Musical Note

When I was a very young child, my very tolerant grandparents would allow me to mess around with their upright piano. My aunt had been a prodigious talent on the violin and someone who apparently ought to know this sort of thing had declared that I had 'musical ears'. I certainly had very large ears - resembling, from birth, a sort of ginger-haired toby-jug. I have no idea whether there is any real correlation. Nonetheless, I seemed to find it relatively easy to hear a tune and then pick it out, clumsily, with my right hand.

When my grandparents moved house, they allowed me to have the piano - much to the chagrin of my parents, my siblings and indeed most of the people on our road. I had, by this time, developed an unhealthy obsession with Les Miserables and was determined to be able to play the full score.

The ageing piano itself proved most obliging. I was comfortable, as many are, playing in the key of C major, where accidentals are few and far between and one can fudge the harmony with relative ease. Sensing the need to push me from my comfort zone, however, the piano withdrew the functionality of its central F key. No matter, I determined, I shall play in G instead. Middle C threw in the towel a few weeks later and so I progressed to the key of D. And so it went on, my fingers wrapping themselves around more and more complicated modulations and transpositions through necessity rather than through any skill.

While any moderately normal or sensible person might have been dismayed at the slow dilapidation of the instrument, I was both fascinated by and addicted to this ongoing process of problem-solving - more than that, I had begun to find that music, both that transcribed by others and that which I clunkily improvised myself had become a vital emotional outlet. I still feel exactly the same today.

Pupils who learn music - both in terms of the curriculum subject at school and in terms of instrumental lessons - are not simply learning to shape sound. This, in and of itself, is an extraordinary skill. They are also gaining a whole panoply of virtues that will equip them for life well beyond the concert hall.

The child who takes up the violin, for example, learns exceptional patience (as must their parents). It takes years before the inexpert scraping of bow against cat-gut (which comes, obviously, from sheep) begins to approach something pleasant sounding and still more years before technical accuracy can be imbued with expression and emotion.

Performing on stage in front of one's peers is no more about improving technique and sound quality than it is about building confidence, in anticipating, accepting and rectifying mistakes and - on some occasions, where auditions come into it - about dealing with rejection.

Then there is critical theory. While English teachers the world over labour strenuously to help pupils articulate their emotional responses to Lennie's death or generate creative responses to Titania's soliloquy, pupils who study music are, by necessity, understanding style and making their own performance choices. It comes naturally as part of the process of musical education.

Music is about interacting with the creations of others - about taking stimulus and developing it - about understanding yourself through outward expression.

One colleague, when I informed them that we would be holding a Gala concert as part of the Summer School programme, was so amused that they quite literally spat out their coffee. To my mind, however, there is nothing more natural to include as part of the offering - finding joy together through music-making, whatever the quality, is a proven and powerful educational tool and it would be madness not to employ it!