To elaborate a bit on my previous blog regarding the education system , it’s often the case that because of spending cuts the first thing to suffer are music lessons. I’m not absolutely sure what it’s like in schools now, but when I was at primary school I had one-to-one violin lessons ( the school provided the instruments and the teacher also travelled to my grammar school in later years to teach me, as there wasn’t a violin tutor there). Interested children could have also had individual piano, viola or recorder lessons. I played my violin in the orchestra, sung in choirs, and generally felt that my musical nature was well catered for in my primary school, and also when I changed schools to a comprehensive after a house move in my teenage years (the grammar school catered for more academic children).
Fast forward to today’s schools, and there is sometimes only one peripatetic music teacher travelling around different schools. Parents are desperate to see their little treasures on Facebook playing a Mozart sonata , and so often pay for private music lessons outside of school hours. My parents didn’t have to do this for me, but having one very musical child and a jealous brother, I paid for both of them to have piano lessons. We had a piano at home and although there wasn’t Facebook then, the thought of my little treasures playing an excerpt from Swan Lake for example in front of the relatives spurred me on to part with my money.
This outlay was a total waste of hard-earned cash. The very musical child was bored, and he and his brother did not want to practise in their spare time, and the thought of playing to the rellies did not fill them with delight either. The musical child’s brother did better at the piano funnily enough, until the time came when he decided that enough was enough and closed the lid for good. The very musical child announced that he wanted to learn to play the guitar instead.
So every Saturday morning for about 3 years we took number 2 son to the guitar tutor. Number 1 son discovered girls, alcohol and motorbikes, while number 2 son honed his guitar skills. He started up a band in the garage, mastered the intricacies of guitar solos and pinched harmonics, and ended his musical career aged 25 just before fatherhood by touring with his band for a month supporting a well-known musician on his UK tour, and living his rock ‘n’ roll dream (which he found out was not as glamorous as he’d first thought). By then he had also taught himself to play the piano by ear, never reading a note of music.
All this taught me something: Unless the kid has a talent, is motivated, and actually wants to learn to play a particular musical instrument, expensive music lessons are a total waste of time and money!
SMITA SUN said:
The arts nurture the mind and feed the soul
http://bit.ly/2O3s7Mw
LikeLike
Stevie Turner said:
They do. Thanks for your comment.
LikeLike
dgkaye said:
So true! 😉
LikeLiked by 1 person
Jennie said:
A great post, Stevie. The arts are important and are sorely ignored in schools. How is a parent to know if their child is interested and has talent if they haven’t been introduced to music in school? Spend the money when the child wants it and has the talent.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Stevie Turner said:
Thanks for your comment Jennie, with which I agree!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Jennie said:
You’re welcome! 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
franklparker said:
Lea said :’The arts nurture the mind and feed the soul. Sports fuel competative behaviors, “beat or be beaten.”’. I so agree! The front page of our.local paper this week has a photograph of a young man with his wife and toddler son. His face is battered and bruised and he is being hailed as a hero because he won a brutal boxing match in Tokyo and became World Champion (whatever that means, so far as I can gather there are multiple ‘World championships’ in this ‘sport’!). What that poor child will grow up believing about violence does not bear thinking about.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Stevie Turner said:
The more aggressive types usually gravitate towards boxing. I don’t agree with it as a sport, but perhaps if two Neanderthals are in a boxing ring punching each other’s lights out, then they’re not mugging old ladies in the street.
LikeLike
Phil Huston said:
Don’t get me started. Yeah, maybe on the waste of time. But the background noise from music lessons has a lifelong halo. I didn;t have talent, nor was I motivated because every time I sat down at the piano I heard it all, the entire arrangement, in my head, and consequently beat the crap out of it when I sat down. Had someone with any insight said “Get that boy some theory and arranging lessons” instead of “Why doesn’t he want to play Moonlight Sonata” or shown me counterpoint line by line and told me what it was I would have been less frustrated and learned those skills before I was older. But I could read music, appreciate music, couldn’t count until I got a drum machine because of years of solo lounge-y piano playing and music lessons, getting buried in sound and staff does things to your thinking. I used to do synth/sequencer demos and people would get lost because they didn’t have a clue how a song went, but they could sight read Mozart. So there’s a fine line between music lessons and music, a muso and a player. And everyone should have a couple of years of exposure just so they don’t fall victim to having the cultural depth of mayonnaise because what they know of music is subculturally narrow and pop. Eddie Van Halen can’t read music, never had aproper guitar lesson. He faked his way through his piano lessons with his ear and his father exposed him to all kinds of music. He is a vehicle, just like child prodigies the likes of Herbie Hancock and Mozart. But without the exposure he could easily have been swayed by any number of less productive diversions. I would never have fallen head over heels in love with a synthesizer had I not been exposed to all kinds of music and wanted to create that big sound. Nor would I have know how a song was supposed to go, or about timing or rhythm or all the things a writer needs as well. Kids need exposure, whether they groove or bail. Hey, Dave Brubeck’s college didn’t want to graduate him because they felt he might be an embarrassment, but his counterpoint compositions were excellent, so they gave him a pass. It’s not the education, it’s the exposure and the person. And everyone needs it. He said, hammering it home. Again.
So music in schools. Yes.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Stevie Turner said:
Wow – fantastic comment! Thanks.
LikeLike
Smorgasbord - Variety is the Spice of Life. said:
We didn’t have any instruments at our primary school except some whistles and a couple of drums.. or at my secondary school. But there was singing and we had three lessons a week which was great. Loved being part of the choir and it required no financial outlay except sometimes money for bus fare.. Another terrific post in addition to the previous one.. thanks Sally
LikeLike
Stevie Turner said:
I was lucky in that my primary school catered for musical children very well. Unsurprisingly the grammar school I attended from ages 11 – 12 had hardly any music appreciation lessons at all, maybe only one per week. The comprehensive I attended from ages 13 – 18 had an orchestra, a choir, and a madrigal group. We were encouraged to take part in big productions every year, for instance Carmina Burana, The Pirates of Penzance and The Gondoliers to name but a few.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Smorgasbord - Variety is the Spice of Life. said:
It wasn’t till I went to technical college that I was offered drama classes and had a lead role in a musical.. it was a revelation.. xxx
LikeLiked by 1 person
Stevie Turner said:
There were drama classes at my comprehensive school, but I wasn’t really into that.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Léa said:
The arts are always the first to suffer educational cutbacks. No worries, sports will never share that fate. No doubt you can tell my feelings on this issue…
The arts nurture the mind and feed the soul. Sports fuel competative behaviors, “beat or be beaten.”
LikeLiked by 2 people
Stevie Turner said:
I share your opinion. Music lessons in schools are obviously not rated very highly. This affects the very musical children quite badly, whose parents cannot afford private lessons. They end up with no encouragement to build on their talent.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Léa said:
Absolutely.
LikeLiked by 1 person