Your say / music
‘We are sleepwalking towards a future without music’
Imagine a future in which it’s almost impossible for enthusiastic, musically gifted children to reach their potential: with state education devoid of music, and the amateur choirs and orchestras that have flourished for decades up and down the country all but vanished.
A future in which the music teachers, freelance performers and talented, dedicated amateurs who form the backbone of our country’s musical life have become endangered species.
What would our musical culture look like then? Every aspect of music would be affected: from Friday night pub bands to the London Sinfonietta, primary school nativities to Oscar-winning films.
is needed now More than ever
How would we fill the void left by the musicians? AI perhaps? The very thought makes me shudder. But we don’t really need to worry about that now, do we?
Well, it could be closer than you think.
We may be sleepwalking towards a future in which there are insufficient musicians and teachers to sustain a viable musical culture. Music’s status has declined in our visually oriented society and we value wealth generation and material gain at the expense of our inner lives and understanding.
But where is the evidence to support this warning?
Between 2007 and 2013, the number of pupils taking GCSE music has nearly halved. The decline is even steeper at A Level, which research predicts will disappear from state schools completely by 2033. Just eight years from now.
Even today, a disproportionate number of A Level candidates are privately educated – 28 per cent and rising year on year – despite accounting for just 6 per cent of the total school population.
ABRSM (the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music, the official body that oversees music exams) report a 15 per cent decline in the number of children playing an instrument between 2014 and 2020. Children taking music lessons declined by 11 per cent, to the lowest number reported since records began.
A significant shift towards whole-class teaching at the expense of individual lessons artificially inflates the numbers recorded for overall participation, yet data suggests this method does not translate into children’s continuing interest in playing music. Some evidence suggests it may work against it.
The numbers don’t look good; but do they chime with our experience of the nation’s musical life today?
While music may look and feel like it’s thriving, the wealth of bands, orchestras, concerts and gigs provides only a superficial sheen of good health. What we see today isn’t a predictor of our musical future but a reflection of our educational past.
To imagine the future of music we have to think about our educational present. And we’ve seen how that’s going.
So why isn’t everyone talking about this?
Shifting baseline syndrome makes this kind of generational knock-on effect hard to recognize. We perceive our own experience as representing a normal or acceptable baseline against which subsequent change can be measured. But for each generation that follows the baseline may be quite different, with further changes measured against these altered acceptable norms.
If the music education trajectory continues unchecked for successive generations, no single generation will experience any sudden, dramatic loss of music, but the gradual, inexorable depletion of musical activity is inevitable.
Even musicians might not be aware of this. Surrounded by musical activity both at work and home, whilst constantly meeting a wildly disproportionate number of musical children, their experience is at odds with the broader reality.
And musicians may feel they’re doing enough already, just by being musicians. Understandably, they may not wish to become activists or campaigners. But if musicians won’t stand up for music, why would anyone else?
I don’t know what the critical mass for musicians is, the point below which we really experience the loss of music as described in my opening paragraphs. But if current trends are allowed to continue it can’t be that far off. One generation? Two maybe?
A land without music? is our response. It explores the value of music and what we can do to safeguard it for future generations. It features some wonderful, inspiring guests and it seems fitting to note that, as music education becomes evermore the preserve of a wealthy elite, hardly any of the musicians I spoke to came from what might be described as privileged backgrounds.
Unless, that is, we’re talking about a very different kind of privilege: that of opportunity. It’s what gave them the chance to discover music and to grow that seed into a life-long, life-sustaining passion.
Crucially, it was opportunity which was indifferent to financial or social status. It was there for everyone.
Would they have had such opportunities had they been growing up today? Probably not. To quote (podcast guest) Jess Gillam, “So much untapped potential, and so much untapped happiness.”
This is an opinion piece by Julian Leeks, the founder/director of Sound World, an organisation that runs music education events in schools, commissions new music and organises concerts for a community of ‘adventurous listeners’ in venues around Bristol. His podcast, A Land Without Music?, is available to listen on various platforms.
Main image: Diego Maeso
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