ON MY MIND
MY musical journey through life started with the piano, an instrument which was described by my tutor as having a spectrum of tonal colour with a tendency towards a mellow timbre. The end of the journey finds me with a superb banjo, which my friends described as having the dynamics of a chain saw and the timbre of a vacuum cleaner. I only learned the banjo because I heard that upstairs they had switched from harps to banjos, but it turns out it was a diabolical scam.
What is not a scam is the announcement from Welsh Government of a national plan for music education which will ensure that, regardless of background and family income, every child will have the opportunity of learning to play an instrument. The £13.5m of funding for local authorities’ musical services, their tutors and practitioners, is an adventurous and inspired step which will not only help children explore and appreciate the rich musical heritage of Wales, but embrace the cognitive, emotional and social benefits which music brings to children and young people.
These benefits are well known and include the development of patience, perseverance and selfdiscipline, the boosting of selfesteem, exposure to a range of cultures, the fostering of creativity and self-expression and in particular a medium for expressing emotion. It is what Tolstoy called the ‘shorthand of emotion’. Unfortunately, for many people this is the soft side of education, inferior to the real deal which is the academic. This is not a legitimate argument as we know from the importance of developing children’s emotional intelligence. Yet for academia’s ivory towers there is ample evidence from studies in neuroscience to show that music can enhance significantly brain function in children, encourage them to think critically, develop mathematical skills and improve memory.
The Welsh Government has again taken advantage of its independence in education to be creative and visionary. Unfortunately, it did not take the bold step I suggested of buying a five string bluegrass banjo for every child in Wales – probably because of the predictable and tedious wire cutter jokes.