When the Pelican Primary School Choir sang at the Mayor’s Christmas event last week, we received a performance fee of $400, to put towards new instruments. There are lots of instruments I wanted to buy, and to have in the music room – and with the current excellent Christmas sales on at the moment, it seemed a perfect time to stock up on djembes for the school.

However, I was inspired by the half-day conference that I attended last Friday on Children’s Rights, and decided to let the Choir members decide how the money should be spent. These are not children who engage well in discussion (they tend to get fairly boisterous, fairly quickly), but I decided to give it a go.

Initially, I’d hoped to get a representative from the music shop to visit the school during choir time, with a van full of instruments for them to inspect and choose from. I’d imagined how I would prepare a kind of Preference Sheet for them, with pictures of the instruments, and price per unit, so that they could mark the ones they liked best and see if they could make their choices add up to $400. It would have been a nice integrated class for them, draing aupon an authentic task.

However, it was too close to the end of the year to organise something like this.

Part of me just wanted to order five djembes and be done with it. I know they will get used, I know the kids will like them…. I really had to wrestle with this side of myself, as I knew it was driven partly by convenience and simplicity.

In the end, I concocted the following plan:

• I drew a list of 6 instrument options on the board (all things that I knew we didn’t have and could make great use of), and placed alongside each picture the instrument cost.
• I told them they had $400 to spend.
• We talked about how the small djembes were half the price of the big djembes, that the big ones might sound better, but that the small ones were a good size for the younger students and still sounded pretty good;
• We talked about how we could buy a new xylophone or metallaphone, but that this would use up all of our money on one instrument (but that this was a very popular instrument for all the students).
• We tried out some combinations of instruments and costs on the board as examples.
• Then I gave each child a piece of paper, and asked them to list their three favourite instruments, numbered 1-3. They could propose how many of each instrument they would like to buy too.
• I then placed a mark beside each instrument that was voted for. We looked at the most popular choices and worked out some possible combinations of instruments and quantities. We voted on our favourite and emerged with a clear winner.

The adding up proved too hard for most of them. But that didn’t matter. I am also not sure how many of them understood that they were being asked to choose the instruments because they had sung in a special concert and been paid. (Having said that some of them understood. They kept asking why they couldn’t just have the money).

In the end, they chose:

• three small djembes
• a vibraslap
• a large cabassa
• a pair of juju shakers (made from seed pods).

I think they were very money-conscious in their choices – most made a point of choosing the less expensive instruments. However, they all liked the idea of a new metallaphone – they just didn’t understand that this would use up all their budget.

It was a great exercise and I’m glad I asked for their input. It’s the right way to make these choices, I’m sure. Here are some examples of their ballot papers:

2009 is the 20 year anniversary of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRoC), and celebrate this, the University of Melbourne held an interdisciplinary half-day conference on Moving the Children’s Rights Agenda Forward.

My interest in this area has several strands. Firstly, my arts practice is a participatory one, in particular directing collaborations between professional musicians and young people, and in bringing children’s musical ideas and voices into the foreground of music-making. Secondly, my recently-completed Masters research was focused on the perceptions and thoughts of newly-arrived immigrant and refugee children, and their responses to music-learning in Australia. (You can read about my research in a little more detail here).

Thus, the skills involved in drawing out children’s voices and ideas, and the issues surrounding ethical use of their voice, and the arguments for (and against) this, have been areas of focus for me, which has drawn me into the larger arena of children’s rights in many different contexts.

Children’s rights, as enshrined in the UNCRoC, are a balance between freedom (autonomy rights) and protective rights (the right to protection, and acknowledgement of their vulnerability). Margaret Coady, in giving a historical overview, described early critics of the Declaration (1959) and subsequent Convention (1989), in particular the child liberationists (including such eminent scholars as John Holt), who objected to the UNCRoC becuase it was protective, and took away rights from children. (Book to read: Escape from Childhood by John Holt).

The rights of children to be heard in matters which affect them (for example, matters before the courts) have been hard-won (if they could be considered ‘won’ in the current times. Perhaps it is more accurate to say “gradually gaining tiny footholds and prominence in the minds of a growing number of decision-makers”…). Article 12 of the CRoC is concerned with the child’s right to express views, and for these views to be given appropriate weight according to the age and capacity of the child. How this is interpreted in different fields, and in different countries (compare, for example, Noway, Germany and New Zealand with Australia or the UK) can vary quite a lot.

The children’s righs movement has been growing steadily, but ironically, is in danger of being dominated by adults.

Coady finished with a reminder about autonomy – adult or child autonomy. Quoting Kymlicka, she said, “No lives go better being led from the outside according to values the person doesn’t endorse…” Humans live their lives from the inside, according to their understandings of what makes life valuable. This is true for people of any age. Children, like adults, are constantly forming their understanding of what makes life valuable for them.

