COMPOSING


Musical Dares I


t was 21 years ago that I finished what was, for me, a life-changing two-year stint in Leicestershire, working as one of the Performing Right Society’s first composers-in-education. The scheme was also one of the first to formalise a relationship between professional musicians and the music education sector – a forerunner of the musical hubs idea we’re all grappling with at the moment.


But my work there threw up an important obstacle to group learning, which I’ve never been able to follow up. I revisit it here in case it helps others supporting group composing or improvising activities.


Composers-in-education The PRS scheme was advised by educational luminaries Hamish Preston (variously head of Berkshire music service and a past chair of the Music Advisers’ National Association) and Keith Sedgebeer (then head of Wolverhampton music service and later chief inspector for schools there) and so presented an exciting personal opportunity to learn from these two impressive music educationalists. John Ridgeon was then still running the instrumental teaching service in Leicester with an inspiring and talented team, whose members have since gone on to achieve massively in other areas of music education. So it was with a cocktail of trepidation and excitement that I accepted John’s offer to work in Leicester from 1989-90 with KS3 and KS4 students and teachers.


Skills gap


But then, as now, access to progressive performing skills by National Curriculum music students was peripheral, even with Leicester’s high-achieving instrumental service. Without this first-hand practical musical experience students lacked the basic building blocks of composing – from an appreciation of melody, harmony, rhythm and timbre to an understanding of how to use structure, dynamics and texture to help build a piece for emotional affect. So I began with a largely skills-based phase,


covering some of these basics first. It was partially successful, with some pupils producing some interesting compositions, both individually and in groups. However there were others who, though clearly interested and often already performers, still found it difficult to engage.


28 Power & glory


After a period of reflection I decided on a change of tack, drawing inspiration from Edward de Bono’s work on thinking skills and creativity, and from the work of Meredith Belbin on why some management teams in the world’s top companies succeed, while others fail. (http://bit.ly/oMmqLF) Having taken a peer-to-peer counselling


course I had become interested in the blocks to learning in groups. I noticed that, for more advanced players, teenage friendship groups in creative music making are often more challenging than supportive. As pack animals the power and acclaim we humans seek from our peers form the social environment in which all group interaction takes place. This is at its most intensive for teenagers, with hormone-driven physical, emotional and intellectual changes driving the way they think and act within their peer groups. Good performers can pick up their instrument and play, with almost guaranteed peer approval; power and glory both satisfied! But dare them to engage in a socially much riskier musical act of group composing and their fear of failure, and the accompanying loss of status, may make it impossible to engage with the task. I observed numerous groups of talented musical friends who were so scared to be seen to fail in front of each other that they froze creatively, unable to venture a single idea for their group’s composing task. This had nothing to do with musical ability or potential; it was all about their perception of social risk. The fear that stemmed from it created an insurmountable barrier for them. So how could I help create a safer group environment to encourage the risk-taking which is the essence of creativity? Still thinking about Belbin’s observations, in which successful teams have a balance of team roles, I noticed that many teenage friendships develop because of similarities; they often like the same things and seem to lean towards the same team roles in groups. This causes friction which often prevents success in group composing activities.


Teams We ran a series of weekend residential workshops at the sailing club on Rutland Water, where groups of 25-35 teenagers from Leicestershire schools would arrive on a Friday


Group composing activities can pose interpersonal challenges for young people which can prevent them from engaging with the task, Bill C Martin explains


evening with instruments and equipment, with music staff and a few volunteer parents on hand to help. I’d announce that there would be a concert for parents on Sunday afternoon, which was always met with cheers, until the young musicians realised that the concert was to be of music they would compose and rehearse together during the weekend! Once settled, the musicians introduced themselves and declared musical skills, interests and aspirations. I described a few key team roles and began to ask the young people to list their choices in order of preference. These included the ‘co-ordinator’, ‘ideas person’, ‘evaluator’, ‘teamworker’, and so on. In this way we formed groups of up to six musicians with as little role duplication as possible. We largely ignored the usual considerations of musical ability, gender, instrumental combinations and friendships, which meant that we sometimes ended up with some very unusual musical combinations, which helped them think in a more creative way. This approach gave the young people an awareness of how they worked together, not just what they might produce. It gave each individual a sense of contributing something unique to the group’s success and facilitated individual musical contributions. Members of a group would often refer to a team member who was the allocated guardian of a particular team role. This did wonders for the status of each team member and helped overcome the interpersonal barriers to creative group working for successive groups of young people during my two-year residency in Leicester. I noticed that far more of them than in my


previous work now felt able to make a unique contribution and we had some stunning musical results. It allowed talented performers to shine in a composing setting; academically less gifted pupils also found a voice. One parent, attending one of our weekend workshops, observed: ‘This isn’t just about music, is it?’ One day it dawned on me that, in my


ignorance of these non-musical issues, I must have actively prevented some children from succeeding. I have not made this mistake since. I hope that this work and my observations


may stimulate the thinking of other educators who support creative group music making activities. I would love to hear from anyone who is working with these concepts in group composing and improvising activities.


Photo: © Bill C Martin


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