Dispelling the myth of difficult 

There has been a lively and thoughtful response to an article which appeared in The Guardian on 27 March in which the author declared that notated music is “a cryptic, tricky language – rather like Latin – that can only be read by a small number of people“. The author, Charlotte Gill, who is neither a musician nor a music teacher, suggests that only privately-educated students can understand music and because it is difficult for most students, it should not be taught in such a formal, or “academic” way in our schools.

I was very happy to add my name to a still-growing list of signatories (which includes internationally-renowned musicians such as Sir Simon Rattle and Stephen Hough) to an open letter written in response to the article by pianist and musicologist Ian Pace in which he states that the author’s claim “flies in the face of countless initiatives over two centuries making musical literacy available to those of many backgrounds. As with written language, musical notation enables effective and accurate communication, as well as critical access to huge amounts of knowledge”

As I have written on my sister blog The Cross-Eyed Pianist, music notation is in fact not that difficult to learn, if taught well, and most children, whose brains are receptive and open to new things, can pick it up fairly quickly. What has troubled me about Charlotte Gill’s assertion (which seemed to be founded only on the fact that she found sight-reading difficult at school), in addition to the accusation that the ability to read music is somehow “elitist”, is the peddling of the idea that if something is difficult or challenging children and young people, or indeed adult learners, won’t be able to do it and therefore it should not be taught in school. Some teachers skirt around the issue of teaching music theory and notation for this very reason, and in doing so they are depriving students of an incredibly useful tool for understanding the nuts and bolts of music and denying them access to a wonderful universal language. This form of dumbing down is yet another worrying example of the anti-intellectualism and suspicion of learning and the acquisition of knowledge that pervades society today.

In my limited experience teaching piano privately to children and teenagers, and through my son’s unhappy journey through primary and secondary education, I have formed the impression that too much teaching in our state schools has been reduced to “tick-box teaching” which involves a fair amount of spoon-feeding of bite-sized information to students, largely to enable them (and their teachers) to cope with the ridiculous amount of testing which goes on in UK state schools today. Sadly, while such spoon-feeding may bring decent exam results and desirable league table positions for schools, it also robs children and young people of the opportunity or ability to think independently, creatively and critically – all skills which are part and parcel of being a well-rounded, thinking individual.

Further reading:

Ian Pace’s response to Charlotte Gill’s article in The Guardian includes a link to the original article, his open letter and links to other articles written in response.