Saxophone beginners Music education in the UK

[Colin the Bear]

I still have a fascination with recorders. What wasn't explained at the time was how it simplified my transition to other woodwinds. (Not the whistle or bagpipes.)

I always tell people interested in playing saxophone to try recorder first. If you can't master that, then you'll be a magpie with a wall ornament.

 

[Pete Effamy]

If you can't master that, then you'll be a magpie with a wall ornament.

I can’t play it…

 

[Colin the Bear]

I can’t play it…

But by choice not for want of trying?

 

[Pete Effamy]

But by choice not for want of trying?

I learned clarinet first. I hate the feel and sound of it.

 

[PiccoloPirate]

If you all had a musical halftime, on the Pitch, like we do with Yankee football, that might work. 🙄
Maybe take a half pound, from the entrance fee, and a few pence, from the sale of a stout, at every event, and fund music programs.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1q8tLCCHcCI

 

[Honkin Ron Howe]

On the back of other comments and members personal experiences; I started my music career in 1967 as a Sea Cadet Drummer/Bugler and then a bit of trumpet. All financed by may parents but I never had tuition. There was no school tuition that I remember. I didn't take up sax until 1976 (after leaving school) and I asked my local secondary school if they could help me learn or recommend a tutor but they couldn't. Although music is considered the 3rd R it's recognised but not acknowledged.

On the other hand, my daughter had keyboard and guitar lessons in the 1990s, but we had to pay for it all. She eventually became a singer/songwriter/guitarist and keyboard player and was mostly self taught. Other youngsters around the area have the benefit of several amazing marching bands including the Redhill Corp of Drums who really help kids learn various instruments. The Reigate Gramma School had a program, and there you go.

The Local Authority just doesn't have the money to invest in bands and orchestras'. There are plenty of other options and opportunities out there.

 

[ghostler]

Pay is low. Conditions are crap. More “extras” are demanded of instrumental teachers to bring them in line with classroom teaching ie lesson plans. Poor funding for music and not acknowledging it as a valuable study has been the case for years.

It is no different in the US. In the 1980's whilst a member of the 300th Army (Reserve) Band in Bell, California, we had 9 prior service musicians who were former junior high and high school band teachers.

The extra pay to do after school extracurricular activities, the athletic field sports and indoor basketball game pep bands, half time field marching shows and all the after school practise required for show prep, after school concerts, field trips to other schools, did not adequately compensate. Also, it took away considerable time from their family lives and personal time. They switched to being mathematics and science teachers.

The reserve band was their way of exercising their musicianship plus earn extra pay and a small retirement at age 60 after 20 years vested.

 

[chrysalis]

Is that true?

I don't know, but it sounds good, and if it's a bit provocative & food for thought, it has served its purpose. 😉

Don't know any science behind it, but I am sure that making music together fosters a range of positive experiences. It trains one to pay attention to one's surroundings and learn to listen, while focusing over an extended period of time, it lets one experience being part of something bigger than what one can achieve alone, allows for the insight that subordinating one's momentary impulses to a task at hand can be rewarding, it opens up experiences of flow and rhythm which do have science backing up their beneficial psychological effects, etc.

So yes, I do think those experiences can help equip beings with the skills for building a happier, healthier, cooperating society.

 

[mizmar]

cannot harmonise musically cannot harmonise socially

Is a much stronger statement than

can help equip

.

I'm, equally, no ethnographer; but it seems to me that a very common practice in human society is to have musical group activity; dances, religious ritual, civil ceremony, stadium extravaganza - where a few specialist provide music and the gen pop participates with (relatively simple) dance, chants, clapping, moshing and the like.

I wouldn't be surprised if such activities provide some social coherence.

But this business of everyone needing to be able to play an instrument is less usual.

 

[iantaylor2uk]

I don't really understand why schools don't teach pentatonic scales first. This would enable beginners to sound more melodic and musical earlier and maybe encourage more people to stick with music.

 

[Pete Thomas]

I'm, equally, no ethnographer; but it seems to me that a very common practice in human society is to have musical group activity; dances, religious ritual, civil ceremony, stadium extravaganza - where a few specialist provide music and the gen pop participates with (relatively simple) dance, chants, clapping, moshing and the like.

During my brief stint teaching University courses, there were students doing a combined courses, e.g. part music performance part engineering or business studies. This was generally a bad idea as it gave students less focus on each but often a deal the parents had struck thinking the student stood a better chance of a "proper job." This was wrong as future employers seemed to value very highly a music degree as a highly transferable skill. Not only did students need to learn proper writing skills and discipline, but playing in (and crucially organising) ensembles and bands, and producing performances, were seen as a really useful experience and important assets both socially and professionally.

 

[chrysalis]

Is a much stronger statement than


.

