Cosmic Performance

A Christmas gift I have been reading is Kadiatu Kanneh-Mason’s book ‘House of Music.’ I am both inspired and intimidated by this beautiful woman as she describes her early years and her life bringing up her gifted and brilliant children. Although I haven’t yet finished it, themes that are emerging are; Kaidatu and her husband Stuart were always going to make a tremendous success of their lives - both are extraordinarily clever, driven and motivated. Crucially however they are more than this - most of what has been achieved has been through clear vision and sheer hard graft. Their offspring - although blessed with unusual talents - have begun their high-flying careers in such a way because they have become used to a much higher than usual work ethic. Boring isn’t it? Most of us don’t want to hear that bit. We want to be told the fairy tale that a child has been born with unbelievable talents and could miraculously play with staggering technique and expression whilst the music just poured out of their bodies. The truth however is much more dull; the average professional musician will have done at least 10,000 hours of practice and a virtuoso is likely to have completed more like 40,000 hours before their career is well and truly launched. Teaching has demonstrated to me the rather tedious truth that my most successful pupils may have a degree of natural ability, but will only really make progress when they put in the time.

Just before Christmas, we decided to enter our kids for grade 6 on trombone and grade 5 on trumpet respectively. It seemed like the right thing to do; 2020 was a difficult year to find motivation and it felt good for all of us to focus on something. It was to take place online (in other words from home) and - surprise surprise - once there was a deadline and the kids started to do some regular practice, tone and technique improved. When it came to the day itself I needed to accompany them (I am a crap pianist) and we had to fiddle about trying to set up a device to record, making sure they were warmed up, working on achieving relaxed concentration etc. Needless to say tension was high. Our youngest, who aspires to becoming an actor used this as an opportunity to practice all his angst-driven poses and cliched dramatic phrases, throwing himself about with exaggerated gestures. As I can’t stand melodrama I sent him out for a walk whilst we attempted to record our older child. True to form for an average fourteen year old, he was sullen, monosyllabic and claimed to be exhausted after minuscule effort. Eventually however, the deed was done and after a significant amount of bribery both exams were recorded. Poor old Big C had to spend most of the next day attempting to upload these and send them off with all the correct information. There was much effing and blinding, it cost us a fortune and the experience left us in a foul mood. So - not for the first time - I found myself asking what was the point of all this?

From a teaching point of view, the answer is obvious; pupils and teachers alike need to have a clear sense of direction, motivation and a sense of having achieved - essentially safe in the knowledge that they have passed a course of study. Equally however, I am conscious that more than ever, we are competing with woeful underfunding in state schools, the other, instant gratifications of a crazy world, and exhausted and stressed parents who can’t find the time and motivation to support music study. It may be a battle we lose. The stark truth is, music these days is rarely the centre of a child’s life and less than one percent of all of our pupils will go onto study music full-time. So the question needs to be asked ‘what are we actually training them to do?’ My answer is that we are training them to be good amateurs, and we need to be giving them the skills to do that. I would argue that the exam boards, although making some efforts to adapt and improve haven’t grasped that yet. One of those boards, who seem to believe they are the ‘gold standard’ routinely make absurd technical demands on players at all levels. It contradicts itself by on the one hand saying that the exam is entirely about music performance and on the other making near impossible demands by asking for scales that wouldn’t even be used in the profession, let alone by someone who wants to play in their average local town band. I also object to the examinee (usually a child) having to articulately describe points of musical style which they may neither know or give a shit about (free dissonance anyone?). The calibre of some of the examiners can also be questionable; has anyone ever asked why so many of them are organists? I’ll tell you why; because the aural tests are very difficult to play consistently and repeatedly, so the pool of musicians having to be drawn on is terribly limited and narrow. Don’t get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with keyboardists of any description supplementing their income with practical examining, but it seems obvious that musicians of all instruments need to be doing this work if we are to get the broader opinions of the music profession. Nowadays this isn’t difficult to solve; technology can be used for aural tests or any other supporting tests deemed appropriate for that level.

I can feel some of you starting to sweat at this point; ‘but what about lowering standards? What about the truly gifted? What about the choice of other exam boards? How can the children be adequately prepared for music college? Once again, I refer you to the need to adapt to a changing world. If we take for example the requirements of sixty years ago, it would have been rare for a classical musician to be expected to improvise and/or adapt to different styles of music. Now I would argue that this is fairly routine and rightly so; musicians need to be more versatile than they ever have been. It doesn’t make them lesser musicians - just different. Similarly with sight-reading; of course it is an essential part of a broad musician’s make-up to be able to read fluently. But in an exam room, playing a solo piece with one other person watching? I think not. At least one exam board has understood this, but not all.

As far as the truly exceptional children are concerned, then it is obvious that they need to be supported as much as anyone else. I don’t believe adapting exams and examiners would damage this in any way and - now more than ever - there are enough great teachers and musicians out there who would be delighted to teach and challenge them. Having been to music college myself I am confident that they would be sufficiently roasted. That’s the beauty of music - you never stop learning.

Uplifting music of the day: ‘Come fly with me’ - by Sammy Cahn and Jimmy Van Heusen. Sung by Frank Sinatra, this collaboration with the orchestrator Billy May has to be one of the most perfect combinations of musical ingredients. I love it! This wonderful arrangement is just happy, optimistic listening for this time of year.

Contemplative music of the day: ‘I wonder what’s keeping my true love tonight’ - trad arr Huw Warren, sung by June Tabor. There is something almost ghostly in June’s voice, and this performance is so profound it is hard to listen to without welling up. Beautifully accompanied also by Huw on the piano. Absolute class.