The sound of no music

[callmemadam]

Yesterday evening I watched The Choir: Boys Don’t Sing in which geeky Gareth tried to get stroppy boys to join a choir. My heart bled for him in his soul destroying task and I couldn't help wondering how he would have coped without the formidable authority figures standing beside him while he tried to inspire the boys. How different from A Boy Called Alex, shown the week before. Now, is there any reason why Eton boys, apart from the music scholars, should be inherently better singers than Lancaster ones? Of course not: it's all a matter of ethos and peer groups. Yet another important area of life becoming something for the privileged when it should be for everyone. What a waste!

Comments

[callmemadam.livejournal.com]

There's was only one scene with Gareth swearing, and who could blame him?
I thought he was so brave just standing up in front of the boys and singing She's Like The Swallow. They should show him more Respect.

[vinaigrettegirl.livejournal.com]

If you can come up with any antidote to Tall Poppies Syndrome in modern life, publish it, and widely.

I don't know why singing used to be acceptable for working class men and boys, unless it was widespread attendance at chapel, and isn't any more. But it isn't.

A friend who lives on the estate I used to live on has a grand-daughter who is only now beginning to get a sense of self - and who has to run the gamut, daily, because people call her a 'swot' and 'a geek' for getting good marks. Her own daughter left school at 16, pregnant, and her son left school at 15, as a father.

In their lives, any acquiring of abstract skills is suspect, but it hasn't anything to do with anyone else going to Eton; it's all to do with a narrowly-bounded society defined by geographical proximity and a string of extended family ties. What Etonians do or don't do has no effect on them at all.

However, singing talent does run in families (the Coppers and the Waters families, for example); and although I believe anyone can sing, and should, it can't be the case that all singing talent is defined exclusively by nurture rather than nature. Etonians tend to have families who are willing and able to nurture that talent, but it's not statistically impossible that there may be a biologically-based ability in that sub-population greater than you'd find in the population as a whole. It is part of what they select for, after all.

[callmemadam.livejournal.com]

It's all so sad. This is purely anecdotal stuff but my father and his brothers grew up very poor in a rough part of London and went to LCC schools. They were all in the church choir and continued to enjoy music in later life. In those days, there was a culture of self improvement and betterment. The boys we saw last night and on many other reality programmes don't see any need for it. Just listen to them saying how they won't do anything they don't feel like.

I will mark your words about biologically-based ability in sub-groups :-) My point is really that so many children are not even given the chance to find out if they have any talent. Ask anyone who's taught music in schools for a long time and you'll get an earful.

[vinaigrettegirl.livejournal.com]

They were in the church choir... well, quite. People can say what they may about the evils of organised religion but a lot of ordinary, flawed, workaday churches did a great deal for a lot of people, and particularly for younger folk. I don't think my local is going to institute a PSA (Pleasant Sunday Afternoon) programme, let alone a working-men's club and library!

Hey, I have been trying to get some decent music education into the kid's school for three years; it is happening; it's slow; it's barely effective; and this is in a catchment which isn't really all that difficult. Part of it, sadly, is the uniformly poor quality of expectations on behalf of the teachers. Our school specialises, it seems, in stamping on the fingers of the youngest.

IIRC you're up in Scotland? If so, then you have access to some of the best state school early-years music schemes in Europe, and some of the best youth choir programmes as well...

[callmemadam.livejournal.com]

IIRC you're up in Scotland?
Nope, I live in Dorset. Plenty going on here but as you say, it requires parental involvement, especially important in an area where transport can be difficult.

[mimmimmim.livejournal.com]

"I don't know why singing used to be acceptable for working class men and boys, unless it was widespread attendance at chapel, and isn't any more. But it isn't."

I went to university in rural Wales, and one of the things that constantly surprised me - pleasantly - was how much more acceptable it was among young people for them to sing, be into poetry and so on, a lot of which I think has to do with the culture of eisteddfodau. The big Eisteddfod is extremely prestigious, but iirc there are eisteddfodau for schools as well, and so young people are proud of their culture and it's not seen as 'sissy' to be into the arts.

[callmemadam.livejournal.com]

I think parts of Wales, like Northern Ireland, retain old fashioned values and I mean that as compliment. On holiday in Wales once, we went to a concert in a church and were amazed by the hearty singing of the National Anthem.