Dr Judy Cashmore focused on Article 12 and Article 3 (children’s best interests). She looked at what she calls the three principle ‘Ps’ of the UN CRoC – Proviion, Protection and Participation (developing autonomy and agency). She highlighted at the beginning of her presentation the oft-used but misplaced rhetoric of many adults, that

Children are our future.

That may be true, but children are living in the present, in which they are children. It is the present that affects them, and by focusing on their future offerings, we can deny them the right to be children, to be heard, to have a voice in the way their young lives play out..

The notion of children’s “best interests” is a vague one, but this vaguness allows a certain amount of flexibility. It is responsive to changes in our knowledge of child development (for example, the recent recognition of a propensity towards risky behaviour in the wiring of teenagers – a propensity that may be supported by strong and determined arguments on the part of the teenagers, but that should be tempered with the greater knowledge in the developmental pyschology field).

As knowledge changes, we can see previously-held beliefs have been dangerous, damaging and wrong on numerous levels. For example, the removal of Aboriginal children from their families, and the forced migration of children and orphans from the United Kingdom to the far reaches of the Commonwealth, were considered at the time to be in the children’s “best interests”. It can also be used, Cashmore warned, to justify what is in fact in parents’/adults’ interests and resource allocation.

Sociologists take the view of children as “beings”, rather than of children as “becoming”. In other words, as fully-formed people in their own right, rather than as adults-in-the-making. Thus, they have valuable insights and points of view to offer, and unique world-views, of equal value to those of adults, formed as they are through the same process of living.

Cashmore cited Warshak (2003), in describing the way that the inclusion of young voices can bring both “enlightenment” (by providing a broader information base, and assisting decision-makers to consider what is in fact workable, ie. it is essential the children feel able to work within the decisions that are made); and “empowerment” (in that children are happier, have higher self-esteem, and better mental health when they are included in authentic and meaningful processes and space and weight is given to their offerenings). On this last point, there is a lack of evidence-based research to support these claims, although there is ample support for them anecdotally.

Research does show, however, that it is the idea of being included in a process, and the recognition and respect that this affords, that is most important to them. They want to “have a say, not to get their way”. In fact, children value relationships highly, and want to be involved, to be taken seriously, to be encouraged by warm, supportive adults, to be able to act and live with dignity. The issue need not be one of treating children as adults, but one of treating them as people, taking the focus away from notions of competence and capability, and placing it on respect and dignity, affording children the same respects that would be offered to adults (eg. to be listened to, to not get hit out of frustration or as a method of coercion).

Dr Paul Tranter’s presentation came at the question of children’s rights from a different perspective, that of a geographer, concerned with child-friendly environments and peak oil  – in particular the implications of peak oil for child and child-friendly cities. He presented his arguments with the help of the metaphors provided in the Disney/Pixar movie Monsters, Inc. ‘Peak oil’ is the name given to the point in time when the maximum rate of global petroleum extraction is reached, after which the rate of production enters terminal decline, and prices rise accordingly.

Our dependence on oil means that decline in production will create huge crises throughout the world. But the aspects of our lives that oil helps to feed are also those that make our cities less and less child-friendly, nay, downright dangerous for children.

This includes the dependence on cars (and not small, economic cars, but big, meaty four-wheel drives that consume fuel and coccoon people from the outside world, leading to increased loss of sense of place for children being ferried); use of cars leads to spread out cities (increasing dependence on cars to get anywhere); fear of unfamiliar people or places keeps people off the roads and streets, which means they are deserted and even less child-friendly than ever; and so on. Cheap oil essentially makes our cities less child-friendly. The peak oil crisis will lead to things like a global shortage of food, large numbers of children living in poverty, more wars as countries fight to access and control those resources which remain. None of this is good for children, or children’s health and well-being.

A child-friendly city allows for the independent mobility of children, where it is safe to explore and engage with the environment. Paul asked the audience to think of their favourite place to play when they were ten. We then raised our hands to answer yes to questions like Was it outdoors? Was it in a natural environment? Was there water nearby (a pond, stream, etc)? Could you manipulate it in some way (build things, dig holes)? Was there an element of risk (eg. could you hurt yourself if you fell?)? Children everywhere essentially respond to the same things, in terms of their preferred ways to play and explore their world.

A child-friendly city also supports, or creates, a sense of connection to community, and to the neighbourhood. Children interact with people of different ages. Adults assume a kind of shared responsibility for everyone’s children.

What does this loss of freedom mean for children? There is a need to strike a balance between exposing children to risk, and to protecting them. Two books to read on this topic are Children of the Lucky Country? by Dr. Fiona Stanley, and No Fear: Growing up in a risk-averse society by Tim Gill.