I'm, equally, no ethnographer; but it seems to me that a very common practice in human society is to have musical group activity; dances, religious ritual, civil ceremony, stadium extravaganza - where a few specialist provide music and the gen pop participates with (relatively simple) dance, chants, clapping, moshing and the like.

I wouldn't be surprised if such activities provide some social coherence.

But this business of everyone needing to be able to play an instrument is less usual.

Harmonising doesn't necessarily mean playing an instrument ... isn't even dancing/bopping/clapping/humming/singing along a way of harmonising?

But even for that, musical education, with the large variety of possible activities hosted under this umbrella term, can and should form a solid basis. You'd be surprised at the number of people I've met over the years who are surprisingly unable to clap or sing along to a song without losing the beat, or even unable period, too inhibited to participate in any of it. Which does make me feel like someone somewhere along the way has failed them.

Agree, it doesn't mean that everyone has to pick up and pursue an instrument, which requires individual inclinations, interest and initiative. If those inclinations exist, it would be nice if there were options accessible to support them.

And yes, I also think that in modern times, subcultures have filled the role of social activities that can provide identity and social experience. How much of that is now, and will in the future be, happening in the real world with real physical groups of human beings getting together? I strongly believe in the self-regulation of humans & life in general, so I'm sure the kids of today & tomorrow will find ways to make it happen, but I also think it is in societies' interest to provide and guide opportunities and lay foundations for the younger age groups.

 

[chrysalis]

During my brief stint teaching University courses, there were students doing a combined courses, e.g. part music performance part engineering or business studies. This was generally a bad idea as it gave students less focus on each but often a deal the parents had struck thinking the student stood a better chance of a "proper job." This was wrong as future employers seemed to value very highly a music degree as a highly transferable skill. Not only did students need to learn proper writing skills and discipline, but playing in (and crucially organising) ensembles and bands, and producing performances, were seen as a really useful experience and important assets both socially and professionally.

That's a great point for the bigger picture. Would be nice if that line of thinking could get out to the people deciding the budgets.

 

[Pete Thomas]

That's a great point for the bigger picture. Would be nice if that line of thinking could get out to the people deciding the budgets.

Sadly universities (and schools) aren't the most creative or forward thing re:marketing.

We knew that this was true as students reported back, having landed nice jobs in banking etc, that their music part of the degree is what swung it with the employers.

 

[mizmar]

Harmonising doesn't necessarily mean playing an instrument

Which was my point.
These things are woven into the fabric of many cultures and not learned in school let alone, as you agreed, to do with learning music / an instrument.

My feeling is that its a quirk of history
Post in thread 'Rhythmic patterns?' Playing the saxophone - Rhythmic patterns?

You'd be surprised at the number of people I've met over the years who are surprisingly unable to clap or sing along to a song

I wouldn't. I'm one of them!
But that wasn't a failure of school; but my failure at being a school boy!

 

[Pete Effamy]

that their music part of the degree is what swung it with the empleyrs

Clearly not their English degrees 🤭😆

 

[Targa]

Sadly universities (and schools) aren't the most creative or forward thing re:marketing.

We knew that this was true as students reported back, having landed nice jobs in banking etc, that their music part of the degree is what swung it with the employers.

In banking being able to keep track of the notes is very important.

 

[mizmar]

Sadly universities (and schools) aren't the most creative or forward thing re:marketing.

This is really gonna come back and bite them.
My other half is a Humanities prof. She's been trying to promote "dead language" learning to little avail... Now 70% of what they teach is achievable by LLMs... According to the students, anyway.
My suggested argument for dead languages - if you don't want to be a researcher - is that it signals (as economists say) you're able to do a really tough bit of work (same, I'd guess as writing and producing a bit of music). Employers appreciate that... Even more so in the coming years.

 

[jonf]

For years and years, I recruited graduates into a range of roles including para-legal casework, investigations, regulatory affairs and IT. Other than the latter, there really wasn't anything in terms of vocational qualification. I really didn't have any preferance for any particular degree subject, and I wasn't all that bothered by what the subject was. If they'd got a degree, that was good in itself, irrespective of the subject. Even in IT, I was far more interested in the person type, how they'd fit in and their thought processes than what they'd studied. The last person I recruited before I retired was in IT, a bright, sparky young woman who had a degree in Fine Art. She fitted in great and was a great success.

Once you've got to second jobber stage, experience and professional knowledge is far more important and relevant than what degree you have.

 

[chrysalis]

I still have a fascination with recorders. What wasn't explained at the time was how it simplified my transition to other woodwinds. (Not the whistle or bagpipes.)

I always tell people interested in playing saxophone to try recorder first. If you can't master that, then you'll be a magpie with a wall ornament.

Same here, think they started the recorder group in 1st grade in our school. Definitely simplifies things when picking up the saxophone.