efficient!
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Professor Martin Fautley is director of research in the School of Education and Social Work at Birmingham City University, UK. He researches and writes about various aspects of teaching and learning in music, specialising in creativity and assessment. He is the author of ten books, as well as over sixty journal articles, book chapters, and academic research papers. He is co-editor of the British Journal of Music Education. @DrFautley
Join Music Education SolutionsÂŽ for the third annual Primary Music Magazine Issue 3.1 Spring 2019
Curriculum Music Conference 2019 Thursday 21st March 2019, 10am-3.30pm Forest Arts Centre, Walsall
Sessions include: IndoAfroSamba Workshop; Accessible Notation; Creative Curriculum; Primary Curriculum Schemes; Singing Research; Have your say on the new model music curriculum; and more! Watch our video preview for this event here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GN_qsJqP0Tc For further information and to book visit https://musiceducationsolutions.co.uk/products-page
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Special Feature:
Composing
What are the National Curriculum requirements for composing? How can we use words as a starting point for composition? What are the key myths about composing? How can we use technology to help us compose? Read on to find out more‌.
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Composing and the National Curriculum
Dr Liz Stafford gives her advice on interpreting the requirements for composing at KS1 and KS2 Composing is one of the areas that teachers - both generalist and specialist - consistently request help with, and topped our recent reader poll of areas you’d like to see covered in this magazine. So what are the National Curriculum requirements for composing in England, and how do we interpret them?
KEY STAGE ONE At KS1 the word composing isn’t even mentioned. Helpful, huh? The statement relating to the skill of composing is:
‘experiment with, create, select and combine sounds using the interrelated dimensions of music’
I find it helpful to split this statement into three different skills. First children must ‘experiment’ – for me this means just finding out what noises they can make with their voices, bodies, and different instruments. Then they must ‘select’ – make considered choices about the sounds that they use, for example picking a suitable instrument to represent rainfall, or using a vocal sound linked to an emotion like ‘sad’ or ‘angry.’ The next stage is to be able to ‘combine’ sounds and this is the tricky part because, in my experience at least, KS1 children are not generally known for their excellent skills of cooperation! The success of combining sounds with others can be more governed by social and emotional development than it is by musical development, so splitting the skills out in this way allows you to show that a child can actually be quite good at experimenting with and selecting sounds, even if they are not great at collaborating with others to combine them.
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The final stage is to manipulate the sounds they have chosen using the inter-related dimensions of music (pulse, pitch, duration, tempo, timbre, structure, dynamics, texture). This might be shown through alternating the dynamic (playing quieter or louder), or making tempo changes (speeding up or slowing down), to create a particular effect.
KEY STAGE TWO At KS2, the end of key stage expectation for composing is:
‘Improvise and compose music for a range of purposes using the interrelated dimensions of music’
The key phrase for me here is ‘range of purposes.’ The main mistake I see teachers making with composing is when they are basically setting the same activity over and over again – usually a ‘soundscape’ on a different theme each lesson. To fully cover this criterion, we need to make sure our pupils are doing different kinds of composing, so for example we might indeed compose a free-form ‘soundscape’ about space, but we might then also write a jingle for a pretend radio ad, a melody based on the pentatonic scale, a school song, a film score, some music to be played in a lift, whatever takes your fancy! The positive thing to remember is that the wording of the national curriculum is so wooly, that you can basically get away with anything! There is no indication of the quality of the end result within the statements, so as long as you have experimented, selected, and combined at KS1, and composed a range of different types of music for KS2, no-one can really argue that you haven’t fulfilled the requirements! Of course with the (non-statutory) model music curriculum being developed we may get more concrete guidance about ‘standards’ but until then, have fun getting creative with your class!
Dr Liz Stafford is Editor of Primary Music Magazine, Director of Music Education Solutions®, and Senior Lecturer in Music Business & Professional Studies at Leeds College of Music.
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Introduction We watched a video of Dizzy Gillespie playing A Night in Tunisia and talked about his extraordinary technique - those cheeks (don’t try this at home children!), and his unusual trumpet with the bell bent upwards. We noted the difference between playing the tune (or the ‘head’ in jazz) which is set, and improvising which is free (within set parameters). Activity In groups, the children were set the task of coming up with word phrases using vocabulary referring to Dizzy, jazz and brass instruments and then fitting the words into ta (crotchets), ti-ti (quavers) and sh (crotchet rest) over a count of four. We worked out how to write the rhythms on the whiteboard, alongside a picture of the relevant un-tuned percussion instrument that had been allocated to each group.
