As I write this article I am in the Upper Hunter Valley running workshops and visiting schools to talk to their principals about a major musical project sponsored by a coal mine which I am developing across this area.
In the course of today I hosted a school concert where I explained to the kindergarten class what a trumpet is and how the sound on the flute is made. I have suggested to the members of the Singleton Public School Band that they position their stands and chairs so they can see the conductor and encouraged the saxophone players to sit on the edge of their chairs and not to twist themselves into unnatural positions. I have helped a young trumpet player to learn “The Last Post” in preparation for his important performance on ANZAC Day and I have fixed a girl’s clarinet that has had a bent key for well over a year.
Being a normal day in a school, I had to send search parties out on numerous occasions to fetch the next student who had forgotten their lesson with me. I mused on the amount of time wasted by school instrumental music teachers around the world in any one day whilst they look for their next student and how horrified their parents would be if they knew how often their children missed large chunks of their music lessons! Today I taught a number of delightful students who arrived with their instruments but no music, and this evening I will judge a school house music competition and will hopefully put the school rock bands in the right order. Tomorrow, at the local primary school, I will help to start some young players off on their musical journey by showing them how to play notes on their new, shiny instruments and the woodwind ‘masterclass’ at 9am will be a great opportunity for young musicians to play me their favourite pieces from their band method.
In many respects all of these activities sit at the bottom of the musical food chain and for most music teachers, as they establish themselves and develop their well earned reputations, the sooner they can distance themselves from this the better. I can understand this attitude but it is essential to take a much broader view of the big picture.
If the young players who are starting to learn now are inspired and well taught, they will form the basis of their school’s training band. If they receive enough parental encouragement they will then take their place in the senior band, eventually replacing the senior players who leave each year for High School. Today’s starters will then head off to High School and how happy will their new school music teacher be to welcome such committed and able musicians to join in the school’s activities.
Some of today’s beginners will join their town band and some may make their way eventually to the Newcastle Conservatorium. Upon graduation they will need a job and it is likely that they may well come back to the Upper Hunter and start the next crop of young musicians on their journey. This is not idle day-dreaming on my part – this is what happens, as I have been around long enough to see this cycle occur many times. Maybe I am fortunate to be in a position to see this but as music teachers it makes much more sense of what we do if we can take this very broad view.
In my next article I will be able to write about two masterclasses – one I am giving in London at the Royal Academy of Music and the other that I am involved with from the Royal College of Music back to my students at Auckland University in New Zealand …. Yes, all part of the same musical food chain!