The recent instrument amnesty by James Rhodes has sparked new interest in music education but is it enough? The "Don't Stop the Music" campaign lead by Mr Rhodes intends to give every child in every school the chance to learn and play an instrument. Whilst this is a noble gesture I fail to see this ever working long term there simply is no room for music in the school day ...or is there? I thoroughly believe all children should have the right to music education. The benefits are immense, building confident young learners, as James Rhodes found out in his very brief encounter with a particular school. I do however sadly believe all his efforts will go to waste as we as a country do not believe in music as a tool for learning it is simply entertaining! Recently a lady contacted me regarding musicianship for her three year old son. She was a little dismayed that after having being at a very well known music franchise for a year and a half, her son had simply learnt nothing. What's more she pointed out that there was no real singing taking place and that a lot of recorded music was played. How happy was I to receive this information? A LOT! Singing is the fastest way to internalise music - I bet some of you can still remember singing games you played in the playground before the political correctness and health and safety police stamped their feet! How good was it to play running, moving, clapping games? I bet you didn't even know you were actually learning and reinforcing pulse, rhythm and pitch! Sadly these games and songs have been phased out so that we are losing many of our beloved historic traditional songs.
Singing use to be a part of normal everyday lives for many, many years - Circle dances, wedding and courtship, skipping, catching and clapping games. Many of these singing games would be used for counting out (one potato, two potato), choosing a leader (Tinker Tailor), role play (Farmers in his Den), Catching (Oranges and Lemons), Skipping (Not last night) Spelling (BINGO).
Each one of these contributes to an area of learning: Building language through variety of songs; Rhyming words; Numeracy (counting beats, counting out); Physical co-ordination with ball games or skipping games - do you remember "Oh the big ship sails" ? Everyone stood in a line, one with their hand against a wall, and everyone would go underneath until eventually everyone would be facing the other way! Not to mention the Social and Emotional aspects - learning to take turns, share, confidence in singing on your own and being part of a cohesive group.
There's no question singing unites people!
You only have to look at the history from children singing in the street; war songs to keep peoples spirits up and unite in the darkest of times; work songs to get people through the toughest days; singing to gain solidarity for various political groups; singing to sooth and comfort. What I love about singing is that everyone can participate in it. It doesn't matter if you have money or not, what your ethnic background is, whether you are young or old, have a disability, singing is for everyone! Singing is something that happens world wide however it is more important or prominent in some countries than others. This is what we should be promoting in schools! Many schools believe they are filling their music quota by singing the odd song about a particular theme or topic e.g the Vikings but it s NOT ENOUGH! Go back in history, re-introduce singing games where movement promotes a feeling for pulse, engages children and is also physical - children need to move! Where rhymes and songs promote learning of language and structure through rhyming! Where songs promote turn taking and confidence in leading, singing solo and sharing! Bring back our traditional songs and games please! It is part of our heritage!
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