Issue 3.1 Spring 2019
Using words as a starting point for KS2 Composition
An example lesson by Kay Charlton
Beats: 1 2 3 4 Group A Jazz Jazz trum-pet Jazz woodblocks ta ta ti-ti ta Group B trum-pet plays ve-ry loud scrapers ti-ti ta ti-ti ta Group C trum-pet trom-bone sh tu-ba claves ti-ti ti-ti sh ti-ti Group D im-pro- vise we like mu-sic tambourines ti-ti ta ti-ti ti-ti Group E trom-bone trum-pet jazz sh maracas ti-ti ti-ti ta sh
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It is important to check that children know the name of the percussion instruments they are playing, are holding them properly and playing with the correct technique (bouncing please, no bashing!). Translating the words into playing the pattern on the instrument may not be immediately straightforward, try clapping the rhythms first - make sure you play together with a sense of the pulse - no speeding up. Practise playing the patterns: • Each group separately • Combinations of groups • All parts at once - creating interlocking rhythms • Altogether from the top, to make a five bar piece The next step is to put the patterns on to tuned percussion. Decide on the scale you want to use; in keeping with the jazz idiom then perhaps a minor pentatonic scale starting on A:
Choose one of the four-beat patterns and use notes from the scale to make up a short motif, or melodic phrase. Pentatonic scales always sound good - try randomly mixing up the notes. Think of your motifs as being a series of questions and answers, make phrase 1 a question:
Continue experimenting with question and answer phrases based on your rhythms. Which rhythm phrase is the best to finish on? Make sure your piece sounds finished! Make sure it finishes on the home note too, in this scale it is A.
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Development ideas: • Once you have a melody you can accompany it with the untuned percussion section playing the interlocking rhythm patterns • Add an improvisation section using notes from the scale • Try singing the words as a chorus • Add a simple ostinato on the home note: Ostinato example (rhythm B)
If you can combine all these elements you will have quite an impressive piece of music; don’t forget to use the inter-related dimensions of music to add variety to your piece. Duration was our starting point - long and short notes (crotchets and quavers) i.e. rhythm. Try the following: • Changes in tempo • Contrasting dynamics • Timbre - feature the unique sound of each instrument • Texture - try different combinations and layers of the instruments • Pitch - experimenting with notes of the minor pentatonic scale • Structure - how does your piece start? Does everyone play all the time? Most of all, be creative and have fun!
Kay Charlton is a trumpet player, composer and educator. Alongside her freelance work, she teaches brass and curriculum music in a London primary school and is currently co-writing the music chapter of Insights into Excellence in the Primary Classroom (Routledge). @KayBollywood
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Teaching Composing Challenging the Stereotypes and Myths by Dr Kirsty Devaney During my work as a composer-educator I have faced a number of stereotypes held by teachers and students about composers and the processes of composing. An example of some of the comments I receive on introduction myself as a composer include:
“Don’t you have to have a funny name to be a composer?” “Are composers alive?” Although quite amusing, it highlights the otherness of the label of composer. During my PhD research I was keen to explore this further and I discovered that the majority of secondary music teachers and students did not identify as a composer due to feeling the term could only be used for: a) Professional composers who earned money for composing b) Those who were deemed as a creative genius (Adapted, Devaney, 2018) So what are these ‘myths (Burnard, 2012), stories and stereotypes that cause young people and teachers to be scared of the label of ‘composer’? My research with students and teachers identified 3 main beliefs about composing.
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Composing ability involves a natural talent
The myth of the creative genius promotes the belief that composing is reserved for only elite few who have specific special gifts. My survey of 112 music teachers uncovered that the majority of teachers believed in the notion of “natural aptitude” for composing:
Figure 1: Teachers’ beliefs about natural aptitude Teachers and students also used terms such as “flair”, “natural” and “the lucky few” highlighting how the idea of the creative genius it still very present for composing (Weisberg, 2010, 1993). Researchers have warned that this myth can be damaging as it downplays the role of hard work in the creative process (Lamont and Maton, 2010; Green, 1997). The composer-educators in my own study also argued that the myth not reflect real-world composing and devalued the approach of trial and error. Research and education policy since the late 1990s and early 2000s aimed to promote creativity as universal (Craft, 2006), and something that could be taught and fostered (NACCCE, 1999: 29), however the myth of the gifted composer is still very strong.