The use of Monsters Inc as a metaphor and “way in” for quite challenging, confronting and serious topics (for adults as well as children) was inspired. It felt to me like a large-scale arts project waiting to happen. And reminded me of the powerful messages in books like The Lorax (Dr Seuss); my friend Leilani also mentioned the book Momo (Michael Ende, who also wrote The Neverending Story). The metaphors offered by these stories allow people to confront big issues without them being too close to them initially; the ‘closeness’, when offered through realism and a sense of real-life emergency, can cause people to feel defensive and move swiftly into all kinds of denial.

The half-day conference concluded with Professor Glenda MacNaughton, who spoke about Article 12 from an Early Childhood Education perspective. Even when there is acceptance and ambracing of the notion of children’s voice and participation in decision-making, it often only includes children aged eight and above. The under-8s are still often seen as having less cpacity to contribute and offer meaningful insights. Research with this age-group in particular  (and perhaps with children generally) is frequently  observational research, rather than direct questioning or participation. In other words, we the learned adults still persist in watching and observing in order to learn (through interpreting what we see) what is going on, rather than asking questions of the main social actors themselves. MacNaughton gave examples from a recent research project that engaged children in an early childhood centre in questions about what they liked about this centre, and what an ideal centre would look like. The researchers drew incredibly rich data from these interviews (which were accompanied by a drawing task), which changed the way the program ran at that centre.

MacNaughton also showed us some very moving footage of a teacher (a very experienced, capable, switched-on teacher) describing an episode in her kindergarten where she had not listened to a child’s suggestion, where, because if differed from what she was seeking as an answer, she didn’t acknowledge the input in the same way that she had the suggestions from other children that were more in line with her own. She also described how this changed the behaviour of the children involved. It was a powerful piece of footage because I’m sure many of us identified with how that could happen, and how wrong it was. The teacher describing the episode was still very affected by it – her voice became choked, even as she told the story, even though she had clearly processed it and understood what took place.

In summing up all the presentations of the morning, Dr Kylie Smith suggested that we need multiple images of children.

• In some moments, children are vulnerable, and thus in need of protection (as, indeed, are adults in some moments);
• Children are developing and learning all the time (as indeed, are adults);
• Children are also capable social actors with important views to offer, that need to be heard (in the same way that this is true of all adults).

We all then adjourned to the courtyard of the Elizabeth Murdoch building for a delicious lunch (catered by the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre – very delicious food indeed!) and further conversation. It was an incredibly stimulating morning that stretched into part of the afternoon, and writing it up today (one day later) I am charged up all over again from these ideas.

I have started some preparatory work on a new community outreach program for one of the training institutions here for young musicians. One part of the program will be the development of partnerships between the academy and local primary schools, so the program coordinator and I set off this week to visit a couple of the schools and fill them in on the program as it is shaping up.

It is well-known here in Australia that many primary schools do not have music specialist teachers. In fact, there are lots of specialist teachers that they don’t have – ’specialists’ can include visual arts, library, PE, drama… and people rarely mention dance, but that too, could and should be taught by specialists. It is well-known… but as a music teacher, I tend to work in schools that DO have a specialist – they have me!

When I think of this well-known fact, I think there is a part of my brain that equates “no music specialist” to “disadvantaged school with limited resources, who are stretched in every capacity, and who have to prioritise things like additional Teacher Aides ahead of specialist teachers to support their students’ additional needs”. So it was quite a shock ad an eye-opener to visit two fairly well-off schools (if their parent population is any indication) and to hear that there was virtually no arts learning taking place with specialist teachers at all.

“Our parent group is very … professional“, one principal told us, meaning that, they tend to have high-powered, corporate jobs, are highly-educated, and apparently very quick to give the school feedback if they feel something is amis in their child’s education. Music as a specialist subject option rated highly on a recent parent survey (though got pipped at the post by Physical Education). Yet the principal thought he could “count on one hand” the number of children who might learn an instrument outside of school.I found myself shocked that such a parent group would not more actively seek out music experiences and learning opportunities for their children.

At another school, we were told that in the past, students had had the opportunity to learn an instrument during the school day, coming out of classroom work to have a 30 minute private or small-group lesson once a week. However, this system was now considered “inappropriate”, as it meant children were missing too much school work (I am tempted to insert the word “real” here… but I’m not sure the principal actual said “real school work”, even if it seemed implied). The school population was scoring low in  numeracy tests, and something had to be done about this.

What seems amazing is that numeracy targets not be met, and music or the arts be seen as the culprit! “The test results are bad – we must have spent too much time on music!” I have read about these attitudes, but perhaps it is the first time I’ve heard someone in a senior position speak openly about it. (Clearly I have led a sheltered life).

Another teacher said they didn’t see it as their role to help students develop actual skills in any of the arts. The simply aimed to give them some exposure and hope that a spark of passion or interest might be lit, that would lead the child to explore the area further outside of school. I found this alarming too. These subjects are mandated parts of the curriculum.

