Maoin Cheoil na Gaillimhe
Newsletter Dec 2010 Issue 2
Welcome to our Christmas newsletter, in this time of uncharacteristically harsh weather and the prospect of equally harsh financial times ahead for all. Classes at MCnG continued as normal for the week except for Tues 30th Dec when we made the decision to close and the Sat Colourstrings classes which were cancelled due to teacher illness. All these classes will be replaced by us at a future time. Also cancelled was the concert to be given by Marie Zichova. Marie suffered a family bereavement and had to return home and we all extend to her and her family our most sincere condolences.
Classes will continue up to, and including Tues 21st Dec and then the school will close for Christmas. We re-open on Mon 10th Jan for the last week of the current semester.
Concert for Goal
Our evening in the Meyrick hotel was an unforgettable occasion. The music was superb throughout and though the turnout was not what we would have hoped for, it is planned to make the concert a part of the annual calendar. Hopefully the next event will not be so marred by terrible weather conditions. €900 was raised for Goal and we hope to add considerably to this in the New Year when the song for Goal written by Martina Flaherty goes on general release.
Colourstrings Party
Our Colourstrings classes come to an end on the 18th of Dec and it is planned that there will be a party for all Colourstrings students at 3pm that day. The plan for the day is to fill them full of sugar and ‘E’ numbers, get them really excited and then send them home for a lovely evening with their parents......
And I can confirm that a certain gentleman with a domicile in the North Pole will be making an appearance.
Internet access.
After some considerable delay we are finally in a position to deliver on our promise to provide libraries for student usage. The internet offers a wide range of free sites already for the use of students and many of them are particularly useful from a teaching perspective. In particular to a school of music though there are some sites that represent a rich and thorough source of information and, these, we feel, are of immense benefit, so we purchased licences for them. They are the Grove encyclopaedia of music plus accompanying dictionaries and Naxos music library which has about 710,000 tracks of music for listening. To access these sites go to www.mcng.ie then click on the online resource button. The highlighted text which states Maoin Cheoil na Gaillimhe student resource is next and then a dialogue box appears. The user name you will employ is ‘student’ and the password is 0xf0rd_123. Note that in 0xf0rd the 0 is a zero on the numeric pad. This will allow you full access to our libraries and we do hope you will enjoy them. The password will change each semester.
Instrument bursaries
The School of Music now has in its possession a number of instruments that will be awarded to students in the New Year. Currently that list includes a solid silver flute courtesy of AIB which will be awarded to a deserving student early in January. There is also a double bass which is going to be part of a larger scholarship to include free classes in addition to the use of the bass. Updates regarding the awarding of the bursaries and details of how to register an interest in applying for them will appear on our Facebook page over the holiday period and early in the New Year.
Second Semester
The school will commence the second semester of teaching on the week of the 17th Jan. There are a few classes missed that will need to be made up but there is an allowance for this at the end of the year and a record of all missed classes by staff is logged in the office. In the unfortunate event that it is not possible to make up for lost time then the school will offer a full refund to the students for missed lessons. This option should not be required though except in extreme circumstances.
Fees for the second semester will remain unchanged. The annual registration fee has already been collected so that will not appear on invoices. The full schedule of costs appears on the MCnG website in case parents need to calculate them. We recognise that there was some delay with the issuing of invoices in the first semester that led to late payments. We have redesigned our invoicing system in the past couple of months and will be able to deliver them in a timely fashion this semester. We would ask that parents pay their fees within the grace period of three weeks and point out that after that time it remains at our discretion to withdraw classes.
We also understand that there can be difficulties, particularly at this time for some families. Our commitment is to ensure that students can avail of the opportunity to learn music and so we do have a range of payment options available and in limited cases of genuine hardship we do consider assisting financially if we can. Our budget is not government subsidised so the amount of help we can offer is far short of what we would like to be able to do, but we would appeal to parents to come and speak with us in private if they wish.
Adult Orchestra
We constantly hear stories from parents about how they themselves had spent years learning an instrument only for it to go nowhere. Well now we can report that in January, Mr. David Clarke is going to launch an orchestra for adults in the school. This group will be open to all to come and play. Those who are students of the school already will be offered this for free and for everybody else there is a fee of €10 for the entire semester to cover admin costs. Weekly practises will take place on Friday evenings at 7pm. So if you learnt as a student and would like to return to playing then maybe this is the way to do it. Music reading is a must but the standard of performance required is from the very basic level up to about grade 6 of 7. Not that anyone of a higher playing standard would ever be turned away just that this is where the music level will be pitched. It promises to be as much a social occasion each week as an environment to perform, and David is a particularly fine musician with a flair for working with adults which will add greatly to the whole experience. Call the school on 091 528965 to register your interest.
Mandolin Prize
In support of the new school of music, Mr. Kieran Moloney very generously offered a prize of a mandolin for a radio competition on Radio na Gaeltachta. This was won by Mr Darach O’Conlain from Spiddal and we have rarely seen anyone so happy to win a prize. We hope it will bring him great joy for many years to come and we want to thank Kieran for this wonderful contribution. You can visit his shop on high street in Galway or you can also visit his new web site on www.moloneymusic.com
Parents Question
This month’s question refers to discipline. The basic question of discipline is not generally an issue in a school of music, as most lessons are individual, and, as such, easily ‘controlled’ by a teacher. This is often helped by the fact that a student wants to be at the class. Rarely today do we encounter the often told story of the student who hates being there but his parents are making him attend.
Still there are times when a discipline issue arises either in the context of an individual class, or, more commonly in a group lesson. When this arises, it is brought to the attention of the school director. School policy is that all such matters are dealt with through the office. This avoids having the teacher engage in situations which may compromise the relationship they work hard to build with each student.
Once an issue has been logged in the office we try to open a dialogue with the parents involved and experience thus far has been that when parents are made aware of an issue the matter is instantly resolved. That is certainly the manner in which we prefer to operate, and thus far the response from parents has been wonderful. Yes it is possible for a teacher to address the issue at a lesson but this is time they must then take away from teaching. If this happens during a group lesson then the entire group suffers while the teacher is dealing with a problem.
The type of issues we encounter is usually related to over excitement, or an extreme eagerness to ‘perform’, and the consequent disruption is a nuisance. It must be pointed out though, that if a situation did arise where a show of aggression or anger resulted in any form of physical contact with another student or teacher, the result would be immediate dismissal from the school.