Author: mwrightmusic

Hello and welcome to my blog! My name is Michael, a trained musician and teacher of music. Here I will be sharing my thoughts, research plus experiences on my life as a music teacher and musician. All opinions expressed here are my own

Remote Learning, So Far So Good?

by mwrightmusic

So…Here we are. Lockdown and schools being shut for the foreseeable future. If you have watched my latest vlog on the current situation, Coronavirus and the Impact of School Closures, I go to explain the social and emotional impact that enforced school closures will have on schools. Seeing as I have had one week on remote learning, it is fair to say my initial anxiety and fearfulness has somewhat abated! How it is going so far then?

 What I forgot in this chaos is that I had used remote learning before, spending a duration looking at flipped classroom settings during my PGCE and NQT placement. Of course, with remote learning, one does need to place an awful amount of trust in students and parents to make it work. Only a naive person would presume that ALL students will be online ALL of the time (a couple of my tutees already dropped one in by calling them out for playing Fortnite tsk tsk). My fear of not being able to control/influence the learning environment has been tested, some parents cannot feasibly be there for six-seven hours of a day to make sure students work, and I cannot expect students to sit and concentrate. But let us focus on the students who do engage.

Students to no great surprise have coped very well with the changes and funnily, engage and take part in the lesson far better than if they were in the classroom. More surprising is some students lack experience using a desktop/laptop, or perhaps more aptly the choice of using their phone/tablet to complete work, which for practical music-making is a total nightmare, more on that later. I have found the best remote lessons so far have been where students have collaborated using group chat a task or submitted work, and I create feedback almost in real-time, it has been a mad creative rush!

The apparent platform for students to show you progress has been to record themselves practising. I offer this to students if they have an instrument and have found I really got to know some of their playing better, free from the humdrum of timetable. 

Conference calling is fun, and with up to four people, it is realistic to have groups to carry out practical work, provided they don’t kick others off the chat. Zoom is a popular choice for stable sound quality but for ease and safeguarding concerns, I would stick with whatever your school has set up (we use Microsoft Teams). The best program, hands down, for creating, editing work and sending instantaneously is Chrome Music Lab. The website contains loads of fun and engaging apps designed for students to access music-making, including its highly accessible Song Maker app. Despite its primitive design, it is customisable. It can cater for more experienced programmers, but the best thing about this is the ability for students to share work via a link and have you amend in real-time. I hope the developers add a function where you can use more sounds and add panning, track automation etc. Soundation is a cloud DAW app that gives users more choice in regards using a sample library and selection of synths/drum machines (much more if you subscribe). It works much in the same way as Logic/Cubase does and is a smart choice if you want students to submit compositions without having to use school workstations.

I do have the thorny issue of getting students into and completing practical work in real-time though. JamKazam and Jammr only works if students have an interface or USB mic to use, both PC platforms are also quite clunky to use. A neat solution for producing class or group work came from both Phil Meadows, a lecturer at National Youth Jazz Orchestra my good friend, drummer Terry Knight. They intend to use a system of getting students to record parts to a backing track, (backing in headphones of course) and then edit parts together, like a patchwork quilt! This I see having an impact for the students to hear all their instrument parts together. 

As for real-time rehearsals, I feel I am at the mercy of using groups in Teams and WiFi connections, oh that and NOT using a phone to complete work! Which I have to mention, if students are using phones out of comfort, I would strongly recommend you to get them on laptops/desktops if you intend on them working with Teams or any other programs. Not only will they struggle to see videos/screenshots correctly, but they will also be at the mercy of social media notifications won’t fully concentrate on your lesson…and you can forget about them using any sort of online DAW/music software program too!

Remote learning so far has not been a beacon of modern-day teaching. Still, it certainly has been a revelation in real-time marking, collaborative music-making and engagement with my students. I certainly will continue to use Teams when I go back to flipped classrooms, moderating cover work and even for communication with my fellow teachers. Has the use of remote teaching rendered the teacher useless? NO!!! In fact, this situation has only highlighted the importance of the teacher in guided and supported long term learning for a young mind, so you can relax, robots or algorithms won’t be taking our jobs anytime soon 🙂   

Coronavirus and the Impact of School Closures

by mwrightmusic

My latest VLOG on how I see the coronavirus effect on school closures and what it means to the wider community.