How much of this is about teachers’ own comfort levels, I wonder? Many of my older teaching colleagues tell me about how, when they were are teachers’ college, they all had to learn the guitar, and the recorder, to be a generalist classroom teacher! One principal admitted that this discomfort on the part of teachers was a big part of the problem – the three areas that the majority of teachers feel weakest in, he said, are music, art, and science.

It would not have been appropriate for us to challenge or question any of the decisions these schools had taken – that wasn’t the purpose of our meetings, and the teachers we met with were honest and direct with us about what they felt they would like to gain from a partnership with our program. Changing attitudes is a slow process, but hopefully, by building valuable and enriching partnerships, we will be able to demonstrate the way that powerful, demanding arts experience with integrity can bring about a diverse range of positive student outcomes.

Often at the Language School, it feels quite hard to get a full understanding of how things make sense to the children, and what things they retain. When they first arrive, they figure out what to do in each class by observing the other children and joining in by copying. They have very little idea behind the intentions of the tasks. They are also silent, or pretty well silent. They are working incredibly hard just to listen and keep track of this new, alien environment.

Later, perhaps after a term or so, they become more confident in the class routines, and may begin to speak or offer one- or two- word comments in response to questions, or sometimes on their own initiative. Around this time, as their language skills increase, I think the many tasks they do in music, as well as in their general classroom work, make a bit more sense, and the intention behind the activity, or the learning objective/focus, becomes clearer.

It is coming to the end of term and students in each class – usually those who have been at the school three terms, although this can vary – are getting ready to leave the school and make the transition to a mainstream school. It’s an exciting time, but also, I imagine, an anxious time, as they worry about whether they know enough, and how they will feel, and if they will find friends, and what it will be like to be new and confused all over again.

So it gave me great pleasure in class this week when one of my Upper Primary students suggested at the end of the lesson that we sing People Get Ready, a song we had learned the previous term. Those who knew it (most of the class) sang with confidence and enthusiasm.

“Let’s sing … the one about swimming to Australia!” suggested another student. This was a song that we had composed together in th previous term. I ended up not being very convinced by it, as there were a lot of words to learn, and I’d given the students a lot of input into the melodic shape, which meant it didn’t have quite the contour that I’d have liked.

Australia is an island

With water all around

You have to go by plane or ship

If you tried to swim you’d drown!

No you can’t swim to Australia….

I started up this song, and again, all that knew it sang it with gusto. There was no faltering over the fast words, or the awkward melody. Afterwards their teacher raised her eyebrows at me.

“That was pretty good singing,” she said, impressed. “All those words remembered!”

Then Michael, a good-natured but often distracted boy from Liberia suggested yet another song that he remembered from his time in the school – “that one about… just arrived… new country…”

When you’ve just arrived in a new country (When you’ve just arrived in a new country)

Some things are very hard for you…

I began to sing it, and Michael joined it. At the end of the first verse I smiled at him, and told the rest of the class, “This is a song we wrote in Middle Primary. Michael knows it because he was in Middle Primary before Upper Primary.”

“Me too!” said another boy, Tan. “I know it too.” That’s right. Tan had also changed classes during his time in the school.

We sang another verse. I wasn’t sure I could remember any others. The boys paused and thought.

“There was another one, a hard one, with very fast words,” Tan remembered. Ah yes…

Your heart is full of many feelings (heart is full of many feelings)

Some things are very hard for you

Tan’s comment really touched me. Those words are fast. But now he can sing them. And he remembers that, earlier, when we were singing this song, he used to find them too fast, and very difficult. Of course there will be times in the students’ experience at this school when they struggle in particular with one thing or another. But it is rare that I hear them comment on this.

I think about Michael, when he first arrived in the school, how withdrawn he had been, and then unfocused. Or Tan, who had seemed so floppy and vague and disconnected. Now they are leaders in their class, singing solos, and knowing all the words. That day, I felt so proud for Tan, and Michael, and all the other exiting students, for the progress they have made, and for their memories of their younger, struggling selves.

Last night the Pelican Primary School Choir gave their first public performance under my direction. They were invited to sing at a special Mayor’s Community Function, for the local city hall. They were the only child performers (no other schools were there), and they were the only performance item  – the other musical performers were roving jazz musicians.

They performed beautifully, and were incredibly chuffed with themselves. The entire experience was a positive one, in which lots was learned. I rely on these kinds of experiences to make sense of music learning for the children. They provide context for everything they do with me in class, and provide a strong motivation for working hard in music classes. Here are some of the things I think were learned or revealed last night.

1. This was an authentic performance experience.

They performed to an audience of adults. A sympathetic audience, yes, but not made up of parents or teachers or other members of the school community. These were strangers giving the Pelicans their full attention, who responded with delight to the performance. This was not something just for kids, playing at being a performance. This was a real, serious, important, formal event, at which they were the stars.

2. They have to place their trust in the conductor

Before we performed I gave them the little pep talk I give all the child performers I work with. “Once we are on the stage,” I told them, “I want you to give me your whole focus. Look at me. Other people might be taking photos, or smiling, and you might think it is polite to look at them. But I want you to look at me. After we have finished performing, there will be lots of time for smiling and photos. But while we are singing, I want you to only think about the songs, and to keep your eyes on me.”

