Maximising participation in musical instrument playing.

Peter Cope

Department of Education

University of Stirling

Paper presented at the British Educational Research Association Annual Conference

(September 11-14 1997: University of York)

In a piece of research such as this, it is important to declare oneÕs own perspective. In one sense, I am testing out a set of claims about instrument teaching. But, as in other areas of education, it is far from straightforward to find any objective measurement of effectiveness. The claims may be judged by their theoretical underpinning but the writerÕs subjectivity has a significant influence on them and on their testing. This paper is concerned with learning to play a musical instrument. Its origins are partly in my own keen (but somewhat clumsy) efforts as an amateur musician and partly in my childrenÕs rather more effective musicianship. Their expertise is in playing traditional fiddle which they have mastered to the extent of having something of celebrity status among local traditional music outlets. My interest in this area has made me an observer of how children learn (or more often donÕt learn) to play instruments. I have also gathered a number of other children as pupils (in addition to those reported as part of the study in this paper) although I have no formal qualifications in music and my own fiddle playing is indifferent, even on a good day. Playing music is essentially a physical skill and its development requires regular practice. While this seems an obvious assertion, it is my contention that instrument teaching often fails to take any responsibility for ensuring that this practice takes place. This is partly to do with the type of music upon which the teaching is usually focused. (Because I am about to be critical, I want to emphasise that I am an enthusiastic supporter of school music and I never fail to be impressed by the scope and quality of school shows and other musical productions. I also appreciate the enormous effort, always well above the call of duty, which goes into them. )

Many schools aspire to an orchestra. It has become something of a performance indicator which tells us something about the school ethos, and as such it is universally regarded as a Ôgood thingÕ. Observing one in action, however, raises a number of questions about the assumptions which underlie this view. Classical music requires a high degree of precision and skill before it rises above sounding grim. Novice orchestras often choose slow pieces because they are easier to play but are then faced with the difficulty that slow classical music requires good tone production and precision of intonation, each of which is among the more difficult aspects of instrument playing, particularly in the strings. Among the assumptions which underlie the orchestral ambition is the suitability or indeed the superiority of classical music as the mainstay of the repertoire. This means that children will be playing music which is probably unfamiliar to them and to their families, an outcome which doesnÕt seem to be a sensible way of ensuring the motivation and the support required for regular practice. School concerts which take place in this mould are surrounded by all the formality of the events which they are imitating but occur in a social context which is very different. The majority of the audience in the average school concert would almost certainly prefer to listen to some other style of music. Given the recent interest in learning as a process of acculturation (Lave and Wenger, 1991) and the emphasis on appropriate socio-cultural context by writers such as Rogoff (1990), the cultural detachment of this sort of activity looks conspicuous. (This observation isnÕt new. Thede (1970) describes the reaction to her performance of a violin piece by Weiniawski at the PTA of an Oklahoma high school. For her, it proved to be the start of a long interest in traditional fiddle playing.)

There are other features of this focus on the classical repertoire which underline its socio-cultural and educational incongruity. One of the effects that the orchestra has is to ensure that there is a range of provision in terms of tuition and the availability of instruments. An orchestra requires viola players, bassoon players, cello players as well as first violins, trumpets and the others which normally Ôplay the tuneÕ. On the face of it, this is a laudable example of educational breadth but it raises questions about the outcome for the individual musicians concerned. Very few school instrument players aspire to become professional classical musicians, but what role is there for viola players once they leave school? Will they form a string quartet or find an amateur orchestra in which to play? There is no formal research to answer this question but I have met a significant number of people who learned to play an instrument at school only to abandon it completely once they have left. My guess is that most people give up once they leave school and find no social context for their skill. (I should add that I am not against school orchestras as such, only on their distorting effect. An ensemble instrument should normally be the second instrument a child learns.)