Students must learn the ‘rules’ of composing before being creative. This myth is a belief that the rules or knowledge of composing and music 28 must be learnt in full before students can be creative. Lupton and Bruce (2010) called this method of composing teaching a ‘time-honoured
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approach’ (p.274), where students learn from ‘master’ composers. The relationship between knowledge and creativity is an ongoing debate and is especially relevant in the current education landscape in England with the focus on the notion of the ‘knowledge-based curriculum’ (Gibb, 2017). We have to question what is meant by the rules? Do the rules mean western classical music theory? And how much knowledge is needed first? We also need to consider what we mean by creative. Many people think about creativity as when a person invents/creates something that has never been invented/created before. But Maslow (1967) and Boden (2004) recognised that young people can still be creative and create things that are novel and new to them. In my own approach to teaching composing I don’t see knowledge and creativity as separate, but as something that can be fostered together. With no opportunity for creativity, children won’t be developing important skills for composing such as reflecting, trial and error, or exploration. These creative skills are vital for all children to develop in this fast-changing world (NACCCE, 1999). Then introduction new skills, knowledge or concepts along the way can open up new doors for their music making.
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Composing is a solitary, individual activity.
The third myth is the belief that composers compose music in isolation. Although some composers compose independently, this is not the only form of composing. The benefits of group composing have been recognised by teachers and researchers alike. Many of the composereducators in my own study commented how collaborative methods was an important part of their creative and composing processes. Burnard (2012) argues that the idea of individual creativity is a western narrative which can marginalise other forms of musical creativity:
While some children prefer to work alone….others prefer to engage collaboratively, communally, collectively (Burnard, 2012: 279). I personally love the word composer, but I use it in its broadest sense and I understand that the term also comes with historical baggage. When teaching composing we must be aware that composing is incredibly varied and personal and some of the above myths can be damaging to students’ musical progression and confidence. Spruce (2013) argues that many of myths promote western classical musical methods that can disadvantage students with different musical backgrounds and cultures. As teachers, we can encourage our pupils to think of themselves as ‘composers’ every time they engage in creative music-making, to normalize both the term and the activity and make our pupils view them as achievable goals. After all, composers are just like you, and me! Dr Kirsty Devaney is a composer and composing in education researcher, and is a Junior Fellow at Royal Birmingham Conservatoire. She specializes in working with and writing music for young and non-professionals, and leads the ‘Young Composers’ Project’ encouraging more young people to compose. @KirstyDevaney
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Introducing Music Technology in KS2
Rachel Shapey explores ideas for using Groove Pizza and Soundtrap for composing activities with Year 5 & 6 pupils
Chrome books were a fairly new feature of our school when I was asked to run a music workshop for Year 5 and 6 pupils. So I thought that this would be a great opportunity to introduce some music technology and composition. However with just an hour to spend with each group, I needed something engaging and easy to learn for maximum impact. Enter Groove Pizza! If you haven’t come across Groove Pizza before, it’s a fun circular rhythm app, which allows pupils to create their own beats and experiment with different styles. It also has links to numeracy with concepts like shape, angles and patterns being part of the beatmaking process. How does it work? Firstly, by clicking on ‘Specials’, pupils can choose a ready-made topping and then add to it themselves simply by clicking the dots on the pizza. Alternatively, they can start with a blank canvas and choose ‘plain’ and add their own beats from scratch. Shapes can be dragged and dropped onto the topping, and the tempo, volume and level of swing can all be changed very simply. The best thing is that everything is on one screen making it really user-friendly and a whole class can all create a beat in 5 minutes. Children love exploring the different options and will take up as much time as you allow! It’s a good idea to demonstrate Groove Pizza briefly before starting the task, but don’t show too much as a big part of the fun is the exploration!