I think children need to hear this. They need to be reminded that a performance space is a precious, ephemeral space, that they are in control of. They need permission to look away from the eagerly supportive parent who is urging them to smile for the camera.

They also need to trust me, that I will support them and help them give the best possible performance. I reassure them that if they get out there and feel strange or nervous or unsure, all they need to do is look at me, and I will be able to help them. I will be able to mouth the words, to show them where we are up to. I will be able to smile at them, and help them relax. I will not take my eyes away from them for a second.

3. They learned that I can cover any mistakes, so that this is not a burden or stress they need to carry

One girl had an additional role – she played the metalophone at the start of one of the songs. She was very nervous when the time came, and only looked at me for a second before looking down at her instrument. She started to play before I had counted her in, so I joined in with her. She got confused about the number of repetitions in the chord structure, so began to change chords at random.

I could tell she was confused. I accompanied her, following her irregular changes, but all the while, whenever she got back to the first chord in the progression, whispering the repetition numbers to her (as we had practised them) until she got back on track. Then we repeated the progression a few more times, so that she could hear it was indeed solid and steady and fine.

She also learned that she had to keep going, until she found her way through the confusion. I could help her with this, but she also found the confidence to keep going, rather than to falter and stop. That instrumental section returned three times throughout the piece, and every other time she performed it perfectly. At the end she gave me a tiny smile of relief and, I think, pride.

4. They learned the importance of presenting themselves with poise

We organised ourselves into a line to walk out in. We planned how the children playing instruments would leave their places in the formation, and how they would return to them at the end of the song. We talked about standing with two feet evenly on the ground, hands by sides, looking towards me. They did all of this so beautifully, I think the two teachers from the school who’d come with us were quite taken aback.

I think most people in the audience fell a little bit in love with my soloist on the night. This was a little Grade Two boy, with a bright and confident manner, who sang the opening verse to our final song before being joined by the rest of the choir. I asked him to stand in front of the choir when he sang his solo, and to step back into the line when his solo was finished. I never needed to remind him of this, he did it exactly as I had asked, each time. Very professional!

As he sang, he sang out. He sang in a confident voice. He smiled as he stepped back into line. Hearts melted (although I expect his parents’ hearts swelled with pride).

On reflection, he was the perfect choice as a soloist (and to be honest, I am still new enough in the school that I don’t always know how individuals will react when I pose a challenge for them). He took it seriously, and he never once doubted himself. He never giggled or got self-conscious. He never let himself get distracted by other children in rehearsals trying to distract him. And thus, he created the perfect template for the choir of what it means to do a solo, and what it requires of you.

And of course, when we present ourselves with poise and confidence, we enhance our feelings of confidence. Perhaps, even if only on a subtle level, the students also learned this.

5. They learned what they have to offer

This is a school where many students struggle. They may struggle with life skills, or academically, or socially, or because they are under-nourished, or because they don’t get much attention in their big chaotic families. Taking part in this concert, and being applauded, showed them that they have much to offer, especially when they work together. The music for this concert – four songs, all with actions or arrangements to be memorised – was worked on over many weeks. I fervently, strenuously hope that they might now recognise how all of those weeks was a progression towards this kind of outcome, and how great outcomes like this are completely within their reach, when they put in the work.

6. They learned that I have expectations of them…

… and that I won’t accept less. That this is what being in an ensemble means, and that we are only going to do it in an authentic, meaningful way. That the fun comes while you’re working hard. And that I am very proud of them.

—

They also will soon learn that these kinds of performances bring further rewards. The local council paid us a performance fee and we are going to put that towards some new instruments. Today I talked with one of the local music stores about bringing a selection of instruments up to the school during choir time so that the choir people can help select what we buy with that money. This way, they will get to enjoy the material contribution they have made to the school through their hard word too. I’m planning to put together a price check-list for them, and let them circle the instruments they think we should buy (up to the maximum money we have to spend). I’ll then make the final decision.

On reflection (and upon pondering the additional ‘winter coat’ I seem to have gained around my middle over the last few months) I realise that I have been craving a lot more sweet things this year – in particular chocolate.

Why could this be? I’m no longer dealing with the humungus amounts of stress that I used to have to cope with (related to the orchestra, where I no longer work). I do lots of exercise – swimming or running most days, travelling everywhere by bike – so I should be chocablock full of endorphin-things. I eat healthy food for all my meals. I used to crave apples when I wanted a sugar hit, for goodness sake!

Can I blame the supermarkets, who have developed an annoying tendency to offer significant discounts for multiple purchases of Lindt chocolate (my favourite)? It means I end up with chocolate in the fridge which I’d never normally have.