*This VLOG is based on my opinion and not reflective of my school’s views on school closures or the coronavirus.

Check out my solo bass composition ‘Ode To You’ recorded before the closure, kindly posted by Dominic Murcott – Head of Composition and Music Technology at Trinity Laban Conservatoire. 

 

Music Education Myths

by mwrightmusic

Education is divisive, from an outsider’s perspective even more so. It never seems to be spoken about in the ‘perfect’ model, rather, one could feel their experience could have been better as a learner or how you were taught. From these experiences, it would seem we develop a belief system related to why we did or didn’t achieve and from a teacher’s perspective, use these systems to plan for the next generation’s educational experience.

A select group of belief systems or myths was covered by Daisy Christodoulou’s book, Seven Myths About Education. in which she tackles issues surrounding modern classroom teaching. Christodoulou does a good job of laying out how educators can misdiagnose young learners’ education and whilst her research findings on twenty-first-century learning and passivity in teacher-led instruction was spot on there were a few myths that jarred with me as a music teacher.

Christodoulou argues against using projects and activities for students learning along with how teaching transferable skills are useless, whilst her arguments might hold true for certain subjects and the Ofsted obsessed I feel as a musician that does not sit well with me. Music is not a linear, solely academic subject and there is no singular learning outcome for students learning. Music can be measured by what one creates through instrumental and musical study, drawing upon the collaboration of others and self-reflection. I disagree with Christodoulou’s research because projects and activities ARE the best way for a musician to develop and her other point about not teaching transferable skills, well, from early AD us musicians still use a variation of  Guido of Arezzo’s notation format. still borrow heavily from Bach’s functional harmony template and the same three power chords as shown by The Ramones. 

The book did inspire me to think about myths to do with learning music and along with the help of Peter Elliot, founder of Guitar Teacher Bushey, we devised our own list. To avoid Diane’s lawyers from circling my copyright infringement caucus lets just call this one:

An unspecified number of myths related to music education

‘Students learn less in a group setting than one-to-one’

For many musicians, the root we take into music is a solitary one, I began with one-to-one lessons for instance. Because of this, I think I missed out on learning important social and musicianship skills on my instrument. Peter has his take on this “I think it (group work) is a better format to start with, its more fun and engaging for younger students, when you look at school generally people don’t start learning from a one-to-one setting”, interestingly he also noted the cheaper lesson costs associated with group lessons compared with one-to-one. Individual music tuition is also valid and the benefits of focused study with a teacher are seen when it comes to GCSE level and beyond where students are at a huge advantage when it comes to understanding course content, compared with those who do not have formal lessons.

‘You do need to learn music theory’

My journey to becoming a professional musician and working with professionals was possible due to my formal education. Before this, I was mainly self-taught when it came to understanding Jazz harmony and composition/arrangement. My ability to communicate efficiently and succinctly, especially when working to a deadline or under high-pressure circumstances was crucial and learning theory certainly improved my technical proficiency and gain access to higher levels of musicianship (I doubt Rite of Spring or Porgy and Bess could have been achieved without the deep understanding of how to organise music in such a complex way).

“Explanation through contextualised jargon” is how Peter sees and adds theory is important to understand certain musical contexts to make other musicians respect and trust you. In her book, Christodoulou also dispelled the myth that acquiring facts hinder learning but should be added to our internal database to better understand the world,  I feel the same is true for learning theory as those ‘facts’ give musicians a broader musical database to draw upon.