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Moving onto Soundtrap Once pupils have created a beat, they can click on the ‘share’ icon and choose to download as an audio or Midi file, or to continue in Soundtrap. This is a great audio workstation, which can be used for free or through purchasing it as an educational package. If you just want to try before you buy, this is an ideal opportunity to find out if it’s something your pupils will engage with and if it will be useful for subsequent projects. Most of the preset loops are only available with the premium package, however for this workshop there was enough to get on with. I modelled the next section of the workshop at the front of the class and had a an example track ready so that pupils had an idea of what they were aiming for. The Groove pizza beat automatically sets itself up in a track which just requires extending along the track. I then set pupils the challenge of creating a backing track with three contrasting sections. It’s easy to browse loops and drag them into the ‘studio’. The task was selfdifferentiating, and every pupil achieved the goal of creating a backing track. Some picked it up amazingly quickly and had managed to layer several tracks, control the volume and even do some panning! At the end of our session they each exported their masterpiece so that their teacher could listen to them back in the classroom. Of course, the hour went far too quickly but for a class who had never used either app before, or any music technology at school, they did pretty well. Extending the project If I’d had a further session with these groups, what would I have done? Ideally, we would have connected a MIDI keyboard to the Chromebooks and started to record in some musical ideas. We may also have highlighted the built-in microphone and encouraged pupils to record some vocals on an audio track. There are so many possibilities. It really depends on your class situation and availability of equipment as to where you can take a project like this. But for an introduction to music technology, it’s a good starting point.
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Rachel’s Top Tips! 1. Try using both apps yourself first before letting your class loose! Anything that you struggle with, they will probably too. 2. Pre-empt any potential technology issues such as working out how pupils are going to log-in to devices and Soundtrap (do they have an email address etc) so that time isn’t wasted solving computer problems. 3. Create a 1-page hand-out with a simple guide for each app, so that pupils can refer to it if you’re busy helping someone else. 4. Give a structured challenge with a list of success criteria so that pupils have a clear goal in mind. 5. Explain and demonstrate key terms such as track and loop, and any other technology-related vocabulary. 6. Be strict about headphones. If you want their attention, use a nonverbal signal such as a hand in the air and make sure that all pupils have taken them off before you start to speak. Congratulate those pupils who respond quickly.
Rachel Shapey is the founder and director of I can compose, an innovative company dedicated to inspiring the next generation of great composers. She is an experienced music educator with twelve years experience as a secondary classroom teacher in a variety of educational settings including a state funded specialist music school, a sixth form college, and most recently at an independent grammar and preparatory school. Such is the unique nature of I can compose, both from a music education and business perspective, Rachel has been shortlisted for 3 awards within the six months of launching the company; these include the Stelios Philanthropic Foundation Award and the Outstanding Music Education Product in the 2019 Music Teacher Awards for Excellence. @i_can_compose
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We are pleased to announce the first ever
Primary Music Magazine Awards Shortlist Best Composing / Improvising Resource Pictures, Poems & Percussion | Whole Class Bollywood Blast Pictures, Poems and Percusion 2 is a collection of poems for children that incorporates pictures and percussion to create a unique learning experience. This big book includes a CD where the poem is read and initial examples of percussive accompaniments are given. Each poem comes with its own set of music-making activities, to address the requirements of the composition strand of the National Curriculum for Music. Children can also use the wonderful illustrations to explore different sounds in relation to the images they see, helping develop their music-making skills. Whole Class Bollywood Blast by Kay Charlton and David Rose, is a set of creative and fun WCET lesson plans and repertoire to cover a full year and is part of the series of Bollywood Blast tutor books for brass/wind. The four simple, but progressive, tunes are written in a Bollywood style and all have backing tracks and space for improvisation/copy-backs. Notation is provided for the teacher in order to teach the repertoire by ear. A Bollywood Brass Arts Award Discover log book is included.
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Best Vocal Resource One World Songs | Sing Sensational | Sing Up One World Songs. Portsmouth Music Hub's environmental awareness campaign One World harnesses the power of music and the arts to educate and inspire children to take action to protect and sustain their environment. At the heart of the campaign is a vocal resource created by the Music Hub's experienced musicians. Engaging songs have been written for a diverse cultural demographic, in a variety of musical styles, and they cover a range of environmental issues including plastic pollution, litter, the plight of blue whales, bees and chlorofluorocarbons. Sing Sensational. Whatever the occasion, get your celebration off to an explosive start with this fun-packed collection of songs, bursting with energy and guaranteed to put a grin on your face and a cheer in your heart. S!ng™ is a series designed to get your school singing about almost anything and everything! Perfect for assemblies, choirs and group singing. Books in this series contain ideas and tips on how to get going, vocal warm-ups and a whole mixture of irresistibly sing-able songs, featuring opportunities for rounds, harmonies and more.
Sing Up makes transformative change happen in schools to enhance children’s development and learning through the power of singing. Created as a government funded programme to reinstate singing in schools, Sing Up successfully reached 98% of UK primaries. Today Sing Up is used by teachers around the world. Through their digital solution, Sing Up provides you with the complete singing experience. Membership includes access to almost 1000 songs, specially arranged for young voices. Their wide range of resources and songs aid you in delivering cross-curricular classroom learning and act as a complete foundation for music across the school.