I commented on this phenomenon to another teacher at Pelican PS, as we unlocked our bikes at the end of another fairly highly-strung day and she laughed, and told me that for her, the entire ride home is consumed with thoughts of the bottle of Coke in the fridge.

So maybe that is the new factor – Pelican Primary School. Perhaps the highly-charged, slightly volatile (while at the same time filled with creative energy and humour) atmosphere of the school is depleting me of some essential nutrient that chocolate seems to fill, and so I hunger for it when I get home from school.

Well – no more! It has to stop! I shall go back to being the person who doesn’t have a chocolate hunger.

–

I’ll just finish those last few pieces of the last block in my fridge.

It’s occurred to me recently that going to a concert is no longer the huge attraction it once was. In the past, concerts were opportunities for connection with other performers, with friends and colleagues (both on the stage and in the audience), and to be moved or transfixed by the music.

Nowadays, I feel more reticent to head out. Perhaps this is a result of too many Melbourne Festival tickets bought for performances that failed to please. Perhaps it is a delayed reaction to the many, many orchestral concerts I went to, in the days that I worked for an orchestra. Mostly though, I have to confess that it is a response to the growing sense that I often have after going to a concert (or any other performance) of a kind of blankness, when I wake up the next day and have absolutely no reaction to it. It is simply…. nothing, really. An experience that hasn’t really impacted on me (in the true sense of the word) in any way. It isn’t about ‘like’ or ‘dislike’.

It seems a ridiculously tall order, but I want my performance-going to be life-changing. I want to come home and have it rolling over in my head, again and again. Questions, or issues, or ideas, or challenges, or puzzles to ponder. Or delights, or a remembered experience of connection with the music and the expression of the artists.

It has become a kind of assessment tool, in a way, prior to buying tickets. “Will it be worth it?” by which I mean the investment of effort and the time on my part, rather than the actual cost.

Last week I went to the Melbourne Recital Centre to hear the Melbourne Chamber Orchestra perform three works under the baton of Sir Neville Marriner. Andrew Marriner (his son) played the Mozart Clarinet Concerto.

How was this concert for me, given the above criteria? Well, I know that I enjoyed it. I enjoyed the company I was with, and I very much enjoyed the orchestra’s playing, as I haven’t heard them for quite a few years.

I loved Andrew Marriner’s performance of the clarinet concerto. It’s a piece I know very, very well, and it was truly a delight to hear such familiar lines being performed so well. There is a delightful fluency, or lightness, in the writing. (I know, it is silly to comment on the delicious craft of Mozart’s writing as we all know he was a genius… but truly, this is such a wonderful piece, and as I listened to it I was reminded of this again, and again, and again…). I enjoyed noticing some of the interpretive decisions Marriner made – his choices in articulation, or in cadenza. I know that he studied with the same teacher I studied with for a year, so I listened for ‘Hans-isms’ in his playing too.

But here is the life-changing bit: it made me want to go straight home and dig out my well-loved score of the concerto, and my Music Minus One CDs, and play it again! I think this is a fine concert experience to have. It reminded me of how I loved playing this piece, way back in my classical performing days, how much I love its phrases, harmonies and structures still, and that these are still there for me to return to, whenever I want.

I haven’t yet had time to get my clarinet out, but I shall, very soon. And I am looking forward to revisiting the Mozart Concerto when I do.

On another note, I realised that night that the traditional concert length no longer suits me. I would have been happy to go home after the Mozart, as there was so much to digest and process from the experience of the first half of the concert. This is absolutely not meant as a disparaging comment on what took place in the second half. The second half of the program was a new work by the Melbourne-based composer (and virtuoso organist) Calvin Bowman. He wrote a song cycle, English in tone and turn, with echoes of Finzi, Delius and even Michael Head and Warlock (to my ears) which was absolutely gorgeous, filled with light and shade and colour. We had the treat of hearing the songs performed by a lovely soprano, Jacqueline Porter… so really, it was all quite delightful.

However, as we walked to the car, I commented to John my companion that the first half of the concert now felt like a distant memory, our heads were so full of the most recent piece we had heard.

Thus, I find myself fully in favour of shorter concerts that allow patrons adequate time for reflection and digestion. Or perhaps concerts with a dinner break between the first and second halves.

It’s End-Of-Year Concert time at Pelican Primary School so I am busy working with each class to prepare an item. With one class  I offered them a choice- we could either learn a song by Green Day, or we could write a song together. They chose to write a song together (though the following week told me that, really, this has been their teacher’s choice, and they had really wanted to do the Green Day song. But by then it was too late, our song was written).

The song we’ve written is a classic rock song called Long Summer Holiday. It has two verses, two pre-chorus ‘ramps’ that build up our energy, a rockin’ out chorus that most of us need to sing in a seventies falsetto, and a raging guitar solo in the instrumental break.

