Mentors and Mentoring at South West Music School
Mentors play a key role in helping to support and guide the young musicians on the core programme at South West Music School.
This practice write-up comes from an external evaluation of South West Music School (SWMS), which looked at what SWMS achieves with its students, and how it does so. It is part of a resource collection: How South West Music School supports musical ability.
In addition to specialist music tuition every SWMS student has a personal mentor to guide their personal, social, emotional and musical development.
The Mentors
The SWMS mentors feel they are well trained and well supported by SWMS. They appreciate the efficiency of the online and telephone communications, necessary given the region’s geography and the size of the mentor network which inhibit regular face to face contact with SWMS staff. They are pleased to take advantage of opportunities to meet with other mentors at residentials, when time allows. Mentors appreciate their autonomy, that they are trusted to undertake their role (being ‘allowed to run’) and that their suggestions for particular support for their students are taken on board. They know that often they might be ‘better listened to’ by their students than tutors or parents and are highly aware of the key listening role they themselves play.
Mentors embrace the model of staying with a student throughout their time with SWMS, developing a relationship that is built on valuing the student’s particular talents, interests and aspirations; harnessing the expertise and experience of the mentor; and offering a greater range of relevant options than might otherwise be considered. Being able to talk with instrumental tutors and also school music teachers, when possible, enhances the work they can do with students.
Here’s one mentor’s perspective on the impact of the SWMS model:
‘... my colleagues at University have said to me that anytime they interview a graduating student from SWMS they are better prepared for ongoing education at HE level than virtually anyone else they interview.
The combination of individual tutoring along with the mentoring scheme is a powerful tool, but the most invaluable and distinctive situations for the students is the fellowship of other musicians of equal standing that they encounter and form friendships with through the residential programme and the variety of the music that they encounter and play at these sessions.’
Mentoring and how it is experienced by the SWMS case study students
David, mentoring Ben
Alongside the ‘awesome’ residentials, Ben really appreciates the support his SWMS mentor David is giving, helping him take an informed personalised progression route. He explains David has opened his eyes to more music – different types and sounds – and provided lots of useful contacts and information. This has included signposting him to a local rehearsal and recording venue (and also hopefully negotiating cheaper hire rates!), where Ben will be able to play with the band that he’s just been asked to join, through recommendations from others. During their ‘relaxed and laid back’ sessions, Ben and David talk about his future plans, identifying personal goals and developing a vision for what sort of performer he needs to be, including the next step of going to college to do a BTEC diploma course. This course is practically orientated, with plenty of performance opportunities, just what Ben wants.
David sees his role as being ‘someone who is on Ben’s side’. His approach to mentoring is to meet his student, find out what’s wanted and what’s needed, and to work with SWMS to fix it up. David calls it a ‘building’ process. He notes it’s very significant that in the SWMS model, the mentor stays with the student to support a personalised progression route, where the student is nurtured on their individual journey, can make informed choices and benefit from progressive, focused development.
David has been keen to broaden Ben’s musical education and ensure he can access opportunities beyond the ‘home drumming’ environment. He’s worked with Ben to make sure he understands that passing the required number of GCSEs is the route to getting on the college course he wants, so he’s better equipped with knowledge to direct his own learning journey.
From highlighting the need for SWMS support for theory and tuned percussion lessons, David has seen Ben grow a wider interest into composition. He recognises the difficulties Ben has had in finding appropriate people with whom to be in a band. As he says, ‘Given his talent and age, Ben needs a 40 year old 18 year old guitarist!’ David sees that the SWMS residentials provide a really important context for doing different things, having group experiences and gaining a greater musical context and awareness outside just drumming. This is especially important as Ben hasn’t the opportunity to play in group situations at school, where sadly there has been no recognition of his particular skills and no support offered.
Elfyn, mentoring Beni (as in Ben & Alfie)
Keeping track
Elfyn has found mentoring Beni very enjoyable, ‘keeping track’ of his development as a young person and a musician and ‘giving him some pointers’ along the way. He’s been ‘intrigued’ by Beni from the start, reflecting he doesn’t ‘think in boxes’ but rather ‘holistically’. He sees Ben E as being both very self sufficient and also quite dependent on his parents, within a context that the whole, close knit, family ‘looks for solutions – and finds solutions’. He knows that Beni’s previous engagements with ‘the mainstream’ have not always gone well and has seen it’s important to ensure this doesn’t stop Beni making the best of dealing with the world that he needs to.