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Best Curriculum Scheme Charanga | Inside Music 5-11 | Music Express Today, Charanga is helping teachers in over 8,500 schools to provide modern, exciting, music lessons that children really enjoy. 9 out of 10 of those teachers say that adopting the Charanga Musical School approach has had a positive impact on pupil attainment and their own enjoyment of teaching. The popular curriculum music scheme with plans, assessments and inspiring whiteboard resources for every lesson, reinforces continuous, genuine music-making as desired by Ofsted. Non-specialists find it easy to follow, while specialists enjoy dipping in for new inspiration! Inside Music 5-11. The Voices Foundation’s Inside Music is a complete resource for class teachers and music educators to support singing-based musical learning from the Early Years to Key Stage 2. The series of three books offers over 250 songs, games and activities to develop step-by-step learning which builds skills, knowledge and understanding. All books come with a CD of audio tracks, planning and assessment resources. Inside Music 5-11 are the second and third books. Through simple ageappropriate songs and games, children’s learning can be reinforced in a truly progressive, structured way. Music Express is a comprehensive, cross-curricular music scheme that fully supports the primary music curriculum from Foundation Stage to Key Stage 2. Teachers are provided with a wealth of content, including lesson plans, teaching notes, assessment sheets, videos, audio, graphics, warm-ups, skill builders and more. The resource also includes a Song Bank of over 400 songs and a scheme of work for whole-class ukulele teaching. Easy-to-use and suitable for both non-specialists and specialist music teachers, the programme is available in print and online, enabling teachers and schools to find the right solution for their needs.
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Best Instrumental Resource: A-Star | Ukulele Magic | World-Music Online Learning Platform A-Star is one of the market leaders for school percussion. The extensive range offers high quality products, ideal for ensembles, music groups as well as individuals. Being robust, reliable and at affordable prices there’s no surprise the A-Star Percussion Range has been such a success within music education, enabling children of all ages to be involved in music. A-Star is exclusively supplied by Normans Musical Instruments.
Ukulele Magic offers everything you and your pupils need to get started on the ukulele. Specially devised for primary aged children, the 25 enjoyable pieces carefully progress from playing open strings to learning songs with three chords. Finger-picking and strumming styles are introduced step-by-step in pieces which are fun and stylistic, covering rock, ragtime, bluegrass, swing, tango, calypso and blues. Every song is supported with performance and backing tracks and the Teacher’s Edition includes a white-board e-book with embedded audio and video tutorials. Published in 2018, the Ukulele Magic Songbook provides additional repertoire to consolidate learning and challenge able students. Inspire Works’ World-Music Online Learning Platform brings their expert facilitators to your classroom as many times as you need, whenever you want and wherever you are in the world! The Platform has been selected as a Finalist in the Music Teacher Awards 2019. Several world-music styles are covered and the courses include over 50 hours of video tuition, differentiated workshops & material for all Key Stages, full assessments downloads and potential to use for Arts Awards qualifications.
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Best Listening Resource: Classical 100 | Minute of Listening | Music Express Extra Classical 100 is a free resource for primary schools in the UK featuring 100 pieces of classical music in a dynamic list. Sort the music by mood, instrument, tempo and historical period, or in any other way that suits you. Each of the 100 pieces features its own musical challenge which are fun and flexible enough to use in a number of ways – from short starter activities to longer pieces of work spanning several hours. And you don’t have to be a specialist music teacher to use it. Minute of Listening. In a world which is becoming increasingly visually loud, many of us are losing the ability to creatively listen. Minute of Listening encourages pupils to heighten their aural perception and imagination by providing a unique and carefully curated library of sound and music from around the world, complete with follow up questions to stimulate thoughtful engagement with the materials. The diversity of recordings helps teachers to enhance the delivery of all curriculum subjects, but it is also a powerful practise to simply allow children to stop and listen at the start of the day and respond to what they are hearing and feeling. This resource’s holistic relevance, yet simple interface makes it an invaluable tool for all primary teachers.
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Music Express Extra: Listening to Music. This series actively engages children in listening perceptively to music. Stimulating recordings of world and historical music provide the basis for a range of listening, composing and performing opportunities, enhanced by interactive whiteboard activities and displays with embedded audio. The two Listening to Music Elements books bring together music from China, West Africa, Indonesia, the Caribbean, India, the Pacific, South America and Europe – an eclectic mix of traditional, historical and contemporary music. Listening to Music History offers an historical overview of Western classical music from medieval times to the present day.
