Snobs playing instruments …

 

Today I’ll disregard the ‘news’ presented by the MSM. It’s no great loss, it’s not as if there were real news as opposed to more or less skilfully presented propaganda pieces. Firstly, the obligatory look at the print editions’ front pages: “Newspaper headlines: Hancock before Covid Inquiry and doctors to strike” (link). See – we’re ‘good’: Hancock is being grilled, producing inanities.

Why is it that I feel as if we peasants are being given a lollipop to pacify us, by allowing ‘witnesses’ to denounce this person and the government’s covid policy now, when it’s too late and when the attitude which produced this unspeakable disaster is still flourishing in Whitehall and Westminster?

That’s all I’ll say about this inquiry for the time being. Today I want to look at something completely different: music. Classical music, that is, and ‘education’. Yesterday The Times had a report, accompanied by an editorial. Today they doubled down with an opinion piece by Andrew Lloyd Webber. All these items are paywalled.

I was very much intrigued because classical music or rather one special era of it, is close to my heart. For me, it has brightened many dark hours and I cannot conceive of living without it. This is something I don’t talk about very often because it’s a question of taste about which one ought not to debate, as the ancient Romans observed when they said “de gustibus non est disputandum”. Interests do vary and ought not to be discriminated against, one way or another.

And so, being intrigued, I plunged into those pieces and was shocked to read the following in yesterday’s report (all emphases are mine):

“Classical music is becoming the preserve of the privately educated because state school children do not routinely learn instruments, the boss of a leading orchestra says. Dame Kathryn McDowell, managing director of the London Symphony Orchestra (LSO), […] said that music education should be given greater priority in state schools. She fears that the demands of the national curriculum, budget constraints and a shortage of dedicated music teachers inevitably mean that children in state schools are often not able to learn to play an instrument.” (link, paywalled)

So that’s why the Times gave so much space to this subject! It’s about ‘helping the underprivileged’ by giving more money to state schools. This statement emphasises the old lefty attitude that classical music is only for rich toffs, that proper working class people are fine with listening to pop music and that their aspirations to become rich pop stars should be supported, not the demands learning an instrument poses.

More insidiously is not only the “MeToo” attitude when it’s about getting more money from the Treasury but also the typical snobbery which those of the chattering classes love to display, especially when they are only consumers of ‘culture’ but not practitioners. The headline of yesterday’s editorial gives the game away:

“Sliding Down the Scales – State schools are dropping music lessons, depriving children of a lifetime’s pleasure” (link, paywalled)

They regurgitate the outcry by Dame Kathryn McDowell that ever fewer children from state schools become classical musicians, i.e. ‘not entering the pipeline to classical orchestras’, reducing ‘music education’ in the sense of ‘exclusive classical music’ to ‘instrument playing’, regardless of pupils having an interest, never mind talent. A comparison with school sports shows that few are talented while the untalented majority is forced to ‘do sports’, being taught a lifetime of revulsion.

Next we’re told pridefully that an orchestra (Birmingham) will help a local academy and that “Musical hubs and other initiatives are being proposed: local industry, arts foundations and wealthy enthusiasts can take pride in local musical talent.” (link, paywalled). How nice! Andrew Lloyd Webber blows the same trumpet (sorry, couldn’t help myself …!) in his piece today, writing:

“Classical music must not be the preserve of the rich. There should be a proper programme that makes music available to students in every school.” (link, paywalled)

The rest of his piece is about a ‘proven programme’ which has been running for ten years and “has provided musical instruments and weekly music tuition that have transformed disadvantaged schools and their pupils.” (link, paywalled). So something is being done then, and has been for years.

Why then do we get this concerted wailing in The Times? Do the editors want to affirm their ‘anti-posh’ stance by warbling about money needed for state schools, about poor kids being ‘deprived’ of learning an instrument? The editors have done themselves no favour at all though as their own snobbery comes to the fore in the editorial’s concluding paragraph:

“Sadly, all is now being sacrificed to “Stem” education. The sciences are where Britain’s future lies, the thinking goes, and humanities in general are optional. What a drab, utilitarian future that offers!” (link, paywalled)

What unmitigated tosh! Many ‘STEM educated’ people have learned to play an instrument to the highest standards. “Science” and “Culture”, here: classical music, are not mutually exclusive. Moreover, why should music education be treated differently than sports?

Closing school sports grounds, curtailing sport education has been an issue for years. Those with talent and interest have had to learn sports in athletic or football or swimming clubs. Why should classical music be any different? Furthermore, one can be taught to understand and appreciate classical music without playing an instrument, just as one can appreciate athletic prowess without being an athlete.

I regard this sudden ‘outcry’ as another sly instrument in the campaign for ‘regime change’ here in the UK. It is utterly misplaced because it doesn’t address the true malaise of our schools, state or private: the decades of neglecting to teach basic skills like reading, numeracy and discipline.

It’s not a question of more money for classical music education – it’s a question of tackling at the roots a reform of curricula and teaching. But that is something which won’t happen in our lifetime because governments across the world are more interested in ‘educating’ children to remain dumb and thus easy prey to ‘the latest thing’, making them governable, making them helpless to resist ‘government measures’ such as lockdowns.

That’s all I have for today. Meanwhile, let’s cheer Nigel Farage for having won ‘TV Presenter of the Year’, to the massed displeasure of the Westminster ‘presenters’ and ‘industry’ bosses. Have a good day.

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