When to play, and when not to play.

Thoughts on scaffolding and supporting the music made by young people, and questions relating to the Youth Music Quality Framework.

In my work as the SEN/D activist for the New Ambition project in Bristol I have been busy overseeing the work being delivered and the development of the workforce, these are both interrelated and interdependent.

Something that I find interesting that has been flagged up by some of the music leaders on the ground has been the question of when to play and when not to play; there can be a lot of anxiety around this, and it is understandable. If you play too much you remove the focus from the young musicians in the room, or you play too little and you stop being able to appropriately support the music being made. This is especially true when we’re talking about music that is, at least in part, being freely improvised in the moment.

I am finding it useful to link this back to the Youth Music Quality Framework; which for many of us working in the world of SEN/D reads as a list of truisms. The framework makes reference to the need to scaffold and model when we are working with young musicians. When we are actively making music it is the best time for us to be scaffolding and supporting the experience for the young people that we are working with, and it is our music making that provides the necessary modeling. This is especially true when we are working with young people for whom communication is challenging. Our challenge as music leaders is to be able to assess and continually re-assess just how much musical support we are giving in the sessions. For me it is a simple question that I keep at the forefront of my mind; Is what I am doing right now the most helpful thing that I could be doing?

As previously mentioned, the Quality Framework reads as a list of generally understood statements that everyone working in the SEN/D strand of A New Ambition is working with in a very intuitive way. For example, working in a reflexive way, achievement being measured through personal progress, and ensuring that the physical environment is fit for purpose are all examples of key and integral ways of working not just with music, but in the wider aspects of SEN/D education. This leads to me to consider how we make these approaches equally as integral in non-formal music education in the mainstream. I don’t have any bright ideas or any snappy answers to this necessarily, just an interest in asking the question.