Young people are able to specialise with a greater musical context with South West Music School
Enabling young people to specialise with a greater musical context is about celebrating their particular talents while supporting them to know where they ‘fit’ in a wider musical world, rather than work in a silo. ‘Open musical experiences’, such as those at residentials, encourage sharing, enjoyment of each others’ music and mutual respect, regardless of musical background.
This practice write-up comes from an external evaluation of South West Music School, 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.
At SWMS, enabling young people to specialise with a greater musical context is achieved through a combination of different elements of the SWMS model:
a) Mentoring provides students with a wider perspective on what it means to be a musician and what the music world comprises.
b) Specialist tuition often offers the opportunity for tutors to introduce students to a wider range of musical genres and approaches to writing.
c) Residentials are key events where students can bring their learning to bear within a wider context, provided by the range of music genres covered over the years, and take new learning away within a context of cumulative focused development.
These ways of working demonstrate the importance of one particular ingredient – Progressive, focussed development
Supporting evidence showing how the SWMS model delivers this outcome and ingredient is extracted from the case studies, as below.
a) Mentoring
BENI (as in Ben & Alfie)
Beni’s mentor Elfyn has 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.
b) Specialist tuition
BEN & ALFIE
As well as working with them on their own compositions, Elfyn has shared with them specific examples of interesting compositional techniques of composers such as Bartok and Messiaen that he himself found useful during his undergraduate years, providing a greater musical context.
c) Residentials
JOSIE
Josie really enjoyed being introduced to other genres of music such as classical, jazz and improvisation. As she wrote in her July 2009 residential evaluation: ‘It has made me even more open minded about different genres as I can use something from each to inspire my own music’. SWMS challenged some preconceptions, for instance about classical music being only for a certain sort of person. Now she can ‘hear the emotion there’ and appreciate it, knowing you need to hear the music before you can decide whether you like it. ‘I like what I like never mind the genre.’ This was part of her being able to specialise with a greater musical context.