‘You don’t need to learn music theory’

“It’s about feel and tone, do you need to be able to read and write a language in order to speak it? As long as you have good ears and a sense of the style (you’ll be ok)” A valid argument against the former I feel and one where this can be backed up by the hundred’s of musicians who have made an impact in the music industry. During another life myself and Peter mused over this myth many times and worked out the more theory/harmony you add to your technique doesn’t necessarily equate to better gigs. It could be more important to consider the financial contribution you add to a gig via bringing in an audience, or your interpersonal skills, showing up on time, not picking your nose on the bandstand etc. Peter added that if you’re a theory-based player your more likely not to connect with the average audience, more leaning towards aficionados and muso’s but “if your more lyrical (melodic, less fancy and dexterous) it is much more palatable to the typical listener”

From my experience, learning about theory can destroy the love of music and ruin the very essence of what you want to achieve because you feel perhaps ego-bound to add in ‘hip’ phrases. We both agreed that some of the most influential musicians have not the faintest idea of music theory, I hear of a story where somebody tried teaching Ornette Coleman this and ended up in a panic, running out of the classroom! We musicians can overthink at times and not allow music to come from the heart, or as Peter ended this, not allowing a “direct connection with what one feels and what the audience feels”

‘You need to be versatile in order to prosper as a musician’

This was a split one, I believe by focusing on a few areas you can achieve more but Peter believes you need to learn everything well to achieve, “People have bespoke YouTube channels, the creative vision is becoming more and more personal” says Peter. Artists such as Louis Cole, Jacob Collier and Stevie Wonder have showcased what versatile musicians can achieve creatively and financially. The current trend with social media musicians is of multi-instrumentalism, it has become more popular today for musicians to be seen as dexterous, even so far as producing and marketing product. Peter believes ‘you have a more cohesive artistic vision’ as a multi-instrumentalist by having an ‘umbrella understanding of everything’. I do feel musicians run the risk of spreading themselves far too thinly because its better to focus on what you will likely excel at than hedging your bets. I view past and present successful musicians excelling in one idiom, Derek Trucks and B.B. King for their guitar playing and even Meg White for her drumming style. I can understand how my thinking could be slightly narrow-minded if a little old fashioned to think this but essentially, I believe musicians/artists are known for one thing though I shall give the final point to Peter, “by learning other disciplines like composition, arrangement and production, you can create a unique cocktail of skills. Whilst you won’t be the best at anything, you can be the best of that unique cocktail of skills”. Touche.

‘Music technology will be the new way to learn music’

This one comes up allot amongst us and it would be fair to presume music technology will be the dominant medium in how students learn music someday. I have experienced enough to know this should not be the case with the first argument being one cannot guarantee computers/apps/networks to work 100% of the time, even with students suppressing their talent to find ways to break things! (I sense a few nodding)

When technology fails us what are we left with? Instruments and our voice, so we must not completely discard traditional means, merely learn how to incorporate it in how we teach music. I am a huge fan of how music technology makes creating and performing accessible to many as it does not require a huge knowledge of theory or instrumental skill, students will just need to know how to work the app/equipment and have a basic understanding of music. It empowers composers and, multi-instrumentalists to create wonderfully textured and creative pieces of music that would not have been possible otherwise, educating them on how to arrange sounds and tell the differences between a TR-808 and 909. On the flip side, by not having a solid musical foundation to use I have seen students really struggle with using DAW’s where during my NQT school some of my year 10’s hit a creative wall and felt a bit of imposter syndrome as they felt they had no control or understanding of what they were creating, coming from schools where music was, coincidently, cut from the KS3 curriculum…

We are moving towards dependence of technology to teach us and if the figures are to be believed, students aged between five and sixteen years old spend on average six and a half hours a day in front of a screen (Source: BBC) so it might be wise for music educators to go with this and embrace technology, just keep a few Ukulele’s or keyboards around just in case Cubase crashes eh?

Special thanks for Peter’s contribution to this blog, a fantastic guitarist and owner of a great music school. Go check him out at by clicking on the link below:

https://www.guitarteacherbushey.co.uk/

Refrences:

BBC Source: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-32067158

 

Henry Rollins And Rebellion

by mwrightmusic

I have just come back from seeing Henry Rollins perform Kyiv, Ukraine. The decision to see him was based on watching him on a Joe Rogan podcast talk about his view on travelling i.e. point to a place on a map and just go, well, why not do the same? Henry is part of a select group people I look up to, he became a role model ever since I started listening to him in the ’90s and I was even more in awe of the man when he transitioned into spoken word and stand-up comedy. What I most admire about him, or any self-made individual was his relentless pursuit of a life filled with adventure, kudos and knowledge, despite not having the necessary means to start this life.