Elfyn has encouraged Beni not just to be a brilliant musician amongst many other brilliant musicians, but to be ‘a brilliant musician with a plan’ – accepting that things may not necessarily go according to plan, but ‘it’s something to grab onto when there’s a tidal wave’. He’s undertaken mentoring exercises with him such as identifying personal goals and developing a vision for the future spatially. At a residential at Dartington, they walked up and down the garden setting out the years ahead in yards, and talked about where Beni wanted to be the following year, the year after that and even five years hence. He’s also encouraged him to broaden all the time – whether in his playing, range of instruments or developing his compositional aspirations – to develop as a creative artist and be able to specialise, where he wants, with a greater musical context.
In terms of the future, Elfyn arranged for Beni to attend an open day for the Contemporary Music degree programme at the Welsh College of Music and Drama, as part of supporting him to make informed choices. Alfie went along too. The head of department was ‘fascinated’ by them both and spent a long time talking with them. Elfyn saw this as ‘giving him an option to look at’, which could be the ‘right one’ for his multiple talents and if not, could prompt Beni to think about other options. Without Elfyn’s suggestion about this particular direction to take, he wouldn’t have otherwise thought about it, so it’s part of supporting him to be better equipped to direct his own learning journey. Elfyn sees this sort of higher education course, with fewer strictures than school, as supporting ‘who Beni wants to be’ and inviting ‘less tussle with the establishment’.
‘Half a friend and half a conscience’ is one way Beni describes Elfyn as a mentor. He’s seen his support as a ‘great conglomeration’ of roles: agony aunt, role model, professional, prompter, composer amongst others. The support he’s offered has been embracing whole child development. Beni knows he’s benefitted from Elfyn’s encouragement to be better organised, for instance in replying to emails, having been advised: ‘If it’s worth it, it’s worth it now!’ It’s also been important for him to have someone to talk with in confidence, for instance about Alfie.
The constant mentor
Jane sees her main role as Alfie’s mentor as one of ‘being there as a constant’, rather than just giving advice – and ‘constant’ is the word Alfie uses about Jane too. Jane explains her role is about supporting him to emerge as a confident adult as he ‘gathers life experiences’ and also about building ‘a listening relationship’. Alfie says, ‘It’s so incredibly useful to have someone who knows about the options, how everything works. She never says, “You should do this” but rather “So if this is where you want to be, these are some ways of getting there.”’
The support is all about identifying personal goals and making informed choices.
Jane finds she also mentors Beni, as they ‘come as a pair’, not just because they’re brothers, but because they share such a musical bond. Sessions are held at their home, where Jane gets to feel ‘part of the family’ and appreciates the frankness and openness with which everything gets discussed. She sees sessions as offering ‘permission to talk about things that in daily life can get pushed under the carpet’. Bringing an ‘understanding from a musician’s point of view’ and enabling communications, she can help Beni and Alfie ‘steer away from a focus on feeling special’ to develop a healthy attitude in terms of being ‘ready for the knocks’ of a professional musician’s life.
Jane reflects it took time to get to know Alfie, who she feels has benefitted from a home life where ‘his gift is taken very seriously and he’s nurtured, not hectored or pushed’. She asked him to create lots of mind maps at first, reflecting his rich life and different interests, helping work out what ‘doing’ music means: being a musician or just expressing yourself through music. In many ways, his non standard progression route has meant he’s been able more easily to acquire the skills needed to be a professional musician which necessitates a portfolio career – he’s ‘ready formed’, displaying versatile musicianship, particularly important in getting work as a bass player.
She’s aware that having had an education ‘here, there and everywhere before coming back home’, it was a ‘big learning curve’ for Alfie to sit A Level Music as his very first exam. She knows the written work was a challenge but Alfie maintained his creative stimulation with, and from, Beni, with whom he works very hard and professionally. Every time she sees Alfie after he’s been at a SWMS residential, she’s reminded of how important these experiences are for mitigating rural isolation and giving him the opportunity to play with other, diverse, musicians.
Jane’s conscious that Ben and Alfie need to ‘get a harder business hat on’ and has been working with them on drawing up an Action Plan, which includes setting up a website, joining the Musicians’ Union, registering with the PRS (Performing Rights Society), making a promotional pack and so on. This will all help them in developing a convincing portfolio career. Here’s a video clip from their discussions about ‘what next?’ steps.
Jane’s also encouraged Alfie to learn to drive – useful when you’ve got a double bass to get around!
Jane feels she benefits from the mentoring as well, finding all sorts of positives from being part of what she calls Beni and Alfie’s ‘natural progression’. While she may not be sure exactly where they are headed, she recognises that SWMS has been playing a key role in their formative years, in particular in giving them confidence there is a network of ‘people worth knowing’ to which they’ve been introduced.