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Best Workshop Provider Beat goes On | Inspire Works | Out of the Ark Toscana Strings | The Voices Foundation Beat Goes On deliver STOMP-style Body Percussion & Samba Drumming Workshops & CPD throughout the UK and internationally. Director Ollie Tunmer is a former cast member of STOMP and a qualified teacher, and combines these to create fun, high energy and truly memorable experiences. They have a team of freelance facilitators located throughout the UK, allowing them to provide a greater range of workshops, including Body Percussion with Literacy (based on our work with Pie Corbett), and for SEND and EYFS settings Inspire Works’ team of 20 expert facilitators deliver a broad variety of world-music workshops throughout the UK to over 70,000 participants each year from Early Years settings, to A-level. They have also delivered CPD workshops at the Music Education EXPO, The Sunday Times Festival of Education, The Education Show and many Music Hub Conferences. They have been selected as Finalists in the Music Teacher Awards three times (2015, 2017 & 2019) and currently hold two Guinness World Records for the largest samba band (2014 with 1,675 participants) and the largest drumming lesson (2016 with 1,827 participants plus 10,000 joining online). Out of the Ark’s specially designed workshops for teachers can be delivered direct to schools or via Music Hubs' conferences, events and network meetings. Each workshop has been carefully designed to spark creativity and imagination, and to build the skills necessary to allow any teacher to confidently use songs to support the music and general curriculums. The workshop leaders are all experienced music specialists and education professionals, with a wealth of experience in developing and delivering singing in schools. There are four amazing workshops which are being delivered across the UK with a new maths/music linked workshop available in summer 2019.
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Toscana Strings. "A fabulous, professional and engaging performance, which captivated the hearts and imaginations of our children. A relevant and informative introduction to the string family through fun, interactive stories." Mrs S Roberts, Holy Trinity School. Toscana Strings (string quintet) launched Stories Set To Music in March 2018. Their aim is to deliver live music in schools suitable for children in reception to year six, performed by professional musicians, covering all aspects of the music national curriculum for KS1 & 2 in a fun, interactive and informative way. They currently have two different workshops on offer; Animals, and The Snowman. The Voices Foundation’s ‘Singing School’ model was developed with the David Ross Education Trust and launched at King’s Heath Primary Academy in 2016/17. The model aims to embed singing through the curriculum and choral enrichment for all pupils and teachers. In the ‘Musicianship through Singing’ strand, practitioners work side by side with class teachers from Reception to Year 4 to introduce musical foundational skills. The ‘Choral Excellence’ strand extends learning further by working directly with all Key Stage 2 children. Choral practitioners support the school’s Music Co-ordinator in developing their choral leadership skills to establish whole-school singing.
Congratulations to all our shortlisted finalists! Judging will take place over the next few weeks, and the winners will be announced on Thursday 21st March 2019 at the Curriculum Music Conference. You will be able to read all about the winner of each category in our next issue, out in June!
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Wild Child A student’s perspective on the importance of music in the curriculum, by Kallie White. School days were a challenging part of my life. I’m currently studying Music Business at Leeds College of Music and will be graduating in 2019. However, music education is not something I received in school. Their perception of music education was sitting at a keyboard or singing ‘pop’ songs that were extremely outdated and not something I could engage with. Being an extremely enthusiastic and hyperactive individual, I struggled to fit into the school system with ease as I was unable to express the creative side that to this day takes up a large part of my personality. Because of this, my behaviour deteriorated rapidly. I was known as a ‘problem student’ mainly because I was not able to sit in a formal lesson such as the core subjects. I didn’t feel this style of teaching would help me blossom as a person. Sitting listening to teachers tell me to behave made me rebel more. I am sure that part of the reason for this is because I had no lesson I could relate to and look forward to. I feel that if I had a better experience with music education I could possibly have excelled more in my core subjects because I would have used up some of my energy by doing a lesson I enjoyed. After leaving secondary school in 2012 and attending LCoM since then, I have matured in more ways than I could ever have expected. Although I am still as passionate, enthusiastic and hyperactive as I was before, I am able to use this as an advantage. Based on my own experience, I believe that schools made their lessons more engaging and exciting by adding a variety of different instruments and genres instead of the common classical music or out-dated pop songs, students would enjoy their classes more. Now I am a student at LCoM I feel passionately about how music education is presented to school students because of my past experience. As part of my final year studies I am creating workshops to bring music education back to life in secondary schools, creating a fun, creative, generation-appropriate experience, and I am hoping to turn this into a viable career when I graduate.
