Aidan Smith: Closing music school strikes the wrong note
A plan to shut the centre of excellence which produced Manson, Tommy Smith and others appals Aidan Smith
One of my favourite rock bands, Steely Dan, didn’t retain much nostalgia for the classroom – “I’m never going back to my old school” is the chorus of one of their classic tracks. My father, another school-hater, took things a bit further. He tried to burn the building down and got expelled.
Me, I loved school. Flora Stevenson Primary then Broughton High. I’m always going back to these fine Edinburgh establishments – mentioning them in print at every opportunity and starting every day in the Flora’s playground. My three kids are there now and will probably end up going to Broughton, too.
I loved school despite outside toilets, lunches delivered cold and late, and the belt. Despite those dread days when PE was Scottish country dancing. Facilities were Spartan, extra-curricular activities almost non-existent. So I’m trying to imagine how much I’d love school right now – and how much I’d be worried that cloth-eared councillors may be about to ruin all my fun.
Imagine being able to skive midmorning maths to play violin, cello or even – because it’s permitted – electric guitar? Or miss the “What I did on my holidays?” essay to bang a kettle drum INCREDIBLY LOUD?
My nine-year-old daughter has two musical proteges in her class. “When it’s time for their music and so they don’t disturb the lesson, the boys signal to the teacher, making an M with their hands, and off they go,” says Stella.
The City of Edinburgh Music School (COEMS), which straddles Flora’s and Broughton, is the only free centre of excellence of its kind in Europe. Amid all the knocks the Scottish education service has suffered in recent times – some of them self-inflicted – it stands as a bright and shining example of the fact we haven’t forgotten everything, that we can still show the world how best to teach bairns.
Now, though, the music school is under threat. Its closure is being proposed as the city council tries to save money.
After The Scotsman revealed this last Friday, a decision was deferred until next month as doubtless the councillors take time to ponder whether a festival city like Edinburgh can ever hope to get away with an “economy” such as this one.
Or if it’ll be viewed as not dissimilar to book-burning.
At the weekend, COEMS students lugged their instruments up to the City Chambers for a musical protest. What needs to happen now is for Garbage to descend on the council HQ and turn their grungey guitars up to 11.
The band’s leader, Shirley Manson, is an ex-pupil and cannot be happy about the shutdown plan.
If you don’t know the music school, and just in case you were getting the wrong idea, it’s not an elitist hothouse for posh kids. If you have the talent but your parents can’t afford private tuition, you can get in. What a fantastic concept.
Jazz saxophonist Tommy Smith, another COEMS old boy, took to Facebook to protest against the threat to his alma mater.
Aged 15, he’d travel by bus from the capital’s outlying Wester Hailes scheme for expert tuition and the opportunity to “meet and be inspired by all the genius players”.
The founder of the Scottish National Jazz Orchestra adds: “This is very bad karma for the future of our culture.”
My parents could afford private music lessons but I didn’t have
much luck with guitar teachers. The first one asked to be paid in advance for eight weeks of tuition and, after the first session, did a bunk back to Canada with the money.
His replacement, irritated by my repeated failure to position my strumming hand in the correct place, suddenly produced a candle which he lit as a deterrent.
That’s going to make you selfconscious about learning music and many kids must feel like that anyway as they heave large, oddly shaped black cases around and risk being labelled geeky.
What a relief and what a joy, then, to be able to be taught as part of the school day, to meet, befriend and play with youngsters who’re just as passionate about music as you are. This is the brilliance of COEMS.
In the event the music school does actually close, the council would attempt to continue providing free tuition but spread it round the city.
Lesley Johnston, the former head teacher of Broughton High, who says closure would be a “scandal”, points out to councillors, who may be unaware, that music is not a solitary activity.
“Musicians achieve excellence through practising and performing in ensembles,” she says.
Smith backs this up, stressing that the COEMS environment encouraged him to practise harder.
“You need to have all the talented kids together – they inspire each other,” he says.
“If you were to take all the young footballers and coach them separately, how would they be inspired by their peers to work as hard as they can to reach those dizzy heights?”
You can’t just turn up at COEMS and make an unholy racket; you have to audition. My kids are currently pursuing other dreams but they acknowledge the giftedness of all their peers who make the letter M with their hands. They were thrilled when Anna Mcluckie, whose speciality is the harp, went from COEMS to TV talent show The Voice as an intriguing mystery was revealed. “Ah, so that’s what she keeps in that ginormous box,” said Archie. “I did think it wasn’t a recorder.”
On Fridays, assembly day, there’s a very good chance a short-trousered virtuoso will give us a tune.
Thus the kid gets an audience, the rest of the school get to hear great music, and at least one dad gets wistful about standing ovations, cruelly dashed – and everyone benefits from COEMS.
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