Jane compares notes with Elfyn, Beni’s mentor, and they’ve given them joint sessions – including one in which they all played music together. Parents Penny and Chris also get involved in the ‘round table discussions’ to address what Elfyn calls the issue of ‘What on earth are we going to do about these boys?’ They really appreciated hearing Jane and Elfyn’s two different perspectives, when there is no obvious ‘pigeonhole’ in which to place Ben and Alfie, who need to forge a new niche, make a new path. From Ben and Alfie’s viewpoint, they know one mentor between them wouldn’t work, as they each needed someone just to concentrate on them, but having two mentors who communicated was essential.
Rick, mentoring Josie
‘To step forward you need to know what you’ve learnt and where you’re coming from’
Josie was nervous at first about talking with her mentor, Rick, as he was so ‘prestigious’, but by the end they had established a ‘great relationship’. Josie really valued and respected Rick’s honesty and she recognised she needed his guidance and his support as a manager and promoter (not a musician) fitted her needs because of where she ‘wanted to go’.
One example of how Josie benefited from mentoring, and Rick’s particular SWMS approach, was ‘the EP question’. The EP had a long intro piece and Rick explained this was too long to be played on radio. He was right. But he didn’t make Josie feel stupid – he left the decision to her about changing the order, just asked her to think about the issue. This was all about Josie gaining a greater awareness of the music industry and also making informed choices.
‘To step forward you need to know what you’ve learnt and where you’re coming from’. This understanding was fundamental to the discussions, feedback and evaluation that characterised the mentoring sessions. Josie really liked ‘looking at things’, thinking how they could be improved and seeing where to go next. It’s an approach she took forward into her later work as an apprentice music leader with PMZ, putting into practice the reflection and evaluation skills she had developed.
Rick describes his work as mentor as ‘one of supporting, challenging and educating where necessary’. When Josie started with SWMS and subsequently at the beginning of each academic year, Rick put together with her an Individual Learning Plan according to her needs and aspirations. Within this framework to provide an informed personalised progression route, mentoring sessions varied in response to Josie’s development process. Rick reflects how over the period of Josie’s involvement in SWMS, he saw her confidence grow rapidly and her skills progress. In particular, her ability to record ‘increased exponentially’ and by the time she graduated, he felt ‘she was well set up to continue her learning process by means of Higher Education’ after a year out – although in the end she decided not to go down that route, despite securing a place.
Nicola, mentoring Theo
There are other ways...
Theo’s mentor Nicola comes to see him every two to three months to hear what he’s been doing with Hilary, his violin teacher, and identify and follow up on his learning goals. She saw straight away that ‘his musicianship is infinitely more advanced than his technical skills’ and while it’s frustrating for him, she’s encouraged him to understand there’re things ‘he’s just got to learn’.
Nicola works closely with Hilary, having telephone conversations with her and comparing notes on his progress via the written reports they provide for SWMS. This helps with providing a sense of progressive, focused development. She’s had the same musical training as Hilary, where having a ‘joined up way of thinking’ was key, and that informs their joint approach with Theo. Nicola reinforces what Hilary is doing, especially when Theo questions why he has to do something or why he has to play a certain sort of music, when that doesn’t fit in with the way he sees the world. Nicola comments, ‘I’ve helped him understand there are other ways – he doesn’t need to be defensive about himself or his music’. Her aim is to support Theo in developing musically and socially without him losing his distinctive creativity, embracing whole child development. She recognises that he needs ‘freedom within a nurturing environment’. SWMS supports his individual journey, and importantly both the creative home life his father provides and the encouragement he gets from his music teacher at school do this as well. Helping Theo to try things out opens his eyes and can break down pre-conceived ideas. It helps him make connections and apply new learning, becoming better equipped to direct his own learning journey and make informed choices.
She also talks through with Theo what he’s been doing on residentials, to support him in taking away key learning points. Overall, she tries to get needed developments ‘pared down to manageable chunks’ so his targets to achieve before his next mentoring session are very specific: for example, getting 16 bars of a composition notated. Hilary and Theo always agree creative as well as technical targets to keep a balance in development.
Here’s Theo introducing a recent mentoring session in which he plays one of his compositions with Nicola.
Although Nicola is usefully another string player, what Theo really appreciates about her role is that she discusses his ideas with him, coaches him more generally and works with Lisa to provide relevant opportunities for him, such as recording with Keith Tippett and Julie Tippetts. Theo explains that as a mentor for several people, Nicola ‘moulds herself to each person to get the best out of them and what they want to do’.
Hilary sees SWMS has provided Theo with ‘a lifeline’ as without it, he would have been completely overlooked and just seen as a Grade 1 violinist, not the young person with extraordinary musicianship that he is.