Is there a change a coming?

Teaching a musical instrument goes through many twists and turns over the years, instruments can go in and out of fashion and the numbers of pupils can go up and down.

The competition has always been there and that also changes form as well. At the moment the iPhone, various gaming and the general influence of online sharing are the main areas of completion.

Sometimes these become an ally as in the case of something like Guitar Hero or film music that is retro or instrument based such as School of Rock or The Guardians of the Galaxy soundtrack that helps to give a boost to the number of pupils that want to have lessons. I sense a change however with the ability of many to concentrate for long enough to learn an instrument. Maybe it has always been like this and only now I am seeing it but this has been noticed by others as well.

Every problem in business is an opportunity so focusing on the possibility of children developing their ability to concentrate could be a good business angle. I have a friend who uses djembe drumming at big corporate events to get people off their mobile phones. When they turn up there is a big drum sitting in their chair and the first hour they are involved in teambuilding workshop and by the time it is completed the phones stay in their pockets for the rest of the day.

I am not entirely convinced about the future of teaching within certain schools especially in the grammar school system in Kent where the pressure is on for them to achieve high marks in their academic exams. The pupils and parents are fearful of not doing enough revision and therefore the instrumental lessons often take a back seat when really they could be helping them to relax in-between periods of exam revision.

There was an article recently in the Washington post talking about the slow death of the electric guitar saying that sales have plummeted over the last few years. Now there may be an element of ‘The reports of my death have been grossly exaggerated ‘ to this and we do not really know whether people are just playing more acoustic guitars or whether they are becoming more savvy about buying second-hand guitars  for instance. What I will say is that the general flow of new pupils seems to be changing although the guitar still outperforms most other instruments, certainly within independent schools, and its main rival now seems to be the drums and not the piano.

The form of teenage rebellion which was always included the guitar maybe just now is taking a back seat to video blogging or even podcasting; could this be the natural development in the cult of the individual?

But how does that influence us as musicians either as performers or teachers? Could playing a musical instrument for many people be just too much like bloody hard work and because we are in a culture of nihilism with a materialist aspect of thought now means there is just nothing worth thinking about as nothing is of any relevance? People do not need to find themselves because there isn’t anything there from that viewpoint and that was certainly something that music offered me was to discover something about myself through playing.

I do not think this has completely disappeared but the tide of opinion and the way that the media works seems to point in that direction and maybe instead of running a rear-guard action on this we should be fighting a guerrilla war, a bit like the women who go out doing guerrilla knitting. Instead of surrounding street furniture with crocheted colourful fluffy bits of artwork, we should write a song certainly this happened in the 60s with the protest movement and we certainly have things to protest about at the moment if we just look up from the iPhone.

Vic

www.bluescampuk.co.uk three days of playing in a band