[Xmca-l] Re: Non-formal music education for working-class children

[Bruce Robinson]

It is not true as Workers' Dreadnought claims that working class has 
been totally excluded from classical music by elitism. This ignores the 
British brass band tradition which was (is?) rooted in working class 
communities and usually originated in particular workplaces. Famous 
bands include the Black Dyke Mills band, the Grimethorpe Colliery band 
and Foden's (a vehicle manufacturer). They were sometimes directly 
sponsored by employers but also were often financed by the players 
themselves and had links to the labour movement. As well as appearing on 
the streets for ceremonies ranging from the religious to the political 
(e.g. the Durham Miners' Gala), they also perform in concert halls and 
have had music written for them by well known classical composers. Some 
have survived the disappearence of the workplaces they came from, though 
others have not. The film 'Brassed Off' is well worth watching both for 
an idea of the tradition and its links to working class communities and 
its decline.

Also in cities like Manchester there has been (I'm not sure it's still 
true) a working class audience for the Halle Orchestra. Plus the Welsh 
choir tradition.

It is true that these have been in decline and is I think directly 
linked to the decline of distinct work-related communities in the UK, 
the easy provision of alternative entertainment and, as Dreadnought 
says, cuts to the provision of music education in schools both because 
of its marginalisation in the National Curriculum and more recently the 
removal of music education from schools to 'hubs' which are failing. I 
don't think it has much to do with the pressure of the working day which 
was worse in past times or the need for concentration.

Bruce R

On 05/12/2013 02:22, Ulvi İçil wrote:
> It seems that my research's subquestions is the contact of the working -
> class with Western classical music. It also seems to me that this can be a
> research of critical ethnography. Any idea on this, or a better proposal
> for research method?
>
> For instance, I found this:
>
> http://theworkersdreadnought.wordpress.com/2011/06/07/classical-music-and-the-working-class/
>
> "It cannot be denied that the working classes have slowly ceased to be the
> large sections of classical music audiences. This has to do in part with
> changes in tastes, which itself is the result of a changing social
> formations (including as I mentioned earlier the active dismantling of
> rigorous arts education in public schools due to smaller school budgets
> which thus robs children a system of reference by which to enjoy classical
> music unless their parents provide it for them, many of whom have similarly
> been stripped of such an education) and the time and attention one has to
> listen to a given piece (this of course has to do with the relationship
> between the pressures of the working day and the need to fill ‘downtime’
> with mindless ‘entertainment’), but also due to the elitism that has
> pervaded classical music in the 20th century".
>
> *
>
> It is this elitism that non-formal music instruction for working-class
> children is breaking and here it lies its importance because I think that
> bourgeois society can be best defined as the society for bourgeois in which
> working-class lives and is allowed to live somehow. Allowed, because in
> countries like Turkey, the working -class is implicitly told to stay behind
> a certain line and not to go beyond this line. It is for this reason that
> they do not frequent elitist classical music concert halls and when they
> fill such concert halls, usual spectators are surprised with their
> existence.
>
> In fact, I believe that "elitism that has pervaded classical music in the
> 20th century" was to a large extent peculiar to capitalist societies.
> There was no such elitism in Soviet Union for instance. On the contrary,
> working -  class masses were enjoying Richter, Gilels, and Oistrakh in
> Moscow Conservatory ... Cd booklets repeating again and again "the
> pressure" on Shostakovich do not mention this huge mass and working-class
> character of the enjoyment of classical music in Soviet Union...and in
> other socialist countries...
>
> The pianist of this society also was quite different. Richter, not being a
> party member and a communist,  I have read that one day he took his car and
> went to Siberia where he gave concerts during six months in small  towns
> and big cities!
>
> Lastly, I remember also having read that people from Moscow were also going
> from time to time to Siberia to ask for "talented" students having good
> ears etc, surely not an elitist education, but looking for talents within a
> huge population which receives a good minimum music education, but an
> elevated minimum.
>
> Compared with this experience, even though they are very noble efforts,
> today's experiences remain and are deemd to remain very limited, except
> perhaps El Sistema in Venezuela.
>
>
> 2013/12/5 Bruce Robinson <bruce@brucerob.eu>
>
>> Wow! They certainly manage to line up some great names for their master
>> classes.  Jazzmobile founded by Billy Taylor does similar work in New York
>> and the late Horace Tapscott did in LA, I think.
>>
>> Bruce R
>>
>>
>> On 04/12/2013 11:16, Peter Smagorinsky wrote:
>>
>>> Ulvi, I can't directly answer your inquiry, which I'm happy to see posed
>>> here. But I can direct you to an incredibly successful organization that
>>> focuses on jazz rather than classical music.
>>> http://jazzhousekids.org/home.php is run by singer Melissa Walker and
>>> her husband, bass player Christian McBride (probably the world's greatest
>>> jazz bassist at this point) in the Newark, NJ area. I know of it because my
>>> brother is chair of their board (and McBride's 3rd favorite bass player, I
>>> might add, after Ray Brown, whose bass McBride plays, and Jaco Pastorius).
>>>
>>> They do collect whatever they can find that justifies the role of music
>>> in education and beyond, and include lists of benefits and outcomes,
>>> although I don't know how many of them have empirical support beyond what
>>> the people in the program find through their work with kids. I've written a
>>> couple of checks, and a couple of pieces supporting what they do:
>>>
>>> Smagorinsky, P. (2013, January 21). My View: Hear the music - STEM
>>> studies aren't the only path to a better future. CNN Schools of Thought.
>>> Available at http://schoolsofthought.blogs.cnn.com/2013/01/22/hfr-my-
>>> view-hear-the-music-stem-studies-arent-the-only-path-to-a-better-future/
>>>
>>> Walker, M., & Smagorinsky, P. (2013, January 1). The power of school
>>> music programs: Students come for the music and stay for the math. Atlanta
>>> Journal-Constitution. Available at http://blogs.ajc.com/get-
>>> schooled-blog/2013/01/01/the-power-of-school-music-
>>> programs-students-come-for-the-music-and-stay-for-the-
>>> math/?cxntfid=blogs_get_schooled_blog
>>>
>>> These brief essays are not research, but describe how their programs do a
>>> great job with a whole lot of kids in providing what I've called a positive
>>> social updraft in their lives through music.
>>>
>>> Anyhow, hope this helps, and that if anyone's got a few bucks to donate
>>> to a good cause, they keep this great outfit in mind. p
>>>
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-l-bounces@
>>> mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of Ulvi Içil
>>> Sent: Wednesday, December 04, 2013 4:46 AM
>>> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
>>> Subject: [Xmca-l] Non-formal music education for working-class children
>>>
>>> Dear all,
>>>
>>> Does any body know for any experience in which a master or Ph.D. thesis
>>> is written for an experience in which low income children learn playing
>>> music instruments for Western classical music and this process, together
>>> with children's changes also the lives of  the parents, functioning as a
>>> learning process for parents also, in overall changing the interactions
>>> between children and parents, and children themselves.
>>>
>>> Ulvi
>>>
>>>