His background, coming from nothing and using a siege mentality to exceed what the world had planned for him is similar to how I got where I am now. I left school with pretty much nothing, save for a grade 9 in music (A* in old currency) This was my only ticket out of a drab and desolate life of rural living, a place where the nearest shop was four miles by car and job prospects were work in either the plastics factory or ready-made meals factory, I’d already achieved both. Like Henry I found myself surprised at what I have achieved in music, considering what I came up against i.e. more academic teachers/musicians who’d been playing since they were six months old and had more A’s on their resume then the Canadian language.

My true education came from outside the classroom, relentlessly listening to as many different records as I could and saying yes to EVERY gig and opportunity offered (paid or not, mostly not) Like Rollins, I felt to truly escape the industrial estate factory existence I had to learn harder and faster than anyone else.

I am not knocking the school system and I appreciate the significant improvements in safeguarding and flagging up students in academic need. I failed/the system failed my education largely due to my isolation and loss of hope when I realised what my surroundings were, becoming an expert in hiding, figuratively and literally. Music was the only period of the week where I would show myself and experiment and thank heavens I had it.

As the government moved education’s emphasis to literacy and numeracy whilst simultaneously pushing away non-academic subjects, I worry about how those students will cope without an outlet to express themselves, there has to be an opportunity to formulate who you want to be even if it only happens once or twice a week. The great irony in all of this is Henry embodied what us educators desire: lifelong learners, ambitious to live life to their potential and never standing still, he did all of this outside a classroom. School life is very important in shaping one’s attitude to the world and I have learnt to never to write off any kid based on these years as there may well be a case for those whose intellect and conception of the world doesn’t fit, after all, I think worked for me and Henry.

 

Boots’n’Cats’n’Boots’n’Cats…

by mwrightmusic

In the never-ending quest to make music relevant and exciting isn’t it great to stumble across something that really works? Now more than ever us educators need to use methods that show mainstream UK education how important asset music is to the curriculum. Figures for A-Level attainment are low, as is the general disdain/lack of confidence in our subject to generate learning figures over bottom line; That being said I would like to share a novel idea with you because I like you very much and thank you for taking the time to read this 🙂

Creating music using vocals or sounds simulated by the voice has always garnered my interest, in my late teens, I developed an obsession with Brian Wilson’s vocal arrangements and voicings and moving on some years appreciated the fantastic work of Jacob Collier and yes, Kanye West’s knack to produce his music with the voice as a centre point. As a teacher, I value the immediacy of the voice as an instrument to relay knowledge, which is why last year I decided to try out a scheme based on using the voice to layer a song via loop pedal.

Beatboxing legend as Killa Kela (pictured above), as well as Youtube stars like Tom Thum, that cute father/daughter duet and Ed Sheeran, make my job easy in selling the coolness of looping, no prior instrumental skills are needed other than to know how to make different sounds with the voice and when layering keyboard sounds, use of one finger to press a key, that’s it!

Well not quite, you see with using beatboxing and loop pedals students learn how to loop enforcing good timing, enforce how to playtime signatures, develop microphone technique and use of voice for sound effect and singing skills, songwriting in a strophic structure with use of textures to develop songs and introduces them to a less intimidating/more hands-on start to music technology.

The set up is quite simple too, all you need is:

  • 1 loop pedal* (Boss RC-3’s are perfect as they have dual input, metronome and storage for saving loops)
  • 1 microphone (SM 58 or similar)
  • 1 XLR to jack cable
  • 2 jack cables (one for the output and one input for guitar/keyboard et al)
  • 1 headphone amp (Behringer MicroAMP HA400’s will do fine, make sure to buy plug adapters for these and be careful, some adapters won’t fit the socket to shop around)
  • Headphones (normal 6.35mm size)

* Please note, for some reason the RC-3 won’t work with stereo jack cables so make sure to buy mono (single black strip) cables

If your budget won’t stretch for the pedals and you have a reliable DAW to use (just don’t use Soundation though :/ You can record loops into it and layer as normal, in fact, that can lead on nicely to sound production with your students!