The best thing is, it’s going to be an air guitar solo. This started out as a joke, a bit of hamming up by one of the students. But then I thought, why not? It will be vocal improvising, it will be theatrical, and it will be a fabulously original piece of content in the concert.

Yesterday, we made a rough recording of the song so that they could keep the CD in their classroom and start working on some staging ideas (backing singers, drum kits, dancers, etc). I recorded the air guitar solos too. Two boys wanted to have a try, so I got them to take it in turns. I was surprised by how well it worked (oh ye of little faith, G) – they had an excellent feel for the kind of melodic and rhythmic motifs that could be used, they both ended up on their knees, and they got the hang of tag-teaming the solos so that there were no gaps in between.

Go home and google ‘air guitar’ I suggested at the end of the class. “I bet you’ll be able to find some great clips of people…. watch what they do with their hands and face and body… and listen to how they use their voice.” Study these to get more ideas, I suggested to the boys.

Without a doubt though, the real enthusiasm for this rock song project came about when their teacher suggested they could dress up, put gel in their hair, make mohawks, etc. That’s when they started to grab hold of the project with both hands.

I’m really delighted with this air guitar thing. Of course, it could all go horribly wrong. Pelican students aren’t known for their ability to recognise the fine line between funny performance and just being silly (‘being giddy’, my mother used to call it, that level of giggling silliness that kids get into and have difficulty breaking out of). So I need to be quite stern and serious, to make sure they instill it with some performance discipline so that they don’t crack up laughing when they are in front of their peers, and some strong musical qualities.

I think they’ll get there. The two boys who’ve volunteered are pretty committed to the whole idea, with one following up on the google idea the moment he got home.

My teaching style usually emphasises creative projects with children where they are actively engaged in inventing music, and seeking out solutions to musical problems or challenges. However, it needs to be said that this approach (which I believe to be far richer pedagogically, leading to deep musical understanding among children) can be very demanding on the teacher:

• It requires you to think on your feet, constantly ready to respond to the music as it emerges from the children’s efforts;
• My creative projects often span several weeks, if not the whole term, so there can be quite a lot of planning and developing that needs to take place between each lesson;
• When children get over-excited through the freedom of the process (which can happen, and is quite an issue at Pelican PS), then a huge amount of energy needs go into simply containing them and keeping the process on track. It is this last point that I think I find the most debilitating sometimes.

By the time Term 4 started, I knew I was feeling pretty weary. It has been a busy year of projects! The children were too, so I decided to develop a number of ‘directed’ projects for us all, projects that would involve playing and singing, but primarily through learning material, rather than inventing it.

It has proved a good tactic. At the Language School, the Middle Primary class with its very particular group of demanding, narcissistic boys has really benefited from learning specific, pre-existing material. There had been too much hijacking of creative tasks in previous terms, in terms of disruptive behaviour, and tantrums when collaborative processes didn’t go their way, and things felt much calmer this term.

Here’s a rundown of the kinds of things we’ve done:

Lower Primary – Learning the song Ho ho watanay and developing accompaniments (some learned, some invented). Lots of instruments, and detailed structure to memorise.

Middle Primary – Learning the song Ah ya zahn (traditional song in Arabic from Lebanon) with various learned instrumental accompaniments. This song introduced the children to thefull chromatic glockenspiels, and they learned to play the melody, with its wonderfully twisting, middle-eastern mode.

Upper Primary – Learning the song Sakura form Japan (both in Japanese and in the English translation that I wrote some years ago). The UP students also created new melodic material on glockenspiels, using a Japanese mode (take off all the Gs and Ds so that you are left with F-A-B-C-E). I asked them to think of a flower or plant that is special to the country they come from. From these suggestions we developed three spoken phrases, with rhythms implied by the syllables of the words. Then, working in teams, they selected notes from the mode in order to make a melody to this rhythm. Their words included:

Hababa flower, many colours (from Ethiopia, Oromo people)

Some big, some small, pink, purple, white and blue

Yellow sunflower, follows the sun (suggested by an Assyrian boy from Iraq)

Shishke on the Christmas tree, all the year round (from a Russian girl)

At Pelican Primary School, things have been similarly structured:

Preps and Grade Ones have invented their own simple version of the song Driving in my car (originally by the UK pop group Madness). These are very cute songs. We’re trying to add instruments, and on a good day, it all comes together.

Grade ones and Twos are singing The Earth is our mother and have created several melodic phrases inspired by sentences that describe ways to keep the planet healthy.

Grades 3 and 4 have learned to sing Ah Ya Zahn and developed similar accompaniments to those that I’ve taught at the Language School.

However, my Pelican Primary School experiences are making me re-think a lot of the creative work that I do. These children have so much creative energy, but zero internal discipline (as a group) to hold their focus long enough to make something work. In my experience, this kind of constant distraction, or distractedness, is quite common in schools where there are high numbers of refugee-background students. These kids have so much to gain from well-managed, clearly-structured creative processes. However, many of the tactics I have developed at the Language School have been proving too loose for the children at Pelican PS.