There is one further problem about this focus on classical music. As far as instrumental tuition is concerned, the goal, implicit or explicit, is to produce a concert player. Again, although metaphors of ÔexcellenceÕ might make this appear to be a worthwhile venture, it has a number of consequences which are unfortunate. Classical instrument playing requires a technical virtuosity which is beyond the ambition of most people. It has been estimated that a professional musician completes over 10,000 hours of practice by the age of 21. While I firmly believe that this level of skill is theoretically attainable by most people, the plain fact is that most of us are not that interested. None of the parents that I have spoken to about their aspirations regarding their childrenÕs instrument playing were interested in this sort of dedication. They wanted their children to be socially competent players - to be able to play a half-decent tune at social occasions without embarrassment. This latter is practically attainable - it requires a modest amount of regular practice. The problem is that if the former is the yardstick, then most children are going to fail by comparison.

To summarise, focus on the classical tradition has a number of important implications for the way in which instruments are played in schools.

1) The emphasis is on music which is not familiar to most children or to their families.

2) Classical playing requires a much greater degree of precision and skill than is realistic for most amateurs

3) Only children with a particular motivation and aptitude are considered capable of learning to play so there is a selection process. As in all selection, the question arises as to the effects on those not selected, especially since the tests are almost certainly of dubious validity.

4) A significant proportion of children are steered into ensemble instruments which have little role outside classical music.

Part of the debate about the importance of social context in education has been about the nature of school learning. Resnick (1987), for example, discusses differences between learning in school and learning in the wider culture which centre around the decontexualised nature of school. Brown et al (1988) describe the culture of schools as ÔersatzÕ in contrast to the authentic contexts in which learning takes place outside school. Music is a social activity which forms a significant part of many peopleÕs lives but, for the most part, their participation is confined to listening. Other social activities such as sport are seen as much more accessible to amateurs, who can learn the skills of football, for example, by practising them from an early age. Football is seen as accessible to all (male) youngsters in Scotland. That this accessibility is possible in instrument playing is illustrated by the significant number of self-taught folk and pop musicians. [The differences between the traditional/folk musicians and their classical counterparts is discussed in a forthcoming article (Cope and Smith 1997).]

There is a wide variety of alternatives to classical school music in Scotland, such as folk clubs, strathspey and reel societies, pipe bands, and a rich tradition of fiddle playing which has variants in different geographical areas. For many people, it is this sort of music which is more interesting and relevant to their lives having, as it does, a firm basis in local and national culture. For the past year, I have been participating in a fiddle group which is designed to tap into the culture of traditional, rather than classical, music. One of its aims is to increase the participation rate to above the 10% of children which seems to be the average for school instrument playing. The fiddle group is based around a local primary school and holds a weekly meeting in the school at which the fiddlers come to learn to play new tunes. There is no formal teaching and there are no formally qualified instrument teachers. There are a number of older children who have been playing for longer and one or two adults who can play to varying degrees of competence and between them they help to teach the children to play. The basic principle is to try to make playing the fiddle feel like a culturally authentic activity for the children involved. There are a number of strategies which underpin the fiddle groupÕs activities.

