Music: it’s a party
MY youngest came out with a classic on her way to school one morning… “I don’t want to do too much practice on my violin, mum,” she said, “because if I get too good at it they might make me be a violinist when I grow up…”
My head positively spun with the multitudinous possible ripostes to that one. One was: ‘If I were you, I would worry more about being made to work at the Ministry of Procrastination and Devious Excuses.’ Or, ‘if we are talking about things you might get too good at if you do too much practice, consider that you might end up as national coach at the Royal Cart-wheeling and Handstands Academy’.
Another answer that springs to mind is that the ‘if’ of “if I get too good at it” is an extremely big ‘if’. Even her own mother will eat an entire hat shop if she turns into a violinist and she can rest assured nobody who likes music will make her become one. And not just because she doesn’t do her practice; you need to be motivated by something other than a desire to have a twice-weekly cuddle with your violin teacher’s kitten. Talent, for one thing.
But I had to laugh, and I did wonder which recessive gene had caused this fear of the music profession. I am the daughter of a man who rejoiced all his life that not only was playing the piano his first love, but he was able to do it for a living. Both my brothers are musicians. I am also a kind of a musician. It is not just my side of the family. My husband is a good musician. Our other daughter is doing quite well on two instruments. Where did we go wrong?
Well of course that’s the wrong question. It is not her fault she is surrounded by musical activity on all fronts and hardly any wonder she wants to be different. But the correct question is the one about the best way to inject music into our children’s lives. If educationists took any notice of recent research into the beneficial effects of giving musical training to young children, the discipline of music would be up there with mathematics in the classroom. But it is not. Music is skimped on in our European national curricula and it falls to motivated parents to provide a supplement outside school.
This is very difficult because virtue is not its own reward. Practicing studies, scales and arpeggios to nobody but the unfriendly music stand and a nagging parent can be arduous and boring and seems to have little to do with the enjoyable social activity that music is supposed to be. Suzuki was right: children also need to make music in a group to balance all that solitary endeavor. One night this week a very mixed bunch of friends came round and we sang some Christmas music and some madrigals. All united by the activity of singing and – later – of eating and drinking – and, ok, it might not be your cup of tea, but we all had a great time. I would like my children to get that message. Music is fun stuff you do with other people. It’s a party.
Unfortunately If you want to go to that party you will have to buy a ticket. Practice is not really meant to be fun any more than maths homework and writing up chemistry experiments. Yet it can be made lots more enjoyable with the application of a little Mary Poppins imagination that says that in every job that’s to be done there is an element of fun. Ideas to make practice fun are on the internet passim. Try www.practicespot.com. As well as games, you can build in targets and rewards and, possibly bribes, and ok, why not threaten to take away the Gameboy sometimes.
Our older daughter owns a beanie baby called Jonathan Rat, named after a piece of music that she learnt to play when she was little, in order to win him. Later in life if she gets any pleasure out of playing in amateur orchestras and spending evenings playing string quartets she can thank her parents for their wily ways. No wonder music was, for centuries, a profession that was passed down through families. What about all those generations of the Bach family… but I’ll bet one of even JS Bach’s twenty children was a little Miss Bach who preferred cartwheeling.