I’ve spoken about this with some of the other teachers, and they confirm that this lack of capacity to engage well with creative tasks occurs in other classes too. “Even just having a discussion about something with the class is very difficult in this school,” one teacher admitted. The disciplines of listening to each other, taking turns, not interrupting or shouting another person down, aren’t really present.

In music too, more open tasks make many of the students feel uncertain about what is expected of them, and this uncertainty (coupled perhaps with general insecurities, and the abstract nature of music in the first place) sees them go off-task very quickly, and just make random noise.

I’ve written before (see here) about the way the Pelican students seem to respond to noise in general, and specifically to multiple sources of sound in music. Little by little I am realising that the strategies I’ve been developing for ESL/ELL students in the Language School can’t be transferred here automatically. The students in the Language School have a far greater capacity to focus and remain engaged.  Perhaps the length of general classroom focus is always determined by the shortest attention span – or the shortest attention span among the more dominant class members!

There are lots of children from refugee backgrounds at Pelican Primary School. If we think about survival skills – being able to stand up for yourself, and get what you need for you and your family, making sure your voice is heard over the top of many other voices, making sure you are never at the end of a line, no matter what, being quick to react to any new potential threats around you, and learning to respond to a constantly chaotic environment – then we can see a kind of progression from those survival tactics to the common strategies employed by many students in the school. Lots of shouting over each other, interrupting conversations (often not noticing if said conversation is even taking place!), turning heads to watch whatever is taking place elsewhere in the room, and so on.

I feel very sure that music can offer these children opportunities  and motivation to break some of these patterns, and to experience themselves as learners in a different way. Creative music-making offers the additional benefit of a sense of ownership over the music, a validation and endorsement of one’s own contributions to the process, a deep understanding of the music from the inside out, and a powerful means of self-expression and individual voice. But I do need to figure out some new and powerful ways into creative music that scaffold each of the smallest of steps, and offer tangible experiences of success and delight to the students in as short a period of time as possible, due to those peskily short attention spans. Those experiences of success and delight are the key to their motivation to continue working cooperatively with me and with each other.

The Lower Primary class I teach at the Melbourne English Language School is very sweet – lots of energy and goodwill, and an impressive ability to focus as a group and make some coherent music together. This term we have been with two traditional songs from Canada (Iroquois, I belive) – Ho ho watanay and Canoe song.

Both these songs can be accompanied with a simple 2-chord pattern. I tend to play them in D minor, with the second chord being C. The chord progression is Dmin | Dmin | C | Dmin.

It’s been a lovely project. We’ve worked out some accompanying patterns on glockenspiels, which they’ve invented themselves, and we’ve added in some drums. We’ve tried singing both Ho ho watanay and The Canoe Song as partner songs, and we’ve tried them as rounds.

For these young English learners, Ho ho watanay is the simpler of the two, as the lyrics are repetitive, and are just a series of simple sounds to be memorised:

Ho ho watanay, ho ho watanay

Ho ho watanay, kee-o-ka-na kee-o-ka-na

The Canoe song is more complicated, with lots of unfamiliar English words:

My paddle’s clean and bright, flashing with silver

Follow the wild goose flight, Dip, dip and swing.

They picked up on the ‘Dip, dip and swing’ line first and have always sung that with gusto. However, they struggle with ‘Follow the wild goose flight’ – lots of words, lots of syllables, a d-ending followed by a g- beginning… and other similar challenges. Last week I devised some simple warm-up games to get them to repeat this line and become more confident with it:

1. Pass The Sound – this is a Game we play every week, where a single sound (usually a clap, a ssshh, or other vocal or body percussion sounds) gets passed one by one around the circle. It’s like Chinese Whispers except the intention is for the sound to copied accurately every time. To bring the focus on the lyrics, I passed around single words like ‘follow’ or ‘goose’ or ‘wild’. Then I strung two words together, such as ‘wild goose’ and ‘goose flight’. Then we moved onto three-word strings – ‘wild goose flight’ or ‘follow the wild’. Lastly we sent the whole phrase ‘follow the wild goose flight’ around the circle. The children enjoyed the predictability of this game, but it also gave them a chance to hear their own voice pronouncing these unfamiliar sounds (and to hear that others in the group were also struggling).
2. How Many Words? - I know that when I am learning a new language it helps if I can visualise how the sounds separate into different words. I asked the Lower Primary children to tell me how many words were in each line of the song (particularly this difficult line) by counting on their fingers as they said the line aloud.
3. Hocketting- Lastly we said the line one word at a time, around the circle. Then we tried saying the whole song like this.

The children remained engaged throughout all these tactics. It gave me a chance to hear and assist the children who are often very silent during singing tasks, and to encourage them to try these words aloud, and in the context of the song. The singing of the song became much more confident. I’ll have to wait until next Tuesday to find out how much has been retained!