  • There is no selection - any children in the eligible age range (they can start in the 3rd year of the primary school) can join the group. Participation at the moment is running at around 50% of the eligible children. This has required a bit of fund-raising but many parents have been willing to buy fiddles and the group was given a generous start-up grant by the local community council so no interested child has been turned away for want of a fiddle.
  • The focus is firmly on traditional music rather than classical. There is no intention to foster the development of classical violinists and this is understood by all the participants. If they want to learn to play the violin (as opposed to the fiddle) they go somewhere else. The goal is to produce competent amateur fiddle players, not expert professional classical violinists.
  • The medium by which the children learn to play is the tune, rather than the exercise or the scale. The tunes are all real, in the sense of being genuine Scottish, Irish (or American) fiddle tunes.
  • The emphasis is on learning by ear although the group started with a simple notation and has now moved onto conventional music. Each member was given a tape recording of the tunes to facilitate this process.
  • Parents have been encouraged to participate by learning to play an instrument themselves and eight of them have become regular members. One or two brave souls have taken up the fiddle but several have dug out old guitars which they strummed in their youth. One has bought a banjo and another, a mandolin so that they can play with their children but on what they perceive to be less demanding instruments.
  • Parents and children have been encouraged to form practice groups. Rather than rely on the solitary daily practice, there are a number of groups which meet play together several times each week. Some parents organise a group between them on a rotational basis so that they only have to host the group once per week. But one parent takes a practice group of around 6 children every morning before school.
  • The group regularly performs to the community. It has taken part in three concerts (one of which was entirely fiddle-group based) and it has also played at a local Old PeoplesÕ Home. A source of some excitement currently is an impending performance at a nearby Gaelic Society. These performances are seen as crucial to giving the group a sense of cultural location.
  • Group cohesion and parental interest is fostered by a newsletter which is published every 6 weeks.

Judging the success of the group is clearly a subjective matter. In spite of the lack of selection and the high participation rate, there have been only three drop-outs from the 25 or so children who started but these have been more than compensated for by children wanting to join. Participation is, therefore, still running at around 50% of eligible children. There seems to be no formal research on the drop-out rate from conventional school instrument teaching but anecdotal evidence suggests that it can be higher than we have experienced. Progress in terms of musical and technical skill is varied, depending on a number of factors which are discussed elsewhere (Cope, 1997). There is a substantial core of highly motivated children who practise regularly and a smaller group whose attendance is less impressive and whose progress is sporadic. But the capacity to put on a successful concert of 90 minutes duration after only eight months says something about the competence of the children. Given that one of the key factors in developing instrument playing skills is practice, the practice groups and the parental involvement are making significant contributions. (I am optimistic about the future of the group. The quality of some of the playing is such that recently, a guitar-playing parent turned to me during a practice session and said ÔWeÕre actually playing musicÕ. We may even play some classical music - after weÕve got to an appropriate level of competence.)

Instrument teaching is in some difficulty in Scotland following recent cuts to local authority budgets which have resulted in cutback in provision or in substantial increases in tuition fees. I must emphasise that this paper is not intended to suggest that instrument teachers are dispensable. The lack of formal lessons in the fiddle group is a result of necessity rather than of choice and combining the above factors with some good coaching would, I suspect, be highly effective. I would argue that the reason for the vulnerability of musical instrument teaching is that its lack of contact with local and national culture has made it a peripheral and elite activity. I would suggest that if instrument teaching really had struck a chord with local culture, then its dismantling would be regarded as unthinkable. But it has chosen to focus largely on classical music (or jazz) and to react defensively to charges of elitism rather than to regard them as a stimulus to re-appraisal. Thomson (1989), for example, reacts to the `oft-repeated charge of elitism' which is levelled at instrument teaching by saying that the alternative is to conclude that instrument tuition has no place in the equal-opportunity philosophy of state education. On the basis of our experience with the fiddle group, I disagree - the alternative is to stop being elitist.

References

Brown, J.S., Collins, A. & Duguid, P. (1988) Situated Cognition and the Culture of Learning. Tech. Rep. No. IRL 88-0088. Institute for Research on Learning.

Cope P. (1997) Knowledge, Meaning and Ability in Musical Instrument Teaching and Learning, Unpublished MS. University of Stirling.

Cope, P. & Smith, H. (1997) Cultural context in musical instrument learning. British Journal of Music Education, in press.

Lave, J. & Wenger , E. (1991) Situated learning: Legitimate peripheral participation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Resnick, L.B. (1987) Learning in school and out. Educational Researcher, 16, 13-20.

Thede, M. (1970) The Fiddle Book. New York: Oak Publications

Thomson, W. (1989) Instrument Music Teaching in Schools. Music Teacher, 68, 21-22.

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