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CLASSROOMS pBUZZING WITH THE JOY OF MUSIC School children have been having fun making music with pBuzz – the affordable and fun brass instrument. More eye catching than a recorder and easier to play than a ukelele the brightly coloured pBuzz is proving a hit with music teachers and children alike. Specially designed for children’s small hands it is aimed at being the fun first step in taking children on what, hopefully, will become a life-long passion for music and brass instruments. A playful product, the pBuzz encourages children as young as three to play and enjoy music and aids sensory and fine motor skills, encourages self-expression, stimulates imagination and creativity, and builds confidence. Recently adopted by Pennthorpe School in West Sussex as part of Brass Band England’s ‘Create a Buzz!’ competition, Linda Cole, Pennthorpe’s Director of Music, said: ‘The children had such a wonderful experience learning to play their pBuzzes; children love making music but will be put off if it early on if it seems too much like hard work, so my advice is to start with something that is accessible and is fun – like the pBuzzes’
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Warwick Music Group, the creators of pBuzz, wanted to enable any teacher to use the instrument as a resource, whether they were a musician or not. Working in partnership with Music Education Solutions® a step-by-step guide and support system for schools was designed. The resulting pBuzz KS1 Music Teaching Resource introduces pBuzz to Years 1 and 2 through lesson plans, assessment trackers, teacher support videos, specially composed music, teacher development materials and cross-curricular activities and has since been awarded the maximum five-star rating in the music category of the 2018 Teach Primary Resource Awards. Jonty Hines, Warwick Music Group, says: “What’s so great about pBuzz and now the accompanying resources is that they create the opportunity for more kids to experience successful music making early on. This is why we create quality wind and brass instruments – we want to make the joy of music accessible and fun!” For more information on the pBuzz, teaching resources or even to read more about Pennthorpe School and other case studies and success stories please visit www.pbone.co.uk/teachingresources
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Top Takeaways from the UK’s Spectacular Culture of Creativity American Violinist Lauren Haley Reflects on her UK Musical Education
The More the Merrier When our family moved to Surrey, a warm tradition of musical inclusivity and spontaneity greeted us. Town orchestras invited me to perform everything from Purcell to Vaughan Williams with them. To this day, a joyful welcome extends to both players and audience members of all ages and backgrounds. Across the UK, local choirs prepare weekend concerts and wait for families and friends to pour into the cathedrals. Pop-up orchestras accompany the choirs, bringing both traditional and contemporary works to life for the evening.
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Keep Striving
The late and much-beloved violist Levine Andrade understood the difficulties in learning new music yet always emphasized the excitement that would soon follow. When I struggled with daring passages in the Walton Viola Concerto at his Guildford studio, Levine would call out, “Keep going! That’s very nearly very, very good!” At first, his words perplexed me. Was my playing good? Almost good? Almost very, very good? I soon realized that Levine meant that I was on to something, and while our work wasn’t yet complete, he could already envision the results. The takeaway here is that one needn’t settle for good when one can persist and aim for “very, very good!” 3.) Melodic Spirit Inspires and Endures
The UK’s rich musical history means that its instrument shops are filled with stunning older instruments just waiting to be rediscovered. My own violin, a 1750’s Thomas Smith instrument I first played in Cardiff, has become my voice and my dearest partner over our years together. Its adventures will outlive me, too, and its story and song will shine on through future generations. Beyond instruments, strong musical traditions are a steadying hand through difficult times, a moral reassurance of sorts. My father’s recommendation when I struggled through rough moments at university? “Put on some Holst and get back to work.” With familiar melodies from works like Walton’s Spitfire Prelude and Fugue and Elgar’s Chanson de Matin, the UK’s finest composers uplift all with shared musical spirit. Though my family is stateside again, British creativity fills my parents’ home every Sunday morning. Sounds of Jenkins -- sometimes Katherine, other times Karl -- greet me at the door as Mum’s latest inspiration from the Great British Bake Off rises in the oven. Tea is brewed and melodies hummed, and I muse that perhaps this week my students should study Britten. www.laurenhaleystudios.com