As for how I deliver this, I normally start them in small groups and cover the fundamentals of beatboxing, show some examples to get them hyped up. Then they practise and perform their work, first as a ‘human loop pedal’ then use the pedal for a class performance; we then move into other groups with the remit of creating a version of ‘Shape of You’ using voice and instrument with areas like setup of equipment, troubleshooting, use of sounds on the keyboard as well as practising to layer the song for the summative assessment.

Please do try this out if you are confident in leading beatboxing, if not you can always stick to using instruments, as for which year group to deliver this to year’s 8/9 will be fine.

Also attached is the worksheet I created for ‘Shape of You’ so please feel free to download and use (follow the link below)

Shape of You WORKSHEET – Full Score

Let me know how you get on with this, I would be fascinated to hear how you all approach looping and beatboxing, have fun!

Teaching Like a Football Coach

by mwrightmusic

Saturday mornings in bed, usually with the dog who manages to navigate a path in are bliss, so you can imagine my reluctance when booking an FA Level 1 football coaching course that predominantly start on…Saturday mornings. Sarcastic grumblings aside it was a fantastic program and Andy Crowl who led most of the course was brilliant when working with us, and inadvertently gave me my next idea for a blog!

As a teacher I work on economising the time it takes to explain/model my objectives for my students to have more time to explore and create, basically, it comes down to making music accessible to all and not just the ones who performing/writing is innate. My lightbulb moment came when Andy went through the FA’s methodology of developing players and as I listened I started to ask myself can this be modified to my music lessons? Is there something here I can translate to students who don’t seem to click?

So, the course was all about focusing on the FA’s ‘four corners’ model of player development:

4corner.png-430x433

Breaking down these translates into:
fa-four-corner

In addition to this my coaching told us to aim for these each session:

  • 70% ‘ball rolling’ time (players who are active within a session)
  • Game related (the activities must be related to football)
  • Winning/losing outcomes

The sessions themselves could be designed around one base activity which allows the coach to scaffold into more tasks and that individual target setting is a must; the encouragement is positive and challenges designed to bring out confidence.

Once I got this, I thought of these models and how they can be applied to a music lesson.

Here’s what I came up with:

  • 70% ball rolling time = 60-70% music related/hands-on time
  • Game related = Music related. Taking musical elements and writing in tasks which allow students to use them like they would in a proper gig environment (learning scales as ascending/descending crochets doesn’t serve a musical purpose I think
  • Winning/losing outcomes = obviously no avert competition here as the aim is to make music that is honest and creative, imagine having to perform when one hasn’t nailed it and then made to feel a loser for it!

As for the base activity, there’s plenty of ideas you can start with such as playing a chord progression as our start, then move to arpeggios, then left-hand bass etc.

If we take a look at the four corner model you can easily adapt that too, merge the four into three as physical/technical relate to each other and change the technical areas to musician specific and you have yourself a nice methodology to base your schemes of work or lesson plans on!

Although this is in its infancy for me I have seen some results in my classes and as I continue to improve on my effectiveness as a teacher, I am very happy to find inspiration from other subjects to relate to my students.

 

Learning Through Pastiche

by mwrightmusic

 

Its the year 10 class, coming up to the end of term, haven’t seen them in weeks and we’re all knackered, creatively speaking. Out of the blue one of my students (knowing I am a huge fan of pro wrestling) suggests they take a crack at writing a wrestlers entrance theme, brilliant! So I detailed the details on characters, leitmotif, melodic ideas and listened to models of themes and they produced some great work (they also had me enter the classroom as the wrestler they wrote for) Fast forward to this half term and I decided to write my own theme, I found some ideas already written on an ass-kicking, high flying tag team with a nod to the ’90s and I came up with this, having looked through my compositions plus transcriptions I realised there were allot of pastiche work there and it dawned on me, that’s how I have learned music!

