by Author Christina Coker

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Supporting talent & progression - where does the music industry fit in?

Looking around at the music industry, I see many breakthrough artists and songwriters that are lucky enough to have had all the education and support they need from a young age. But every day we deal with young people who have latent talent and potential, but will not break through because they don’t have that additional support...

The 'support' I am referring to goes beyond the development of musical skills. For Youth Music and many of the organisations we fund or partner with, we are also seeking to develop young people's personal and social skills. These additional areas of support have got to be more constant and widespread, because there are so many children who deserve that chance. It is our vision that, through music-making, any young person, regardless of their background, should have the opportunities to discover their creativity and fulfil their potential.

It seems obvious that recognising creativity at a very young age is vitally important, yet it is often lacking or devalued. Early musical development sparks tend to be missed or left unrealised. It’s quite interesting that the government has said things like, ‘Let’s not have any children left behind. Let’s look at early intervention strategies’. Yet when we go round the country looking at music-making provision for under-fives in SureStart centres which are meant to – and are – supporting disadvantaged children and families, we still find creative activities are very underdeveloped. There are ways of filling these gaps, but it’s not about a quick fix.

One of the great things about this country’s music education and creative industries sectors is the number of organisations working at different levels. It’s not like there’s a completely blank sheet and nothing on which to build and it’s encouraging to see more providers and professionals coming together through partnership and collaboration in order to find ways to further improve  children and young people’s music-making.

Within the education system, often the funding that’s available for music education is, perhaps quite rightly, focussed on developing musical skills but does not provide social or personal development support.  However, for some  youngsters, if they don’t have that additional social support outside the school system, they’ll either not access music learning opportunities at all or only for a little while. Collectively, we need to address this issue.

Amongst the biggest barriers to learning are knowledge of, and access to, progression opportunities. If you are lucky enough to be in a situation where you’ve got really good encouragement at school, parental and financial support, and have people around to signpost you, then it’s brilliant. But that’s so not the case for so many children, and they’re the ones who need our support now more than ever.

In terms of the music industry, our combined focus on providing opportunity and nurturing talent will help bring about a greater breadth of music making. But to make this happen we need to help develop children at that grassroots level. It’s more than just encouraging the skills required to learn an instrument; it’s about supporting the creativity that underpins the lifeblood of musical development.

 

 

This article appeared in the March 2012 issue of the PRS Music for Members MagazineReproduced with permission.