NPME response: Composing seems to be a 'bolt-on' or 'tacit omission'

This is a personal reflection on the place and role of composing in secondary schools in the new National Plan for Music Education (NPME). Others will have different views, which is only right, as music education should be a broad enough church to be able to cater for tailoring to the strengths of individual schools and teachers.

First, two bits of good news: the NPME recognises that music in school classrooms exists, and clearly has had input from people for whom this is their full-time daily existence, which makes a refreshing change from some commentators on music education; secondly, composing features much more in the NPME than in its predecessor, maybe for similar reasons. However, I think that for some in music education there is a tension, whereby music education’s primary modality is conceived as being performance-based.

This is despite composing being on the national curriculum and in GCSE Music specifications since first introduced back in the 1980s, nearly 40 years ago. This privileging of performance and performing shows in all sorts of ways in the NPME, sometimes by tacit omission of composing in discussions; sometimes feeling like composing is a bolt-on.

Having said this, the NPME does recognise that composing must feature, saying that pupils should be able to ‘take their musical learning as far as they would like, whether into a career, singing, playing or composing for pleasure’ (p.61). However, when it comes to instantiation for schools, all examples are performance based:

• Timetable curriculum music of at least one hour each week of the school year for Key Stages 1 to 3
• Provide access to lessons across a range of instruments and voice
• Develop a school choir and/or vocal ensemble
• Develop a school ensemble/band/group
• Provide space for rehearsals and individual practice
• Develop a termly school performance
• Provide opportunity to enjoy live performance at least once a year (p.21).

The role of music hubs

But there is hope, as ‘schools could also consider creating individual talent development plans that describe the ways in which the school will support that individual pupil to progress their musical talent and interest, for example, perhaps in collaboration with their local music hub’ (p.41). It is in the role of music hubs, about which we await further details, that I feel composing could have been placed more centrally.

We know that some music teachers have reportedly found composing pedagogy problematic, and this is acknowledged in the NPME: ‘Schools should also consider how CPD could support teachers in nurturing pupils’ creativity and teaching composing – a national curriculum requirement’ (p.25). Writing as an academic who has been involved in the ‘Listen Imagine Compose’ research, CPD, and Masters degree programme at Birmingham City University for many years now alongside colleagues from Sound and Music and Birmingham Contemporary Music Group, I regularly hear about the chalkface issues with teaching and learning composing in schools. There are a variety of other CPD opportunities for composing out there, but I feel that music hubs could support and signpost these more readily.

Joined-up progression routes

We regularly see the power of musical composing both for individual young people, and, in these times of financial austerity, the economic benefits, with songs heralding from the UK making it onto the world stage. We also mustn’t ignore our classically focused composers. One of the things that I think a national plan could investigate is the provision of joined-up progression routes for young composers, of whatever style or genre. Practical graded music exams for instrumentalists and singers are well-established and available across a range of instrumental and vocal styles; likewise, progression routes for performers, with pathways from school to area to region delineated and understood. However, progression routes for composing are much less clear-cut, and young composer programmes, although they do exist across the country, can be patchy in regional provision.

The NPME does say that advanced musical learning ‘through the provision of facilities and expert support for composing’ (p.62) should exist, ‘alongside curriculum provision, in school and beyond, including in evenings and weekends’ (p.62), but there is no requirement for this to happen. Extant graded music exams are lauded, but no such similar pathway for young composers exists, although the NPME does state that ‘hubs should consider how they can build in broader opportunities, for example to support teachers’ musicianship through instrumental or vocal lessons or ensembles for teaching staff; to support their understanding and teaching of composing; or to support their musical leadership’ (p.55).

How this will be done is less clear. The NPME asks for schools to produce a Music Development Plan (p.22) – although this is non-statutory, the plan will include schools being asked ‘to consider developing a music progression strategy… developed with their music hub’ (p.40). However, currently, composing does not figure highly in some hubs’ work, while for others it is central. There is probably not an even distribution of composer-educators across the nation, so this too is likely to figure in any regional approaches that hubs try to establish.

What is school music education for?

I appreciate that setting up a joined-up set of progression pathways for young composers would be a costly and difficult business, but after nearly 40 years of statutory composing in schools, one would hope that it ought to be possible. There are current initiatives taking place, but without the deep embedding that performance and performing progression routes possess, composing might remain on the edges of music education. Of course, this takes us to my perennial question, ‘what is school music education for?’, and while policy discussions are often dominated by those with a performance-focused mindset, maybe we should be grateful to those on the advisory panel who managed to crowbar composing into the remit at all.

But for now, the NPME is to be welcomed in recognising that composing exists as a music-learning activity, and that it receives more attention than in its predecessor. Of course, the plan is non-statutory, and so many of the good intentions outlined in the plan could fall by the wayside when met with the cold realities of school budgets and priorities. Music educators are nothing if not resourceful and optimistic, so let’s hope that composing in schools develops further, although I hope it doesn’t take another 40 years to do so!

Read the National Plan for Music Education.