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Qualifying to teach Primary Music The Level 4 Certificate for Music Educators (Trinity CME) was developed in 2012 as part of the National Plan for Music Education, to provide a recognized qualification for music educators working with children and young With so few ITE people. Since then around 300 learners across courses offering the UK have engaged with this qualification, anything other than a many of whom have come through our own few hours of music Distance Learning centre for the qualification training, how can at Music Education Solutions®. primary teachers make The Trinity CME is suitable for anyone who sure they have the right works as a music educator with children and skills to teach music? young people, including those working in a With many schools primary teaching context. The beauty of this covering PPA with qualification is that it is tailored to the context external music in which you work, so you don’t have to have provision, how can musical qualifications to be able to take it. You just have to show that you have the necessary musicians ensure that they are suitably level of skill to teach the pupils that you have at the time of applying. Even the most qualified to teach in a curriculum setting? musically timid of primary teachers will acknowledge that they should be able to do Dr Liz Stafford what they’re asking a 7 year-old to do, and that is all that is required as a starting point! (Of investigates whether course, if you want to teach Grade 8 the Level 4 Certificate for Music Educators Trombone, then the requirements are going to could be the answer to be somewhat different!) both these questions? 48
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The Trinity CME assesses learners in: Understanding how children learn music • Planning, facilitating and evaluating their musical learning • Reflective practice and professional development • Promoting positive behaviour • Equality, diversity and inclusion • Safeguarding •
For fairly obvious reasons, we tend to find that the primary teachers who take the qualification benefit most from the first two areas, since these are the most subject-specific, and also from the fourth area, because it deals with behaviour in a musical setting – that is to say in a lesson that is unusually noisy and exciting! For musicians making their way into teaching, it is almost the exact opposite, as it’s often their first introduction to concepts like safeguarding and inclusion. The brilliance of the qualification is that it takes into consideration your prior learning, so if you’ve already done safeguarding training, you won’t need to do as much work for the final area as someone coming to it brand new would. Feedback from our completed learners has been overwhelmingly positive, with all of them getting real benefit from the qualification despite their differing starting points. The ability to study flexibly through distance learning is also a big draw for time and budget-limited teachers, as well as the support offered by our experienced 1-2-1 mentors for the qualification. To find out more, watch our 30-minute webinar about the qualification here: https://www.ism.org/professional-development/webinars/distance
learning-for-music-educators
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Interview: Catherine Arlidge MBE
Q. How did you first get into music? My first experience of music was at my state primary school in London. Everyone learned an instrument - and the music room doubled as the medical room I remember – it smelt of TCP! The teacher played us each a few notes on the piano and we had to say whether they were high or low notes and based on your score at that you got to learn the violin, cello. piano or recorder. Q. What was your first experience of ‘formal’ music education I have my first violin lessons at school and my teacher was called Mr Watmough - he was brilliant teacher who had many excellent pupils, some of whom have gone onto be professional musicians. Q. What do you think you would be doing now if you didn’t have that experience? That is a really tricky thing to imagine - how your life could have been different if you hadn’t had the experiences you did have. I always had an 50 unusual interest in how cities work and what components you need to make a great city. I could have seen myself doing something perhaps to do with the role of the arts and culture in cities.
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Q. You are already a world class performer - why have you chosen to add music education work to your career too? Performing and teaching are 2 components of the same thing for me - sharing what you love with others. I don’t see a divide - they are just different ways of doing the same thing. Q. What can primary teachers do to inspire their pupils to develop their interest / skills in music? The experience of listening to and also participating in live music is key to instilling a passion in children. I am sure a large part of a passion for football for example, is that fans play or have played themselves. Inspiring is about opportunity - to listen, to sing, to play and to create. Finding practical ways to do this is the challenge. One thing I would say is don’t be afraid of the noise - music is noisy! Q. What musical projects have you got coming up that our readers’ pupils could get involved with? Stringcredibles are regularly performing in schools and we also have 16 apprentices this year out and about. I am presenting a CBSO schools concerts based on the Firebird on 27th June, Pre school Notelets concert on 8th & 9th March on a Circus theme, and a Family concert on 2nd June 2 based on Travels in Time.
Catherine Arlidge is a ‘portfolio’ musician, performing many roles including Artistic and Educational Director of the National Children’s Orchestras of GB, CBSO Violinist, Concert Presenter and founder member of The Stringcredibles. In January 2014 Catherine was awarded the Royal Philharmonic Society and The Association of British Orchestras’ Salomon Prize, for devising numerous projects which connect young people with classical music.’ In January 2016 Catherine was awarded an MBE in the Queen’s New Year’s honour list, for services to music education.
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