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Mu-Sly

Digital Audio Science

School music education, or how to castrate a creative subject : articles

School music education, or how to castrate a creative subject

Posted Thursday 5th May 2005

It's election day, so naturally instead of talking about the election, I'm going to tell you a music-related story from my childhood. (This follows on from an Ampfea.org Music Bar thread.)

One day after school, when I was about 11 years old, I got told off by the headmaster of my junior school for taking a bunch of small orchestral drums (used for the school orchestra) out of the cupboard, and arranging them around each other so I could try and play some beats.

I didn't really know what I was doing at the time, but there was a snare drum and a couple of kid's orchestral floor drums, a bit like floor toms, and some rather battered looking cymbals on low stands.

I was busily rocking out with my "drum kit" when the headmaster came running in and said something along the lines of "What on earth do you think you are doing making that racket? That's certainly not what I would consider music!!!"

I consider that unnecessarily harsh on an 11 year old trying to be musically creative, and have never forgotten it. Basically, I was there doing my thing, and got shot down in flames for trying to figure out my musical urges. I also got told off quite a few times in secondary school music lessons by teachers who simply didn't understand my creativity.

There was the module on Indian music where we had to try and make something Indian sounding, but being unable to speak the language, we decided to at least try and sing in the right style, and got totally torn to shreds because the teacher thought we weren't taking things seriously!!

Honestly, most kids don't really seem to get into music at school, and the ones that are totally into it get told off by teachers that don't understand. I'd love to shake some creativity back into school music - I could be one of the best creative inspirers around for kids itching to have a go with music, if it wasn't for the fact that my lack of technical qualifications in almost irrelevant music theory and so on would prevent me from being able to get a job doing it.

Lack of formal qualifications in a creative discipline... what a joke. Who is to say "this is music, this is not" or "you are a musician, you are not"...? Kids should be given access to instruments and encouraged to experiment and see what they can come up with, not forced into a rigid creativity-stifling programme. Real musicianship is about creativity - not following recipes, but coming up with new and interesting things - yet this is barely present in school musical education.

This whole scenario illustrates why I am sick to death of drone-like eliteist snobs teaching "creative" subjects in school, because unless you are a really determined kid, you can be shot down over and over for being creative, and how are you supposed to know any better at the time? Someone says "that's not music, that's crap" and you go "sorry sir" and never dare do it again?

I was chastised enough times during music lessons, and the ironic thing was, it was always at the point of a realisation, where I momentarily glimpsed musical creative nirvana and felt like I had done something cool, especially at points where I'd gone a lot further ahead than any of my classmates had managed to.

I'd almost managed to forget what a raw nerve this topic strikes with me, but every so often the sheer frustration comes back and needs venting. They teach kids about orchestras and treble clefs and crotchets and so on, but completely miss out on all the kinds of stuff that kids would love to know about, such as how to jam with electric guitars, drum beats, record scratching, synthesizers that make cool noises and so on... why the hell are those any less valid in school music?

What a load of bullshit. High time to put the creativity back in and get kids thinking and expressing themselves properly in their musical education.

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