Music Programs in Schools

[Mel81x+]

I got off a very interesting Zoom call with a client who said it was Friday so we should can work talk for 10 minutes to talk about something else. Well, it turns out that when he was in school his music teacher told him to learn the trumpet and he took it one step further and started taking courses and doing exams to get to the point where he now moonlights for work and records in studios. 

Now, with the kind of schooling I received, music wasn't actually part of the curriculum but it does beg the question about whether it should be included as part of the curriculum? Putting studies aside, how many schools actually use creative arts as a primer course with children to help build the non-logical side of their brains?

Thoughts? Did you have a music program at school? If so, did it influence you to actually learn an instrument or theory better?

[nudge]

Music was part of the curriculum at my school and as a result I even sang in the school choire for a few years. Learned to read music, play xylophone/glockenspiel and a little bit piano during that time, but never really took it seriously enough to continue with any of it in the future. I do think it's an important part of an all-round balanced education though.

[Dr. Gonzo]

There wasn't a music program at school for me. I wish there had been, though.

[carefreeluke]

I think if I remember correctly, we used to have 1 hour or maybe 2 hours a week. Can't remember what we used to do in the classes, think we were given stuff to attempt to play on the keyboards and recorder etc but it would end up with most people just mucking about or using it has a bit of a free hour. The teacher used to send us in groups outside for projects as well which was just a complete mess around. Must have been a nightmare for the teacher. Looking back at it now, after a full timetable, with subjects like maths, physics and chemistry etc, it must have been good for the mind to have those music classes (same with PE), not that we realised it at the time.

I play the guitar and started in my early teens (I think) but have no idea what got me into that. Definitely an influence was the fact that one of my best mates played but I don't think the music classes had any influence. I was heavily into music as a kid but have no idea where they came from. I was never any good at the guitar as a kid though, I think I liked more the idea of playing than actually doing it. Wasn't until my 20s where I really got into it and made progress.

I see playing an instrument as quite therapeutic so I think it's important for schools to have it as a lesson, particularly when kids have timetables full of heavy subjects. In the same way, Art is probably quite useful for that as well.

[Inverted]

We had free music tuition, ran at the level of the local council. They came around near the end of primary school, gave a basic listening test, and then you might get offered a subsidy to buy either a brass or woodwind instrument to then get free lessons on in high school. We had a regional drum instructor who I also started getting lessons from. It was only two 25 minute lessons a week but it had a huge impact in terms of my general musical education. 

As part of the standard Scottish curriculum, everyone had a few general music classes in the first two years of high school - mostly just learning two chords on guitar, and then messing around with the sound effects on the keyboards. From 3rd-6th year, you would have to actively choose to do music and you moved onto doing it several periods a week. You had to play at least one instrument, so most of the people who picked music were either getting council lessons, though some had private lessons at home.

The level of theory we covered in class was pretty poor. We got taught basic elements of Scottish folk music, the pentatonic scale, how triads worked, and got a rough overview of the stages of classical music. The biggest breakthrough was when my sax teacher taught me how to count the circle of fifths, from then on I was learning far more theory from the internet and from my sax lessons than I was in class. 

It definitely opened up serious musical study to a lot of kids who otherwise would never have gotten seriously into music. Most of us who were active in the music department also tended to excel in school generally, though the causation there probably goes both ways. 

[Mel81x+]

When we were younger the schools offered choir practice on a weekly basis (went to a Catholic school) but that wasn't really music education more like if you can do it then do it otherwise don't. Wasn't until class 4 when my dad told me one summer that I was going to learn a music instrument that I really got some music education. It was weird because I wanted to play the instrument but the instructor I had refused to let me touch it till my theory was solid so we sat there for a week learning to count basic 4/4 rhythms and listening to stuff like Jim Reeves (it was around Xmas I remember). My dad would sit with me and teach me things he learned in school (they grew up in Portuguese run Goa so they were taught theory and instruments way differently) and would teach me advance concepts because I was just curious. 

I thank those fundamentals for why I was able to grasp piano (intermediate), ukulele, guitar, classical guitar and even a Cajon because you immediately recognize your mistakes and have a good foundation to learn pretty much anything. I wouldn't say learning music makes you a better student but I think it does teach you the discipline of learning something in a structured way and you can translate that to anything you want to learn later in the life too. 

If I could give anyone a piece of advice on learning an instrument its that technique can be learned at any stage of the instrument if your fundamentals are strong and fundamentals are not just limited to the instrument your learning but music as a whole. Once you grasp that the sky is the limit for your learning.