Fears for future of school music lessons

(Original Link - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-11796636)

School music lessons could be hit as local councils make savings and school budgets are redrawn, it is feared.

One in five music services, which support schools, expect councils will completely axe their grants and half fear cuts of up to 50%, a survey suggests.
The Federation of Music Services warned that some services which help provide subsidised lessons could collapse.

The government said all pupils should be able to learn an instrument or sing.
It has commissioned a review of music provision in schools, being carried out by Classic FM head Darren Henley, but this is not due to report until January.

However, local authorities in England which face cuts of about a third, get their funding allocations in early December.

It is clear from the federation's survey of 158 music services in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, that many are already planning cuts with some preparing to axe the funding completely.

Local authorities provide just one strand of funding for school music services, with the rest coming from central government grants and parental contributions.

But the expected cuts come as schools face a huge shake-up of their budgets. A number of schemes dedicated to supporting school music face cuts or being channelled into a general schools budget for redistribution.

The Department for Education later said it had not yet taken a decision on the main £82.5m Music Standards Grant and would not do so until the Henley review had reported.
But it would not guarantee that the money would be ring-fenced within schools.

'Steep decline'
 
Federation of Music Services (FMS) chief executive Virginia Haworth-Galt said: "We recognise the pressure many local authorities are under but would urge them to them to hold back their plans until we know the results of the Henley Review.

"Music and our children's education are too important to be jettisoned like this particularly when we know that 91% of the public back music education in schools."

She added that the FMS would be very disappointed if the music grant went directly into schools' budgets without any ring-fencing for music education.

"This situation occurred in the early 1990s with disastrous results; music went into a steep decline as the monies were spent elsewhere in schools. This is a music lesson that should not be repeated," she added.

Conductor of the Bedforshire Youth Orchestra Michael Rose says music services in his area, Central Bedfordshire, are set to have budgets and teaching staff cut to zero.

He said as music services were non-statutory they were particularly vulnerable in the present climate of cuts.

He said: "If funding is lost in this way music lessons will become the sole preserve of the middle classes."

He added: "Instrumental teaching in the county's schools is provided by a central staff of highly qualified instrumental teachers. It has resulted in literally many thousands of children having the experience of learning an instrument."

Schools minister Nick Gibb said too many children in state schools were denied the opportunity to learn to play a musical instrument.

This was why he had launched a major review of how music is taught and enjoyed in schools to help make sure all pupils get an opportunity to learn to play an instrument and to sing.

Its recommendations would determine how future funding could be best used in the future, he added.
'Shocking'

  "Evidence tells us that learning an instrument can improve young people's numeracy and literacy skills and their behaviour.

"It is also simply unfair that the pleasure of musical discovery should be the preserve of those whose parents can afford it."

"As part of that review recommendations will be made to determine how future funding can best be used," he said.

He added that decisions on central funding for music would not be made until after the review had reported.

General secretary of the National Union of Teachers Christine Blower said the cuts to music in schools were even more shocking in light of Michael Gove's announcement that he would be holding a review into music education in schools, claiming that it was a "sad fact" that too few state school children learnt an instrument.

She added: "Music in schools makes a contribution way beyond the straightforward exercise of learning an instrument.

"Children and young people can experience coming together in a creative environment which benefits them in other aspects of their school life."

Hearing the Music, Honing the Mind

(Original Link - http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=hearing-the-music-honing)

Music produces profound and lasting changes in the brain. Schools should add classes, not cut them.

 

Nearly 20 years ago a small study advanced the notion that listening to Mozart’s Sonata for Two Pianos in D Major could boost mental functioning. It was not long before trademarked “Mozart effect” products appealed to neurotic parents aiming to put toddlers on the fast track to the Ivy League. Georgia’s governor even proposed giving every newborn there a classical CD or cassette.

The evidence for Mozart therapy turned out to be flimsy, perhaps nonexistent, although the original study never claimed anything more than a temporary and limited effect. In recent years, however, neuroscientists have examined the benefits of a concerted effort to study and practice music, as opposed to playing a Mozart CD or a computer-based “brain fitness” game once in a while. Advanced monitoring techniques have enabled scientists to see what happens inside your head when you listen to your mother and actually practice the violin for an hour every afternoon. And they have found that music lessons can produce profound and lasting changes that enhance the general ability to learn. These results should disabuse public officials of the idea that music classes are a mere frill, ripe for discarding in the budget crises that constantly beset public schools.

Studies have shown that assiduous instrument training from an early age can help the brain to process sounds better, making it easier to stay focused when absorbing other subjects, from literature to tensor calculus. The musically adept are better able to concentrate on a biology lesson despite the racket in the classroom or, a few years later, to finish a call with a client when a colleague in the next cubicle starts screaming at an underling. They can attend to several things at once in the mental scratch pad called working memory, an essential skill in this  era of multitasking.

Discerning subtleties in pitch and timing can also help children or adults in learning a new language. The current craze for high school Mandarin classes furnishes an ideal example. The difference between m¯a (a high, level tone) and mà (falling tone) represents the difference between “mother” and “scold.” Musicians, studies show, are better than nonmusicians at picking out easily when your m¯a is màing you to practice. These skills may also help the learning disabled improve speech comprehension.
Sadly, fewer schools are giving students an opportunity to learn an instrument.

In Nature Reviews Neuroscience this summer, Nina Kraus of Northwestern University and Bha­rath Chandrasekaran of the University of Texas at Austin, who research how music affects the brain, point to a disturbing trend of a decline of music education as part of the standard curriculum. A report by the advocacy organization Music for All Foundation found that from 1999 to 2004 the number of students taking music programs in California public schools dropped by 50 percent.

Research of our brains on music leads to the conclusion that music education needs to be preserved—and revamped, as needed, when further insights demonstrate, say, how the concentration mustered to play the clarinet or the oboe can help a problem student focus better in math class. The main reason for playing an instrument, of course, will always be the sheer joy of blowing a horn or banging out chords. But we should also be working to incorporate into the curriculum our new knowledge of music’s beneficial effect on the developing brain. Sustained involvement with an instrument from an early age is an achievable goal even with tight budgets. Music is not just an “extra.”