Composing pastiche is a fascinating way to learn how to write music, it requires you not only to study a particular area in detail but to consider everything outside of the stereotypical, one must delve into what makes something tick, learn the technique and put something down as authentically as possible.

As for using pastiche to teach music, it does require the right context; GCSE composition would be an obvious choice but you can easily use it for younger composition classes.
What I found works best is to spend time getting your students familiar with the elements of the genre or period, getting them to follow scaffold-ed musical models to copy, next set up a research topic so they can look at the theory/context behind what they have learned (you may be thinking, why not get them to research first, then explore? My argument would be that it is pointless to go read up about something you have no idea about, the facts will not have any meaning as the mind has not made connections to knowledge, it also helps students road map better when traversing the difficult areas)
Next up is to begin writing. This is where you are needed the most as careful guidance is used to correct any wrong assumptions.
I would always go back to other examples as the lessons go on and reference more from the source material and more importantly, encourage freedom and ideas as you do not want to put off students by limiting creativity if some ideas don’t work, ask them to save it for another composition.

Of course, pastiche might not work for some students, a more rigid structure of learning composition with structural templates might be needed, but even if you are working with students who show promise in say rhyme or making beats, pastiche can easily work.
I have used this great video on hip hop artists rhyme (link here) for instance with great success. With this pastiche I got students to think about a particular artist (Drake in this instance) play examples from his era and deconstruct the music. For beat makers, it is the same principle and I had loads of fun with one student when using my J Dilla example.

Pastiche uses what I think we as humans have been doing all along, learning models of how to do things. I find it a lot of fun and have developed so much from it during my uni years, for something as complex as music its a great way for any student to develop musical language.
Let me know how you get on with this, it will be great to hear your thoughts!

 

Inspired by:
Kleon, A 2012, Steal like an artist, Workman; 01 edition, NY
Hobsbawm, E (Editor) 2012, The invention of tradition, Cambridge University Press; Reissue edition, UK
Kirby Ferguson. (2016). Everything is a Remix Remastered (2015 HD). [Online Video]. 16 May 2016. Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nJPERZDfyWc. [Accessed: 14 August 2018].

Why I Teach Music

by mwrightmusic

I remember my first day well on my PGCE course; brash, confident, hungry and above all very much looking forward to a new chapter in my career. Before the course, I had enjoyed a wonderfully nomadic career as a professional musician having trained at one of the top Jazz conservatoires in Europe (something I am immensely proud of) . My plan was simple, graduate and then work my way up to headlining Ronnie Scotts and the Pyramid Stage in Glastonbury, throw in an appearance on Jools Holland and job done, bucket list emptied, mic well and truly dropped…The reality was quite the opposite and dare I say, realistic?

I struggled to get ANY long-term gig after I graduated and lived a struggling artists existence but  things eventually picked up and up and got to travel all over the world, perform with some tremendous musicians and showbands plus I even did a couple of assistant teachers gigs at a Jazz summer school in France where other than learning from the best this side of the Atlantic.
I also met my wife whilst touring so it made sense to pack in the lazy day by the beaches, crazy jam sessions and cabin parties plus the three hour working days for the glamour of stressful days in last period music tech classes, no late nights in jam sessions and double-digit workdays, the things you do for love.

In truth, teaching was always my calling whether I was aware of it or not and the buzz I get from passing experience and knowledge to eager students far outstrips the day to day grind of gigging, at least the responses from a lesson are honest if albeit obnoxious (gotta love teenagers right?) and as my colleague pointed out you get to perform to an audience every day with music teaching. In the right institution, being a music teacher really gives you many opportunities to develop and mature as a musician and I’m enjoying my personal research on genres I never would have covered when I was gigging.

As performers we go into the industry with a sense of what kind of legacy we’d like to leave, that’s why we take risks with opportunities and relish those bookings where we get to perform at Glastonbury or Jools….then immortalise those moments on Instagram and wait for the likes to come flooding in! I chose to be a music teacher to leave my legacy in the hands of our future performers and to create memories with my students so they too can pass these on.

What made you decide to work as a music teacher?